Powers of Darkness 2010 , photo by Wendell Brezina
hundreds . Mike says , “ if you can explain the reasoning behind each of your decisions you are well on your way to becoming a professional entertainer ,” and this clearly comes through in his WONDERS book .
Through the Eye of a Needle rehearsal LA Magic History Conference 1999 photo by Bill Taylor
Part of the reasoning behind the ordinary props is that it brings out the personality of the performer . A good example is the Linking Rings . An audience will recognize those as magic props and know they are a magic trick , so there must be some secret about them . When you do the same trick with coat hangers it changes everything because they can go to their closet and look at their own coat hangers and have no idea how it works . The audience are assuming that their coat hangers are like Mike ’ s , and that is the beauty of using ordinary objects .
WHAT THE AUDIENCE SEES AS OPPOSED TO WHAT THE MAGICIAN SEES
When he was sixteen Mike created a thimble act to audition for the infamous Long Beach Mystics . The finale of the act was to produce a giant thimble and at the time he hid the thimble in a large roll-on table . Other than hide the thimble , the only use of the table was to place his top hat on . He was looking at the trick from the method angle , in other words this table will hide this big thimble rather than looking at it from the audience ’ s angle which was the only thing he