Be Excellent To Each Other

[pedant]Sleight of hand.[/pedant]

Sorry, but that's one that really gets me, and I've seen it twice in this thread now, so I'm assuming it's not a typo.

Oh boo, I'm gutted I got that one right now!

Gah! I got it right in my first post but got it wrong in the second one, just a few posts up. That's what I get for posting between rounds of CoD4. This is an annoying mispelling though -- I feel bad for getting it wrong.

What else did he do? Be interesting to see if he re-used any other material from the tour I saw in 2007.

I'm never sure whether to correct - some people might take it badly. Then, I'd always prefer to know, especially if it's a mistake not a typo, so I did it anyway.

I generally don't correct but I usually really, really want to. "Mute point" is one of my most hated expressions and I see that one around a lot.

*Calls an Ent Moot*

*considers Ents relevant*

Lots of these videos are on youtube, pootubepeople!

No, I didn't know it was spelled 'sleight', so it wasn't a typo, but now I know for the future*. I don't mind people pointing out that I have mis-spelled things at all, as long as they don't make a big deal about it, or act like it is some kind of afront to their intelligence that someone dare mis-spell a word that they themselves know!





*This is a lie, I will have forgotten by the time I navigate away from this page.

There's only one guy on here who qualifies as a "poo tube person".

I thought he was more into facials now...

* Passed a bit of paper around getting people to write numbers on it. Got the last person to add them up, and it was the number on the pin badge he had been wearing all night, which was also the digits of the date.

* Got people up on stage to do 20 questions with them, but got most of them right within three or four. One person he didn't even ask any questions, just looked at him. Objects guessed ranged from guitar to oxygen mask.

* The wholse second half was a mind reading act. During the interval he got people to write their initials and row letter on the outside of an envelope, and any question on the inside. He went through about twenty, guessing everyone's questions, as well as details about them. Very impressive cold reading skills, which he then went on to do blindfolded.

Hey, if you people didn't think such rubbish, I wouldn't need to. From my perspective, you're the crazy, argumentative ones. Yeah. Think about it. Yeah. Yeah.

Also: thank-you Derren for Mimi sticking her tongue out inside of that box. Next time though, a little warning please - I'm used to seeing Dimrill's face all over this forum, so seeing such a vision of loveliness* was a bit jarring.

* in case of accidental over-flattery: well, for a girl anyway. No, wai-

I'm sure a photoshopped beard could be arranged.

The Devil's Picturebook is the name of the how-he-does it video, by the way. Available at [your local video store - Ed].

It was my pleasure, CUS. They are now safely trapped in Dimrill's basement where he makes them sort his varying beard lice into sub-species in a tiny little leaden box with a locked lid.

Also, you forgot to turn the tap off, give me your wallet.

I bought this book a few weeks ago when I was at a lecture by James Randi, Ben Goldacre, Susan Blackmore and others. I'm quite predictable.

But thanks at the recommendation, I haven't read it yet, and it's encouraging to have heard something good about it!

I quite like what he does, but he walks a narrow line between doing genuine magic, and pretend it's all psychology. Which is pretty close to what Uri Geller and the like do. However his hatred of them, and his promotion of scepticism make him awesome.

Clearly Penn and Teller are still more awesome though.

Derren signed my program after his show in London - I was one of several people who didn't have to tell him my name. Man, he's fast.

Really?

Crucially though, did you over here him getting other peoples names wrong? Cos he could have just been working percentages....

He said, pretty much without pausing "Hi there, don't tell me your name, it's Matthew. No wait - it's Matt, not Matthew. You've never been a Matthew."
Colour me astounded.

Because my name is Peter

He is a witch.

An incredible, fantastic, genius of a witch.

Saw his live show a while back, and it was brilliant. The thing he did at the end of the show with the 'magic square' was particularly memorable. Especially as my brother had been to see him a few nights before and he did it with different numbers.

He read your letter in the Metro, Grim...

Maybe.

I don't understand if he got your name right or not now. I is dumb.

But magic is all about going to lengths far to long for people to suspect you can be arsed. So he no probably memorised the ticket names places or something. Or something like this:



Except this features a complete cunt instead of an entertainer.

I think it's more likely that he is an avid forumite and/or Titler.

He was spot on. I'm legally Matt, not Matthew.

This is one of my favourite bits of DerrenBrownism.

Ah ok, then I guess he checked up on you all before hand on your credit card/ticket statements (where you would be matthew if it was legal), and learnt it all with the peg system, so that if any of you came over to him he would know your name.

Which is fucking amazing.

That would still only give him (at most) half of the people there, and no means by which to link the list of attendees to the person stood in front of him (bar the sex of the person).

The man's crazy.

That wouldn't work for a couple of reasons: One - the theatre wouldn't release that sort of information, Two - how would he know who bought the tickets for couples, and, most importantly, three - we were stood outside the stage door with our tickets in our pockets.

And I'm Matt, not Matthew.

Where you queueing with someone, talking, Grim...? Any chance he could have overheard someone call you Matt?

Perhaps a third-party is involved. Few magicians ever worked alone.

Hmm *ponders*.

What I meant about Matt though is that it tells that he looked at a bill or a ticket or something, as that would have only come up as "Matt" if it was your legal name which probably prompted him to elaborate.

I've no idea how he did that (bar guessing and hoping only the people he got right would go about mentioning it).

Awesome stuff.

Yeah, but if he somehow knew I was called Matt (and it's entirely possible that he or his helper overheard someone or something), surely the natural assumption is that I'm called Matthew, rather than one of the very rare 'proper' Matt's in this country. Knowing that I wasn't a Matthew pretty much sealed it for me that he READ MY MIND (or my face, or something).

No, that trick is about reading someone's body language. If someone says to you 'Hi, my name's Derrin, what's yours?, wait, let me guess..' your name will be on your lips, quite often he'll be able to tell the first letter of your name, and from there it's percentages and reading the reaction.

In Grim...'s example, he knew it was Matt, by the way Grim... would have reacted to 'Matthew', a look of disgust, or Grim... jumping to correct him, or whatever. Its a hard trick to pull off, but its what a lot of 'psychics' do.

Oh, and:
Why Magic Works

Cor, I wonder if he wasn't working alone, maybe?

I think he may be playing the percentages. My legal name is Richard but most of my mates call me "Rich" so in that sense, yeah, I've always been a "Rich"... to the people who matter to me, if not to my bank. This is likely true of most people with a name that shortens like that (Nick/Nicholas, for example). Particularly if he'd overheard "Matt" rather than Matthew.

I find it quite easy to believe he's mentally sharp enough to be eavesdropping on the conversations of two or even three people back in the queue whilst talking to the one in front. And as Derren himself has written, you only need to pull this sort of thing off once or twice and a dozen missed guesses will quickly fade from your audience's mind. This is how cold readers work in general.

Pundy's point about people forming the first letter with their mouth is valid too. A lot of his tricks are based around that. I like the one where he asks you to say five things, just in your mind, and make one of them a lie -- he did this on one of the TV shows with used car salesmen and the tell is outrageously obvious (the guy's eye movement gives it away). In the book (I think) he remarks that that particular one -- making people say things in their mind -- looks outrageously hard but is actually much easier than doing it aloud, as people are concentrating harder on what they are thinking and the tells become exaggerated.

Oh aye, I get that, but it doesn't stop it fucking impressive, and the speed he does it at is frightening.

All my credit cards are in the short version of my name, whereas the long version is what's on my birth certificate.

Your credit cards have 'Cras' written on them? Says it all.

Well, patently not, y'fool.

Really? Awesome. I want to do that now. Bad ass.

Well that's sort of the brilliance. He can do a lot with cold reading, NLP and other psychological tricks. He's very skilled in those areas. But then there's other bits where they go beyond the realms of what is possible with that sort of thing. But if he builds up to those things with genuine psychological tricks, then takes it that step furthur, using mis-direction/sleight of hand/stooges/set-ups etc, and pretends it's still a psychological thing, it feels more real.

You can have anything you want (within reason) written on your credit card. I'd have several that said 'Grim...' by now if they'd fucking accept full stops.

He's an amazing genius. Although, cor, it'd certainly be easier if he had a third party assisting him, eh? I wonder.

As mentioned above, that wouldn't be much help in this situation.

Really, why? I can see no such mention *peers*.

Ah, I've got a different page length from you.
Here it is: viewtopic.php?p=26610#p26610

What - his knowing that you aren't Matthew means it definitely couldn't have been a third-party? That doesn't work for me.
(just saying, like y'know lad)