talkmagic.co.uk

So I bought a boon, and writing with it looks retarded. So Lincoln's looks like my best hope.

But I have an issue.
I'm doing magic for kicks in pubs. I take it seriously in so far as I don't give the secrets away.
But it doesn't make that much sense for me to be walking round with a mechanical pencil. It's no casual. But is it suspicous to people?
I do actually want them to think, if only for a minute, that I might have read their mind, so I'm torn over the listo or pencil choice.

Listo = a mess in my pockets when I ditch.
Lead = much more convenient, and more easily replacable but suspicous?
What are others opinions on this?

Responses ASAP the exchange rate is great, so I want to move on this.

If you're not a Mentalist don't you it! That's my first opinion.

If you want to do magic "for kicks" then do magic but stop ruining mentalism by mixing the two. This hurts you in that you are not getting as strong an advantage as you could otherwise have if Mentalism were your primary area of focus and presentation. It hurts the craft in that you are presenting Mentalism with the mindset of it being "just a trick" rather than understanding how it can be much, much more. Finally, it hurts your audience in that you are not able to draw them in as part of the fantasy true mentalism allows them.

Magic is presented with an agreement between performer and patron; it is known that you are using trickery and it is your job to fool and entertainment doing such. With Mentalism you are soliciting an investment from the patron that involves belief; it does not matter is you are claiming to be Psychic, an expert in NLP or Body Language Reading or general Psychology, the claim you make must be both, plausible and viable, something your audience is willing to buy into and be a part of. If you just completed an Assembling Ace routine then move into some Swami Gimmick routine, you won't have that hook in place and thus, you create all the negatives noted above. So don't use the gimmick! Step back and decide if you are a magician or a mentalist and then focus your energy in becoming the best of whichever it is you want to claim yourself as being.

I know... a million and one people will now moan because of my "elitist attitude" which really isn't the case. I was a magician that did big illusions, the family show as well as a big blood & gore show but, I gradually moved away from that as circumstances in my life dictated it, investing myself more and more into a new field of study that became my mainstay. So I more than understand the "experimental" part in which we might blend and mix the two elements. It is because of those experiences however, that I came to understand the importance of keeping them segregated and why, if I were to go out and do a more traditional magic show, I do so under my stage name vs. the name I'm known by within the New Age and Metaphysical markets. I keep the two identities separate as well as the arts themselves.

No, I don't deny that I'm involved with magic... that would be quite impossible to do. But I am very careful in how I allow myself to tie them together, if at all.

When it comes to working a Swami Gimmick, you've already mentioned a few of the draw backs no matter what make you are using. That is why it is exceptionally rare that I ever employ one; especially when there are so many other ways of creating a similar demonstration... pocket writing actually being my preferred alternative though I don't use it all that much either (hard to do when you're sitting down... )

I'm not picking on you, just encourage you to think a bit.

I know some people think Craig can be a bit OTT on these things, but I think he's on the money in this case.

On the assumption that you'll ignore his excellent advice, I'm mystified as to why you think a Listo lead is going to be less suspicious that a regular pencil. You can't even get Listo pencils in this country (as far as I have been able to find).

You're quite right to be concerned that maybe producing a pencil will look odd. So, don't do it. I think you're the best judge of yourself and the environment you perform in. If you think it'll look weird for you to use a pencil, then you're probably right. It could be like a 12 year old using a very formal full-length wallet.

if your writing looks "retarded" with a normal boon...

i say...

practice more with it before shelling out on a better quality product such as the lincoln or the scarab...

listo/china marker pens are available in the UK in premier shops (thats the brand) but they can be hard to find...

if you follow all of eric mason's advice, you'll be better prepared...

if you dont know who he is, or what his book is...I'm afraid its a case of buying his book and studying more....

listo/china marker pens

are thease similar to eybrow pencils if so then teres an out.
one not so touted option for the non seriose mage / mentalist would be a super sharpie, if you can get one, another option would be crystal vision.

Buy a Super Sharpie, practise practise practise writing and read Corinda's 13 steps to mentalism

magicdiscoman wrote:

listo/china marker pens

are thease similar to eybrow pencils if so then teres an out.
one not so touted option for the non seriose mage / mentalist would be a super sharpie, if you can get one, another option would be crystal vision.

If its the sort I'm thinking off then it's just a mechanical pencil, They make wide marks for using if your in the building trade for drawing on glass and metal. They have the advantage of supposedly being easy to wipe off the marks. They can write at angles where a pen will stop working because of gravity, which I suppose would be an advantage in pocket writing, but not really seeing a benefit over a pencil.

A listo lead is what we call a chinagraph pencil, it's used for marking non-porous things. The branded Listo pencil in America consists of this kind of lead with tough paper wrapped round it to simulate a normal pencil - you then peel away the paper to expose more lead when necessary. You can get them in the UK at most arts and craft shops and some stationary shops but they are so specialist, it would seem totally out of context to be carrying one around with you writing little notes etc.

A mechanical pencil is not so weird, or just use a nicely sharpened normal pencil which is perfectly normal too.

If someone says "hey, why the pencil?" you can tell them the jokey anecdote about how American scientists spent hundreds of thousands developing a pen for use it space that would write upside down, wouldn't dry out, would work if the tip got wet, if it got extremely hot and cold etc... after all that effort they came up with the expensive Fisher space pen.

The Russians solved the problem too... they took a pencil

Farlsborough wrote:If someone says "hey, why the pencil?" you can tell them the jokey anecdote about how American scientists spent hundreds of thousands developing a pen for use it space that would write upside down, wouldn't dry out, would work if the tip got wet, if it got extremely hot and cold etc... after all that effort they came up with the expensive Fisher space pen.

The Russians solved the problem too... they took a pencil

Always makes me smile! Although it's not quite true. Nobody has ever been stupid enough to take pencils into a spacecraft - shavings and broken leads in zero gravity can drift into the controls.

It is true that NASA spent bucketloads of money developing a special space pen. They never realised at the time that ordinary ballpoints work perfectly well in zero gravity.