Another Friday night, and more time with laymen.

Today the idea of using a PDA to organize ones thoughts came up in VERY unsusal context.

Consider a performer who has MPD ( not a D in this case ) or 'channels' magicians. He would not know anything about the magic done by his other personalities or those who take control when he channels. There might be a difficulty in having such happen in performance context... that of handing off context. To solve this problem he could use a PDA.

The PDA could have notes from preciant personalities or guests about cards to be selected on different days and times in the appointment function. It could have messages left between the 'channeled' and the performer. It could have messages from one 'personality' to another that mean nothing to the performer.

In an earlier post I suggested and have since succesfully tested the presention of a vanish as both 'real' and also that the mechanics need not seem fully understood by the performer. I now propose to extend the notion of the performer as having MPD where the personalities have different magical abilities. This frees the everyday person to live a normal life, and lets the multiples do what they are good at... ie vanishing things, finding lost cards... you get the idea.

Back to the PDA. What would a the memos on a PDA that is used by a few people look like? And the messages and calendar and the crosstalk? What if some of these messages suggest some squabbling between the personalities or 'channeled' magicians?

I took this idea as far as to suggest that in order to do some effects I would have to buy a new memory card or a totally new PDA since the personalites COME ON THE MEMORY CARD. ie, the different personalities or abilities could be contained in the PDA.

Here is a very small scripted application:
Sorry I don't know how to find your card, let me change into someone who does..writes name of spec on PDA. Flinch. Performer looks at PDA to get spec name to address them and does the card-find... and makes a notation on the PDA. Flinch.. is that your card? Yes... good. Oh, have to remember to buy apple cider on the way home.

What are your thoughts?

I'm not sure how the spectators would know that you have multiple personalitites. If you just said I can't do this, I'd better get my alter ego to do it, the specs may find it corny. To successfully pull it off you would have to do a really good acting job and probably incorporate some costume changes or face makeup.

In my opinion this idea is just making your performance of magic more complicated. You need to keep track of who your other personalitites are and what abilities they have.

Agreed Jordan, we need some basic acting skills just to convey that magic is happening. This is not such an advanced skill. It does take some preparation in defining the characters and mannerisms.

Actually, however, this idea should be worked with as it lays the groundwork for what could be some seriously funny or spine-tingling creepy magic.Finding the right characters could be a fun exercise in character development that would help with our standard performance personality as well.
Introducing an alter ego who purposely tries to mess up the performance by shuffling cards face up and face down,changing the placement of a hidden pea under a walnut shell, or removing a coin from "the magicians" hand and placing it in his pocket, only to revert back to the original personality and overcome the challenges that the evil personality introduced would be a neat pursuit.Sometimes the mere placement of a prop such as a hat or a pair of sunglasses is all that's needed to create an alter ego. However, perhaps the challenge of creating these MP's through facial expressions and body language would be a better exercise in creativity..to each his own. Again,this idea is worth thinking about.

Suppose the magician has been in therapy for many years, in fact, hypno-therapy. The comings and goings of the various personalitites are prompted by a predetermined set of symbols, in this case, a deck of cards. Now the specator's selection has a direct bearing on the quality and nature of the entertainment, as they decide "at random" who it is that will be visiting.

Suppose further that the visiting personalities leave eachother mesages on the cards themselves. The deck would be an amazing collection of graffitti, with messages both mundane and mysterious. How would a specatator feel if asked to sign one of these cards?