|
Magic Roadshow June 3rd, 2007 Issue# 72 Rick Carruth / editor (C) 2007 All rights reserved worldwide Street Magic's #1 free newsletter for magicians, street performers, restaurant workers, close-up artists, and mentalists, with subscribers in over seventy countries worldwide. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Hi All
Welcome to the latest edition of the Magic Roadshow. Hopefully, those of you who want to learn magic tricks, learn card tricks, and learn street magic and mentalism have hit the mother lode.. Yes, we are currently the #1 site in the world on Google for 'street magic'.. and nowhere to be found on Yahoo, after having been #1 there at times as well. That's what a sorry web host can do for you. If any of you guys should encounter down time next week, you'll know I'm in the midst of switching the StreetMagic. info site to 1&1 .. Here's a big WELCOME to all the new subscribers who have signed up since the last issue. I hope you find something truly useful to both you and your magic in every issue. Comments, complaints, rants and raves.. EMAIL ME I sometimes come up short when it comes to sharing my emails from other readers with you.. Here's a perfect example of an email I read, pondered, and filed away in my personal files... until now.. ---------- Hey Rick, Great job man!!! Honestly!! Everything about your on-line mag is fantastic!! Now for those "Doom Sayer" critiques that talk about other magicians... we tend to forget that the "Art of Magic" isn't about Magic...but about the "Art of Entertainment". We hear people complain about David Blaine doing "Several Takes" just to get the correct response. We hear about Criss Angel using "Several Techniques" to get a certain response. We hear about Derren Brown using "Different Methods" to get the desired response. We heard the same things about David Copperfield back in the 80's. Thurston brought people up on the stage to see his/Kellar's levitation and told them not to reveal a "Expletive Deleted" thing or else! It all Entertainment...The way's justifies the means!! I.E....if the audience is entertained, and no one is hurt, insulted or whatever...IT'S A GOOD THING!! This is the way that The Magic of Kirtley does his show!! Thanx Rick!!! Keep up the good work!! Kevin D. Kirtley ------------ I happen to know that Kevin wouldn't mind my sharing his email with thousands of readers from the far corners of the globe.. If you write, and don't mind sharing your thoughts, let me know.. and you might see your thoughts in print as well... I've worked out of state the past two weeks, and will be out of state again this coming week. So.. if I'm a little slow responding to your emails, don't lose faith in me.. --------------- In This Issue --------------- * Finding Your Signature Stories - John Kinde's excellent advice for Performers * Storytelling - Truth and Embellishment - John Kinde's follow-up on Signature Stories * Magic in Japan - Video compilation of Japan's master performers * Psychic ESP Test - Not your average test.. * The Magician Directory - Great resource for magician's * Throw a Card Thru a Window - Video tutorial * To Blue or not to Blue - Card prediction effect * Readers Squidoo Sites - Create your own * Erdnase 'Expert at the Card Table' - download * Tear a Phone Book In Half - Video instructions _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Signature Stories.. I always keep one eye focused on John Kinde's Humor Power Tips newsletter. John writes primarily for public speakers (and those who must speak in public), but many of his articles deal with professionalism and speaking techniques that are as critical for magicians as for public speakers. Pay close attention to what John has to say about developing your 'signature story'. Many great magicians have one.. and they do so for a reason. Many of you guys are looking for those little 'tips' that will help separate you from the pack.. those techniques that transform you from a 'guy doing tricks' to a true 'performer'.. Michael Finney tells of his robbery experience and of being taken hostage. Steven Bargatze tells of heartbreaking experiences that occured to him when he was young, and helped mold him into one of the funniest magicians in the world. Read on, and keep in mind that one of the most important steps in achieving success is having the ability to duplicate what you see successful performers doing.. It's important you have the ability to develop your own 'style', but do so based on solid principles displayed by the top performers. The 'second part' of this story is the perfect follow-up to 'Finding Your Signature Story'. It was just published on John's Humor Power blog at: http://www.humorpower.com/blog/2007/05/storytelling-truth-and-embellishment ----------------------- Finding Your Signature Story John Kinde Professional speakers (and magicians) who are at the top of their game are often known for their "signature stories." These are original, compelling stories on which reputations are built. Signature stories are usually funny. Often they are VERY funny. But in spite of the power of humor, a signature story of the highest level must have more than just funny lines. And they need more than a significant message. The art of improv comedy teaches us that good scene work is centered around characters, relationships and objectives. So it is with great stories in speaking. In a great story the message is built around drama, challenges or obstacles, relationships, strong characters. A story which is relatively simple and predictable is less likely to strike it rich as a signature story. And a story which belongs to someone else will never make YOU famous. You want to work for the original and compelling stories which have substantial real life drama. A bad relationship turned into a good relationship. A life-and-death situation survived. A dramatic or embarrassing situation coped with. A story with a strong colorful character which teaches a great life lesson. Here is a story which I really like. It's a true life experience. But it lacks nearly all the critical elements of a GREAT story. So I rarely use it: I was waiting at a red traffic light and my mind was wandering. The car to my left started to go, so I automatically figured the light was green and I started to go. Then I looked up and saw the light was still red. The car next to me was turning left on a green arrow. So I slammed on my brakes. Unfortunately, the car behind me, seeing that I was going, started to go. And the driver, not expecting me to stop suddenly, crashed into the back of my car. A pair of assumptions caused an accident. I assumed that the person on my left was going the same place I was...and he wasn't. My assumption was wrong. The driver behind me assumed that I knew what I was doing...I didn't. He was wrong. We often make assumptions in life that lead us down the wrong path. We assume that what is right for someone else is right for us, when it may not be. And we assume that someone else knows what they're doing or possesses the truth, and sometimes they don't. We need to be awake and clear thinking in our choices and judgments or life will teach us hard lessons. A good story. Good lessons. The lessons could probably be expressed in a hundred different ways. But it's not a great story. There is little humor. There is no drama. There are no colorful characters. There are no substantial relationship situations. There are no challenges or obstacles. It's a simple story and some may say it's predictable. But finding a great signature story is easier said than done. It may take years of searching and then experimenting from the platform until the right story clicks for you. My recommendation is that you focus on your life's experiences and primarily look for situations which have obstacles to overcome, relationship problems, and lessons learned. Your story doesn't need to be as significant as surviving a hostage situation or a plane crash. Life's everyday problems with interpersonal relationships can be just as dramatic. You just need to tune in to your experiences so that you can capture the magical story and put it into your speech. -------------------- Storytelling - Truth and Embellishment John Kinde When telling a story, is it OK to stretch the truth? When is it OK to not tell the truth? In the humor business, the term embellishment is often used to describe the process of dressing up a personal story with little bits of exaggeration and describing things which may not have happened exactly as you say. Embellishment is a legitimate and widely employed technique used to punch up stories to make them funnier. It’s actually a subject I haven’t given much thought to until a comment came from a reader last week. I looked at all the personal stories I tell and can’t find a part in any of the stories where I don’t tell it exactly as it happened. I’m sure I’ve used embellishment at some point. I just can’t put my finger on an example of when I’ve used the technique. Yet, I think it’s perfectly OK to use embellishment and probably should explore the possibilities of using it a bit in my story-telling. Later in this article, I’ll share a couple of embellishments I’m thinking of adding to my presentation. When does the not-telling-the-truth cross the line? A glaring example would be telling someone else’s story as your own. This should be an obvious no-no and goes far beyond anything intended as embellishment. In the speaking business, someone’s story is their property. Using their story as your own is nothing short of theft and doesn’t even fit in the category of embellishment. Using their story and giving them credit, while on the surface seems acceptable, is also frowned upon. Audiences deserve to hear the story from the originator. It’s not fair to the creator of the story to share his or her story with an audience, and discover that they’ve heard it from another speaker first! And it rightly brands you as a speaker who isn’t creative enough to come up with your own material. What about taking a common-domain joke and creating a story around it as though it happened to you. You aren’t stealing some else’s story. Again, this technique is really not really embellishment and is not a good idea for two reasons. First, it’s not creative and the quality of the story and the humor will almost always have less impact than original and compelling true-life stories of your own. Second, the audience has probably already heard the generic joke and will realize that this "personal story" you are telling is nothing but a common joke that everybody knows. It destroys your credibility. Even if the rest of the stories in your speech are original and true, the audience will suspect that you just made them up too. An embellishment which builds false credentials is something that crosses the line. Saying you have a PhD when you don’t, just because it makes the story funnier, is not likely a good thing. To say you’ve met the President when you haven’t most likely crosses the line. It’s worse than name-dropping. To say you’ve had cancer when you haven’t may add punch to a cancer story, but crosses the line. To say you earned a million and then lost it, if it’s not true, crosses the line. To imply that you were next to the twin towers when they fell, if you were actually ten miles away, crosses the line. If your embellishment tries to make you a hero, it’s probably not a good thing from an integrity standpoint. Comic license is the belief that it’s OK to change, or embellish, some of the small details of a story. For example, let’s say you slipped on a banana peel and three people actually saw you fall. The story may actually be funnier to say that 50 or 100 people saw you fall. Why? The comedy device at work here is embarrassment and tension. A larger watching-audience increases that embarrassment and tension. Therefore the humor is stronger with the embellishment of the size of the audience that witnessed your mishap. Is it a lie? Well yes, if you say 100 people saw you fall and it was really only three. But so what? If done solely for the sake of the humor, what harm? Let’s say you walked out of a restroom and had one sheet of toilet paper stuck to the heel of your shoe. Another embarrassing moment. Would it be funnier if a ten-foot trail of toilet paper was following you, stuck to your shoe. Yes! And again, the principle of comic license comes into play and says that this type of embellishment is a good thing. The "Not Really" technique. One of the stories I share from the platform is about a retired Army Colonel who served in WWII. Think Patton. As a result of this article, I’m thinking of trying this line. "Several things about him reminded me of General Patton. His gruff voice. His stature. The green helmet with four stars he was wearing. OK…so he wasn’t wearing a helmet. But you get the picture." This technique allows you to deviate from the truth, get the laugh, and then admit that you were just kidding. The convenience factor. Living in Las Vegas, I often open a talk with a welcome-to-Las-Vegas segment. I’m preparing to add two photographs to the presentation to show people the barren desert landscape around Las Vegas. "Here a picture of what Las Vegas looks like without the buildings. No, wait a minute (switch slide). THIS is Las Vegas. (back to first slide) This is Mars. (switching back and forth between two slides) Vegas. Mars." Initially I started searching for Mars Rover photos to use when comparing the Martian landscape to our local desert. Both have a similar red tint to the soil. Then I decided that I could just take two different photos from the Las Vegas desert and say one of them was a photo of Mars. This is acceptable embellishment in my opinion. There ARE real photos of the Martian landscape and everyone knows that. It’s believable that a photo which I took COULD be a photo from the Mars Rover. And it gives me better photos with matching lighting and color balance. I’m not claiming that I was a research scientist for NASA. It’s just a quick visual joke with a bit of comic license thrown in. Using my own photo was convenient. It made the point. And it was not a big lie that was designed to manipulate or cheat the audience. Good embellishment is normally a minor tweak in your story to make something sound funnier, look funnier, make it more memorable. It’s often related to accenting a punchline or magnifying a humor trigger and not connected to misleading the audience on substantial facts or implying that an experience happened to you, when in fact it never did. Explore the possibilities of adding a touch of embellishment to your stories to make them more memorable and to take the drama and humor to the next level. Copyright 2007 by John Kinde If you aren't subscribed to John Kinde's Humor Power Tips.. shame on you.. There IS something you can do about it. Go to http://www.humorpower.com and sign up. If you truly want to be a professional entertainer, John's article, advice,and resources WILL help you achieve your goals. Like the Magic Roadshow, John will NOT spam you. It's one of those great deals that produces dividends over and over - for free.. ======================== Magic in Japan - Performance video This is from Vinny Marini, the Godfather of magic. I stoled it from... uh, borrowed it from Jim Canaday of the Magic Portal. It is an 11 minute video of closeup magic performed by several of the top performers in Japan. Don't think for one minute that the US or the UK have a corner on the creativity market.. These guys know what they're doing.. You certainly don't need to understand Japanese to appreciate these effects.. http://www.veoh.com/videos/v360760ZmbGsfmX ======================== Disjointed.. Some people are born Freaks Others are Trained... You MUST see the video.. http://www.ellusionist.com/cart/?aid=1367 ======================== Psychic ESP test... Yes, psychic test online are a dime a dozen. But.. good ones are rare, and ours is a good one.. I promise you, you'll have to watch this one over and over to detect anything resembling a pattern, and you probably won't find a pattern anyway... Side note - you MAY need a calculator to help you with this one, depending on how strong your math skills are.. Bookmark this one and show it to your friends.. http://www.streetmagic.info/ESP.html ======================== The Magician Directory I have a personal message from David Bonsall, webmaster at The Magician Directory. Before you read it let me point something out to you.. If you are a performer, and are not performing to your potential, then you really should take the time to list yourself on David's website. One day, when your potential customers search for 'magicians', and they are led to David's site, featuring the names of all your competitors, you're going to be the loser... Dear fellow Magicians, I'm the creator and webmaster of The Magician Directory. It's a worldwide guide and directory of magicians. This is a non-profit website that I make no money out of whatsoever. I run it as a hobby and even pay to advertise at the moment out of my own pocket until it becomes better known. It's a fairly new site so only has about 100 magicians at the moment, but hopefully it will become the largest definitive resource of magicians in the world. So may I please ask you to donate a few minutes of your time to register your details on the site in the area of your choice? It is absolutely free and all I ask is that if you would like to support the site and make it more popular, then add a link back to it from your website if you have one. Eventually this will become compulsive, but as it's still fairly new, you do not have to do this. If you do not have the time or resources to do this, then I will gladly enter your details for you taking the information and a picture from your website with your permission, just email back saying it's OK to do. (I do not wish to infringe on anyone's copyrighted material). Entering your information on the site will help promote both you and your website for the cost of just a few minutes. Many thanks and kind regards David info@magician-directory.com http://www.magician-directory.com ================================== Throw a Card Through a Window This video explains the classic 'card thru window' effect. This is one of several different ways I've seen this trick performed. Although this is, in general, a difficult effect to set up, as in 'not impromptu', the overall reaction to this effect is wonderful for the average, hard working street magician.. http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-throw-a-card-through-a-window ================================== Loops Loops are hot.. Although not new, they are going through a resurgence of sorts, thanks to the concentrated effort of three of magic's most inventive minds. I've had the pleasure of sitting in on a loops 'workshop' with one of the three, and some of the feats possible with these little gems are amazing. It's easy to loop a couple around your wrist and have them available whenever needed.. I highly encourage you to visit this web page and watch three different approaches to magic with the same tool.. http://www.301url.com/loops1 ================================= To Blue or Not to Blue - Card Prediction Effect I watched as Jason Randal performed on the Late Late Show the other night. I like Jason. He's not necessarly the slickest close up artist on the west coast, but he IS entertaining. One of the great features of his appearances on late night shows is watching the audiences reaction to his effects. If you are a serious magician, you can figure out most of the effects Jason performs, and have a good indication of the response you MIGHT get if you performed the same effect. (Side note: Jason doesn't perform these effects for YOUR benefit. So, it's not necessary for his effects to fool fellow magicians..) Here's a similar version of one of the effects he performed, but with an added sleight to help you develop your nerve... Take a deck of red backed bicycle cards and put a blue backed card in the deck.. near the bottom. Put the red backed duplicate to this card on top of the face down deck. Show the face of the cards to the spectator and quickly assure them that all the cards are different. Holding the deck face down in the left hand, riffle the left edge of the deck with the thumb and ask the spectator to stop you anywhere. When they say 'stop', hold this position with the thumb as you bring your right hand over to apparently take the top half of the deck away.. Make sure you're holding the deck in the left palm with the left middle and ring finger under and around the deck, touching the top card of the deck. Now, lift the entire top section of the deck, above the cut, off the deck with the right hand and show the bottom card of that top portion and say " you stopped me just past the ___ of ___ .. As you lift the top portion of the deck, put a little pressure on the top card with your LEFT middle and ring finger so the top card is dragged off the top and onto the top of the bottom half of the deck. Perform this motion quickly and the speed will conceal your move.. Offer the top card of the bottom half to the spectator, reminding them that this is where they stopped you. Give them the card and let them see the value as you rejoin the top and bottom sections into a full deck. Now, separate the deck and ask the spectator to return the card to the top of the bottom half. Catch a pinkie break and bring the chosen card to the top. This is the original top card, the card you slid off the top of the deck, the card that is a duplicate of the blue backed card. Now, this card is back on top and the blue backed card is somewhere in the deck, it's exact location unimportant.. This is the part that gives many performers butterflies.. Palm the top card. There are several different ways to palm a card, one of which is explained in my card tricks section at StreetMagic. info. Palming in this case shouldn't be too hard, because as soon as you palm the card, do two things: One.. give the deck to the spectator and put it in their hand, face up. Their focus will be on the deck, not on your other hand. And two.. reach for your pocket, any pocket, with the palmed card, slipping your hand into the pocket, dishing the card, and coming out with a note/card/envelope with a prediction. Ask the spectator to look through the face up cards and find their selected card, remove it, and lay it face up on the table. It's a good idea to use a spectator who looks like they can follow simple directions and not try to trip you up. Once done, give the spectator your prediction, which is a paper/card/envelope with, " Somehow I knew you would pick the ONLY card with a blue back".. written on it, and ask them to read it aloud. While they are reading it, take the deck and ribbon spread it face down, showing all the red backs.. Of course, the only card in the deck that matched the one they selected was the duplicate blue backed card. The other red backed duplicate is in your pocket. As they turn their card over they will be surprised to find that it is indeed the only blue backed card in a red backed deck.. R.Carruth ================== Readers Squidoo sites.. Here are three sites created by Roadshow readers and a couple of my own. If you haven't created a Squidoo site of your own.. what's wrong with you? Hey.. they're free. Create a profile of yourself, list your location and that you're a magician, plus your contact information, and you may receive a call one day from someone looking for a magician.. Maybe.. All it takes is for the search engines to pick it up and index your site.. Although you can monetize your site, don't expect to make much, unless your site goes 'viral' and spreads across the web, for whatever reason.. Once created.. send me your website address and I'll publish it in the Roadshow to help the search engines find you, not to mention other readers.. http://www.squidoo.com/donmagic/ http://www.squidoo.com/korath/ http://www.squidoo.com/magicalflacoj/ http://www.squidoo.com/street-magic/ http://www.squidoo.com/mentalmagic/ ================== Erdnase 'Expert at the Card Table'.. Free Download Don't leave without picking up your copy of one of magic's all-time classic books (ebook, in this case). If you have a problem downloading, email me at the email address below and I'll send it to you in an email.. http://www.301url.com/erdnase Enjoy... ================== Tear a Phone Book In Half.. Can you tear a phone book in half? Of course you can.. with the proper instructions. There's a technique that pro's use that makes tearing a phone book into possible for even those who don't have super-human strength.. I'm not going to guarantee you this works, but you can try it for yourself and let me know. Hey, if Criss Angel can do it... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaRpg5Tlemk ================== Thanks for being a friend of the Magic Roadshow! I'll see you in two weeks.. Questions, comments, rants or raves... EMAIL ME ----------------- Remember to visit some of my other sites at: http://www.StreetMagic.info http://www.MagicRoadshow.com http://www.Mentalists.info http://www.StreetMagicSecrets.info http://www.StreetMagic.info/blogger.html ----------------------- May my next issue find you well .. Rick Carruth / editor ============================= |
