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JoeMTurner.com Corporate Magic Update |  |
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Greetings! As I write this, I am sitting in my room in the Reno Hilton. I just got back from a few days in New York and New Jersey -- did a big show which would not have worked without the exceptional work of my assistant, Erin Freeman, and her dad Eddie. Thanks, guys! I spent one night in Atlanta before flying out here for the IBM convention. Fortunately there is some "home time" on the book for next week. Several exciting gigs and opportunities are already on the books for July and August, but I depend on your help to get the word out about my business and how I can help companies and other organizations inform, entertain and motivate audiences, either interally or externally. Your referrals and recommendations are what make this work. Have a great July! God bless America!  Joe M. Turner
June was fantastic, with a trip to New York & New Jersey and a stop in DC along the way. July is going to be primarily a west coast month. After returning from Reno, I have quick trips to Brandon, Mississippi and Charleston, South Carolina on the calendar. A few local Atlanta appearances fill in the dates before Rosemary and I leave for Hawaii. We're celebrating our 10th anniversary in August and are going to take a "second honeymoon" trip. I have secured permission from Rosemary to perform one night while in Honolulu, so I will have one show on the books during the trip. Reno to Mississippi to Charleston to Hawaii... this summer is an amazing ride!
I was recently contacted by the Flying Carpet Theatre company to consult on the use of live magic in their production of The Mystery of Chung Ling Soo. This was an interesting opportunity, as the life and death of this inimitable showman are legendary in the magic industry. Recently, illusion inventor and builder Jim Steinmeyer wrote a book on the subject of Chung Ling Soo entitled The Glorious Deception. Adam Koplan, director of the aforementioned play, contacted Steinmeyer for additional insight. I was then brought in to do some practical coaching on magic for the actors themselves. After a short run in Atlanta, the production will be moving to Scotland as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. While I won't be traveling to the UK with the group, I will be performing a short parlor show on two evenings during the run in Atlanta. If you are in or near Atlanta from July 15-29, I highly recommend taking the time to see this charmingly creative show. I will be performing a 15-20 minute parlor set as part of the performances on July 21-22. Click on the link below to purchase tickets.
Response has been outstanding on these tricks! I hope you are finding ways to use them to bring a little spark to your conversations and presentations. This month, let's leave the card tricks alone and try something a bit different. In fact, this is a trick that requires NO props at all! You may be familiar with the principle, but I'll throw a couple of twists in for you so that even if you're familiar with the idea, you can change it up. This is good one-on-one, but works even better in a group. Ask the audience to verify that they now have a single-digit number in mind. If they have a number greater than 10, they've made a math error somewhere! Ask the group to convert their number to a letter... 1 is A, 2 is B, 3 is C, and so forth. Now, ask your audience to think of a country that begins with that letter. Then tell your group that they should concentrate on the NEXT letter of the alphabet, and think of an animal that begins with that letter. Finally, ask them to think of the predominant COLOR of that animal. Concentrate for a moment, then ask everyone who was thinking of a Gray Elephant in Denmark to raise his or her hand. You should hit well over 80% in your audience! This presentation is an example of the predictability of groups. The math always results in 4 -- as a little algebra will show you. So you are guaranteed to get the letter D as a starting point. MOST people will come up with Denmark when asked to think of a country. (Other possibilities are Dominican Republic and Djibouti. Good luck with those!) On the letter E, most people will think of an elephant, which is predominantly gray. Sometimes you'll get an eagle or an eel, but if you work with an audience, most people will think of an elephant. When you present this, you may wish to use it simply as an icebreaker. Other possibilities might be to use it as an illustration of predicting the behavior or responses of large groups. It can also be used to point out that sometimes the questions you ask are more important than the answers you receive! To change it up, you may choose to select an animal based on the LAST letter of the country... most people will get K and think of a Kangaroo. Then they can think of a color beginning with the LAST letter of the animal... O usually gives Orange as a result. So you present it as "orange kanagroos in Denmark." Given the same method, you can select a US state with the letter D and always get Delaware. Finally, you can adjust the mathematics to produce different numbers and thereby give yourself different starting points in the alphabet. If you do many presentations each week, you may wish to experiment with different questions and see if you can generate another sequence of seemingly random questions that produce predictable answers. If you do, make sure to let me know! Have fun!
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