You're right, the goal of the performer is to envoke emotion, but other than it's immediate shock value why should spectators care that you can pull thread out of your eye or wipe x's under a coin? Why should they care? Why is levitating is the most highly requested/talked about feat of magic? It's because people automatically emotionally and fundamentally respond to that. Making money? Automatic emotional response. Reading a person's mind? Automatic emotional response. Do you see what I mean? People have dreamed of doing it. People have always wanted to do it. THIS is where everybody here is wrong...if you could throw dice into a glass of water and have fizzle away until it became a crayon, people no doubt would be shocked and amazed. But don't mistake that for ONE SECOND as true astonishment and emotional attachment. Ask them what you did a month later and they'll be clueless. I focus on performing MIRACLES for my audience. When you ask a spectator what they saw me do a month afterwards they'd say "He levitated!" or "He read my mind!" instead of "Well he had some card in a bag and then I picked a card, and then he did something and then all this stuff happened and anyway, in the end it became my card." Stop wasting time trying to turn little feats of nothingness into something decent and then brag about how it's all about performance and showmanship because you're right, but use those skills for something that ALREADY has power. Don't waste your gas on a crappy car.
"Ask them what you did a month later and they'll be clueless."
NO!! You are wrong! I started magic my freshman year in high school and I'm now a junior, and people are still asking me to do tricks that I did my freshman year!! After over 2 years,
THEY STILL REMEMBER!!!
If that hasn't happend to you and they forget what you did a month later, then that is
YOUR fault!!! Lee Asher quoted this one guy before, he said, "If a spectator doesn't say that you are the best magician they have ever seen, then you didn't do your job!" Meaning that if you aren't leaving some sort of memorible mark on them, then that problem lies within you.
I mean, sure people freak when someone levitates and of course it beats magicially putting a card into a bag BUT there is something called good and better. An example: Which is better? 200 million dollars or 900 billion dollars?? Well of course you would say the 900 billion, BUT 200 million is still a freaking a lot!!!
I have something to tell you, I have performed several effects such as Contol and Distortion and stigmata and other amazing effects, BUT to tell you the truth, none of those effects have gotten the reaction that I have gotton by simply putting a card in their hand and then changing while they hold it.
It's probably the easiest card trick you can think of, but still, a little effect can go a looong way!!! It doesn't matter
really what the trick is or how difficult it is, it's the psychological aspect that happens with your audience.