2 questions you guys...

1. How do you deal with the spectator who didn't know what's going on?

Eg: Asked him to touch a card, he would pull out a card. Ask him to cut the deck, he would shuffle the deck. Ask him to deal the cards, he would shuffle the deck(again) and forgot to deal.

Extreme example: 2 Aces changed to 2 Queens in his hands. He turned over cards, looked at me expectantly and asked "ok, so what's the magic?", totally oblivious to the fact that the Aces had changed!!

2. How do you deal with the spectator who tried to explain your trick away using very stupid reasons?

Eg: For you guys who know Stigmata, you know that we would put an x and draw a line on the namecard to indicate to the spec where to write the name.

In this particular instance, my spec wrote the name "xiaofen". I got the intial X to appear on my hand. But later the spec accused me of writing the x before hand on the card to "force" the name on her. Wow!!!

Imagine my exasperation!

Sorry to hear that you had nasty experiences like that...

While some people will say it's all about audience management, I honestly think there are times when these spectators just don't want to see you do magic. Sadly, many Singaporeans are like that - they take it as a challenge or insult to their intellegence (don't ask me why, maybe they had a sad childhood) and simply, don't like being entertained. So Axl, it isn't your fault, it's just their attitudes ;)

I was just blogging about this the other day... you can use this impromtu effect (picture as below) on low IQ hecklers such as the ones you encountered (i hope, these people aren't your friends) :) Keep magic magical... it's important too, for the performer (us!) to have fun! :lol:

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You can't see it but the bear is wearing a shiny yellow "I HATE HECKLERS" badge :)

"The magic has made your brain disappear.....mwahahahaha!!"

no seriously, don't say that. I'm just joking...

Why dun you say that "the magic have made your brain shrink, thus more stupid"?

anyway thats out of the question.

Most singaporeans are too high in ego, esp in such a city place, where people are fighting for living everyday, they cant take it when someone outshine them.

Or they will always have a logic behind it. So accept them and let them be, eventually, if you keep forcing yourself to prove the magic to them, it will only make you lose control of it.

Me? I meet these people, i will do some serious, SELF WORKING effects, or some mentalism effects that kills.

You may want to choose your spectators properly before attempting magic on them. And, if you're sure that someone's a heckler and you HAVE to do magic for them, just do something shitty and move on. No need to bother too much.

...And! If they sneer and ask you for more, do a "birdie" from hand production - Markiebeth style! ;)

The spectator you described just seems like a lost soul, some "blur" guy.

And you know what, you can actually tell (just by observing) who will make great candidates to perform magic on. So when you walk up to the group, go for those people.

But, on the part of the performer, you might want to try to make things a little clearer (I'm assuming it isn't that clear yet, but we all have room for improvement).

Sometimes, you just have to take the seemingly egoistic view that all your spectators are idiots, yet, almost contradictorily, you have to respect them professionally.

eg. Cutting
Many Singaporeans do not know what it means to "cut" the deck, so I will always mime the action or actually do it myself as I say "Please cut the deck" so they know exactly what to do.

eg. Dealing
Same thing with dealing, mime or actually do it yourself first as a demonstration.

eg. Touching a card
As for picking vs touching a card, try to emphasise on what you want (again, with miming). "Please use your finger (here, you stick out your index finger) and just touch (mime a touching action) one card, any card (and here, you spread the cards)."

As for the 2 card monte example you cited, I am quite certain it is mainly due to unclear presentation. This effect is quite susceptible to being unclear because for the performer (and maybe for the audience), so much is happening, and we may tend to focus more on the technique rather than the effect. Slow down, repeat and emphasise on important points, build the effect.

With regards to the Stigmata problem (and similar "stupid" explanations - at least, they certainly do seem dumb to us, but to the audience, not knowing better, any possible explanation can be the solution), there is really no point arguing with them. You can try though, to:
1. Point out to them why their "solution" cannot be the possible one, even if it is! OR
2. Say something smart and move on. Like "And I succeeded with that smart little psychological thing... (take the credit, why not?) Let's try something even harder..."

Well if the 2 card monte didn't work, what you could always do a 2 card top change and make sure the guy knows what the hell is going to happen first. If he knows what to watch out for, he should be amazed.

Anyway, something off topic here. I've been in a worse situation than you. I was once heckled by a MAGICIAN while performing. Hell, that was tough.

But, everyone ended up laughing at him in the end. :)

I agree that sometimes we do meet people who, simply by virtue of their personality, are unable to fully enjoy a little magic.

However, I feel that this is a dangerous assumption to make too quickly, and too easily.
Perhaps there is a little something we are sub-consiously doing that is resulting in that? Maybe we are giving off the wrong message in how we go into it?
Try your routines with other magicians to see if they can tell u anything wrong with it. Try it out with other laypeople with different presentation to see if you get better results.

I have a little pet effect which involves the spec freely selecting a card and the card matches the prediction in a wallet (yeah i know, there's a gazillion of this ard, but there's something abt the handling for this one that really nailed me when i saw it).
I actually saw this done by Johnny Thompson during IF Magic 05 and i nearly swallowed my tongue then. I couldn't stop thinking about for abt 2 weeks before I finally came up with a method to achieve the effect the way i saw it done.
Ever since, i have tried the effect a few times, to other magicians and other laypeople. But not once,i felt I had gotten the reaction that this effect is capable of.
Now I know this is a damn strong effect, because I saw the reaction it got on a roomful of magicians.
I know have covered the "logic bases" of the effect, and have executed the effect correctly, coz no one has yet figured out how it could be done.
But still, i must be missing great chunks of convincers and subtities to bring it to its climax, because the spec reactions are still very lacking.
I'm still trying it every now and then. B)

Anyway, my point is, sometimes, there's more to it than just executing an effect correctly.
Even things like the specs coming up with stupid "solutions" or not understanding the "magic" could be more a result of our actions than we think.
If you have always gotten good reactions but that one time it was real bad, then try to think if it's something u did differently this time. Or something different about the people or the settings that might have caused it.

In my humble opinion.
:)

-_-' thanks a million. I would like to credit James Coat for showing me that beautiful effect of pulling a bird out of nowhere. That is one impromptu effect that I show people who just don't seem amazed by anything I do. How did you know of that effect by the way Ning? :huh:

Your reputation preceeds you my dear!!! ;)

If they give me a stupid explanation, I just laugh it away by giving a stupider or lamer explanation. Then everyone laughs together.

Example 1: Performed electric touch. Explanation was static. So I kept jabbing my friend all over with my finger shocking him mulitple times and asked if static is like that. Asked if he watched X-men. Said that I am just a mutant similar to "Storm" but just level 1 so not so powerful. It is so lame... but it gets them laughing and helps to move along with the next trick. (Being a lame clown can be funny at times) Basically, just come up with something so that you can move on.

Example 2: M5. Someone claimed that I must be using a magnet somewhere... though he didn't know where. I said "yea yea.. this morning I swallowed a huge magnet for breakfast." Stupid comment but it shrugs them off.

Either that of just shrug my shoulders and give a huge stupid smile that just looks plain dumb.

Ning... I like your response. Will use that one liner next time.