Hello ALL!

It has been a ragged couple of months since my mom's death and I thank you all for your patience. Had a pretty good holiday. Was able to find that Nintendo DS so my 10 year old daughter could begin raising and training 'virtual' doggies. If you have not seen Nintendogs...I have to say that the program IS impressive! I now better understand why it is so popular.

The Contest: Briefly it was this....what did I learn when on a lark I took an old pair of sunglasses and after drawing swirly looking designs on the lenses and placing an obnoxious and goofy price on them and making a name card that looked like every other magic trick on my stores shelves and then waiting to see if anyone would bite found out that in fact almost eveyone thought that the glasses were for real, what did I learn? The contest was a first prize of a Sudbury II for the first person to come closest to what I thought myself, etc.

The first person to get it close was Jaz with:

"Brad, with a bit of presentation, no matter how inane and then placing a value on something people will tend to believe in what is presented to them. They will in fact accept at face value that the item is what you say it is."

That's it exactly! I want to thank everyone who took the time to enter the contest and give their submissions. There were some GREAT ones! In fact mostly everyone got close in one way or another, I just thought that Jaz got it first.

Basically, it is a matter of 'misdirection'. I discovered that you can have the most bizzare and unlikely patter presentation and if you deliver it straight it is amazing how folks will just accept whatever you say! Magicians worry all the time that a prop does not look natural, but by the very nature of what we DO that is NOT a problem. By definition magic produces EFFECTS that are NOT ... natural! Ergo, whatever you ascribe to a prop will be accepted as 'just part of the magic nature' of what you are presenting! You can take the goofiest prop imaginable and make it work for you BECAUSE the audience has already an expectation of magic dealing with the odd. I have come to the conclusion in fact that an unnatural prop far from being a negative is in fact in many ways a psychological positive for the magician.

The 'odd' IS in fact what IS expected. Think about it for a moment and you'll see what I mean. Consider the following very mundane example: Color Monte! Here is one of the most popular, best selling magic routines of the modern era. A wonderful and entertaining little conceit. But, look at the props! Cards with colored diamonds on them! Hey...you see those all the time ... right? And, yet I have done the trick literally THOUSANDS of times without a whisper from the audience having to do with the odd nature of the cards!

So the moral of all this is simple: Do NOT worry about the props themselves. Don't worry if your magic props look 'natural'. No one really cares. In the end if the audience is entertained by being astounded....you won. Best,