Last week, I was at the dance studio where I go to and I performed Any Card for a girl that was there. Before hand, I didn’t shuffle the cards but did the trick where she names a card and names a number. I pull out the cards, count down that many cards et voila! That’s where it is! She was impressed but she pointed out that I didn’t shuffle the cards. I replied that it doesn’t matter (because it doesn’t) and that I had shuffled the cards ahead of time. That was a lie but I didn’t care; when I perform I lie all the time.
Still, she was stumped. I felt good about that. Sometime later I performed a book test for someone else and it went off without a hitch. The first girl came up to me later and challenged me to do something else and I started to do the book test. I got partway through and she interrupted me and started making all kinds of wild and crazy accusations about what I was doing. I aborted the effect. If a spectator is going to get out of control I just stop performing and quit. I have no patience for that. I then asked her to dance where she prodded me to explain the trick (the first one).
I said to her "Well, normally I don’t reveal how my tricks are done…" and got her hopes up. I then continued "… and today will be no exception" thus crushing her hopes. She laughed and said "Ha, you suck!" and gave me a bit of a punch in the chest.
Oh yes, before that dance I said "If you come out to the floor with me, I’ll explain how I performed that effect." After the song ended, I was going to walk away but she asked me "So, how did you do it?"
"Oh, when I said earlier that I would explain it…" I began, "that was just a lie."
Well, fast forward a week and I asked her to dance again and we got out there and I noticed she was kind of playfully ignoring me. I figured it out real quick what was going on. I said "Are we still on that?" and she laughed. We both knew what I was referring to (she was pretending to be miffed that I didn’t explain the trick). Afterwards, I decided to go for a double-dip and perform The Invisible Deck.
Everything was going fine until I got close to the reveal. I revealed my Invisible Watch but I don’t think she noticed, even though I made it really obvious (I grab it with my other hand and tug on it, and look at it… apparently that was too subtle). I continued and asked her "What was the name of the card that you turned over in the deck?"
She wouldn’t tell me. She refused. She said to me "Give me the deck, I’ll take the cards and see if that was it." In other words, she was challenging me.
Now, recall that when a spectator challenges me and gets out of hand, I abandon the trick. She then tried to grab the cards out of my hand so she could check for herself. I wouldn’t let them go. When I do a trick, I’m in control of the cards and I never let a spectator gain control unless it’s part of the act. The whole point I’m trying to make here is that she was wasn’t playing along the way most people do. I’m a performer and if things start to deviate away from my plan, I abort it. I don’t perform for tough spectators. So, logic dictates I don’t perform in the future for her.
But yet… I see this as somewhat of a challenge. I learned from this experience. She started making all sorts of baseless accusations on how I did it. I neither confirmed nor denied anything (though I did think about lying). I’ll likely see her again and I started thinking to myself about what sorts of tricks I could do. Because if I did pull it off, I’d look like a superhero. I can’t do things where I get her to think of something and then have me handle the prop because she won’t let me do that; she’ll think I’m cheating (which I might be). So, I either have to do some serious sleight-of-hand where the prop is in her hands nearly the entire time or I have to do a prediction effect. I am leaning towards a prediction effect because it’ll be difficult to reconstruct. In fact, I have just the trick in mind because pulling it off would be freaking amazing.
I think she’s leaving in a few weeks anyhow so if it doesn’t work out… meh.
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