Last night I had the industrial-strength version of this: at one table there were two budding young magicians, reading from left to right: eight-year-old budding-young-magician-one (BYM1) and his younger brother budding-young-magician-two (BYM2). BYM1 told me immediately that he's learning magic, mostly sleight-of-hand.

Yours truly: What magic tricks can you do?

BYM1: I can stick a pencil through a playing card and when I pull it out the card isn't damaged.

YT: Very good! Can you do any others?

BYM1: I can push a quarter through a playing card, and I can tear off the corner of a playing card and restore it.

YT (detecting a theme here): So, your magic involves a lot of damage to playing cards.

(Dad laughs.)

(I can see the scene in their house now: the Ace of Spades is posted as a sentry. He spies BYM1 approaching. "Everybody hide! Save yourselves!")

As I began my set - card magic, because BYM1 said that card magic is his favorite - I got the barrage of questions and comments: "Are those short cards?" "I can tell what card that is by looking at the back." "I have a black box that turns into different colors: it has a metal plate and a magnet and the top is really thick and . . . ." And so on.

All-in-all it went well, though it required more than the usual portion of patience. Fortunately I had dad on my side, telling the boys to watch and to stop shouting out possible methods or where the effect was going or whatever.

The set ended with a single syllable from - you guessed it - BYM1: Wow!.

Generally my approach is similar to the one related here: ask them what sort of effects they've learned, trying to get a sense for their interests and abilities. More than once when I've met a young card magician I've handed them the deck and asked them to show me something: it's nice to take a breather once in a while, and I've found that mom and dad generally appreciate seeing their little darling in the spotlight (translation: bigger tips).

How many of you have found yourselves performing for a BYM or two? How have you handled it?

That happened to me just the other day at the restaurant where I work. It was bym and his mom. Mom was killing me. She was worse about, oh I know how that is done and then trying to explain, than he was. I kinda gave the kid the, we magicians know how really keep the secret wink and nod. I could tell he was not comfortable with mom. But at the end of the day it's just one table out of many and it does not happen much.

I get the odd kid say I know how you done that

I reply stop lying you aint got a clue. shuts them up!

Lol brilliant!!

What a coincidence. A couple of Sundays ago an aspiring young magi wannabe and his mom where at the restaurant. He was a very kind likable boy. His mom told me he does some card magic. I talked to him about it and he proceeded to describe an effect he knew, Chicago Opener. Well I happened to have a deck set up for that effect but didn't tell him I did. I just handed him the deck and said " Go ahead and do it." He said he needed his deck at home. I said that's OK just run through the moves since he was describing it for me anyway........Well you should have seen the smile on his and his mother's face when the effect turned out just like he was describing.....I just had to give him the deck. He was such a nice kid and told him and his mother so.
Neat experience.
DP

Good to know not all kids are snot nosed litte bratts.

I got a similar situation, for my BAD LUCK the parents are not on my side, they hate his children hobby, so I do a quick ambitious and move on!
Hansel!

Great story David!

For me (when faced with this situation) it varies. After the approach, I'm told asap that the kid is a budding magician. I ask the kid what his interest in magic is, what books he's read, etc. I take an interest in what the child is into and then base my set along those guidelines. Here are two examples of what happens next.

1. WHAT USUALLY HAPPENS! I begin performing and if the kid starts in with the "oh, I know what your doing," or the "oh, I've seen that one before," or is beginning to attempt to expose whatever I'm doing to those at the table, then I use this line to quickly put them in their place:

"If you were a true Magician, then you would know it's impolite to expose another performers material. As a Magician, it's always important to swallow your pride, listen to what others have to offer, and then make up your mind quietly and to himself and act respectful even if you are less than impressed. As Magician's, we never learn anything by talking. We can only learn by staying quiet and opening our ears and our minds."

I'm sure many of you will think that I'm being to harsh, but I feel it's important to nip stuff like that in the bud really quick. The entertainment world ain't always pretty...kids like that need to learn early.

2. 1% of the time, I get someone whom I generally take a liking too. For example...

About a month ago a young man (we'll call him Cody) comes into Crystals. He's about 14 (but looks like he's 8) and tells me that he's really into Magic. I ask him the normal questions as mentioned above and go into my set. He's very impressed with what he sees. He said after my set very politly that he can follow a lot of what I'm doing and that he hopes one day to be as technically skilled as me. He tells me that his family is really poor and that he only can buy magic tricks from the dollar store. He wears a beat up old jacket with a zipper pouch in the front and that's where he keeps the magic he bought. He pulled out his tricks (prayer vase, color cube, etc) and showed me a little of what he did.

I asked him what else he did and he said that he really likes card tricks. He pulled out a deck of cards and began doing The Chicago Opener. Then showed me a couple of color changes that he learned from watching other magicians on You Tube. Then he did Color Monte' with a set of Home Made Cards. He had taken three Aces and used white out to get the pips off and had taken a marker and drawn a red diamond, blue diamond and a $14 card on the aces. I quickly gave him my Color Monte set and threw out his cards so he'd have a nice set.

I asked him if he had any books and he told me he had been reading some Bill Severnson (remember him????) and also had a book of self working card tricks (math stuff). Me and my buddy (cafe' member NoVaCain) ended up giving him a set of Cups and Balls, RNT2's 10" Rings, and several books to add to his collection.

In a nutshell...the kid is good. He's rough around the edges technically, but his ability to reconstruct an effect is darn impressive. I performed Maxi Twist for him and he was able to reconstruct it and perform it (not very well mind you) within a couple of hours. He also was able to reconstruct my "Lyle Style False Cut" and was doing it (at a slow speed) within about an hour period.

So like I said...I was impressed and I have since taken the young lad under my wing to guide him.

So I guess my long winded answer to the orgianl post is, it all depends on if the kid is respectful of our craft, or if it's more important for him to be a little snot. The latter of those, I quickly blow off.

Kids like that are the ones that we need to nurture and mentor. You done good, Lyle! You, too, NoVaCain!

=====================================================================

I had a KFH experience at the Texas Renaissance Festival that was kind of heartwarming.

I had just finished a path show, and this snot-nosed little urchin came up to me and said, "I know a trick you can't do! You don't even have to take a card. Just think of one and I'll find it. Gimme your cards!"

I said, "You are not going to lay out three rows of seven cards and get me to tell you which row my card is in."

He replied, "How did you know?"

"Every eight-year-old knows that trick."

"HOW DID YOU KNOW I WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD!!!!??????"


*KFH = Kid From Hell

Bill....

LOL!!!!!

I had a nuisance grabby person at a table, so I took the table cloth, picked it up and covered her up saying, "sit still something wonderful is going to happen."

Lyle,

Loved your story. If you see your friend again, introduce him to the Café!

-Dan

And subject him to all the drivel on here....? lol! (just kidding guys)

Similar situation at a party I was working on New Years Eve. This one young gentlemen (probably 11 or 12) was following me around while I was performing walk-around. Between sets he would always tap me and say "I know how you did that thing with the rubber bands. How'd you do it? Show me." His parents were mingling and drinking, so no rest for me! During a break, he sat down next to me and started asking me again about how I did that thing with the rubber bands (CMH).

Of course, he says that he's learning magic and wants to learn some tricks and wants to know how that trick was done. Even though I was getting a little annoyed (patience is not my strong point, but I feign it quite well) I spoke with him for a while to feel out his real interests.

It boiled down to me finally asking him "Why do you want to know? Did you like the trick?" He really couldn't give me a good answer, couldn't demonstrate anything for me, and finally admitted that he wanted to know just to know, not to perform. I finally took out one of my business cards and wrote "Elastrix" on the back and told him to begin his search there. "What's this?" "The name of a good book on rubberband magic." "I'm really not someone that can learn from reading it, you need to show me." "I have to go back to work, we'll talk more later."

After I was done for the night, I was packing my things, the boy and his parents had left, and my card with the name of the book was left sitting on the table where we were talking.

Oh well.

KFH , LOL!!!

Even when someone believes that they don't learn well from books, they need to learn things that way, anyway. It's a basic requirement in life. Those who don't will only get rich if they win the lottery, and even then they will probably lose it all.

Brilliant!

I tell them what sets aparts the beginners from the reals magi's is we have way more than 1 way to do a trick , but don't ever let a kid " think" he figured it out EVER !

Last summer I had finished up a stage set at an outdoor festival. A kid who looked to be about 10 years old was hanging around as I was breaking down. He asked me, "Hey, that thing you do with the rings..."
"Yes?" I replied.
"Isn't that Capehart's routine?"
So he obviously does magic. I told him to wait around, and I'd like for him to show me a trick after I clean up.
To which he replies, "Oh, I can't. I have a gig this afternoon..."
-Mike

Had similar situation with KFH trying to show the exact same tricks. I guess this must be the most popular tricks for lay-kids. Gotta remember your lines, and your story is just too funny.