Dean dah Street Magician

Yesterday I took a trip into Colchester to help promote the Leopold Thorn event at Colchester Art Centre. My plan was to take a few flyers and the custom made deck that Darren had made with he details of the play and generally amaze people and hope they feel inspired to come along to the event. I also took a vanilla regular deck and a deck set up for Wee Wee Mentalist and my home made DarkSide Deck set up for Serial Killer as well. As I stood in the middle of town I again felt the nerves about approaching anyone. I looked for someone I knew having learnt from experience that once I'm started approaching people is easier. I kicked of with a lady who runs a cup cake stall (I buy cakes there for my co-workers from time to time, I'm not some sort of cake obsessed weirdo,,, who am I kidding) and performed the Darkside effect and got a strong response. I left flyers and then buzzed the customers of the pancake stall (are we seeing a food obsessed pattern here). I hit the crowd with the Ambitious Card routine which got again a pleasing strong reception. Determined to flyer and poster Colchester we hit a Theatre a pub an art venue and a few shops.

In thee theatre two nice ladies seemed enthralled with initially the Ambitious card and then We Wee Mentalist. I recalled how some people love to keep the playing cards they signed for effects. This is one of the any strengths of the Ambitious card. I made sure to let the lady who did not sign the card to still feel involved. I did this by getting her to stay "Stop" when riffling through the deck for the LePaul's Bluff Pass. However remembering how people Love to keep a signed card I then moved onto the second lady and performed Wee Wee Mentalist. Thus leaving both participants with a signed card from different effects one of which had the details for the Leopold Thorn Event on.

At the pub I repeated the performance again for two participants. Both seemed impressed and kept looking at their signed cards. We decided to try postering a skater fashion shop seeing as they had posters up of varieas alternative events. there was a group of about 5 younger guys (late teens early twenties). One was the obvious Alpha of the group so I got him to take a card ready for Ambitious card. I started with a joke by saying "Take a card, any card" whist sticking one card out and constantly manoeuvring it to where his hand was. This little touch went down well I then settled down and let him select a card fairly. I then recalled a magazine article which had a great touch for getting everyone to feel involved. "Write your name and what you call this guy behind his back" whilst pointing to one of his friends. This got as laugh and I proceed with the effect, Everyone was staring at the cards not just to see the effect but to find out what he had written. It was the sort of macho humour that appealed to them. I said before how I have a hard time relating to "Mainstream Cool" guys but I've learnt a bullish display of skill as opposed to the more subtle effects seems to go down well. This wasn't "Challenge Magic" where I was inviting them to catch me out, it was just a laddish joking about display design to impresses, and each 'rise' of the cards did just that.

So to review the day. Approaching crowds may be scary but it works out. All the practise has lead to a new found confidence which comes across to the audience quite well I think. And it really does pay to involve everyone in the effect.

4 leggs good 2 leggs bad....

I'm an atheist/agnostic (can't b bothered into getting into the many long and tiered arguments over wther you can be a true atheist or that atheism is a faith etc etc). Why do I mention this? well I'm not particularly crusading over it, I don't mind what anyone else believes (unless it leads to them harming others or forcing their beliefs on people without their consent).I get rather frustrated when people bleat out their beliefs and slogans like sheep but when I heard a girl who had been a strong Christian and had since become an Atheist bleat out "Religion is for the weak minded" my blood run cold. I've never liked to hear people who chant things without really thinking about them. Too me the greatest villains in literature are the sheep in Animal Farm who let them selves be led into the chorus of "Four Legs good, two legs bad"

So why bring all this up. When reading the words of magicians I admire I sometimes find them saying things which I always say. This always makes me feel like I'm copying them blindly even though I thought of it independently. Such examples include

"Go enough is not Good Enough" said by me years ago and then read in "Our Magic" by Devant and Massklyn
"don't use the word spectator, but participant" Paul Daniels.
Ironically though I did fall into this trap in one regard. I was somewhat dismissive of the Magic Circle. I knew very little about them BUT Derren Brown doesn't rate them. I looked into joining up anyway seeing as the paying public treat any magician who is a member as some sort of speciality. I'd allways put off joining as I feard the examination but looking at thier notes them seem really cool. It's not about complicates slieghts but about performance mainly and they seem to have a very constructive attitude. So i'm going to bite the bullet and join up soon. I'm already going through thee paper work to join Equity (for the insurance if nothing else) and intend to pop down to a public open show in November for the circle. Once there I'll see about how I can join without knowing anyone there :)

prepping and performance

The Burlesque gig went quit well. I was not performing magic but it was still good experience in performing as a whole. One thing I took away from the experience is that the audience responded very well to interaction something which is at the heart of good magic in my opinion. After all if the audience does not feel like they are part of proceedings then they may as well be watching from home. This doesn't mean that they have to be directly involved with an effect, they could be there to serve as witnesses to the events that are unfolding. So from now on I'll endeavour to try and make everyone involved as a group, and stress the importance of people being there maybe along the the lines of gesturing to the main participant and saying "You can all help him understand what's happened later on" etc.

This week I have managed to try out a lot of material 'in the wild'. Cartomancy performed very strong, my patter is a lot smoother now (whilst not a rehearsed constant set of lines of dialogue I keep a mental list of key points that need to be noted and in what order they need to be said. This allows me to tailor the way I get the points across as I see fitting for the environment I'm in). I broke one of the big rules and performed the effect three times at one table as an experiment. The effect relies on a Koran Force which means sometimes when a participant says "Stop" I hand them the card that is already face down, and other times I hand them the card that's in my hand or about to be dealt. THe over all effect is one where a playing card is revealed via a scratch card and matches the card dealt. This therefore means sometimes the card is seen first (face up after all) and THEN a scratch card is revealed, other times the scratch card is revealed first and then the playing card which is face down. I was curious as to whether a group of muggles would spot the inconstancy and seeing as I was amongst friends and not paying customers I decided to experiment. The results were suprising. No-one commented on how the two reveals were somtimnes in different order. As a result I know feel a lot happier about performing Cartomancy where there is a chance being pressured into giving a repeat performance.

I also worked on my Ambitious Card that night as well as a few forcing effects. I've decided that whilst my riffle force has yet to land me in trouble I need to learn a few more (I currently have 4 different forces that I can use but I think I can improve on them a lot with practise). I did however invent a new 'Lift' for the routine. Whilst using standard slights I have not come across this combination before so now I need muggles to experiment with.

So today I'm left at home with a very bad back but a desire to learn more effects. I foresee an afternoon of coin magic ahead to help me out of those situations where people yell "show us something without cards".

gig tonight

A little nervous but not in a bad way. Maybe it's when excitement and nervousness collide you feel like this. I'll be comparing a burlesque gig tonight with Darren. We've gone through a few lines, a few routines but ultimately most of what we do will be sorted out in the 5 hours between us turning up at the venue and us going on stage. However this is a great opportunity to promote the lectures based on Leopold Thorn. So beforehand if times allow and during the interval I'll be performing ambitious card with a deck that also doubles as fliers for the event. Maybe it's just because I'm more nervous about comapring, or maybe it's because I'll not be engaged as a magician exclsuivly but the magic really isn't worrying me at all :)
I'll be doing a bigger blog tomorrow about spending waaaay too much money on a book :)