As a response to my fellow asian (I'm Chinese btw), here goes:
What kinda gimmicks are you talking about? Dupes, odd backed cards? Short cards? Invisible decks?
The sort of gimmicks i enjoy using are ones that can be crafted, kind things dM makes, like Burn, or stuff like Ultra Gaff, blank cards.
What makes you enjoy a trick or not? sleights? audience reacton?
By enjoying i mean if i can use it in my performance, not necessarily easy tricks, but tricks which will help me always remember how hard i worked for before i performed it. Its sort of a crap explaination. Confucious asked us a simple question in his written texts: "Isn't it delightful to put to use what you always practice?". For me, this indeed is true. Not only do i practice, whether tricks whether sleights, i practice for using it, enjoying that i am using it, enjoying that i have been able to enjoy it/use it, enjoying that i am improving, enjoying that i am challenging myself to use those sleights/do those tricks. And by enjoy i mean, effects which i know can be made to suit most situations i'm in. Like some effects are spiritualistcal, you have to be infront of a specific audience, which doesnt really fit my persona, even if i tried to tweak it so.
To tell you the truth, audience reaction comes second. I do magic because its challenging. Audience reaction, whether good whether bad, is like my praise for my challenge. Like a taunt by the opposing General.
So basically cards are the theme of your performances and you can do all kinds of different things with them? (read minds, etc)
Yep.
Can you name any specific tricks that you perform? Are they mostly pick a card tricks?
Specific trics means tricks i perform the most, in actual i perform many of my effects which i learnt. It really depends on the situation i am in. If i know i can grab a spectator or a group to stay for the performance, after analysation with quick pick a card trick effects, i go onto the deeper stuff. I mostly use pick a card effect if i want to test somebody out, see wassup, what type of person they are. But these are only quick effects. I also use pick a card effects to hook them. But i prefer to perform Bad Influence as a subsitute. I dont want people who, after growing up with a notion of negative views on people who do "card tricks" do see the same notion in their first impression. Of couse, my main weapon is my cards, but i dont want them to feel they are going through the same routine of "pick a card, any card.". I want to give them something new, and something they can relate to with cards, kinda like relating to cards. Example is a psychological force.
But in actual, many card tricks are pick a card types anyhow, so i dont know what im trying to say.
Because im in walkaround situations, the effects i chose to use must be able to meet this criteria. I perform stuff like 2CM, Lapse, Overkill, OneEighty, Dr Daley's Ace trick and a Sandwich effect most of the time. Though i like to perform Triumph type effects, i only use them til last, like if i want to end my performance for a big group. Other than that, i dont think i perform much effects, though i know i have more, i perform those most because i want to play with them, tweal them, improve on them.
Do your card tricks use outside objects? Your mouth, sharpie, nails, etc?
Felt tip pen, Pad of paper, Pockets, spectators imagination. Othar than that, no.
You pick your tricks based on personal enjoyment and convenience (just an observation)
I wouldnt say convenience, like Darwin Ortiz said in Strong Magic, if for convenience then its just like downgrading magic into simple puzzles. Personal enjoyment is one reason. I want the spectators who see me perform feel comfortable. I dont want to me wearing suit and tie, all dressed clean, then funkin it out with flourishes (though some peeps may like it). I want the spectators who see me, my clothing, the way i speak, relate to what i am showing them. Its hard to explain, but certain effects fit certain people. So i pick effects which i think fit myself (back to the question, what is "myself"?).
samurai champloo! does the hip hop element come up at all in your performances?
Nope.
I think basically after you pick a trick you like, you try to share it with your audiences and get them to appreciate it too.
Yeah, i can say its kind like that as well. Maybe thats why i dont have that passion for driving people's mind into overdrive, not until they appreciate and be at comfort with what i do.
can you explain the saving "countless people" part further?
This is just my view on what magic is. Magic is an art to express self, through boundless means, magic exist. When someone asks me what magic is, i tell them that it is inconceivable, i cannot explain it. I ask myself why i choose to perform magic to other people, the reason is that when i begin learning about Magic, i too like other people took it literally - people with super powers who can bend spoons or read minds, people who can make money by the snap of the fingers, those bad notions. I want to share with people i perform for that people who do magic are not like that, magic is not about the things that are made, or things people see, its the experience, its understanding the thing. I tell people not to take magic as a literal meaning, yet dont downgrade it to another meaning - you dont know what magic is, let me show you a glimpse. Magic is me. But i cant make money from thin air for your pleasure. So i want to save people from the negative notion of magic. Its hard to explain.
Magic to me is like connecting people to people. When i perform Overkill, i dont tell them anything about pschology, or anything like that, i tell them about how everyone can do what i do - which people term "magic". Magic is something natural, but forgotten. Like letting people remember and appreciate many little things they forget about in their lives.
Also, Magic is a tool for me to let spectators see how different i am to other people, i dont want to stand out, but i want them to know Samurai's mingle in peasent crowds. For example, people are not content, they live by set routines, drug themselves with things they call entertainment, its like they've forgotten the Simple life. I want to remind them, that things like magic (which they see as tiny things), are not useless in their lives. I want magic to help them remember other things they term useless in life. I could say, being content is an emotional state, but peoples mind are scattered, are loud, are crazy, unstable, thus they seek out stimulations.
Magic is an introverted art, expressed through external connection, opening gates, leaading to be someone's else's state of mind. I enjoy spectators reaction the most when i see all their senses blocking away the external world, questioning their belief of what they saw, from what they were shown. I enjoy performing magic the most when i see spectators not giving any excuses at all, or building barriers. I perform magic to knock people back to innocence.
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haha.
