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MrCat, you'll be amazed with what you can get away with if you're blatent enough. Act all secret squirrel and the specs will be suspicious, act as if something's not important and you'll find that the audience wont take any notice of it at all.

Lady of Mystery wrote:MrCat, you'll be amazed with what you can get away with if you're blatent enough. Act all secret squirrel and the specs will be suspicious, act as if something's not important and you'll find that the audience wont take any notice of it at all.

I was recently reading Richard Wisemans book Deception & self deception. Investigating psychics. It is a collection of published papers. One paper is on some research into how we as humans recall psudo psychic demonstrations & another on the effect that belief has on recall. Both provide some interesting facts for the magician.
We remember what we see as important & we recall memories in a manner that is in part based upon what we later feel as important. Thus we do not see or remember or recall something very easily unless it is perceived as important & we do not even choose to remember things outside of the actual trick, so an event prior to what we perceive as the trick, is often not even logged into the memory all to often.

Hey, I have Richard Wiseman's 59 seconds, it's a very interesting read and I've been meaning to look into more of his stuff, I'll definately be looking that up! Cheers

Richard Wiseman became a psychologist via being a magician. His Paranormality book is WELL worth a read, as it gives scientific backgrounds to psudo paranormal events & it contains some great hints on working. For example if I were to say don't think about Richard Wiseman. That makes you think about him & it is part of Ironic thought process or the White Bear theory & it has a part to play in some aspects of not just mentalism, but performance. It is not of it's self of any great value, but by starting to understand the way we as humans think, you can start to change & evolve the way you approach those watching you.

What a coincidence, I was recently chatting to MrCat about the audience and their perception of what's important. Richard Wiseman's got a lot of very interesting ideas, it's well worth reading anything that he writes.

Yes that's what I thought, on other psychology research I came across him and was delighted to find he's /was a magician. I've always been interested in psychology but call me slow, I'm just getting round to applying it to what I need to do.

(My net's off till the new year and I'm subject to mobile coms on the back of others wifi so have a good one all. I hope to have stories of an apt nature when I return!

Happy festive ones xxx

Well, here we are again, and a happy new year to y'all folks.

So, I've two accounts to recount in terms of magic.

My first was my second christmas around the 28th or so where I had stashed a secret prediction chest in a box and delivered it to mum the week before hand. It went well but I somehow feel I'll be revealing a little much if I delve into that any more but it went (just)OK (but almost amazingly), so anyway, after dinner my mum was dying for the magic show as promised, and I'm sure most of you know, or are just waiting until tyour golden moment of, that feeling when real magic is in the air. I hit it . We were around the table and afterward my mum's bloke said 'hmmm I feel like I've just been hypnotised for the last 20 minutes ' As opposed to the 'I've just seen some cool tricks'.

I lavished on them my still in testing 'card to matchbox', only pretend it's messed up and the card was supposed to be at the top of the deck when you wave the match over it and dont do the reveal. After the then look through the deck explain that with every disapeareance it's all in the reveal...I did the cups and fireballs routine ('automata' as emntioned earlier) with a blank faced card folded for the fnal reveal on that one and they think it's the card from earliert but when unfolded it's a crazy card with writing on the front saying 'look in the matchbox', nice when they light the flash paper from the match they picked out for the last one and struck on the box
Then a magic square number matrix thing from the same DVD and all topped off with a good helping of Up The Ante, naturally. Not oo many, not too few. It was perfect.

The next time however, I now am down at thel ocal pub, and it's after new year. There are a few people in, but by that I mean about 3 at the bar, and us making 5. I home in on Ali, a lovely bloke but at present trashed out of his face and liking the idea of magic. He says he knows how it's all done but wants to see some anyway. Of course I'm game and think I'll get one up on him. Hmmmm.

So I start off with I did 2 card monte. With the 2 red aces and he said "well I expect it's not either"...he was in that mood. A lot of you are now likely thinking Mr Cat you're crazy if you didn't go elsewhere.
I was determined, so I' moved in againwith 'what card its in the box'. A DF card in the pocket and you're good to melt brains....mmmm, I had one other keen spectator but Ali said well it's got to be the one you said it isn't', missing the whole fact that there's no way that could logically happen if you know what I mean. "cos that's how magic works".

The funy thing was I eventualy got annoyed when he wanted to see some more and said "well you don't really do you" haha

He's an old mate and it was all very amicable but he did his best to screw me up and I did my best to try and out smart him.

The moral of this tale, don't do that, it doesn't work. People who want to mess you up inevitably have more patience and persiverence than you will ever have, whatever state they're in.

I know now

Yep, some people are just out to figure things out.
New Year party, asked to do some magic- mixed adults and kids so I started worth the sponge bunnies, some giggling And some open mouths in a "how did that happen" way. I then did keymaster, lovely stunned reactions Then someone calls "do the fork thing" so I went into my metal bending routine. More "how on earth did that happen" and then I did the colour monte, there was one of the adolescents there (15 or 16) who decided to call out what he thought the method was, all that happened was 15 people saying "shush" ☺ I actually had to point out that the fireworks were about to start because people were standing there wanting more! I did have more but wanted to leave them smiling.
As it happened he got the method right but people spoke about the story not the method and I present it as a "never bet with a magician" cautionary tale

Yea there's a lot to be said for presentation, and a lot to be said for knowing when to make a sharp exit and leave people smiling indeed A lesson I guess we all only really learn when it happens.

I wanted to post a link here to another thread I just wrote as it seemed kind of apt here but I wanted to make a seperate thread

ftopic59069.php

New year, New magic, methods and ideas.

Hey folks,

I just got back from a dinner party where I of course went tooled up, but still a bit nervous. I still am finding it really really difficult to get over that fear of performing infront of friends, believe it or not I am in my element when I have random strangers to pick on haha, but it's totally different infront of friends and I can't figure out why! So I was nervous as hell. It took me to the almost end of the evening to work up the nerve despite being asked earlier if I'd brought some magic, converstaion was flowing but I had plenty of ample oppotunity to step in earlier.

To my shame I didn't have a proper routine or nice flowing story to do a few tricks with yet, but I took along some new, and some old but that folk there hand't seen yet, and the view to 'all killer, no filler'. It's a very small area so without learning new stuff all the time it's a bit tough. Anyway, I started out with 'Shuffle Bored' which I just picked up recently, and it went down very well. 'All the cards must be different sizes' was the only explination offered up This is truely a wonderful trick and can be done in so many different styles too! I love it.

Then next I worked my way into the Magic Diary combined with ID...made someone hold the pack, her hubby and her chhose a personal date, her click her fingers and say go before I get the cards out and scan through, they were quite amazed I then put the card back on top casually tho as oppsoed to back where it should be. They wanted to do it again and I could have but wasn't on the case enough to keep a break and distract them whilst I put it back corectly. Note! But none the less I just brushed it off and moved on to the next thing...fireballs. Not having a shallotte that would fit my liitle metal shot measures I got for the job I just have a blank faced bicycle card folded up with 'That's your lot ' written on the front for them to unfold.

All in all it went very well but when asked for one more my nerves were getting the better of me, and it's only when I take a break and it's too late that the rest I could easily do offhand with a regular deck come back to me. Don't you just hate that. Grrrr.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on the nerves thing, I've read a lot about it but still...and living where I do doesn't help for regular access to a willing crowd of random folk I never met...I guess I should practice at home more but I do get bored of that real quick and it's only when I do something 'pretty good' out and about for whoever that I generally realise how it could be made 'brilliant' if you know what I mean, in terms of banter/story etc. But, haha, why do my friends scare me so much!?

I always find friends to be a much more difficult audience than doing a gig for strangers. Friends are always going to be far more cynical than strangers but the biggest problem is that you always need to have new routines for them. When I do a gig, I've got a handful of routines that I've been using pretty much unchanged for years, I know them inside out and can do them with my eyes closed but when it comes to a party for friends who have seen all those routines before, I've got to come up with something new. New routines are always nerve wracking.

Its bizarre. I was busted doing a dl and since then I just can't do it. Its like there is a silent script (Sorry Mark Lewis) in my head that goes "You're gonna be so busted!". I now do TC or tenkai a la velvet turnover or tarot switches instead. I have been busted doing a rope routine (dropping the short bit whilst pulling off the ends) and during a bobo switch but that has not affected me in the same way, but to this day the thought of pulling off a double makes me breakout in a cold sweat!

Ha, yea I seem to have relaxed a bit now, but purely as I haven't done any magic really for ages! I've some new tricks up my sleeve to break out on people when I get round to practicing a bit more but I know what you mean about that 'silent script' I think that all the time which is why it's such a buzz every time I pull off a trick and nobody knows how I did it

Nerves are a funny one for sure but I'm still pretty sure I'm far more comfortable in a room full of strangers when you can just up and leave once you've done a few and leave them amazed.

Ok, so, I've finally got over my nerves...but don't speak too soon Mr C....

I started off all go go go and super enthused, and then I got distracted by life and its general chores. But then, just recently, I got back to the roots of my desire to do some proper magic again. And it's a sweet feeling.

So to continue the thread in a suitable fashion I've made some realisations about the road to being , well, Magic! I hate to hark on about the nerves thing but I feel I've almost classically conditioned myself to hate performing. Those ofay with classical conditioning will know that it's pretty easy, have a bad experience and forever associate it with something you previously enjoyed, to put it briefly haha. So having thrown myself in at the deep end to see if I could swim it turns out that I almost can, but I think I've made some subliminal links that mean magic performance = brick it. Why? Because I was all out for gettining into the role of total performer professional magician who makes all his dough from magic. Nice idea but for me the newcomer into the scene it seems easy but infact isn't. I'm now realising, as I always knew, that when you turn a beautiful hobby into a job it becomes a chore. I'm sure this applies to most of us so my way of navegating around this has been to get back into the joy of magic that I previously had but without the chore aspect. I.E. I am now doing magic just for me. There's no rush. No pannic. No 'must get the old repotoire expanded with new crazy gimmicks' (*1)

(*1) - Yea ok, I lie slightly

But the point I make is that I've managed to rekindle my desire to get better and work on things due to taking a step back and not viewing it as a race to achieve the ultimate goal of being the cut above the rest at the party or gig when people want to see something cool. I know this will only apply to other super impatient yet enthusiastic folk like me, but it's for those people I write.

I haven't gone out and practiced for ages, which I know is almost sacreligous, but I'm waiting until I'm in a relaxed enough state and have had enough practice time to get some real results with just me and myself. This goes against the good advice that getting out there for practice is good, but infact doesn't as that's still great advice and I'm just saying forthe sake of my post that I think I jumped in there a bit too quick. Maybe not, I could be just giving myself excuses as to why I haven't tooled up recently, but my aim from now on is to get everything down to a T.

I do hope I'm not in danger of becoming another bedroom magician, but I don't think so, because you know in your heart what's going on really. And I realy am looking to get out there and melt brains

This has all been aided by discovering a few new tricks I hasten to add, just when you think you know the level of a good trick, a new collection or effect comes along whichs blows you away. I know the argument that any trick is a legend of a trick and it's all in the performance, but that doesn't quite sit with the fact that not just any trick is right for you, and I'm discovering my tricks I guess. It's a good feeling.

So I just wanted to let you all know that I'm feeling good again haha, and I'm back on the case. Without too much un-necessary detail or good spelling, I'm going to have some more great reports soon enough. And if you're where I am right now, expect to spend a lot more time and effort before you discover what really works for you But it'll be so worth it.

Cheers


To be continued...

Sounds like you're experiencing the same as many members here have and its a huge step along the path to being an accomplished and successful entertainer!