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Anyone have any stories of hearing spectators/lay people trying to explain how a trick was done using methods that are so ridiculous they are laughable?

Here is one I read recently - Dynamo reaching through glass at a jewelry store -

My guess is there are two hands and a duplicate of the bracelet. He curls his own hand into his other hand lying on top of the glass(possibly a bit up into his arm/sleeve), grabs his hidden duplicate bracelet, while the extra hand(possibly someone that was hiding under the table, then reaching their arm through a hole in his coat?), slides their arm in the case from the back and across the top of the glass(hidden by the magician's arm), then down to grab the bracelet. The extra hand then pulls it back through the hole in his coat and back under the table, while he pulls the duplicate bracelet up from his arm that was lying flat on the table.

That would obviously all involve careful planning and timing, but that's kinda what it looks like to me. Or I could just be way off base here....



(Mods if this thread is classed as exposure please delete)

is not only spectators that come up with impossible ideas for methods. You find find magicians, often airing theirs in Public come up with real fantasies.
Sometime read 'All The Secrets Of Magic Revealed'' by Herbert L Becker aka The Great Kardeen.
You will get a real laught In fact many laughs. He has part of the Zig Zag rightbut the size of the cabinet could take 3 assistants.Things like the Vanishing Tiger where the tiger WALKS through a trapdoor in the back of the Box and strolls through the back curtain--well.His Indian Rope Trick just has to be read.The Floating Ball is on Invisible Strings!!! In his explanation of 2 methods of Houdini's Water Torture Cell he warnd readers 'Don't try this one alone or without safety precautions. many have drowned because thye have done this trick unaided'.
Published in 1994 by Lifetime Books Inc. USA
He writes that he begins to yearn for the stage and wants to make a comeback into show business after being away for 15 years--1978--1993
And warns us to 'Watch out for Kardeen & see history in the making'.

Dante, when a spectator told him that he used 2 girls in the Sawing In Half offered the man a huge sum if he could prove that as 'I do NOT use 2 girls'.
His money was safe as at that time he used 1 girl and 1 boy!!

SO if a layman tells you the secret--right or usually wrong. Tell him he is right bu please do not disclose this to others as you may ruin my livelihood.
My son did this recently and the layman went away a bit smug and very satisfied with himself.

Allen Tipton

David Berglas used to have a good way of dealing with these daft suggestions, he'd listen intently to the 'explanation', nod wisely and, no matter how impossible the suggestion say, 'Yes, that's certainly one way of doing it...'

If THEY think they KNOW or think they are onto you & you tell them 'Yes you are right', they will go away contented and NOT think about it again.
It is a Secret between the two of you!!!!
Good vocal Misdirection

Allen Tipton

I showed my wife and mother-in-law Gemini Twins, with my wife handling the cards. My wife was impressed but her mum just shrugged and said "Oh, he's got big hands!"

I think now my wife is more baffled by my ability to get that reaction from her mum than the trick itself....

Anything using any kind of card manipulation where the hands execute too much movement can cause suspicion or be shrugged off.

It is the reason I hate magicians who will do, triple handed cuts, fancy shuufles, etc. etc. when performing a trick as to ANY audience--it is 'oh he just manipulates the cards'. Thus the sense of Wonder, Surprise & amazment just is not there.

Dai Vernon once called them--'Juggler's tricks'.

We had a famous UK magician at our Guild about 4 years ago. he did 3 card tricks in 1 hour. As he was showing the tricks he executed a complete Encyclopedia of flourishes, cuts, shuffles and fancy moves.
Result--boredom. Magic all lost.
He was JUST SHOWING OFF HIS SKILL.
And forgot that 'ART SHOULD BE USED TO CONCEAL ART'.

Allen Tipton

Allen Tipton wrote:Anything using any kind of card manipulation where the hands execute too much movement can cause suspicion or be shrugged off.

It is the reason I hate magicians who will do, triple handed cuts, fancy shuufles, etc. etc. when performing a trick as to ANY audience--it is 'oh he just manipulates the cards'. Thus the sense of Wonder, Surprise & amazment just is not there.

Dai Vernon once called them--'Juggler's tricks'.

We had a famous UK magician at our Guild about 4 years ago. he did 3 card tricks in 1 hour. As he was showing the tricks he executed a complete Encyclopedia of flourishes, cuts, shuffles and fancy moves.
Result--boredom. Magic all lost.
He was JUST SHOWING OFF HIS SKILL.
And forgot that 'ART SHOULD BE USED TO CONCEAL ART'.

Allen Tipton

Allen,

I beg you please do not hate card jugglers as you may notice in my most recent post i have confessed to wishing to learn more....flourishes

I do it to entertain and expand upon the card effects.....now the question this raises to me and i mean this with the utmost respect, is it only magicians who hate card juggling or do spectators not enjoy it either?

Much love

Aza

Aza wrote:I do it to entertain and expand upon the card effects.....now the question this raises to me and i mean this with the utmost respect, is it only magicians who hate card juggling or do spectators not enjoy it either?

Going back to my muggle days I'd always prefer to see something amazing happen by someone handling a pack of cards 'normally'. One of the reasons I like David Blaine's early work: no faffing about, just "look at this" and some great reactions.

Standing watching someone spin cards from one hand to another is going to take the edge off the two black fives and two red Queens pairing up with each other. Save the juggling for circus performers.

Sometimes they don't realise how close their ridiculous answer is !

I used a 1-ahead using an unseen forced card as the first answer/final guess.
Someone said, "Oh you just wrote the answers of the last question, but no, hang on, there is no way you could have known what the card was until the end, so you can't have put the card as the answer to the first question, you could only have put the real answer to the first question using mindreading, and then you cant have got all the other answers correct unless it was really mindreading."

Phew,

I once performed at a dinner for the Psychological Society and loved listening to all the Derren type explainations that they were coming up with. Influencing using minute gestures or verbal cues... not one person mentioned that it was all a forceing bag.

You think that a bunch of high flying psychologists would have known better.

Mandrake wrote:David Berglas used to have a good way of dealing with these daft suggestions, he'd listen intently to the 'explanation', nod wisely and, no matter how impossible the suggestion say, 'Yes, that's certainly one way of doing it...'

Didn't Edward Norton say something very similar to the Paul Giamatti's inspector in The Illusionist?

Reading the comment about the Derren type explanations, we were sat in the bar during the interval in Svengali a few months ago and on the table next to us was a cocky sounding fella with a reasonably loud voice telling his whole table and anybody else that cared to be within earshot how he did a certain effect. Now I'm the first to admit i don't know anywhere near as much about mentalism as I'd like to but even my girlfriend who knows absolutely nothing looked at me and said that cant have been how he did it!

Even in this day and age you still get people suspecting your sleeves. On a mentalism note, I don't really go into that area but it seems that since Derren Brown's become so famous from tv and his shows, people seem to automatically jump to a psychological explanation way before suspecting a billet switch or gimmick (not that they would be that specific, but you get my drift). I guess from a mentalists perspective that's great.

Axa--- hate is never in me for anything EXCEPT for people who deliberately hurt other people--(adults or children)
I detest people who will only see things through their own eyes and ridicule or again hurt others with their loud mouths, abusive language or actions.

Now back on subject:
Possibly the silliest explanations by lay people were in that awful TV series where a panel of lay 'experts' saw several magicians perform and then explained how they thought the tricks were done.
The magicians then showed their explanations as:
One effect with a borrowed ring, had the ring taken down into a table, across on a pulley then some Heath Robinson apparatus load itto the container where it was later discovered.
It was all hilarious.
And the real joke was on the viewers, technical crew, the studio audience & the panel................was--the explanation was just nonsense.
So the magicians , for once, had the last laugh!!!

When the stupid Masked Magician offered SOME of his explanations of how the effects were done, I prayed magicians would not write in and complain--which is the way to really cause exposure.
I remember our refuse man--an ex pupil--stopping me asn saying-'Mr. T did you see that pratt sawing a woman in half last night The box was so huge it would hold you, me and my 2 mates. I saw it at Blackpool(Russ Stevens) and the box was a bare 6 inches deep.!!!!! Oh for more believers like him
Allen Tipton

One explanation I was given by a spectator for how the Benson Bowl works is that they had seen sponge balls before and they knew how they work as they'd seen them divide into two separate balls when the magician puts his finger on them, and that I must have worked out a way of getting them to divide in the same way when I hit the top of the bowl with my wand, probably by the vibration.

That sponge ball method you must foster if told again by anyone.
What a great put off/satisfy curiosity it is

Allen Tipton