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Grimm Regular user 134 Posts |
I'm sure everyone has had something like this happen before. I was strolling in a busy shopping district performing for random people. One of them was a homeless gentleman and when I approached him I was immediately struck by the smell of alcohol. I performed a trick with my Svengali deck in which I intentionally make a mistake in order to set up a kicker (basically it breaks down like this, they pick a card and I claim to hit it to the bottom, the bottom card is wrong. I tell them perhaps it didn't go far enough and find it as the second from bottom card, then to make it up to them turn the entire deck into their card). This routine has always gone well but on this occasion I got the "mistake" and the man I was performing for told me that the bottom card was in fact his card. I was speechless for a moment. "Is this your card?" I asked. "Yep," he said again, "It was a spade." I realized I was going to have to prompt him along through the rest of the trick. I moved the bottom card revealing his. "Are you sure this isn't it?" "Oh yeah!" he said laughing, "That's it! That's my card!" I finished the trick and walked away trying to decide if I was amused or annoyed.
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Review King Eternal Order 14446 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-03-17 04:29, Grimm wrote: What type of magic doyou do? Yous eek out the absolute worst audience you can to perform for and then wonder what went wrong? Let's see. Next time you're out, see if you can locate a sightless person ( politicaly correct for blind person ) and do a coins across routine. Or maybe the sponge bunnies for a limbless person. I'll take it this in not a real post or you just perform for fun ( which is great ) and don't care who you do the effects for. :clownjuggling:
"Of all words of tongue and pen,
the saddest are, "It might have been" ..........John Greenleaf Whittier |
Grimm Regular user 134 Posts |
I stroll. The person I was performing for wasn't the first I had approached that day. I had actually started talking to him first, he was down on his luck and I wanted to cheer him up, entertain him some. All in all it worked despite the complications. I didn't wonder what went wrong, the trick worked I just had to help him along with it. I don't just do it "for fun" whatever that means, I just don't discriminate who I'll perform to. The trick, while I had to carry him along, eventually got him to that state of wonder that magic attempts to induce. Everyone deserves that.
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Tokyo Williams Regular user NYC 126 Posts |
I too occasionally perform walk-around in public
areas. And like Grimm, I occasionally perform for the odd homeless person, simply because I think it will cheer them up (and because I don't want to be the *** who ignores them and only plays to the moneyed soccor moms window shopping). While some tricks have obviously gone south on this type of audience, I've also received some of the most sincere reactions of gratitude from them, as well.
I have nothing to say
And I am saying it And that is poetry. -John Cage |
daffydoug Eternal Order Look mom! I've got 14077 Posts |
I've done a few soused audiences in my time. It works one of two ways..either they are so drunk that anything you do amazes them, or they are so drunk that they become RUDE. Seems to be no middle ground when they are pickled.
The difficult must become easy, the easy beautiful and the beautiful magical.
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Illusionist Regular user Earth 121 Posts |
Don't feel annoyed, be amused. You have learned a bit about how to read the people you perform for. I do it all the time. I stroll in bars, do lounge magic and so forth. I always have to read people first to see how drunk they are, if they will care and not drift off into conversation with some one else ( wich IS very annoying). The worst is when they are so gunned that they cant even follow a simple Svengali trick. I have learned the finer points since then and have the most fun performing for drunks. They tend to be bigtime suckers or egotistical know it alls. so if you ever do bar magic, you will learn fast!
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