How to Annoy Magicians during Club Meetings
Magicians, especially Filipino magicians, are a happy lot. The reason could be because Philippines is one of the happiest places in the world, and Filipinos are genetically wired for happiness.
Though slow to react to negative stimuli, Pinoy magicians are not totally immune to annoyances.
Here are some ways to rile them at the next club meeting:
1. Offer to show magicians a new card trick. Ask someone to choose a card, sign it and tear an index for identification later on. Lose the card in the deck by a series of false shuffles and fancy cuts. Make it obvious that the shuffles are false and the cuts are fancy. Spend 10 minutes doing that. Then ask someone to shuffle the deck, and another one to cut it. If there are 15 magicians watching you, make sure everyone is given the chance to shuffle and cut the deck. After 30 minutes of cutting and shuffling, reveal the chosen card. It’s in the middle of the deck, signed with an index missing, remember?
2. Join the meeting’s discussion and tie every topic being discussed back to an unrelated theme. For instance, if the discussion is about Elmsley Count, respond by steering the topic to why magicians all over the world consider Zig Zag a classic. When the presiding officer admonishes you for straying out of topic, apologize profusely then launch yourself to a historical background of the Zig Zag illusion and why it has become a classic over the years. And so on.
3. Repeat everything someone says, as a question. For example, when the presiding officer says, “We will have a charity show next month,” raise your hand and as seriously as you can, ask him, “Will we have a charity show next month?” And when he says, “The next item on our agenda is a lecture by David Roth,” raise your hand again and ask, “What is the next item on our agenda?” Do the questioning after every announcement he makes.
4. Announce that at the end of the meeting, you will perform and teach a new trick with new revolutionary moves. At the end of the meeting, change your mind and announce you are going to do the trick next meeting. At the next meeting, announce again that you will do the trick at the end of the evening, but when time comes to do it, you announce you are going to do it next meeting. Keep announcing every meeting the performance of this new trick then rescheduling it next meeting.
5. Give them a napkin, telling them it’s the fastest burning flash paper from China, faster than any flash paper extant. Urge them to light the “flash” paper, and watch the expressions on their faces as anticipation deflates.
6. On video night, play a DVD consisting entirely of dire FBI copy warnings and Amy Stevens’ threat to prosecute those who illegally duplicate the video.
7. Play a DVD with nothing on it but static signals, then challenge everyone to see a ghostly image of a magician doing a series of shuffles and cuts.
8. Show your own variation of the Gallo Pitch, and hit a magician’s forehead with a coin.
9. Attend a meeting in bathing trunks.
10. Do a costume change using the same colors and designs of costumes, so that those who are watching don’t observe the changes.
11. Wear your tuxedo backwards and tell them it has a newly designed topit.
12. Wear a cape that says, “The Best Magician in Town.” You will surely tick magicians off , as many are averse to such claim.
13. Punctuate your every sentence with squeaks from your squeaker.
14. Throughout the meeting, say,”You know” after every sentence.
15. Talk loudly on you cell phone while the meeting is going on. Say something like this: “Okay, I’ll cut her in half, empty her stomach into a basin and drench the audience with her blood!” Say it as loudly as you can as if the client at the other end of the line were deaf.
16. Invent a name of a sleight an ask magicians which they prefer to use. Something like this: “When you want to control the card to second from the top of the deck using one hand only without moving your pinky, which would you use, the Marlo Third Generation Hotshot Revolution New Age Control or Martin Nash’s Invisible Gambler’s Cop Variation of the Crouching Tiger Ultra Breakthrough Card Control?” See how many magicians will go along with you for fear people will discover their ignorance.
17. Pretend you are TV reporter. When conversing with magicians, hold a large Dingdong in your hand as if it is a microphone. Push it into the mouth of a magician when he tries to respond to your questions.
18. Draw a bicycle on each card of your Bicycle deck and a bee on each card of your Bee deck…then perform card tricks with them.
19. Perform tableside magic while a magic show is going on.
20. Explode a fart bomb during the opening prayer.
I have not pre-tested all the above suggestions. I don’t know how the otherwise calm and gentle magicians will react to them. So proceed at your own risk.
Stay magical,
Leodini
