Bound And Gagged!

.:59/365: Lovelife Card Divination:.

No picture for this one, since I couldn’t find an appropriate demonstration of lovelife divination using cards.

However, I can teach you how it’s done, but it’s up to you to figure out the meaning of the cards left…

1. Have a person shuffle the deck, and then cut it twice. Afterwards, ask them to tap the name of the person on the deck, one tap per letter.

2. Deal out the cards one by one into four piles.

3. Take each pile and look at them face-up one at a time. Keep eliminating cards until you find one of the four cards named: King of Spades, Queen of Hearts, Ace of Spades, and Ace of Hearts. If the searchee is a guy and not a girl, look for King of Hearts and Queen of Spades instead.

4. Put the remaining cards together, then deal them out into three piles.

5. Repeat step 3 with the 3 piles.

6. Repeat step 4, then deal out two piles.

7. Repeat step 3.

8. Deal out the remaining cards in a circle, going clockwise.

Essentially, the less cards in the way between you (K/Q of Hearts), the other person (K/Q of Spades), your heart (Ace of Hearts), and his/her heart (Ace of Spades), the more likely you guys would be a perfect match with each other.

It’s up to you to make heads and tails of what the various other cards mean. Whether they’d be specific problems or issues, or even people.

Project 365 love, magic, magikel, project 365 2010

Project 365 love, magic, magikel, project 365 2010

.:57/365: Card In (Insert Suggestive Place Here):.

You dare?

This routine is pure cheek and requires utmost audience management on your part. More so once you discover the method for pulling it off.

Now, I don’t really know what else to tell you other than I won’t be held responsible if you got arrested for trying to do this routine. I know it’s enticing to do something like this and get to score some intimacy points in the process, but your volunteer might not take too kindly to that notion.

I think the less said about this routine, the better. Heh.

Project 365 love, magic, magikel, project 365 2010

.:55/365: Jay Sankey’s Electric Currency:.

I won’t include a picture this time, because you’ve probably seen Jay Sankey’s mug more than enough times in one month thanks to this Project 365, and I guarantee you, this probably won’t be the last time I’ll mention the man on this month, since his “Firestarters” DVD really is one of the few titles out there that gets to the very heart of this month’s theme.

Now, Electric Currency is a psychokinetic routine, and I must tell you that I’m a big fan of PK routines, simply because they never fail to attract people’s attentions. I don’t even mind having naysayers show up. Having one of them makes for a spicier show as you knowingly smirk at them as they try to reverse the effects of your demonstration with great futility. They’ll keep mouthing off various explanations to “debunk” you, but the only people he’s convincing is himself. Let him. It makes you look classier by just smiling it off.

Having said that, what I don’t really highlight about any given PK routine is the opportunity for you to really be in close contact with your volunteer, and if you’re savvy about it, this gives you a chance to really gel with the person in question. You can engage them in small talk, or really make them feel that you’re large and in charge, or outright poke fun at the fact that you’re probably holding her hand and she’s not the least bit put off by it.

PK is a very good conversation starter, and it doesn’t really matter if you are performing for a believer or an outright skeptic. Use the rapport as an opportunity to pick the other person’s brain, and to impress her with yours. If you look even halfway decent (Hades, some not-attractive-at-all people have met better results, so looks should hardly be an excuse.), mastery of the ability to establish rapport with a volunteer in a given one-on-oneish situation should really give you a leg up on catching her attention.

Is this tried and tested? I must say it is. By establishing a novelty in magic, you generate immediate interest, whether good or bad. By demonstrating your capacity to hold an intelligent conversation, you also demonstrate that there’s more to look forward to once the novelty has worn itself out. That’s a sound way to go about things, I have to say.

Well, if you want to know what happens in Sankey’s version, go buy his DVD. This may not be his best output, but it’s very useful, to say the least, and the fact that he’s not trying too hard to make you laugh in “Firestarters” is a huge plus for me. He annoys me when he tries to be funny, to be honest.

News and Updates

.:Sabado Nights:.

Hosted Merei’s debut last Saturday, and I’m still on a high about it. Will write more some other time, though.

.:A Return To Magic:.

Joined a tournament last Sunday. This is the first time in a long time that I have, and I’m pretty happy that I did.

.:Met An Angel, Then A Reunion…:.

Last Monday, it was a great time to meet someone I’ve been speaking to only online and via SMS prior to last night. I also got to know her sister and her sister’s boyfriend, so at least it wasn’t an awkward encounter and we all hit things off just fine.

Afterwards, I headed out to UP to meet Ma’am Sining, who was in town for a couple of weeks. It’s been a while, and it felt mighty great to hear her tell me that she was proud of me.

Ma’am Sining was one of my favorite teachers in college. It wasn’t so hard to see why.
.:54/365: Daniel Garcia’s Stop:.

I know this is a plug for “Control”, but DG’s stuff is in this particular DVD.

Ever liked the feeling of someone leaning on your chest? Well, this is one of those incredibly presumptuous routines that can scare the Hades out of your spectator while giving you an excuse to cozy up to them.

While the video might be about “Control”, I’d rather save that particular routine for a different day, and focus instead on the bonus material in this Wayne Houchin DVD, known as “Stop”. His good friend, Daniel Garcia, shows a different side of himself as he performs this routine with all the homoerotic underpinnings they could muster as he stops his heart for Wayne Houchin himself to hear it very distinctly.

The ability of a human person to control his heartbeat has always been a matter of interest for a lot of people both in the medical profession and in the ninjitsu industry, all the same.

This is a routine that I wouldn’t suggest you to do unless you have the persona to pull it off. Asking a random girl to just put her ear to your chest seems to be asking for trouble if you don’t know how to play it off well.

News and Updates friends, love, magic, magikel, project 365 2010

.:53/365: Wayne Houchin’s French Kiss:.

Do I have your attention now?

This routine takes a lot of cojones to pull off on a complete stranger, but it’s powerful, and has all the tools you need to really establish rapport.

First of all, the routine itself is very suggestively titled, and with good reason. For all intents and purposes, you are performing a very simple transpo routine, but with a very powerful twist that they would never expect.

Secondly, like most firestarter routines, there is some measure of physical contact involved, and it’s extremely pronounced here because you have to stare into each other’s eyes, and hold hands, as if to establish a kind of connection that allows you to transpose one card to the other.

Lastly, there is a very suggestive form of transference going on. While physically, your lips don’t touch, it appears to the girl that somehow, the card in her mouth has switched out for the card in yours, all without you doing anything except that very suggestive move of “swallowing” the card. It takes a true performer to pull it off and still come off as seductive, but that’s why I showed you Wayne Houchin’s version as the perfect model to follow.

This is a very easy routine if you have even basic knowledge of card magic. It will require you to destroy two cards in the deck, but that’s fine, if you want to really impress someone with a very direct and leading routine that is an absolute firestarter, in my book. If I actually used magic to score dates, this would probably be one of the routines in my arsenal, and I’d ask the girl to sign her phone number in the calling card. That way, we’d technically have exchanged numbers already by the end of the trick. If she keeps the card, you know you have one foot in the door.

Project 365 love, magic, magikel, project 365 2010

.:52/365: Jay Sankey’s Soulmates Routine:.

Pretty good execution, even if his friends weren’t too kind to him.

Nothing can be more clichéd than telling a woman that they are your soulmate. Despite that, it works, and it works even better in the realm of a magic routine.

Look at how the routine goes: people talk about how soulmates are everywhere, and how cards have soulmates. The magician then proceeds to make a fake wager and produce two soulmates in two routines at an unbelievably fast pace.

Now, the concept of card soulmates isn’t very new, and there are a ton of variations, but this is one of two presentations on the soulmate concept that I feel are amazing and worth a close look for the romantically inclined magician. It’s fast-paced, gets a good applause on the first phase, and an even bigger one on the second phase, what with the free choice you give them when you get there.

Sankey’s routines in Firestarter are very useful for February, albeit I’d have to warn you that you really should use a different presentation style if your intent is to really get cozy with someone. It’s best if you figure out a performance style suited for your intentions, because the dry presentation most people who follow Sankey end up using (They don’t like being as zany as he is, and that creeps girls out if anyone but Sankey does it.) tends to not amaze ladies at all. In fact, it bores them.

“Soulmates” is a very good routine on its own. I’m very fond of doing magic on the fly and getting reactions with patter that just writes itself. You don’t even need to follow the patter you see in the video. There are a million and one ways to frame a discussion with an emphasis on destiny and the like.

Project 365 love, magic, magikel, project 365 2010

.:51/365: Is Magic A Turn-On?:.

Pimpin’? Really?

We’ve been talking about love and magic for this month for a while already, but we haven’t really tried answering a very uncomfortable question at the root of it all… does being a magician actually help attract potential partners in the first place?

Now, if you’re a girl who’s even remotely cute, the answer is almost unequivocally yes. However, if you’re a guy, then the answer deserves a bit more elaboration than that.

Magic is a double-edged sword. It’s a nice novelty, but it’s still a novelty. It’s something you get to have people talking about, but once the novelty wears out, you have to be able to prove your worth beyond just the novelty. At the same time, this assumes that the people you deal with are not antagonistic of magic in the first place, and this isn’t a rare thing at all. There are a lot of people out there who think magic is “kid’s stuff” and dismiss you as some guy who’s going through his second childhood. No matter how good you are, even if you’re an Erik Mana or even a Derren Brown, haters of magic simply throw your achievements under the bus.

Knowing how to do magic can be one of the easiest icebreakers in the world. Instead of fishing for a good topic to open with, you impress them with a good magic trick, and then you gauge where the conversation could go from there, and how much you’re willing to let on about your involvement in magic. I remember one girl in particular who asked for my number and was genuinely surprised when she found out I do it for a living, and it’s not just a conversation starter. Personally, I’m not too broken up about that, but it opened my eyes to the fact that some people really don’t think that it’s very respectable to do magic for a living.

So in the end, like any other skill, magic does provide you with a good way to attract someone’s attention. There will always be people who dislike magic the way some people won’t like a singer’s song choices or the way a dancer moves, but ultimately, if you’re trying to woo someone, it would always be better to have the option to use or not to use magic than to not have that option available to you at all. Stick to your strengths, and make sure that you have something more to offer as a person once the novelty wears off.

Project 365 love, magic, magikel, project 365 2010

.:50/365: The Quixotic Ultimate Transpo:.

Oz Pearlman was the first guy I learned this from.

Imagine selecting a card, and then holding it between your hands. Imagining selecting another card and keeping a close eye on it.

Faster than the eye can see, the card in your hands is now the second card you selected, and the magician is holding the card you selected.

Sounds like a standard card routine for either card magic or street magic month, right? Except most magicians have been using it as the perfect gauge to measure how interested a girl prospect is in them by maintaining contact throughout the routine for as long as possible without any awkwardness arising from it.

Ever noticed magicians who seem to be holding hands with a female volunteer a bit longer than necessary? Some magicians may use that to establish a character, or they might actually be trying to see what their odds are with the girl if they held contact for as long as they can.

This is a strong magic routine, to begin with, and one of the most revered routines in a street magician’s inventory. With so many different variations you wouldn’t know where to begin counting, this being February means we’d like to take a look at the ultimate transpo routine as a means to maintain not just physical contact with a girl, but eye to eye contact all the same, as you insist that they not let the card elude their grasp yet you’re going to do whatever it takes to slip past her defences.

If you’re a bit on the corny side, you can then shift the conversation after this to the emotional defences she puts into place and how willing you are to do what it takes to get past them as well. It’s a silly, tongue-in-cheek line, but if you’re earnest enough about it and you’re actually a pretty suave magician, it will work.

Now, if you don’t even know how to do the Ultimate Transpo (Or the Here and There, if you’re more familiar with the routine by this name.), then there’s a high chance you shouldn’t be using magic to woo a girl and stick to your other strengths instead.

Project 365 love, magic, magikel, project 365 2010

.:49/365: A Love-Centric Prelude To Escapology:.

I think this is a nice way to signpost what’s gonna happen in March: escapology month.

I was meaning not to talk about escapology until March, but I figured that with all the routines involved in escapology that many people point to as perfect for February, it’d be a good idea to bring up the allure of escapology to the thrill-seeking magician.

First of all, the best escape routines do involve some measure of risk, and it doesn’t matter how good you are, things could go wrong. Sure, you’ve practiced suspending yourself upside down for hours to do the straitjacket escape, but what if strong gusts of wind start blowing you around while performing, for example? What if you take longer than expected and black out due to the blood rushing to your head? Escapology is not the sanest form of magic one could engage himself in, to be honest.

But see, with each padlock and rope, with each handcuff and shackle, that little spice in one’s lovelife always bubbles just on the surface. Some performers will gladly point it out, but most will be content in letting the sensations just seep right in. When it comes to escapology, it’s so undeniably raw, so passionate, so… aphrodisiac, even, that the art of escape becomes enthralling, liberating, and downright sexy, even.

Escape artists have a reputation for possessing unbelievable amounts of sex appeal (Maybe with the exception of me. LOL.). There’s something about the danger an escapologist puts himself in that makes him seem larger than life and all the more appealing. Just ask Criss Angel how many girls probably fawned all over him when he did a special set on escape acts. Similarly, a guy who normally puts himself in grave danger, David Blaine, also attracts a lot of attention, albeit he’s not really an escape artist, per se. Their passion for their craft, their willingness to risk life and limb to entertain people, makes them seem dangerous, and appealing at the same time. They like living on the edge, ergo, the implicit conclusion is they must be the same in love.

Also, being bound and gagged can be downright kinky, when you get down to it. There’s that, too.

The next time you think about tying a magician in hopes he’d escape and impress you, don’t be too disappointed if he didn’t get away. Chances are, he likes it that way.

Project 365 escapology, love, magic, magikel, project 365 2010