talkmagic.co.uk

Actually Jellybaby is without realising it paraprhasing the advice of Darwin Ortiz in Strong Magic. I think this is an excellent book but I don't agree with the approach on heckling.

He recommends "turning on your deaf aid". He advocates complete ignoring the interruptor on the basis that the chap wants attention (a bit like jellybaby actually) and it behooves you not to give it to them. Darwin says you shouldn't even look at them. The theory is that they will get fed up with the lack of attention and either shut up or wander away. The snag with this scenario as I see it is that in my opinion they won't shut up and they won't wander away. As it wisely mentions in Expert Card Technique "if you ignore them they persist"

However Darwin has an answer for this too. He says that if all else fails you use one heckler stopper only and as you say it you still don't look at the pest. You are supposed to say, "that is what happens when cousins marry"

So Jellybaby has inadvertantly proposed Darwin Ortiz's solution which I don't agree with.

However I shall try it now as an experiment.

"This is what happens when jellybabies marry"

i dont understand what jelly baby did wrong
i do seriously appreciate the advice on this page because i have friends that will do thier upmost to balls a trick up for me. i inserted a trick into my routine that stopped some of the heckles. i had a chosen card lost in the deck and then after shuffling blatently palmed a card as soon as they started going on that they had seen me i showed them the card in my hand which just said check your pocket where they'd find the chosen card.

seemed to shut them up for a while anyway

What Jelly Baby is doing wrong is following me around on various threads and making rude remarks everywhere about my great wisdom. It would behoove the child to bite his tongue and see what he can learn from someone older and wiser.

After all he has confessed that he is a beginner in magic. If that is the case it would behoove him not to be impertinent and think before he speaks.

Never doubt the wisdom of a man who uses the word behoove twice in a single missive

Thrice, actually - there's a "behoove" in the post above as well...


This trilogy of "behooves" might have some deep and serious correspondences and meaning, on some level only Mark can know, but probably not.

Mark's given some pretty sound advice there.

My tuppen'th: frankly, don't do magic for friends, unless you're happy to use them to hone your performances for others. They've known you since before you did magic, they know you're not magic, and they will probably find this whole idea that you suppose to present yourself as The Magician funny in itself - in short, they are likely to be your worst hecklers. I know it sounds sensible to think "I'll start of gently - I'll show my friends first, before any strangers" but you're likely to be just as nervous, and there's a good chance you'll come away from the experience thinking, "I'm just not magician material."

Anyway, back to hecklers - be nice. Be fun. Don't be an arrogant ar5e, chat with your audience, make them like you. True hecklers should then be pretty rare. I've had just one true heckler in my time, the sort who seems to "know the game" and try as you might will simply not take his eyes off the deck for a split second, and is desperate to spill his guts because he can't stand to see others impressed by what you've just done. Smile, use Mark's suggested line "what did you expect - magic?" and in a loving, mild-mannered and good humoured way, make it silently clear that everyone would be having a much better time if this one guy would just shut the **** up. Leave or stop performing if necessary, without being sulky about it.

You're a magician, not a performing monkey. Don't get all superior, but don't feel it's your job to pander to that particular social group's AH either - even if it's a paid gig, you're an entertainer, not a whipping boy.

...Unless it's a really good party

There's not a thing in Farlsborough's post (above) that I disagree with.

Excellent advice.

Heed it, if you fear hecklers.

Great post Farlsey

One thing I would add is to carry a can of pepper spray and a police riot baton incase... either that or a pair of Lommie's finest shin-kicking high heels

Friends really do make the worst hecklers in my experience.

There seems to be a massive difference between that way that you're seen by friends as my mate who does a few magic tricks and the way that you're seen by an audience at a paid performance. There you're seen as a professional magician and do recieve alot more respect.

I've had friends butt in and take the * durning tricks that went down amazingly well when I performed them at a paid performance.

In the Royal Road to Card Magic it states that when you show magic to friends they will either say you are wonderful or that you are not very good and neither may be the exact truth.

Show your magic to strangers.

And also do not show your tricks to other magicians. They will either criticise you or steal your material. Or sometimes both. They are not normal human beings.

In reply to Mark's post, above:

In fact, most barely qualify as human beings.

Dirty Davey wrote:
There seems to be a massive difference between that way that you're seen by friends as my mate who does a few magic tricks and the way that you're seen by an audience at a paid performance. There you're seen as a professional magician and do recieve alot more respect.

It's the illusion of power, simply put.


Tribal shamans were often known to have their huts on the outskirts of the camp for exactly the same reasons. You live on a boundary, metaphorical, physical, sexual, spiritual and geographical and you become different, apart and special.

Even something as simple as where you sleep, and what you adorn your hut with could make all the difference separating "us" and "them".

Your mates do not (um... presumably) know you as a being of magnificent and otherworldly power. They've probably seen you drunk, you may have borrowed money from them, been hilariously rejected when asking a girl out... none of these inspire awe and fear, or a feeling that you have some understanding or control over the fundamental and unknowable forces of the universe.

A random spectator or sitter only sees the person you present. And if that person can believably sustain the character of someone who can out-cheat a casino with a ratty set of bikes, neuro-linguistically reprogram their thoughts with a metal-epic slate, or tell an epic story of the life and death of the universe with four badly printed playing cards, then who are they to judge otherwise?

dominic thats the most beautiful way of saying be mysterious i have ever read an it was a joy to read.

It is also pointed out in the Dai Vernon Book of Magic by Lewis Ganson that strangers are far less liable to catch you out in a move or sleight. You friends will pick up on unnatural movements far quicker than a stranger will since they know you so well.