In the spirit of blurring magic's boundaries, Joe Piper and I have come up with the following effect. If you don't know, Joe's that handsome young fellow 'hackmonkey'. We hope you like it.


'Remembering Stones', by Joe Piper and Caleb Strange.

This is a thought-reading routine with a gentle, yet grand, presentation. As you will see in the notes, it can be presented for very small groups, which is how Joe developed it, but this is my idea for a stage presentation.

You are in a large space, such as an empty warehouse or factory. The audience is comfortably seated on a central area of cushions, carpets, and fine furniture. It is a small island of oppulence, well away from any walls, and when the lights dim, the darkness and the echoes that surround the audience are awe inspiring. During the show, you use, occasionally, some projection on the back wall, including CCTV footage of your CU routines. For this segment, you work within the audience itself. You are holding a treasured collection of old, and battered photographs, looking at them, with happy rueful tears, and sighing. You sit down on the edge of a chaise longue

'Ah memory. Memory,' you say. 'Soft deceiver ever. That clears the cluttered table of the mind, and lays a banquet for the heart. Sweet sweet meats of memory, how they torment us so'. You smile sadly, and pause. Then you put your photos tenderly to the floor.
'In folk magic, it is believed that certain stones, left to be polished in glacial streams, have the power to evoke particular memories, happy and sad. Carnelians, obsidians, agates, and more, known colloquially as remembering stones.' From under your seat you remove a simple wooden bowl that is filled with beautiful gems and crystals, and, almost lost in thought, you let some trickle through your fingers, saying, 'Every one a happy memory.' Then the spell is broken, and you get up.
You smile, and ask a young blonde woman to assist you. You lead her to the chaise longue, and help her to lie down, moving cushions and so on, until she is completely comfortable. And as you explain what will happen, the lights dim, save for a warm yellow spotlight, directly overhead.
'Mary, each of these remembering stones will evoke a happy childhood memory. I want you to relax, relax...' Here, you gently brush Mary's forehead clear of hair, and encourage her eyes to close. You take her hand, and guide it to the bowl of stones. 'Reach in, take a stone, and hold it to your forehead. Now see inside, that happy little girl, and sense the memory you are given. Sense the memory. Sense it'. You turn to the rest of the audience, and signal for silence.

Now you step away from the woman, and, with your words, encourage and enable her to relive her memory as vividly as possible. As this happens, and her eyes are closed, softly we hear the sound of an old projector. And on the wall, everyone but the woman can see a delightful home movie. A little blonde girl is seen running on a beach towards the camera laughing and falling over. The cine-film is scratched, old, much treasured, but people can clearly see the happy scenes of a childhood holiday. Some people on the screen are stiff and awkward, in that charming family movie way, and the speed of the film sometimes makes them jerky. Others show off, and do heroic things. Yet all the time, the pretty blonde girl appears, sometimes older, sometimes younger, always laughing. Nets are splashed in rock pools. Sand castles built by the sea. And all the while, your gentle words, seem to subtly anticipate what we see on the screen. It is as if we are sharing in Mary's memory. The film ends with a sunset, and the leader flashes past. The screen glows blank, and we hear the sound of the film slapping on the spool. You pause for a long time, and then tenderly get the woman to 'come back', and open her eyes.
You take her hand, and hold the stone to your forehead. You appear to savour an exquisite moment, and say to her, 'A beautiful memory, from your childhood'. She agrees, and you look at her smiling, until she says, 'I was a little girl, playing on the beach. It was a lovely family holiday'.
The audience gasps, but you ignore it. Your attention is fixed completely on Mary. You nod, and almost in a whisper, clasp Mary's hand round the stone, and say, 'Take it. It's ever yours. You have only to,' and you hold your hand to your forehead in demonstration, 'and you will see, see, see.'


There IS a fiendish combination of methods for this effect, and some ideas for presenting this one to one, or for small groups. These extra details will be published elsewhere. But, for now, we hope you liked this collaboration.

Best wishes,

Joe Piper and Caleb Strange.

Joe, Caleb, well done! The idea of having us (I certainly felt as if I was in the audience) seeing Mary’s memory is lovely, lovely, lovely.

Beautiful, well thought out theatre.
Thank you both for sharing it with us.

Dave

I fear Caleb has give me too much credit here. I merely came up with the original idea and some of the methods. Caleb wove this wonderful story around it!!! Mine was but a simple mind reading routine, Caleb has a wonderful mind to create these amazing routines around an idea. This also shows what can come about if the minds here team up and try to make something original.

Joe, many thanks for that, but you got me started, and came up with intriguing, and inspiring, methods, so I politely insist we take joint credit.

As you say, it shows what can be achieved when we collaborate. We Café types should do this more often.

Warm regards,

Caleb Strange.

The scripting is wonderful, but be careful of the audience placement and the projector placement. The last thing you want is somebody making shadow puppets.

It was my original method that was for small groups, and this used no projetor. Calebs' is for stage so I think the projector should be well out of the way of people who think their fingers are funnny.....

Kathryn, that is so funny! You're absolutely right of course, I didn't think of that.

Shadow puppets eh? Now there's a thought! As bizarrists, perhaps we could use the ancient art of shadow theatre to enhance some of our presentations? Actually, a story could be accompanied, especially in this performance setting, with a film of a shadow show. Or we could do it smaller, with real figures. Especially for children. Will have to think about this.

Regards,

Caleb Strange.

Just noticed, Doug has now kindly published the fuller version of this over at bizarremagick.com. What about those methods?!!!

Regards,

Caleb Strange.

Well done again! The methods are just lovely and elegant, and all the details are nicely worked out! Some would charge more than a buck or two for this, thanks for sharing!