Mind Reading A Thought-of Word from a Book!
Tell a spectator the word they select in a book!
Dropping a Card on Edge?
“When you drop a playing card on the table”, you demonstrate to a spectator, “it lands on 1 side or the other. Can you drop it, from a height of at least 1 foot, so it lands on its edge?”
Floating a Silver Ball!
Make a silver ball float!
Half of 8 is…3?
Half of 8 is 3, you claim. And you can prove it! Do you know how?
What’s Unusual about these Sentences?
Some men interpret nine memos.Too bad, I hid a boot.Madam, I’m Adam.A man, a plan, a canal – Panama!Doc note, I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.
Pick an Animal Trick
Introduce your assistant, the great mind reader. Send her out of the room. Show a sheet with pictures of 9 animals, with their names beneath the pictures. Ask a spectator to select any animal. Invite the mind reader back in. She correctly reveals the chosen animal! Want to learn to do this?
Can You Make a Pear Disappear?
Here’s a fun bit to show a library patron, or an audience while they are waiting for a program to begin. Ask your audience if they can make a pear disappear. Let them think about this. After a minute or two, show them the secret:
Dog Jaw Gag
Complain that your neck has been hurting. Mention that you think you might have a case of Dog Jaw. Ask the person you’re showing this to if they’ve ever heard of Dog Jaw?
Levitating the Queen!
Show a deck of cards. So you can’t do anything sneaky with them, you place them in a paper (or styrofome) cup. Upon your command, the queen rises out of the deck! Would you like to learn to do this one?
Alphabet Soup
Read the following paragraph only once, counting the number of F’s in the paragraph. How many F’s are there? FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE-SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-IC STUDY COMBINED WITHTHE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS. Answer: Most will find 3 F’s. Few will find all 6!