Dress up your presentations!
For this, just take a trick you like (maybe one you perform, maybe one you haven't performed yet, doesn't really matter - though I daresay this will hit harder if it's something your hands have rehearsed endless times over) and give it a nice presentation. Write it out, describe it. Do as many as you want, with different effects, similar presentations, however. Just get the creative juices flowing! Follow whatever format or writing conventions you want. Better yet, film it!
Stigmata
The magician circles his guests, all seated at a dinner table. The lights are low. Candles flicker and add insignificant degrees to the drowsy heat of summer. Soft instrumentals play from another room, barely noticeable: odd textures and drums co-mingle with simple bass lines. The magus himself wears a thin, copper-colored cloak that drags the floor as he slowly paces the circumference of his audience.
As he steps behind each person, he suddenly reaches over, plucking a coin from the air mere inches from their eyes - a centuries old, tarnished, worn coin of unknown origin. Each coin is different, representative of the guests seated at the table.
Throughout the night, he's been oddly charming, the way Hannibal Lecter or Gomez Adams can be charming, and at the same time harbor an ominous truth about their character that they simply don't concern themselves with. An initial aura of unease soon gives way to entertained smiles and rich discussion about ghosts, the occult, philosophy, and similar esoteric topics. Now, his voice low, a little raspy, he makes his way to the empty chair at the circular table and allows the coins to slide from his hand into an old wooden bowl. They fall with multiple clinks.
He turns to the man to his left and invites him to open the decanter and pour the wine - a rich, red nectar.
As everyone's glass is filled, the magician pulls a coin from the bowl and offers it to its "owner", noting it as "payment for a thought." The woman accepts the coin in hand, squeezing it firmly but comfortably. As she starts to speak, the magician softly silences her, and instructs her to just concentrate on her hand. Soon, he says, she will feel The Warmth.
In a rhythm, the magician passes out coins slowly, and deliberately, stopping after every other coin, or every three coins, to turn back to whomever can feel The Warmth growing in their hand. The magician speaks with a grin, pronouncing the thoughts from several members of the group, dredging up memories of their lives past. He holds the last coin in his hand, and dangles it above the man's waiting hand - "Recall a loved one, a time of intense rapture. Remember a time spent with this person, and remember as much about them as you can. Their eye color, their hair. Their voice. Yes, especially the voice..." his own trails off into an unsettling rasp. He pulls the coin away and instead offers a small scrap of paper and a short pencil, instructing the man to write this name down. "Don't speak it, for that will dissolve the essence. There is a purity to thought - but write it down, to insure you lock on one specific person, one specific name."
The magician sips his wine.
Taking the folded paper back and trading it for a coin, he edges it closer and closer to the large roman candle in the center of the table. It touches the fire - and with a flash! it is gone. Dissolved. The magician instantly channels a letter: "R... Rrr..."
"Richard... no, no..."
Dipping two fingers in his wine glass, he traces it along his exposed wrist, letting the liquid beads run to the under of his arm and drip to the floor. He clasps his hands together and requests the name's owner to grip his wrist - to grip, and to remember.
"Remember everything about this person. Every last memory of her... it is a woman, isn't it?"
Slowly, he pulls the man's hand away to reveal the lingering stains of wine - they start to shift and change, move and contort, and form the scrawled letters "RA"
"Rachael... the wine was weak, but if you look close enough, you can see the rest of the name along the veins, down my arm..."
Sure enough, everyone can. Then, suddenly, in rapid fire, the magus begins calling out more memories, refined moments from each person's life. And with wonder they listen! He then asks them to slowly, slowly open their hands...
Their coins, bent. Warped. Impossible.
"Passage across the rivers of time. Fare for the toll."
And with that, the first clinks and shuffled sounds of dinner being escorted out fill the air.
For this, just take a trick you like (maybe one you perform, maybe one you haven't performed yet, doesn't really matter - though I daresay this will hit harder if it's something your hands have rehearsed endless times over) and give it a nice presentation. Write it out, describe it. Do as many as you want, with different effects, similar presentations, however. Just get the creative juices flowing! Follow whatever format or writing conventions you want. Better yet, film it!
Stigmata
The magician circles his guests, all seated at a dinner table. The lights are low. Candles flicker and add insignificant degrees to the drowsy heat of summer. Soft instrumentals play from another room, barely noticeable: odd textures and drums co-mingle with simple bass lines. The magus himself wears a thin, copper-colored cloak that drags the floor as he slowly paces the circumference of his audience.
As he steps behind each person, he suddenly reaches over, plucking a coin from the air mere inches from their eyes - a centuries old, tarnished, worn coin of unknown origin. Each coin is different, representative of the guests seated at the table.
Throughout the night, he's been oddly charming, the way Hannibal Lecter or Gomez Adams can be charming, and at the same time harbor an ominous truth about their character that they simply don't concern themselves with. An initial aura of unease soon gives way to entertained smiles and rich discussion about ghosts, the occult, philosophy, and similar esoteric topics. Now, his voice low, a little raspy, he makes his way to the empty chair at the circular table and allows the coins to slide from his hand into an old wooden bowl. They fall with multiple clinks.
He turns to the man to his left and invites him to open the decanter and pour the wine - a rich, red nectar.
As everyone's glass is filled, the magician pulls a coin from the bowl and offers it to its "owner", noting it as "payment for a thought." The woman accepts the coin in hand, squeezing it firmly but comfortably. As she starts to speak, the magician softly silences her, and instructs her to just concentrate on her hand. Soon, he says, she will feel The Warmth.
In a rhythm, the magician passes out coins slowly, and deliberately, stopping after every other coin, or every three coins, to turn back to whomever can feel The Warmth growing in their hand. The magician speaks with a grin, pronouncing the thoughts from several members of the group, dredging up memories of their lives past. He holds the last coin in his hand, and dangles it above the man's waiting hand - "Recall a loved one, a time of intense rapture. Remember a time spent with this person, and remember as much about them as you can. Their eye color, their hair. Their voice. Yes, especially the voice..." his own trails off into an unsettling rasp. He pulls the coin away and instead offers a small scrap of paper and a short pencil, instructing the man to write this name down. "Don't speak it, for that will dissolve the essence. There is a purity to thought - but write it down, to insure you lock on one specific person, one specific name."
The magician sips his wine.
Taking the folded paper back and trading it for a coin, he edges it closer and closer to the large roman candle in the center of the table. It touches the fire - and with a flash! it is gone. Dissolved. The magician instantly channels a letter: "R... Rrr..."
"Richard... no, no..."
Dipping two fingers in his wine glass, he traces it along his exposed wrist, letting the liquid beads run to the under of his arm and drip to the floor. He clasps his hands together and requests the name's owner to grip his wrist - to grip, and to remember.
"Remember everything about this person. Every last memory of her... it is a woman, isn't it?"
Slowly, he pulls the man's hand away to reveal the lingering stains of wine - they start to shift and change, move and contort, and form the scrawled letters "RA"
"Rachael... the wine was weak, but if you look close enough, you can see the rest of the name along the veins, down my arm..."
Sure enough, everyone can. Then, suddenly, in rapid fire, the magus begins calling out more memories, refined moments from each person's life. And with wonder they listen! He then asks them to slowly, slowly open their hands...
Their coins, bent. Warped. Impossible.
"Passage across the rivers of time. Fare for the toll."
And with that, the first clinks and shuffled sounds of dinner being escorted out fill the air.
