If so, become a magician.... no wait, even better... become a Street Magician. I'm not talking about busking, which is time honored and requires you to be alert and to manage people. No! I mean Street Magic, the kind that David Blaine made popular.
Strangers on the street love nothing more than being stopped by a young person with a deck of cards in his/her hand. "Hey, I'm a magician, and would you love to see a card trick? If you don't I will either run amok or commit suicide. Whatever!"
So the stranger, who is just a friend you haven't met, thinks long and hard about the things you're about to do and figures that a card trick is probably the least horrific scenario. Probably!
Card tricks it is then. You do some crazy flourishes... of course not as fast at in those YouTube videos you watched, and then ask somebody to pick a card. After that graceful display of skill the stranger surely thinks that you are not capable of finding the card, after it has been lost in the deck. So you do your perfect pass and pull out the two jokers from the pocket. "Look three jokers. One on my right, one on my left and one in the middle." Those two jokers then trap the selection in between then. "OMG you must be a wizard." is the what the stranger says after careful consideration as what to say. The stranger's initial thoughts on how to respond where: "So what? You found my card. My uncle Jeff does a similar trick with 21 cards" and "What a pitiful little creature attempting to be one of the grown ups, I should say something that doesn't offend the magician, and something that can be understood as something positive." So "OMG you must be a wizard" is the final response.
If you are getting that particular dismissive reaction you are on your way. Optional choices would be: "That was wonderful!", "I have no idea how you did that", "You should be on TV", "Not bad for your age", "I wish I was that good with my hands", "No fucking way man"
But if you really want to know if your magic is good: Give them a show and ask for money. Busking tells you where you are.
Extra points if one of your tricks involves an iPhone.
I dont have iphone:(
ReplyDeleteI agree with you 100% on this Roland, and who pays for these street magicians, as you said they're not busking! I have the highest respect for buskers, it can be a tough way to earn money, I know I did it all over Europe when it was illegal in most countries :-). If we didn't get any money we didn't eat so we built a show, it had a beginning, a middle and an ending, that's how we made the money. If you try stopping people on the street in the UK to show some flourishes there's a very good chance you will punched! I do "Street" Magic this time of year to enhance the feelings of Christmas shoppers, this is paid for by the local authority who set aside money for entertainment, but this is only once a year...so how do these professional street magicians earn a living during non holiday periods? Just asking lol!
ReplyDeleteJust for the record I love the street magic concept, its raw and some of the tv shows have been awesome, but I still can't figure out how non tv professional street magicians earn a crust?
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