Effect:
Magician gets a job performing in a restaurant. In between tricks, he decides to sword fight with the decorative sword, nearly bleeds all over his audience and eventually gets fired for being an idiot.
Materials Needed: Cards, a Ninja costume, Decorative Swords on the walls, a mortified restaurant manager.
Method:
Let’s call him Dalv. He was 18 and this was his first job. He was working as a house magician in a Tribeca restaurant called Ninja NY. Like a house wine, he wasn’t very good, but he didn’t cost much.
Three nights a week, Dalv would hop from table to table, showing card tricks, coin tricks, sponge magic.
The restaurant was designed to look like an underground Ninja Village, with each table hidden inside of a separate room. Each room made to look like a stone and wood house in an Edo era village. Ninjas would roam the halls. The faux stone walls were lined with ancient looking scrolls and swords.
The Ninjas patrolling the roads were waiters, runners and yes, the occasional magician. Each dressed in traditional shinobi black garb. Each, including a 6’2, lanky magician named Dalv. He looked like a black and white pool noodle with cards.
One day, this flailing tube man took notice of the sword on the wall. His 18 year old brain hadn’t developed impulse control yet.
He talked a fellow ninja into a mock sword fight. Two overgrown toddlers running through the hallways, clanking metal while mildly confused patrons looked on. He nicked his finger, thinking it was a small scratch.
Before he could exact his vengeance, he heard his manager’s voice in his earpiece: “Magician to table 23. MAGICIAN TO TABLE 23!!”
The battle was lost. Back to work.
_
“GOMEN!” Dalv shouted, as he bowed and entered the fake little house with a four-top table in it.
He spread the cards and thought to himself, “that’s weird, I don’t remember the spades being red..are my cards bleeding?”
No. His finger was.
In a flash, he thought of the magician Meir Yedid, who had a famous act where he pretended to pop off his fingers, one at a time. Then, in a horribly ironic car accident, he ended up losing said fingers, permanently.
Dalv stuffed the battle wounded hand into his pocket and felt for a little sponge rabbit. Makeshift gauze.
Another flash, and he thought of Renee Lavand. One of the great card magicians, who managed to achieve legendary status in spite of being one-handed. Like Meir, he too suffered his amputation in a car crash.
After making a mental note to avoid cars, Dalv decided to channel the great Rene Lavand and finish the set with one hand.
He proceeded to perform a series of one handed cuts, a shuffle and… drop all 52 cards. The realization that he didn’t know how to do card tricks with just one hand. Ashamed, he exited in a hasty but decidedly un-stealthy manner, leaving a mess of cards behind.
_
At this point, do you:
A – learn your lesson, be more professional, and take your job seriously; or,
B – come back next week and seek sword fighting vengeance!
You’d think that I..err…Dalv, would have learned his lesson. But no. Not this 18 year old. No, he was Miyamoto Musashi, with swordfighting glory on his mind.
He returned to the Ninja Village, his battle wounds dressed (with a bandaid). He engaged his nemesis with a bright flash of fire (flash paper), as he slowly drew a sword from the wall. He crouched into striking position, poised for attack.
Before his nemesis could draw the other sword, a voice in his earpiece interrupted the battle:
“Magician to manager’s office. MAGICIAN TO MANAGER’S OFFICE!!”
The bright, fiery flash that started the battle also got the attention of the restaurant manager, who was watching the idiocy unfold on camera.
And that is how the Ninja was relieved of his duties, (fired from his magic gig). And that is how the Ninja Magic Code of Honor was born.
The Ninja Magic Code of Honor (notes to self):
1 – Do not bleed on your audience.
2 – Be professional – don’t take yourself too seriously, but take your job seriously.
3 – If you are part of a village (even a ninja village), be a good resident. Leave the place better than it was when you got there.
4 – Contingency – learn to perform magic that doesn’t require two-handed dexterity. What’s your backup plan if the trick goes wrong?
5 – Reflect – writing about your failures (even in poorly disguised third person, 20 years later) helps you extract meaning from them.
6 – In other words, obstacles can be opportunities. A single failure can teach a decade of lessons.
7 – Listen to the universe. When you nearly lose a finger sword fighting, maybe treat that as a warning to not do that again.
8 – Always keep a bandaid in your bag.
9 – Impulse control. Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.
10 – Remember: when acting stupid, you never know who’s watching.
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