Been busy lately, hence the slight relapse into no-post land… amongs that have been a couple of the too-rare opportunities I get to perform… One was for a local magic club, as a sort of exchange for HMC, and the other was for living breathing humans The difference was quite interesting, its fair to say I slightly messed up one of my tricks for the magic crowd (it went right every time in rehersal!) so wasn’t on the best of form, but it did give me some insight into what can go wrong and the ability to think on your feet! But also the difference was highlighted between performing for magicians and for the regular joe public. No reaction to any jokes, bits of business or by-play for the magicians, now I’m not getting at or criticising the club in question, I believe from watching lots of magic with other magicians, this is a common occurence, we are all to engrossed in watching the mechanics, rather than just enjoying the whole. When I am watching another magician I do try and react like I think I should at all the right places, but not too over the top so it seems fake. But its never going to be quite the same as a reaction from the lay-person, as witnessed the night after.

I got the chance to perform with a group of good friends, for a small select group above a local pub, what a buzz, I have to get out and do this more often! Screams, Laughter, Gasps, Looks of amazement, it was all there, and reminded me why we all do this magic lark! Anyway my belated new-years resolution is to get out there this year and do some more performance.

I was trying for the first time a new routine I have thrown together, its a kind of pseudo-mind reading/body language/psychology type routine, themed on the expression ‘keeping a poker face’ and being able to read peoples body language. None of it is my own, I have just routined it so I hope it gets more impossible looking as it goes on. Its only really just come together, but I have had the idea in my mind for a while. Basically I will be a bit vague on this so as not to expose too much, but it starts off with Mr Draun’s move to get certain information, which is revealed through some pseudo-body language reading, ie. pressing down on there hands to reveal colour/suit as they concentrate on it, then on the fingers to get the value. Then I use Mr Wimhurst’s similar but even more impossible looking move, and reveal after a spectator shuffle, with Paul Wilson’s Think Stop type reveal, after saying that this time I won’t use body-language I will just show them cards, and they have to try and keep a poker face, and just think stop when they see the card. If I want to continue I generally finish using something similar to the trick that is on Steve Youell’s Scruffy CD using a similar technique, so it looks as though it is all out of my hands when the spectator shuffles their cards, looks at a card in their hands, with my head turned and then I just put the cards back in the box without looking at them or even showing them to the spectator, and then thanks to a recent purchase (no hints here, but its a fairly new card item from a UK mentalist!) I can then go on to seemingly just read their thoughts and tell them the card they looked at when the cards where out of my hands. For those with card experience you can piece it together from that I hope!

I only got chance to road test this a few times the other night, but it did get the required looks of amazement, which I am getting used to, and I will take over laughs and applause any day! But I want to run this in some more, and play with it…

Lastly I’ve decided to take a little leaf out of Scott’s book (check out his blog it’s a good read) and start concentrating on and working on one routine a week (may be longer in my case!) in some hope to somehow steer my practice time that I have available (which isn’t that much atm), I’m starting off with the pile of ever growing stuff that I have, top of that is Bob Farmer’s Bammo Monte Monster, have just purchased his reloaded version as well, so I can work on the Skinner variant, so will let you know how that works out…