So I've been reading up on magic for a while now and I thought that some after-dinner tricks over the festive period might make a nice change from sitting and feeling bloated after the excellent (if I do say so myself!) Christmas dinner I always cook.
In advance I'd got some D-Lites which my kids absolutely loved. They're 3,5 and 9 so the sight of me picking lights off the christmas tree and eating them/extracting them from ears etc. went down a treat. Even my Mother-in-Law was in hysterics watching the kids mob me for more lights that they could 'eat'.
For the adults at the table (Me, the missus, her Mum & Dad) I started with Poker Player's Picnic after being arm-twisted into performing (I'm still reluctant). I let my mother-in-law do the trick and told the kids that I was testing Nana's magic powers. They seemed to be working as she managed to get all four aces to the tops of their stacks.
Answering the inevitable "How does that work?" with "I don't know, I still haven't figured that one out" I then dodged the bullet of "Let's do it again!" by diverting into an attempt at something a bit like Anniversary Waltz, but just using the front and back of a normal card. Unfortunately when I did the DL to sign the face of the first card, I think I caught a triple so we ended up with two separate signed cards. I laughed it off and blamed my father-in-law for pressing too hard when he signed, because that doesn't allow the signature to slide off.My wife, inspired by the Amazon links I emailed her, got me Karl Fulves Self Working Card Tricks and More SWCT for Xmas, so I tried a couple from those. Gemini Twins - credit to Alfred Borden for making me aware of how good this one is
- went down a storm with my wife. I even did it a second time (I know, sorry) explaining that just by tone of voice and body language it was possible to influence which card she would deal to, while she tried to fool me by dealing one card off first, then a dozen for the second. Lovely trick and very powerful. I followed that up with Lazy Magician (I think. The 10-card, elimination shuffle one) which got just as good a reaction.Finally, I finished with Amira's CHIPrediction and started it by placing an unseen card under a wine glass before I started talking. This was a great finisher and left my mother in law speechless, probably the first time ever, as to how we'd arrived at the card. I'd hoped to prepare for this one by placing
the card inside a cracker, but didn't get time to do it in advance. That turkey doesn't cook itself though.
So that was my first experience of performing more than just a try-out of something I'd learned. OK, it's still within the family, but it actually bolstered my confidence somewhat as there was a genuine sense of enjoyment and amazement at some of the results.
Just thought I'd share, apologies for the War & Peace.
Dan
