So I was giving a talk/performance today for some colleagues. They've been asking me to do some magic for ages, and I ended up throwing together a sort of 'history of magic' talk, with a thrown in bit about my own involvement in magic, interspersed with a couple of clips of magicians, and me doing a few tricks live.
It was thrown together quite quickly because am under lots of pressure in other directions at the moment, but it went pretty well generally. Magic-wise I did my old favourite the Joe Riding 3 card trick with 4 cards, a C&R rope, Phil Plus, and then my 'big finish' was to be the Word in a Million book test.
To my immense embarrassment, the last went completely wrong. For one reason or another the word was no where for me to see. I think I probably picked the wrong spectator to help (but I was trying to avoid another problem I had with a previous performance where the word was there but illegibile!). It was very embarrassing. And then when I had to admit defeat, they weren't sure if the show was really over or whether I was going to surprise them with the answer!
It is a really powerful effect when it goes well, but I think my hit rate is about 50% in real performances now. I need either to work on spectator management/choosing or else find a different method methinks...
