talkmagic.co.uk

If you want to call it that. Long story kind of, feel free to read it if you want.

I was out with some friends last night and at some point I trotted off to the little boys room. Upon entering I was a guy with a deck of bikes and a big flash and he revealed someones coin to have travelled down the deck. I was quite surprised that I had met someone that performed magic. i politely waited and even was a spectator to one of his effects "biddle trick", to which I should have got an emmy with my rendition of '' Oh my god, that's impossible.. you're awesome dude, I saw it there a second ago. in your hand '' he replied ' Yeh Im f***ing good aint I?? "

I gave him the benfit of the doubt as he may have been drinking. Afterwards all I said was ' In a flash.. nice, ive got that on order '. And we got chatting and he seemed really pleased to have met another magician. We ended up at a table wih my friends and his and some random people sat down and they all wanted us to have a showdown. We agreed, but just for fun.. so we went to get a drink to discuss how we would work it. He asked what I had on me and I replied ' A masters deck and a TT, oh and holy moly '. He said ' So what are you going to perform then?? He then told me that he had been doing this for 14 years ( he was 28 ) and told me he does paid gigs.. I asked what he had on him and he responded with ' ID, rising card deck, mindpower deck, In a flash, coin unique, hopping halves, and saw!! ''. He didnt have a normal deck on him, his reason being that he is good enough to use the gimmick decks for other tricks and informed me that he would probably win and there was me thinking we were just discussing how to give these folks a good 20 minutes entertainment

Anyway, we returned and fist up was card magic. So I started with an ace assembly from a shuffled deck, then had three spectators selections appear between the 4 aces which had been inserted different parts of the deck. Next up was my ambitious card routine climaxing in card to my wallet. He then grabbed my cards to do his ACR routine.. did a few aweful flourishes, I say this becasue he dropped my masters deck while doing a pressure fan which Id rather he didnt do as he bent my cards His ACR routine was good, but booldy quick.. there was no time to respond to any reveal. I finished with 2 specs cards repeatedly tavelling to under the box then a deck vanish with the selected cards in the box. I only went into this as they were pretty wasted so I was confident I could pull it off, which I did

Next up we was on coins.. i dont domuch coin work so I limited myself to three effects, David Stones one coin demo, finishing with a wallet production as a I dond have a jumbo coin. My 'friend' responds with In a flash, during which, he turned away from the specs to place the wrapped coin onto the deck and light it not really coin magic but still.. he then did coin through leg, through arm, through sleeve, through various things. I added coins through the table after borrowing 'four' tuppences. then holy moly.

He suggested we do what he branded ' Mind reading' next. So he pulled out his mindpower deck and credit tohim, he bloody blew them away.. and me as I have no idea how it works.. presentation however was something else. To one girl ' I know what you're thinking.. you want to get into my boxers eh?? eh?? no really, 4 of clubs.. im being honest though.. id so do you!! ''
I responds with just forcing cards and cold reading the answer. I wasnt goign to embarrass myself with anything I wasnt prepared for.

Then it was more money magic. He borrowed a £10.. then walked off... 5 mins later came back with a pint and gave the guy his change and said he'd changed the £10 into a pints and small change. the guy didnt look to impressed and got a reply ' What dont you tip when you see something spectacular.. well consider that a start''. during this I wrote 't***' on the face of a joker and held it behind the tw*ts head.. I had to. everybody laughed and relaxed.. so my turn. I borrowed a £5 off the same guy and changed it into a £10 and handed it him back and let him keep it. I stopped there.

And that was that.. but then he wants to know who was better. But everyone stayed quiet and I once again held the t*** card above his head( partially thanks to Farlsbrough for the idea ).

Anyway.. he is apparantly 14 years in the making and does paid gigs but a complete prat throughout. During holy moly he even asked to check my hand and said 'you're not palming anything are you?' Luckily I wasnt and it was at an irrelevant time so I could show my hands but .. what a t***!!

I.D wrote:Anyway.. he is apparantly 14 years in the making and does paid gigs but a complete prat throughout. During holy moly he even asked to check my hand and said 'you're not palming anything are you?' Luckily I wasnt and it was at an irrelevant time so I could show my hands but .. what a t***!!

He sounds like someone who performs magic to feel superior rather than to entertain.

Thats the impression I got. There was no connecting with the audience.. it was all ' Look what I can do!! ''

Good to see you rose to the challenge and come out positevely while he obviously come out looking like the joke. I suspect it gave you some good experiance by thinking on your feet aswell.Nice one.

and the winner is......

haha! that was nice though...you let the guy keep the tenner? well that certainly earnt you some brownie points!

It's good you got to show him that sleight of hand and a good personality can get you further than a load of gimmicks and 14 years "experience"

congrats my friend!

thease guys make me sick, i use a lot of gimicks in my magic thease days but they alow me to concentrate on my presentation.

its all very well using a gimick to pull a rabbit out of your ar** but if youv'e got no presentation people will just think your a big a-hole.

Well it sounded like you handled it very well. And you're right he did sound like a bit of a t*** but still.

And are you saying you won??

Indeedy.

He was 'stacked' as he called it, ready for any situation. But it's weird, lately Im finding myself in performance thinking a lot less about what to do or how to do it, but more to how can I connect emotionally with the spectator? How can I involve the spectator in this?

I find thats a good thing.

I.D wrote:lately Im finding myself in performance thinking a lot less about what to do or how to do it, but more to how can I connect emotionally with the spectator? How can I involve the spectator in this?

I find thats a good thing.

...Because that's the mark of an entertainer, as opposed to a show-off....good move!!

Hmm - he certainly sounds like a first-class t**t....performing to entertain is one thing, but performing in a 'face-off' situation, to make himself look 'superior' is another prosepect altogether.

In one sense, it's a huge shame that the two of you (assuming that you felt comfortable with his level of ability), couldn't simply have worked out two sets, and thrilled the pants off everyone there collaboratively, without any of this, 'anything you can do, I can do better' set-up.

From a personal point of view, whilst I'm pretty secure in the effects I take out with me, I think I'd have probably politely-declined any kinda' competition, and settled for a relaxed magical discussion instead.

That said - good on you, for holding your own

Blapsing_Beard wrote:...you let the guy keep the tenner?

yeh, I felt sorry for him.

He bought me a double JD and coke aftwerwards which was sweet

robstanley1 wrote:
In one sense, it's a huge shame that the two of you (assuming that you felt comfortable with his level of ability), couldn't simply have worked out two sets, and thrilled the pants off everyone there collaboratively, without any of this, 'anything you can do, I can do better' set-up.

That was exactly what I wanted,to entertain.. I think a face-off which was friendly and a bit tongue in cheek would have been superb to watch.. I was laughing and enjoying it.. every minute.. but he kept trying to make himself the superior one.. it was then that I played the tw*t card to re-ignite the lighter side of the performance back into it.

Its sleightly pathetic to simply rely on gimmicks but sleightly cheaper to use .. well.. sleights!!

It sounds like your qoute is more true than ever I.D.

id my young grass hopper truly you are beginng to become the master.

i use scotch and soda a lot using a quater as a finisher, now you can prsent it as look heres a penny and a half, take both and put them behind your back and seoerate them out.... give me the silver coin... thanxs what you got left... bam i got the penny you never saw that coming I'm great.

or same beginng, noting the silver coin is larger than the penny.... seperate and ask for the larger silver coin.. thanxs, keep a tight hold of the penny... can you feel it warping... it is, its tearing into half then quaters... now you only have a quater left, take a look... weres the penny gone...try under your watch / on your shoulder.

same trick same presentation but one has audience participation and is a miricle the other one is just a trick, thats the diference between a magician who knows tricks and a performer of magic.

we must look into his childhood for the answers.
now tell me about your past

I love the way this thread is going.....'magic tricks' Vs. 'Performance':

Guess which I've got my money on?