Larry Becker’s effect that keeps on giving…
Back around 1980 I bought a copy of Larry Becker’s World of Super Mentalism and one of the routines that grabbed my attention was CB Mentalism, probably because CB was big while I was growing up. (For those young’uns here, CB was kind of like a party-line phone, but with radio. Wait, if you don’t know what CB was there’s no way you’d know party-line phones…)
I never did perform CB Mentalism at the time, but after my 30+ years wandering in the tundra I came back to magic and as I’d decided to focus on mentalism, pulled out World of Super Mentalism and rediscovered that routine.
Going Viral
Only, I was a little too late since CB was long gone. (Technically it’s still around, but so, technically are pagers, and I wouldn’t do a routine about those, either.) But social media had kind of taken the place of CB radio, people talking to friends or strangers — usually about nothing. So I came up with a version of Becker’s effect that I called Going Viral.
I came out with that in late-2019 and performed it one time before the world locked down. By the time things had opened up again, I’d reset my focus. Still mentalism, but I wanted to limit my routines to effects that would go along with stories from my childhood, and social media didn’t fit that.
Tuning In
One of the things I did when I was a kid in the middle of nowhere Alaska, one of a family of 7 in a 12’ x 24’ cabin with no electricity or running water, was find an old car radio and a battery, run a wire up to the roof where I nailed a straightened coat hanger for an antenna, and then spend hours at night listening to as many far away AM stations as I could.
So I created a version of CB Mentalism that I called Tuning In and wrote up the script, notes I’d need to create the props…
…but before I was able to perform it, I decided the story wasn’t quite right. Didn’t compare with living on a commune, eating roadkill, etc., so it got ditched.
Mind on the Rocks
But like a bad penny, CB Mentalism keeps turning up! I just finished working up a new version about booze that’s called Mind on the Rocks and performed it for the first time last weekend for a magic group. It got a good enough reaction that I’m going to keep working on it, performing it, tweaking it, and see where it goes.
I suspect that’s the last version of CB Mentalism I’ll work up, but never say never…
However, I’m sure enough that I’m uploading the artwork tonight to have the “professional” props printed so I’m not using laminated cards. (Which are fine for prototypes, but naught else.)
Moral of the Story
Just because an effect doesn’t fit you doesn’t mean the method can’t be used for something that is uniquely you. It’s one reason to check out the method of tricks even if the description of the trick doesn’t turn your crank. You never know when you’ll discover something that will be exactly what you need later on down the road.
Here’s another moral of the story…
There’s always more tweaking to be done — especially at the beginning of the life of an effect. I performed it again last week for a friendly crowd and it went well, but in watching back the video (you do record your performances, right?) there’s just too much blathering. I “made the original better” but by doing a specific thing I needed to give extra instructions to the participants and that just slows things down too much, even though it only takes about 30 seconds.
Now I’m remaking the props so the problem doesn’t pop up and will try the routine again after the first of the year. I think it has a spark, I just need to figure what fuel to add so it turns into a bonfire.