Jim Bevan

I perform a variation of James Randi’s magazine test.

Last June I decided to mark Pride Month by doing a trick James Randi made popular and it went over well, so I chose to repeat the theme this year. He really was an incredible magician and a champion of reason, and his presence is sadly missed when we have so many more frauds and charlatans taking advantage of the gullible.

This trick also gave me a chance to practice my preshow work. I’d say it was mostly successful, but there are some areas to improve on.

I do a lie detection routine.

During the summer it’s hard to tell how many people will be at an open-mic due to other events happening, so I’m trying to hedge my bets by preparing two tricks for every one I go to; one that works for a small crowd, and one for a larger audience. We actually had a pretty good attendance at this show, but it was mostly newcomers and the bigger trick I had planned would’ve worked better with people I’m more familiar with. So I put that on the backburner and went with the simpler one, which still thankfully went over well.

I perform “Color Psychology.”

I’ve wanted to do a color match routine for a while, but wasn’t able to before now due to the simple reason that a lot of the props required to do one successfully are, let’s just say, out of my price range. Thankfully I found a good workaround so I was finally able to take a crack at it, and I’m happy it went over well. It was fun coming up with some of the psychological profiling questions – I tried to make them strange without being too overtly funny (except for the slam at the late night hosts). Might switch them up for some others if I do this again.

I perform my drawing duplication routine “Reverse Art Analysis.”

When I started to get serious about performing I knew I wanted to have a good book test and drawing duplication in my act. The first one I managed to achieve pretty easily (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMo1OgJW7-Y) while the latter took some significant trial and error. A lot of routines I studied had moments where it would be pretty clear that you peeked if someone thought hard enough, and I had to eliminate that as a possibility. I also tried quite a few props that also didn’t cover for a peek, or were to difficult to handle without my accidentally revealing the secret. Finally I managed to find one that covered all my bases and lets me do the trick clean while still entertaining the audience. It was a big hit at paid shows, but this is the first time I’ve recorded it, and I hope you all enjoy it as well.

I do a take on “Guided Visualization” by Andy of The Jerx.

Not a lot to say on this one, other than I tried to put a spin on the routine with a “magician in peril” premise and spice things up with a few jokes. Whether or not they were effective is for viewers to decide. As I mention at the start, the format for open mics has changed so they’ll now be every other week. I think this might work out as now I won’t feel pressured to have a new trick each Friday and risk burnout, plus the longer period between gives me time to work on more complex bits, which you’ll all hopefully be seeing soon.

I perform a variation of Larry Becker’s “Simpli-City.”

As I mention during the video, this was the first routine that Paul Mellan showed me back in 2019 when I went into his shop in Scranton and told him I was interested in mentalism. It was the gateway that helped set me on the path I’m on now, and for that I’ll be forever grateful. I regret that I didn’t get a chance to see Paul one last time before he passed, but I hope that he’d be happy with the progress I’ve made.

Another performance of Max Maven’s “Kurotsuke”

I try not to repeat tricks I’ve done before, but my original Kurotsuke was definitely clumsy in its execution. I think I got the handling down better, as well as made the patter more entertaining. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, so that’s a good sign. Though I decided against it for the Saturday show – went with something that could involve a larger number of participants. It went over well, thankfully.