I am a great fan of both your work and your advice on this MB. While being more of a book person, I really enjoyed Mind Mysteries. I also am greatly intrigued by tiny nuances that make or break an effect. IN your Radar Deck demonstration, for example, 'you couldn't remember' for a while one of those who had peeked at card. This subtlety throws off any suspicion that memory work is involved, and so destroys any possible explanation.

This was not explained in the DVD but I thought it was quite brilliant. Of course, I now run the risk of you telling me that you really couldn't remember the guy!

Any way, after watching the DVD many times, there are some other small things that you did on there that we are told are 'no-no's.' On several occasions, you actually told or hinted at the secret in your dialogue. IN the CT routine, for example, you say something like, "I'm not going to peek. I just want to touch it."

Are these taboos about 'denying the method to an audience, points out the method' not quite taboos?

Secondly, in the watch routine, you chose a spectator with a watch on, and then used your own watch for the demonstration. IN the explanation, you explained how to do it with a borrowed watch. Using your own watch when the spectator has one would seem to me to call a bit of suspicion on your watch completely unnecessarily since your watch was just a normal one. I do not say this to be critical. The impact was still tremendous. I was wondering about your thoughts on this.

With both of these items I think I learned, with appropriate humility, that when you can charm and entertain like you can (and I can't) and the atmosphere that you have created is to have fun and be mystified, that you have a lot more leeway than the challenge "catch me if you can, I fool you and you try to figure it out" atmosphere of the adversarial type where most of us amateurs reside and where the person then says, "Hey I have a watch. How come you're not using mine?" The thought never even occurred to that audience. That was a lesson in itself to me. And I don't think I could have learned from a book.

Thank you so much for your time and courtesy.

FLFrame,

Thank you for that very thoughtful posting.

Your right, I did use my own watch when I always use a borrowed on. Actually, at the time of the shooting, I was sort of going half and half. I can honestly say that I haven't used my own since then.

And you are right about the atmosphere you create. If it is fun and people are having a good time, instead of being challenged, they are not looking to trip you up every step of the way! In that mood, you can do a lot more.

There are a lot of magic "Golden Rules" that I totally disagree with! I talk about a bunch of them in "Principles of Magic'. But another avenue I sometimes pursue is the "cancellation" principle. That is, I actually hint at the real method and cancel it out before I even begin. Sometimes I throw it in with a bunch of absurd explanations such as, "Some people think there are microphones under your seats. I have been accused of finding out all about you on the computer. Some people think I take some of your slips and read them. Other people think there are cameras in the ceiling! I cannot tell you how many crazy ideas people come up with!"

See?

Richard