Friends and Magic

My wife and I enjoyed the company of our friends Dale and Jean McDowell and their daughter Jeni last night. We BBQ'd Salmon on the Hibatchi Pot! The Salmon turned out wonderful. We enjoyed a nice over due visit. After dinner I performed several magical feats that I have been polishing up. For Dale I performed "mind Reader." His reaction was to start laughing and his face had question marks written all over it. For their daughter Jeni, I performed Tom Franks "Tricky Wallet" effect. Again the reactions were quite what was desired. My daughter said that I never let her sign a card. So, I did Wayne Houchins' "Indecent" effect for her. It is the first time I did this effect for anyone. Her eyes popped out and she was speechless. The joy on her face was priceless. Sometimes I think we magicians forget to actually perform for our own family. Always using them as guinea pigs. This was grrreat! She actually took the souvenir signed card as a memento. Sweet!
I did Jim Cellini's Cut and Restored ropes and it is interesting to see peoples reactions and the look on their faces while performing this effect. Again, not performing for lay audiences often I forget that they are totally mystified. I ended with Tom Franks' "legend of The Five Mystic Rings. They all loved it. Funny how my friend Dale kept saying how wonderful the ring effect was. I felt my timing was off with my verbiage, but they were just enjoying the magic! There's lessons to be learned thru all this!
Just for fun I asked Jean if I could attempt to perform something special for her. I asked her if she wouldn't mind if I used her for practice on an effect I'm learning? What could she say? She was in my home and a captive audience! :) Actually she was eager to help me out.
I performed Ambitious card for her and her husband. I did the performance Michael Ammar teaches on his excellent DVD. The finale where the bent card rises to the top, when you tell them before hand that you are going to let them see the card arrive... The bent card arrived on top of the pack just at the right time, there were audible gasps of astonishment and joy. "I like that one, you'll have to do that one at our party," Jean said! This is what magic is, and should be about. Pure joy! Well, it was a great ending to a magical evening.