Well, Hellstromism practice with Gary went better than expected. His hand did give away where the object was that he was thinking of. He didn’t yank me off my feet, but he truly swung his hand like a compass needle toward the object.
Sadly, we were doing it in our great room, and it’s just not big enough or grid-like enough to do a real test. I’ll just have to have him place the object somewhere in the house instead of somewhere in the great room.
Toward the end, he began to argue with me. He asked why I wasn’t talking to him to reveal where the object was.
I said, “Why would I talk to you to find the hidden object? You’re supposed to think of the object and I’m supposed to read your mind.”
“No. You keep up a patter and ask me questions that make me reveal where the object is.” Blatant “mansplaining.” Well, mansplaining would be if he explained something we both know. I know how it’s done, and he doesn’t.
I sighed, “No patter. That’s not how it’s done.”
“Yes it is.” He actually said that. “It’s all done with the patter. You can’t actually read my mind, and talking to me is the only way to tell what’s in my mind.”
“Nope.” Mind you, I’m saying this while I have his wrist daintily pinched between my thumb and index finger.
“Listen to me. You need to work on your patter.”
“Sure. Whatever. Is it the lamp?”
Of course, it was the lamp. And he was not adequately amazed. That pissed me off as much as the mansplaining, frankly.
5 responses to “The Amazing Ellen: Update”
ARGGGGHHHHH I want to throat-punch Gary.
Allison – Most of the time I don’t take him seriously so it doesn’t bother me. You should have seen him when I took the Series 7 stockbroker exam – so many things I knew that he didn’t. He could not deal with it.
I… would not naturally cope well with that. My spouse tilts skeptic, but it does not bother him when I know more in a specific weird area of knowledge than he does (at least, he doesn’t tend to show it! maybe it bothers him, but honestly, probably not unless it’s something he thought he knew more about?).
Most of the performers in that general field (probably none of them were that specific subtype?) I’ve seen/heard of do keep up a patter, though, and some of them credit part of the outcome to things either revealed by the patter or suggested to the subject by the patter. See “The Mesmerist” (well, listen to it, rather, since it’s a podcast) of https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07dx75g/episodes/player for info on how one of the tricks is done.
(the patter also keeps it entertaining for onlookers, probably. I can imagine that, say, two minutes of dead silence while nothing apparent is going on might lose a crowd to some degree, unless you’d *really* built up to that.)
KC – also, the patter might be a misdirection, a big principle of magic.