I'm being serious now, haha. Has any big city magician ever used magic to befriend his assailant and escape his predicament? How about to soothe the rankled road-rager?

Seems to me like simple coin magic (there's probably change in your car console or pocket) would be well-suited to deflating touchy situations such as these...you'd have to be awesome to dare it on a bank-robber though. lol

But why not? Even hooligans are people too and therefore subject to the same powers of amazement. They are probably too hyped to pay attention though, and you'd get splatted. I'm sure that the better bar and restaurant manipulators are skilled at disarming belligerent drunks, it's gotta come with the territory.

David Devant made headlines in London doing just this. In his "Woes Of A Wizard", he describes what happened (I've cut it short):

(quote)

A man had leaped out of the hedge and was standing in front of me. It was at once evident that he did not mean to allow me to pass. I sized him up quickly, saw that he was taller and much more powerful that I was, and decided that discretion would be the better part of valour in this case. For a second or two, which seemed like hours, he did not speak; but then seeing me cast my eyes towards the road he read my thoughts, and translated them instantly.
"It's no use your looking at the road; you can't get by me."
"What do you want?" I asked.
...
"Why," he screamed, "do you lie like this? I saw you making money on Monday. You made heaps of it, and I wanted to get some, but they would not let me have it. Don't you remember how you made money at the big hall in Wiltenham?"
I stepped back quickly at the mention of that word, for I understood, at last, exactly what the man meant. I had performed on the Monday of that week at Wiltenham Asylum, and one of my tricks was catching money, invisibly, in a hat. I realised in a moment that the man standing in front of me, and glaring down at my face, was an escaped lunatic.
...
Never before in my life had I conjured under such strange conditions. The man sat on a stile and laughed with joy directly I began. I suppose most people have seen the trick performed. The conjurer holds up a silk hat with his left hand, catches money invisibly in the air with his right hand, throws the money invisibly at the hat, and it is heard to fall inside. At any time the conjurer's hands are seen to be empty; but when he has finished, a good pile of coins is in the hat. Every time the man heard the chink of money, he clapped his hands. Certainly I had never had a more appreciative audience.
...
It was an exciting time for me. I had to keep the attention of that madman fixed on what I was doing. Had I wavered once, or shown any sign of the anxiety I was going through, he would have turned his head and might then have seen his pursuers. I closed my eyes and kept on doing the trick mechanically; and while my eyes were thus closed I was suddenly startled by a yell of rage. The man before whom I had been performing was on his back on the field, and a pair of handcuffs, that shone like silver in the bright moonlight, were round his wrists. He kicked and struggled, but all to no purpose. His legs were bound, and one of the attendants remained with him. The other went to the asylum, and returned in about an hour and a half with a doctor and a conveyance.
...
I have often done that trick since then; but I can never do it, or think of it, without recalling the awful face of that one man who remembered me simply as "the man who makes money."

(end of quote)

It must have happened sometime before 1903 - the book was first published then, and he says in the text that it happened "many years ago" after a show in a village hall. So presumably it was before he made the big time.

I don't think magic is generally an effective response to a mugging. Balloon modelling and mime, now, that's a different matter...

Maybe you could pull out your TT and say "you see what I did to the last guy who put his fingers in my pocket?"

Lol, at the David Devant story...I'll have to try and track down
the full version. I particularly liked the following line:

"Certainly I had never had a more appreciative audience."

I'm thinking you are right about the ineffectiveness of magic as a
tool against violence.

Maybe something along the lines of showing the mugger an obviously
expensive silver/gold coin...handing it over...vanish it...and
while he is stunned momentarily at his new-found loss, quickly
follow up with an encore routine of "a magic knuckle to the
temple"...thus stunning him again in a less subtle manner. Not
exactly what they mean by "flooring the audience"...hmmpf

Seriously though, I *do* bet a magician could lighten up many
situations that might turn heavy, just by the skillful application
of entertaining magic and the resulting smiles.

cheers,
Nick.Caress

Since a lot of today's muggers are hyped on drugs I wouldn't dare try it with them. You are liable to make them madder and get more seriously injured than you would if you just handed over your wallet. Addicts don't have a sense of humor when they need drugs.

It seems like I heard at one point that a magician was being mugged. and they muggers found a deck of cards in his pocket, so they asked what they were for and the guy explained what he did, they made him perform. now that's gotta be the most stressful nervewrecking performance possible, but from what I heard they liked it and let the guy go.