talkmagic.co.uk

so, I'm walking along the street coming back home the other night after a night out juggling away, and this guy steps infront of me and demands my wallet and phone. now, I'm not exactly a big or athelic guy, so (since i've taken to wearing a finger flasher pretty much all the time) i flick a little ball of fire at him and turn round and do what can only be discribed as a rather girly fleeing in the opposite direction. i reach the end of the street (stepping out onto a safe camera covered road) and turn around and I'm sure the guy hadn't moved an inch at all. at which point i started it find it rather hilarious. took the long way home though.

which made me think, what other magical props/tricks can we use to defend ourselves against the thugs on the street?
(aside from the obvious Cards As Weapons please)
any ideas?

That's actually really funny. I thought of something! You can use IT to strangle them! They would be hurting and confused at the same time.

Appearing candle or cane. Hold it just under the assailant's nostril and activate!! (Don't expect to get the prop back though - assuming you'd want it afterwards!)

I'm now thinking of keeping my wallet on IT all the time, you could hand it over, take a step back then with a little tug the wallet would be back in your hand, and you'd have a 2 step head start!

i used to carry an apearing cane metal vesion with me for this very purpose but then i used to live in landport for a wile were all the thugs carry knives.
its amasing to see the shock on there faces when you produce what they think is going to be a knife then it turns into a 4ft steel asp (police trunchion) like weapon and start spinning it around like you know kung fu or something.

got me out of a few scrapes i can tell you.

That is totally hilarious!!
I once thought of the appearing cane, now that's a real shocker!
That is why I always the most as most magic props as possible with me (well, no actually this is not the reason but it helps!)

There was a 19 year old magician on TV a while back who got into magic because some people tried to mug him and he had 50p which he needed for the bus so he palmed it as well as he could and it worked. So they said he should empty his pockets he had a deck of cards and the guys said if he showed them a trick they'd let him go so he showed them one self working one he knew.

Got the bus home and started practicing sleight of hand magic.

Wow!
Who was that?
(I love the idea of defencive magic! someone should run a class!)

Don't know his name, my dad saw him on TV - I missed it.

Hmm. I was robbed in London last night. Two guys followed me and a friend after I'd gone to the cash machine to get some cash for a taxi. They were hanging around, and giving the girl I was with hassle, I figured they were just idiots, and we were trying to ignore them. They seemed to be about to leave, but then one of the guys wanted to shake my hand - I figured whatever, just to get rid of him, but then he just reached into my inside jacket pocket, grabbed my phone and wallet, and legged it. It all happened very quickly. Bah.

I'm not sure about using magic stuff for defensive purposes, but I may get a wallet with a chain on it, and start carrying around industrial strength rat traps in my pockets. Hmm maybe some kind of dummy exploding wallet or something... I'd quite like it to hurt them badly

It was doubly bad, as the girl had just had her handbag stolen in the pub we were in, so we were stuck in central london with no money or phone.

Getting back home today was a bit of an adventure - A quick check of my pockets found A lip-balm stick, a TT, and 43p in loose change.

Early discussions with the station ticket office suggested that 43p wasn't enough for a ticket home, and they weren't prepared to negotiate on the lip-balm. They didn't seem very keen on helping me figure out some way of paying directly from my bank account, it was just a case of blank beurocratic impossibility.

I toyed with the idea of trying a bit of street magic with the TT, to see if I could raise a bit more cash, but performance fear, and a hangover from hell put me off that idea, and I ended up walking a long way to find a branch of my bank, then took 45 minutes trying to prove who I was in order to get my train fare. They gave me such a grilling that I was beginning to suspect that I really wasn't me.

It just got me thinking - it would be good to be self sufficient enough to survive when left in a strange city, with no money, phone etc. It's pretty obvious really, but I was a bit taken aback by how difficult it is to do anything without any money or ID.

A smackhead came up to me to borrow a cigarette. I said i didn't smoke and vanished the one I was smoking at the time.
I then pulled out my cig packet and said I ahd none left, the packet was clearly full which he pointed out. I closed and reopened it and it was empty. He walked off with a look on his face that said maybe he was going to lay off the drugs for awhile

I also had the following conversation with a tramp.

Tramp "got a cig on you"
Me "sorry I don't smoke"
Tramp "any change?"
Me "nope, I still don't smoke."

it is strange that something as simple as a few card tricks can really change the way someone thinks about you. Even the most simple mindest idiots who just wanna scrap can be amazed by somethin as simple as a card changing, and completely change their intentions. I find the best thing to do with them is use the old 3 card monte or some other cheeky way to take their money, which they dont realise is actually u robbing them back!!

I was thinking perhaps a good defensive magicl prop could be a fire wallet. That'd make people think twice.

Pitto wrote:I was thinking perhaps a good defensive magicl prop could be a fire wallet. That'd make people think twice.

Yeah. I'd really like to think of the guy who got my wallet have it explode in his face. It would almost be worth the cost of replacing it. ideally it would cause a scarring pattern, scoring the letters THIEF into his forehead. Hmm, okay maybe just brightly coloured permanent ink laced with capsaicin or something.

I'm going to lie down and think peaceful thoughts now. This really doesn't suit me.

...i am in no way advocating this, but i do enjoy the image of doing it...

i have seen on my web-travels, wands that fire blank cartridges...that would be brilliant to pull out a wand and let loose with it...imagine the look of fright on the idiot's face, as well as the stains in his pantaloons...

and i wonder if in the olden days magicians would offer to duel each other - wands at twenty paces gentlemen....

or cowboy-magicians letting loose at each other...