“Watch this” I said, “The fourth and final coin will travel invisibly into your hand.”

Three pairs of eyes looked back at me as I waved my hands in the requisite fashion, summoning the phantom coin which had vanished moments earlier. I had been hoping for a few more spectators to start my show, but my inexperience had lead me to start a show in a central, but underpopulated, portion of the pedestrian mall. Those passing by, dozens of feet away, were just out of reach of my still-fledgling crowd gathering techniques. So I had little recourse other than hoping a wayward soul or two would decide to go out of their way to see my show.

Applause was scattered, as I finished a routine which usually draws gasps and applause that I must actively suppress at corporate events. The street is a different animal, and here I was offering it a piece of food better suited to its far removed, urbanized cousin. In my mind, I saw this feral beast pad towards me, sniff the morsel, glance around, and claw me once to show its indifference. Stony faces looked back on the coin’s impossible flight.

This was not the first show of the day. I had performed this particular piece perhaps five or six times in different spots earlier today and received better responses to varying degrees. This time, my voice had reached a high staccato, trying to fill in extra content to those precious moments before my audience took the mental journey from being disinterested to deciding not to tip, to deciding to walk away altogether. You could see it in their eyes. I could have decided to cut and run. I could have simply said, “That’s it folks. Thanks for your time, and have a great day!”

I probably should have.

Performing for a bored audience who would rather be elsewhere is demoralizing for a magician. Nowhere else have I experienced this as strongly as I did then. My hunger for approval drove me forward, ignoring bored glances in other directions and phones being pulled out to text friends. The little crowd I had managed to gather (eight people at the most) dissipated one by one as I powered through my finale. My core group, the ones I’d made friends with at the beginning, stayed (though I suspect more out of pity than anything else). No one tipped.

This all sounds pretty depressing. Believe me; at the moment, it was! I took a long break at a starbucks, drinking my grande two-pump-toffee-nut-with-room-iced-coffee-venti-ice-water-on-the-side. My barrista made the coffee with half-and-half on accident, but I still tipped a dollar. As I sat there, I went over my one-liners. The problem had to be in my showmanship. When you’re on the street, you’re no longer a magician; you’re a performer. I read, I drank, I re centered. Then I went back out and did three more shows, which went much much better.

All of this is to say that I learned a lot today. I learned about drawing a crowd, and educating them about what my performance is worth. I learned that walking around with a magician’s table is a free pass to speak, as friends, with any other busker on the mall. “How’s your pitch treating you? Good hats today?”

Most importantly, though, I learned something about the world. All my life, I have been taught that you need to convince a person to let you work for them, to give you permission to earn your way in the world. All across the planet, unemployment rates of people between 18 and 24 are skyrocketing, some up to the low 60%’s. Each of these people, including myself, have been shown no other way to live. But why should you need permission to survive? To thrive? Today, I made enough to pay for a tank of gas. The money I earned today is unimportant, though, because I walked away with something much more valuable. Today I learned that with willingness to fail, passion for my work, some sunscreen, and just under fifty dollars of raw supplies, I can make my way in the world and be subject to no one but myself.

I can’t wait to do it all again.

I’ve been working like a dog on about thirteen sub-projects for my upcoming show (Sunday, February 12th, 2:00 pm at the Compound, 145 Broadway! Be there!) and I can’t even count how many times I’ve accomplished something really cool that I wanted to share here. It’s unfortunate that the interesting psychological subtleties that I stumble across, the ridiculously intricate fabrication processes I figure out, and the cunning sleights I work on simply cannot be shared in detail. It’s taken all my willpower, for instance, not to film myself using a ***** ***** for the first time while constructing the custom set of **** for my **** ***** ******** routine.

It’s the nature of the beast, I guess. Still, I do believe that the greatest joy can be garnered from magic when an audience member knows at least a little about the process that goes into making the effect they are enjoying. Just as a painting can be more fully appreciated by knowing the background of the artist, so too can a beautiful piece of magic be enhanced by understanding how much routining went into developing the subtle and beautiful attention control (misdirection is the more common, incorrect nomenclature) that goes into making you miss the crux upon which rests the entire deception. There are a thousand little details that go into a single effect. Each one is important and each one is fascinating. There is a part of me that desperately wants to pull you aside after the show and show you how and why each thing worked the way it did; the “why” behind the “what” seems infinitely more interesting to me.

But, I know that I have as little capability of disrobing these secrets post-performance as I do of sharing these little daily accomplishments that continue to propel me quickly towards showtime on the fifth. Instead, I must do as the magical fraternity has been doing for centuries and content myself with a solitary satisfaction in the eventual adulation of my audience.

And after all, applause ain’t so bad.

And the preparations begin! As of tomorrow, I begin working on my new promo video. Lots of stuff to get ready- new material to work on, locations to scout, and various video/sound logistics to sort out. It looks like it’s going to be a *very* busy month!

The new site is up and running, finally! Feel free to take a look around. It seems like I’ve been working more on the website recently than the magic. Now that the site’s done (aside from an upcoming promotional video and some more new photos!) I can get back to my 2012 projects. The next year is going to be awesome, with a lot of new magic on the way. I can’t express how excited I am!

I’m always excited to book a gig and this is a short, but sweet one.  The good people over at MGA Communications asked me to entertain them at their corporate holiday party from 7:00 to 7:30.  I’m definitely looking forward to it.