Magic Tricks

Luke needs to find a manufacturing partner to sell the deck he uses in the first routine. It would sell like hotcakes. I've been a fan of Luke's work for as long as I can remember. My first exposure to him was in one of Kenton Knepper's manuscripts. I think it might have been Miracles of Suggestion. (Side note... that manuscript has one of the most clever and bold Headline Predictions ever. David Hoy and Dunninger would be proud.)

If I was forced to be critical of this lecture, it would be sleight (misspelled on purpose). It's actually not a criticism of the lecture content, but more of a note for what I think Luke could improve upon. When he is storytelling and engaging with earnestness, that comes through in spades (another magic reference, can't help it). When he is in that mode, I hang on to every word he speaks. But there were quite a few times where he made quips and jabs at his participates. Obviously he was going for humor with those, but they didn't fly for me, and they didn't seem to fly for the live audience either. It's just a delivery thing. A slight pause and smirk can do wonders to quell the audience's tension of "he just made fun of that guy, that was funny, but maybe I feel badly for that guy who just got made fun of, but how did he take it, I hope he's not upset, but that was funny, should I laugh?"

Derren Brown does similar quips with his audience a lot, but in his case they land with laughter. In Luke's case here, they just felt a little bit mean, even though that clearly wasn't his intention.

Anyway, that's a very hyper-critical analysis of one small issue. Long story short, if you are at all interested in mentalism, do yourself a favor and purchase this lecture.