It's official...I'm going to throw up. I have less than 10 hours until I'll be performing the magic routine that will decide my grade in Senior English, and my final GPA. This is as life or death as magic gets for me right now, and it's not fun. I'm practicing my butt off, working on my routine, and making adjustments so that I can get it under the 15 minute time limit. It's going to be rough. Here's a copy of what I have so far on my outline:
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SETUP
-have volunteer "chain" me to a chair using the handcuffs from Barry. Sit, acting rather uncomfortable, in the chair, and begin presentation talk.
There was a great mentalist named Joseph Dunninger that once said, "For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not, none will suffice." My goal today is to make you all believe. (*Slip chains)
I chose magic for my senior project for several reasons (cutting deck, shuffling, manipulating cards, et cetera)...one being, because it is easy to get others involved in. I can get a stage volunteer with a blink of an eye. So class involvement was just another perk. Another reason I chose it was because of an interest I've had since I was very young. I recieved a magic kit from my Grandfather when I was about 12. I have always loved magic, I just haven't always practiced the art. However, the biggest reason I had for choosing magic for a senior project was because of the impact that it can have on people. To be able to do magic is to hold a great power in your hands; the power of influence. It's amazing that no matter how bad someone's day is, you can walk up to them with a deck of cards, one card, or maybe just a coin, and astound them. They can forget all the terrible things that have happened to them in an instant - through your influence alone. That is why I love magic.
That is also why I'll be taking a card out of my artifact box. The card represented my love for entertainment. I'll also be adding a coin to my artifact box - (Flip quarter through the air, roll on knuckles) because over the last 5 months I have learned that my outlook on entertainment was very narrowminded. I thought that only obvious things could be used to entertain. However, I have learned that even something so common as a quarter can be used for amazing things. For example, (Perform coin catch and vanish) making a coin dissappear. This is a perfect example of how you can influence someone with something so simple. So the coin, for me, represents that good things really do come in small packages; even this tiny coin holds the key to amazement.
I learned this lesson very clearly during my service project. For my community service, I decided to take to the streets and show total strangers my magic. JT Newby and I went to Paducah with a videocamera, and filmed me performing magic for total strangers. I got to experience the things that David Blaine.php>Blaine and Criss Angel experience on a daily basis. It was absolutely amazing. I made people scream, laugh histerically, run around yelling, and just stare in total shock at the tricks that I showed. That just goes to show you the power that magic holds. It allows you to affect someone's emotions in an incredible way. Let me demonstrate.
START ROUTINE
-Ask for a volunteer
-ask them to pick a card
-find the card in the deck, start ACR
-perform shapeshifter, giving them their card back to sign
-perform full ACR
-passes (two kinds)
-KFC cut, after passing card from middle and shuffling.
-end with several vanishes and sleights
-have the volunteer sit down
That short routine was called an ACR, or an ambitious card routine. The "ambitious" card being the chosen card, in this case...however, an ambitious card could be any card that I choose at any time, or a key card that I might need in a routine. Ok, now I'd like to teach you guys a cut that you learned in that routine, called the "Charlier" cut.
-Ask for two volunteers
-have them practice the Charlier cut
-demonstrate several times for the class, so that everyone can go home and try
Ok, so now that you've seen a few things with cards, I'll show you some tricks dealing with a different form of magic, called "mentalism" - or magic of the mind, so that you see the whole spectrum of magic effects.
-ask for a new volunteer
-have them pick a card, talk about the ability of mind-reading that can be learned through the study of mentalism
-tell them their card that they chose
-talk about another form of mentalism, called "Divination"
-perform Ultra Card Divination
-Give out handout with the secret to the UCD trick
-Talk about one last form of mentalism, called physical mentalism, which is a mind read through one of the 5 senses, mainly touch.
-Perform Stigmata on Mrs. Puckett
"For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not, none will suffice."
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So that's it. That's the presentation to rule them all. I hope you all think highly of it. I'm so freaking nervous. If I bomb this, I get a C in english, and I have a lower GPA for my final semester of high school, which COULD result in lower scholarship money to Georgetown - money I desparetly need.
I only have one thing to say: Thank you everyone at 21Ace! You have been an amazing support for me these last four months, and I have learned so much from all of you. I'm glad to have made as many new friends as I have, and I hope that we will change the world with our magic for many years to come. Thanks again, you are my one beam of sunshine in this rainstorm of a presentation.