Good save...

[NinoIng]

In one of Roberto Giobbi’s penguin lectures he talks about getting to a point as a magician where you are unflappable, and this is the benefit of knowing various sleights. He gives the following example.

He was in a taxi one day and revealed himself to be a magician during a chat with the driver. The driver asked to see a card trick so he quickly presented something. Early on in the trick, he flashed a double lift and the driver called him on it. However instead of panicking, experience led him to do a quick top change and apparently prove the driver wrong. He apologised and carried on with the trick.

I had a similar experience the other day and his advice helped tremendously. I did a very sloppy double lift during a transpo trick and a spectator spotted something.

What he saw was a double lift and me giving a duplicate to the other spectator.

He started to walk round the back of the group towards me and I quickly cut the deck with a Charlier.

When he got there and asked to see the top cards I obliged. He said ‘ah never mind, sorry nothing to see here!’

Giobbi saved my ass (and encouraged me to work on my double lift again). What was most interesting was following the spectators thought pattern. I know what they saw, but they just know they saw ‘something’. Is enough to convince them that that particular ‘something’ didn’t happen and they seem happy to admit defeat.

Anyway, have any of you got particularly memorable ‘saves’ you’ve made to cover a mistake or a flash?

 

[Antonio Diavolo]

I've had a few times where a DL slid a bit and someone called it out so I used a KM move (I think that's what it's called) to show their card clean.

 

[Justin.Morris]

I think my personal favorite victory was a recovery after doing a color change to what I thought was the card. It wasn't. This was for the CEO of a very large oil company that hired me, so I really wanted it to go well, and here I had messed it up! I was surprised and asked what card they had thought of, as I looked in the deck and culled their card. I then told them that was impossible and handed them the deck to look through. I then said it was impossible because I keep that card in my shoe, and did a simple card to shoe. His reaction was brilliant.

However, I have three instances where disaster reigned, and I learned that valuable lesson:

First was when I did Gazzo's tossed out deck. Only one elastic. The second spectator fumbled the catch, dropping the deck and cards went - EVERYWHERE. If you know the method, you know why the nice people who immediately started helping me pick up the cards were not impressed when I got a new elastic and continued the trick...

Second was also with tossed out deck. (I stopped doing it shortly after this...) There was one woman standing at the end of the trick (which happens on occasion), and when I called out her card, she said no. I asked her card and she lied! She said a card that wasn't in my deck and had no similar cards. I thanked her, shrugged, and said that sometimes these things don't always work. Since then I started putting an invisible deck in a small clear box on the stage - just in case.

And the worst was when I was doing Interlace at a private party I was hired for. I made the ring vanish, claimed it was now tied to my shoelace! The gasps ensued. Then a pause. Then the man said "no it's not" I followed their gaze to my shoelaces and saw exactly what they were looking at: my shoe. With no ring. I glanced around on the floor - nothing. Then I gently checked and let's just say, it didn't make it from point A to B. Instead it was stuck and I had to manually make it go where I wanted. I was not clever enough at the time to roll with it. Instead I paused the show, fixed the situation and moved on to another effect. So embarrassing. Now I have a plan for if that happens again, but that only came from thinking it through after.