theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards

WH 2008 Holiday Giveaway

I always enjoy sharing a few stories. I thought I'd share the one I e-mailed Wayne. Hope you all enjoy it.

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Hey Wayne,

First off, I'd like to admit that I'm a fan of your work and contributions to magic. I figured I'd take your holiday giveaway as an opportunity to come about and introduce myself. My name's Romeo, and I'm 25 years old. I've honestly dabbled in magic all my life with a particular emphasis in close-up material. Although I have a wide array of books in my library and even performed a few professional gigs, I never really took magic seriously until I performed for a group of servicemen after a year-long deployment in Iraq. I'll share the details on that later.

Like most, I was introduced to magic at a young age. In elementary school, a teacher slammed a salt-shaker through a desktop and unintentionally created a monster. My curiosity and enthusiasm left me spending hours in the public library reading basic beginner books authored by the likes of Bill Severn, Bob Longe and Mark Wilson. My parents, impressed with my determination to perform simple tricks, encouraged my habit in reading and developing my creativity. They bought me Royal Road to Card Magic. For a young kid, it was too demanding of a read so I abandoned magic for a while, fully satisfied with the few card tricks and coin tricks I'd learned so far.

A few years later during a trip to New York, I saw a street magician performing for tips in a subway terminal. I never learned his name, but I distinctly remember him tranforming a deck of cards into a solid block. In attempt to search how it was done, I referred back to Royal Road and learned the basics of card handling in great detail. I visited my local magic shop again and was introduced to David Harkey's Ah-Ha. That small book was a definitive turning point in my experience to learning magic. I learned how to transform a deck of cards into a solid rock along with other offbeat plots in all realms of close-up. After studying Harkey, I was introduced to Paul Harris' work where I learned of his more streamlined Solid Deception along with other very personal effects like they Anything Deck and Counterfeit Spectator. The magic of these two gentlemen opened my eyes to an entirely new and different realm of creativity. I was also eager to learn and read as much as I could-- I added a variety of books to my library to include Hollingworth, Fisher, Ortiz, Kaminskas, Kaufman... and although my library expanded immensely, few of the books I owned compared to the wonder I felt in studying David Harkey and Paul Harris' material.

After using magic to make a humble living throughout college, I gave up on it again in search of something more stable and fulfilling. Despite having a college education in mass media, I held a variety of dead-end jobs ranging from working as a public-access television production assistant to a freelance newspaper photographer. I didn't acknowledge how important magic was in my life until I covered a story about a group of Army Soldiers coming home from Iraq after a long year abroad.

I was trying to take heartwarming pictures of fathers being reunited with their families, but the experience wasn't nearly as pleasant as I imagined it would be. In fact, the atmosphere actually felt tense and rigid. The majority of the kids present at the park appeared very shy and weary of their fathers returning home. It was kind of sad. I encountered a little boy on a swingset with his family in the distance watching him. His father was an infantryman who'd been on several deployments already, and it was evident that his commitment to serving the country took a toll on his personal family life. This kid didn't seem to have much of a relationship or attachment with his father, so he just kept to himself through the festivities of the party. I offered to do some magic just to lighten the mood.

I didn't have any usual props, so I ended up performing a lot of impromptu magic using pebbles and leaves and whatever I could get my hands on in the immediate area. I made an impression on the little boy-- the wonder that Paul Harris speaks so fondly of. The boy immediately went to his dad to bring him over to watch what I could do. The soldier sat on a bench with his wife and his son sat comfortably on his lap. I performed some basic ring manipulations ending with Harkey's Goldenfinger penetration, where a borrowed ring visually passes through my finger. The soldier seemed to enjoy it all a lot. I followed with some other simple tricks, including the amusing arm effect that gets everyone involved with their hands stuck in a crossed position in front of them. I decided to end the entire experience with the Balducci Levitation. The entire family was in the right position and the lighting of the location was perfect. Although the effect is admittedly nothing spectacular by today's standards, it wasn't improtant. What was important was the reaction it created. After landing back to the grass, all I heard behind me was a blend of laughter shared by father and son. The mother applauded. It was a small, intimate performance with very simple magic. Not many people saw it and not many magicians would probably give the magic the time of day. But for me-- personally--it really felt like I brought people closer together. It was cool.

I decided to do magic full-time again and volunteer my work at places that I felt needed it: hospitals, churches, shelters. I'm honestly really happy with what I'm doing, and I can only attribute my satisfaction to that one performance. I'm constantly searching for new ways to make magic mean something more and resemble the impact it had that day.

*****

So that's a little bit more about who I am and how I got involved in magic. I'm actually interested in knowing more about some of the members here. Anyone else care to share their background and stories?

RS.

 
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Hey Romeo, thanks for sharing. My story seems slightly boring compared to that but I'll post anyway. Here goes.

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Argh! I didn't realize that today was the deadline. Anyway, here goes...
My name is Adam and I like in the oh so sunny *cough cough* town of Kendal, UK. I'm 14 and have been doing magic for between one and two years. This whole time, I have focused on cards. At the moment, I am trying to expand, to find something new for my routine. I don't really want coins (coins and I have reached a mutual agreement when it comes to magic) - in fact I want something original. Something like toothbrush magic. I'm still tossing ideas around.

As I have said, I am pretty much full time card guy. I have tried some mentalism before but it just doesn't quite cut it for me. I feel a lot more at home with cards. My favourite all time trick would have to be Chris Kenner's Sybil the Trick though; it's cards with a touch of mentalism.

The only material I own from the list you gave is Control. Sadly, I've never really been in a position to use it or found it really fitted with my routine but I'm still waiting for the oppertunity to present itsself...

A story about me and magic? Well one of my favourite things to do with magic is to just Jazz. Completely improvise. I think that most of my best 'miracles' have probably come from Jazzing; somebody comes up with something that they think is impossible on the spot so you couldn't have prepared for it. Well anyway, I was walking along with a friend of mine from school. She's been in my class for the last two years now. So we were walking along and chatting. I turned to her and asked (in typical Adamesque fashion) 'and how are you today, Miss Harrison.' She looked at me like I was really scary and cried 'how do you know my second name!?!?!?' I reminded her that she'd been n my class for two years but she still wasn't convinced; aparrently 'nobody knows her name'. I told her that it was all part of being a magician. She looked at me, smiled an evil smile and said 'bet you can't guess my middle name.'

I was stumped here. No idea what it was. But I acted on a whim, turned around with a scary face on and said 'Of course I can, Charlotte Elizabeth Harrison.' Big guess. Payed off. Her face slowly lost the smile and went to an expression of astonishment. It was amazing. One of the best guesses ever =)

Anyway that's all from me, have a great Christmas.
Adam B

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Hope you guys liked it. Anyone else going to post a story?
 
well here's the story i sent wayne:


Ok now for the story. I once did an effect at school where I wrote “Three of Hearts” on a blank card and stuck it in the deck. I forced the 3H on them and then double lifted to show a blank card, I put the blank card in the box and let them hold it. I snapped my fingers and told them to take the card out and there it was, “Three of Hearts”. This got huge reactions throughout the day as I performed for different groups. During one particular performance, there was a huge heckler who claimed to be able to “see through” anything. I ignored him and did the trick as usual. At the end, the heckler shouted this out to everyone: “Jeez, it’s so easy. All he does is cut a hole in the box, so he can reach his hand in with a marker and write your card’s name really fast.” And he request the box be examined. I was playing along cuz I was a good sport and acted nervous as I handed the box and cards out. No one found anything wrong with the box or cards, but the heckler kept going on about how I “taped the hole” and “used a see-through marker”. He was my friends though, and about a month later, I decided to show him how it was really done. He felt like the biggest idiot in the world.
 
If you'd like to read mine...

Hey Wayne,

As a kid I had always been intrigued in magic, to be able to create that sense of astonishment and wonder in an audience would bring me so much joy. Now, at 17 (18 in one week), magic intrigues me more than ever. I really started off in magic as a parlor/stage performer, I loved the big crowds and I loved doing magic on that level. But as time moved on I lost the interest of the stage and really preferred the intimate setting of close up magic. Being able to connect with the audience was what dragged me into the world of close up.

I've never really had great self esteem, and performing on the stage really helped me cross that barrier. I was able to become someone else on the stage and I was able to face my fears of making a fool out of myself. Those performance really made me feel great about myself. Once I graduated from High School I was happier than ever. But the summer of my graduation I was diagnosed with Diabetes, now that brought my self esteem right back down to its starting point. I don't really know why but that's what happened. So going into CEGEP (Quebec college) I was very anti social and had a lower self esteem than ever. But in that tough time I turned to magic and I worked on it and worked on it. I used it, once again, to get passed my self esteem issues. This led up to a day of performing like no other. In my video production class I was asked by my group if I would like to perform magic for our final video project. I hesitantly accepted as I had not performed in over 4 months. The day for the shoot loomed over me and I began to get very nervous.

The day of the performance walking through the halls of my college the cameramen didn't realize what was going on in my head. I had never felt that nervous in my life. I couldn't turn back though. I had a small, simple routine set out and I was ready to go. It's really hard to explain what I went through during the performance so hopefully the preceding video will help. Like when I was younger, I became a new person and I was able to interact with my audience and not feel self-conscious. My nervousness went away and I gave the best performance I could. I am ever so lucky that I have it caught on tape.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J9ZHX64yxg

While it's not the best performance I am happy that it got me over my fears.

Today, magic is still a great hobby of mine. I am now studying filmmaking at College and am practicing magic more than ever. As a filmmaker I feel magic helped me tremendously with my creativity. Magic is a highly creative art and I find that it has expanded my mind as a filmmaker. If interested, here is one my most recent short films:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-4URtvbvHY

I haven't been able to afford much magic since I started magic. But what I could afford I practiced to no end. Some books I've read include 13 Steps to Mentalism, Maximum Entertainment, Magic and Showmanship, Constant Fooling, and et cetera. I started magic in the "DVD" era and therefore have more DVD's than books. Some of those include Sinful, Miracle for Mortals, Ghost Bills, Impervious, Panic, and etc. :)

Thanks for reading Wayne, it's very nice of you to read everyone's personal stories. It means a lot.

Regards,

--
Mitchell Stafiej
www.MagicForDarfur.org
 
here's my story.

Hey wayne. I'm 17, and have no books currently but I do, however, plan on taking out Maximum entertainment from my 'local' magic club's library this month and here is my story.


When I was 13 I was in depression with some not too happy thoughts. I had gone to counciling but it wan;t helping. I remembered when I was ten, I did a little magic show in front of 100+ people at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting (I wasn't an alcoholic. don;t worry :P) and I decided to get back into magic when I was happy. So, essentially, you can say that magic saved my life. I watched some David Blaine videos and I was hooked. Ever since then I've been growing into a close-up magic performer. I do mainly cards, but am obviously branching out. I perform regularly at school and have gone street performing before, and I plan to again this summer. I am moving away in september to take a digital Filmaking course and I plan on using magic as my job to get me through college.
it's not the best. but I like it. just short, not going into too many details. wnough to get the poiunt across, but not enough to have a 'pitty me! let me win!!' theme.
 
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