We have all talked about our worst performance experience , what has been your best?



After a show a young girl came up to me and said "I know how you did that trick!" (This is somthing I am sure we have all heard.)

Wanting to hear her idea on how I had done it (normally kids have some great ideas) I said "How "



She looked at me and said "You used magic didn’t you?"



To me this felt fantastic.



What are your best moments?

Mark,

You can't get any better than that!

cheers,

Peter Marucci

showtimecol@aol.com

Mark that's great man, that is what we all should strive for!

Nuff respect goin’ out to ya, Mark.

Excellent.



Not certainly one of my favourite experiences was when I performed Sylvain Mirouf’s Osmosis (a linking card routine using just two cards and no setup) in front of a group of about three of my best friends.

we were bored waiting for our fifth member to arrive before we could go off to see a movie, in the cafe where we were waiting there was a small stack of bridge-sized business cards.



I picked up two and started tearing away at them without a word, one of my friends started to watch. When the cards first linked together she cried, "Holy *@%£$!"

Needless to say this got everyone’s attention.



I went through the routine tearing various bits and pieces trying to free the two cards from each other without succeeding and without a word, eventually I reached my favourite part of the trick, when just the two ’frames’ of the cards are left linked.



I tore a gap in one of the card frames to free the other and then somehow managed to repair the tear so that the two card frames that had been linked previously were now whole again and separated, I tossed them on the table, there was a stunned silence in which (and if I was writing a script I couldn’t have had this turn out better)

our fifth member arrived.



"Hi guys," he said, we ready to go?

everyone was staring at the two business card frames on the table, in the pause one of my friends said, "you amaze me."



I love Paul Harris’ ideas and theories on ’The Moment of Astonishment’.

after this effect I suddenly knew what he was talking about.



This is one of the few times in magic when

it has all suddenly come together for me.



It is moments like this one that remind me why I started doing magic in the first place.





(by the way, I cannot recommend this effect highly enough, learn it, please.)



_________________

"All the world’s a cookie jar,

The people merely crumbs.

I happen to be one of the chocolate chips"

-Garfield

I had a similar experience with a young girl (5 or six, I still can never tell) I did a few tricks for her in the airport. She did one of these and then walked back to her mother and said,"Did you see that mommy? That man is magical." Better than a room full of applause.



_________________

Yakworld.



Home of the famous Floating Goat and a wife who thinks I’m an a**.

I was doing a corporate walk-about gig once where there was also a tarot reader doing a roaring trade. It got late. I’d done umpteen close-up sets, the party was winding down. The tarot reader had gone home, and there were one or two women walking around who were very disappointed that they hadn’t managed to have their cards read. One of them came over to me and asked if I could read her fortune, because the psychic had left. I had a tarot deck with me for a close-up routine. At the time, there wasn’t too much else to do so I thought what the heck, whipped out my tarot deck and improvised a reading for her. She was just the perfect subject for a reading, and it was a picnic in the park for me. She found so much meaning in the reading, and (making some allowance for her being slightly (alcoholized) she was knocked into next week by the ’accuracy’ of the reading (which was really nothing special at all). She also obviously found it very helpful in terms of boosting her confidence and believing in herself, and was just gushing with enthusiasm about how brilliant she’s found it. It was just a very nice moment to take someone from being ’disappointed’ to so elated and grateful, with just a quick and simple 10 minute reading.



_________________

http://www.ian-rowland.com. The most amazing cards in the world and the famous Levitating Cat.

My best experience happened some 10 years ago at a restaurant in a small town in Asturias, Spain. I was asked to work for a table of a dozen people who were all members of a local dance company. It was after midnight and a light mist was falling. I did a half hour set and everything worked perfectly. They laughed at all the laugh lines and were truly amazed at the climax of each effect. It was a night of magic that, up until now, has never duplicated itself. If it never does, that will be okay because I will forever have the memory of that night.

I was at a business Christmas party, table hopping. After dinner, and everyone had settled down, a man approached me and asked if I could come to his table, wanting to see some magic.

I arrived at the table and asked with a smile if anyone wanted to see some magic. They replied with an excited yes. I began my routine and immediatly, I saw how much they were soaking it in.

After doing card to wallet, I could tell by their expressions, that they thought I was some sort of wizard. A simple double lift, changing to the selected card, resulted in a literal scream from them.

After they realized that what I was doing was the impossible, they stopped trying to catch me in the act. In the middle of the routine, a gentleman reached over to me, hand outstretched, and said, "Can I shake your hand? This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen." I graciously did, and continued with the show. This is, to date, my most remembered and best performance ever.

I do not share this with you to boast of my skill, (which is not much) but to bring hope to the magicians who have felt like stopping magic. These experiences are why we started in the first place, and there will always be times when you feel that hope is lost, but I promise that if you continue, you will forget those bad times, and remember the good ones. Good luck to you all.



-Magic

Magic Juanson!

That is so cool! What a neat thing to experience! I especially like him wanting to shake your hand! Priceless!



You must be doing something right to achieve the response you received!



Congratulations!

I have posted this before concerning cold reading but here it is again "First I don’t claim to be an authority on this subject at all, I just wanted to share a recent experience.

Recently I had considered adding some cold reading to some of my bizzare presentations so I started to ask some more experienced individuals their opinions & read some very limited resources, finally I decided on Kneppers’s "completely cold" which I read several times over during the previous weeks.

Yesterday in my office, an employee came to me, to ask me, how much their horoscope matched their day, I told her what if I could do better & she said "yeah right, but what do you mean?" So, I started with a mental card force & based my reading on the card she selected. When I finished she was shaking & giddy she couldn’t understand how I could know so much & be so accurate. When I returned to my office I already had additional requests in my email for others who wanted readings.

I can honestly say I don’t ever remember seeing an effect of mine having that kind of impact on a spectator. It was totally awesome & it could be addictive so I want to continue to study & practice for the next level."

I was out last night at one of my restaurants, and a beautiful girl walked up to me, and asked me to do an effect I did for her months ago, in another restaurant.

She remembered me and the exact effect and told me it kept her awake most of that night.

Did I mention she was beautiful... ahhh, the power of magic!