Being a card guy, I am not exactly what you would consider knowledgeable when it comes to mentalism; neither do I do much of mentalism, maybe besides a simple book test or some equivoque here and there.

I have always wanted to test out Max Maven’s effect, “Disposable Colour” (I learned it from his Nothing DVD, but it can be found originally in his Red Book of Mentalism). For those who are not familiar with it, the effect is as clean as it can be—a crumpled paper ball is thrown into the audience for a random audience member to catch and come up on stage with the performer. The magician then asks him to name any colour—and let’s say the participant says “Blue”. The participant is instructed to unfold the crumpled paper ball in his hand, only to find that written on it is the word “BLUE”.

Clean? Amazing? That’s why I wanted to try it out. And I managed to do so recently at a children’s birthday party.

WHAT? Let me explain.

I was hired to do a show for a birthday party—20 kids, eight to twelve years old. Most of them were girls, with only a few older boys. I needed someone to come up for a sponge ball routine (the standard routines, don’t worry), so I thought to myself, “Why not use Disposable Colour to invite a kid up on stage?”

I threw the paper ball out – and what do you know, a boy caught it. He hurriedly ran up and stood beside me proudly.

“Hello, what’s your name?”
“Jayden.”
“Okay Jayden, say hello to the audience.”
“Hello…!”
“Alright, Jayden, let me ask you a question so that I can get to know you better. What’s your favourite colour?”
“Blue.”

I don’t know if the audience could see it, but as Eric Mead puts it, adrenaline shot out of my eyes that instant.

“Now there’s no way I could have known that, right? Have you ever told me what your favourite colour was?”
“No…”
“Okay, Jayden, you are still holding on to the paper ball I threw out just now. I want you to open it and… there’s something written on it…”
“What the…”
*audience erupts in astonished gasps*

I took a bow, and here’s where I decided to take my chance and go in for a second miracle. I stole a spongeball from my pocket and continued.

“Jayden, wasn’t that amazing? You can keep that piece of paper as a souvenir… Now let me ask you a question. Do you have a second favourite colour?”
“Yes!”
“Okay, what’s the colour?”
“Red.”

No adrenaline shot out this time—it was all used up just now. Instead, my heart stopped.

“Jayden, I want you to stand here and stare at the audience. Now you said red just now, correct?”
“Yeah. Red.”
“Good. I will try to produce a little red ball from behind your ear…”

I reach over and from his ear… I produce a red spongeball.

*audience erupts into spontaneous applause and kids rush up to squeeze the ball*

Talk about a strong opener for a kid’s show. Beat that.

Moral of the story? Taking chances in magic can pay off, BIG time. Just make sure you have an out, or else!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 7:48 am and is filed under General magic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.