I know your probably thinking what does that title mean and what does it have to do with magic? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’ll tell you what I mean.
We all know what a silhouette is, and just in case you don’t know, its like a shadow of something you are looking at, actually Dai Vernon made a decent living cutting them out of cloth to make them look like people, anyways on to my point.
About 6 years ago I got to see a professional magic perform live for the first time, and at first I was blown away it was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in person, but after awhile I slowly forgot things about the performance, and now to be honest I couldn’t even tell you what the guy looked like. Now jump forward a year from that and I get to see pretty much a living legend perform, his name was Walter Blaney he’s performed and received a standing ovation on the Johnny Carson show, which was a very hard thing to do. Needless to say he knew what he was doing .I sit back now and I can remember everything not because he was famous but because of some of the little things he did, for instance he made personal contact with everyone he came up to, whether it was with a hand shake or a hand on a back, and he always and I mean always asked for your name. Please remember that someone’s name is the most personal thing to them. It’s very important for people to have their names remembered. Men have died to have their names written in history books, remember that.
My point is this, we have a chance every time we perform even if its only for one person or many to put someone in a place they don’t get to go to very often, I feel that we need to do everything in our power to make them remember us after we have moved on whether its to another performance, table, or where ever. We do not want to be Silhouette in some ones memory in just a few months or even worse a few minutes. So next time during your performance make some kind of contact get a name and try to make your spectator apart of your magic not just a spectator and I guarantee, not only will it be better for them but it will be a lot more gratifying for your self also.
