Consider the audience participation in Doc Eason's Bill to Lemon or Pop Haydn's Teleportation Device: there are sometimes moments of direct audience verification and sometimes indirect, subtle examination. Sometimes the verification comes through zen-like creation of false assumption. However, in all its forms, this empirical element is a core part of magic. Another classic example is David Copperfield's flying when audience members came on stage and one was asked to beat on the plexiglass box.

I tend to agree that having the audience examine props afterwards could be done in an entertaining way, but I've never seen it done in a way that makes me think it's part of the act. As someone mentioned, "everything can be examined" is probably more of a marketing ploy than anything else.

On the other hand, giving away a prop (like a deck of cards), could totally jive with the performer's character and bring him a little closer to the audience. Many years ago, I used to do the cut & restored rope, and it was interesting. It was sort of in the middle of my cards-and-doves act, and I was up there in white tie and tails. So I cut the rope, tied it, passed the knot over a candle, and it burst into flames before falling off the rope. Applause. Then I smiled, walked right through the fourth wall, and either handed the rope to an audience member or tossed it into the audience. The response was interesting: generally they stopped clapping for a moment to look at the person who got the rope (and his or her reaction), and then started clapping again. It all took maybe fifteen seconds, but it created a tiny little bit of interest in me and I think it made them like me a bit more that if I were just standing up there doing miracles at them.

I have seen Pop do it, I think it was......he makes a laugh of it by whistling, or something like that, while they look at the thing.

I always have the rope examined before the Mongolian Pop-Knot Routine. Now, while it is being examined, I pull a Dove ice-cream bar out of my pocket, take a bite and watch the spectator until he is done, then I put the ice cream back in my coat pocket and take the rope back. It plays really well.

Yes that was it.

I've never felt the need to hand anything out to be examined, I'm not in the fooling anyone business. With the stories I wrap around the effects handing anything out before or after doesn't fit my show or style.

However they are many ways to skin a cat, it would be a challenge to fill the dead time while the inspection goes on

Ono notable exception, when performing Metamorphosis someone comes up to inspect the box and locks, they also help shackle and lock me in.

Love the Dove bar bit

Yes, of course. From the 21 cent trick done under a business card (Curtis Kam has something similar in his lecture) to tricks where an item vanishes from one place to appear in another - routines that are designed so the rest of the audience gets to enjoy both the magic itself and the reactions of those who discover that the magic happened.

Does seeing a child lift the coattails of a magician count?

I'll re-post a section of a post I made on another thread called "Magicians Guilt" which I think applies here on the whole Examination issue:

"The other half of the equation is the congruency of the trick itself. This has been my main issue with mathematical based card tricks that have unusual processes like down under shuffles, or dealing of cards in odd shaped patterns which only suit as bread crumbs for suspicious minds to follow. As I said in my presentation How-to guide where point out this problem (the 21 card trick in that example) I try to use presentation to bring justification for such things if possible if it’s a required part of the trick, but if given the choice would simply select something else that would achieve the same but with less unwanted attention. A non-mathematical effect I had the same issue with was “Hoodwink” by Ben Harris. Hoodwink was Ben’s contribution to the torn and restored card genre during the height of the genres popularity. Its selling point was, it was easy to do, wasn’t the whole quarter by quarter restoration and used only one single card and no extra pieces. This all came at a trade-off of course and that was that the card couldn’t be examined after the restoration.

To be fair Ben’s torn and restored card wasn’t the first to have examinable issues as a trade-off for other attributes, but it was this fundamental issue I disliked in his effect and others like it. My reasoning for this was simple, I fundamentally believe that magic effects of given types elicit a natural response from our spectators. For example, if I made a coin vanish the inevitable response would be “where did it go?”, or if I made it magically appear “where did it come from?” and for a torn and restored card in this case “can I look at the card?” Of course it’s hard to say with certainty that this response would be the one given 100% of the time, but it would be my estimate that these situations would happen more often than not and in my case after performing Hoodwink for a while it proved to be the case.

Having a method that works against the synopsis of the effect and the natural response it creates in people while leaving you in an untenable position of having to go into damage control because your dirty seemed to me like running a full marathon then told by a race official that I was not allowed to cross the finish line. Effects of this type in my view don’t help magicians when battling the “I know how it’s done” mentality but in fact inflame the situation by arousing further suspicion by going into damage control against something that comes naturally during the course of the effect.

So to draw a point on what I’ve said, I would say choose effects that are congruent to their outcome, not ones that work against it. As a supplementary note I would encourage people read my thoughts on presentation and its practical applications in my How-To Guide.

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......forum=41

Anyway, those are my thoughts on how we as magicians from our side of the fence can help ourselves in some regard with fixing this problem."

You can read the whole thread that was taken from at: http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......um=41&26

Magically

Aus

Some effects beg for examination. Coin in Bottle is one, even on platform.

No one has ever asked me to see the cards after seeing the invisible deck, however, not close up, not friends and family--no one ever. Maybe the invisible deck effect itself creates that zen-like verification of no natural explanation possible.