Many years ago I was at the Magic Castle and pointed in the direction of a young man who was boasting about owning the Thurston show. We had quite the chat and so I invited him over to see some of the antique magic my mentor and I had collected over the years. Upon opening the garage doors he noticed some large orange crates marked BLACKSTONE which impressed him a bit, but then I started pointing out silly things like the Thurston Sawing, the Stretching and other such props he claimed to own. . .
The point is, magic is filled with braggarts and those with such low self-esteem that they must make things up when it comes to who they are and worse, how they want to be viewed by others . . . so much so that they actually start believing their own hype (it's quite easy to do, ask anyone that's tasted success how long it took them to wake up to the fact that they've lost it). I've met guys claiming they were behind effects I helped develop with various individuals over the years, the funniest being the clown that claimed he helped develop two or three well known pieces from Creative Illusions (including Shadow Vision and the Gemini Cage).
All we can do is smile and move on in that confronting them rarely accomplishes anything unless you're in the position to do as I did with the kid boasting ties to Thurston. Then again, I've found that forcing them to perform said effects is another interesting way of making them deal with reality at times, in that such characters frequently don't know the actual methods. For an example, the Thurston Sawing in Half has never used two girls (nor dummy parts or mirrors); the table is too small to hold that second lady.
(hehehe) I'll just leave you with that thought. . .
