Do you believe?

We had our annual client "networking" event this past Thursday (no!! I promise this post is NOT going to be about work!!!).

We'd been planning it for months and one of the "attractions" of the evening was a show by Roberto Strizzi.

Since we wanted to make sure that this guy was not a fraud (and avoid a huge embarrassment in front of our clients) we went to see his show before hand last week and I have to say I came out not exactly sure of what IS and what ISN'T possible anymore.

Roberto is an "illusionist". Basically he can read minds and "connect" with people he has never met before. I never used to believe in this sort of stuff... (although for the record, I do believe in aliens, but that's a whole other story) but after Roberto's show I'm no longer that certain.

He begins his show by randomly selecting two audience members to come up on stage (I say randomly because they way they are selected is he throws a crunched ball of paper to an audience member and turns around while he makes us throw the ball of paper from one person to another across the room (kindda like playing hot potato) until he yells stop. The person with the ball is "it").

He then asks one of the two volunteers to put a coin on each of his (Roberto's) eyelids and then wrap his face with black duck tape. Once he's completely blindfolded he asks the other volunteer to collect a series of objects from the audience on a little tray. Again, this is all random stuff (one of my colleagues threw in her metro pass on the tray). Once the objects are collected he holds the hand of the person who passed the tray and asks her to select one by one the objects with her other hand so that in no way he physically touches them but is still connected to them through the volunteer. He than proceeds not only to describe precisely what the object is (color, material, shape..) but what it means to the owner. For instance, he guessed the metro pass of my colleague, but was even able to state that the metro pass belonged to "Martine" and that she's had it for 3 years and counting (this was confirmed by Martine herself!). Another amazing example was when the object in question was a small pretty funky tin case and not only did he guess what the object was, but he even surprised the owner by saying that the case had the logo of her small business of organic sandwiches and how she was a vegetarian. The owner was sitting right behind me and I literally heard her "gasp in amazement".

Ok, so I admit this first part still let me a bit skeptical (although he did ask the volunteers to stick a finger in each of his ears as proof that he wasn't wearing any ear prompters or stuff like that).

But then I had a chance to test first-hand his "mind reading skills".

He distributed to each of the audience members a sheet of paper with a number on one side and a blank spot on the other. He then asked us to write a question on the blank side and then to tear the sheet in half leaving the number on one piece of paper and the question on the other. After asking us to fold our "question piece" in four, he passed a pouch around to collect all of the questions and then dumped all the pieces on a table near by. He never once touched a single sheet. He then asked us to do the same (fold in four and dump into the pouch) the piece with our number on it after having us memorize our number.

He then proceeded to randomly select 5 numbers out of the pouch and asked the audience members who's number was called out to come up on stage. I kept hopping that he call out my number because a) I had cheated on my question and b) I wanted to test first hand his "powers".

And what do you know? HE CALLED OUT MY NUMBER!!!

So up on stage I went with four other audience members. One by one, he took us by the hand and proceeded to talk about our "question". The first two girls before me it seems where amazed when he pretty much "guessed what their question was about" sometimes even coming up with the name of a guy or a place that was directly related to their question. Then came my turn.

Don't laugh, but my very first thought was "shit! I hope he doesn't read my mind too much 'cuz I haven't shaved my legs in ages and it's a pretty gross sight"...

He took my hand and looked at me and went "hmmmmm.....your case is a particular one. I bet you are translating the word "zut" in your heard right now, right?" ("zut" means "uh-oh" in french btw). He looked at me a little longer and said "your question is not a simple yes or no answer, is it? it has something to do with you and another person, right?". I nodded and internally thought "this guy's a fraud, that's way too easy".... he then surprised me by saying "This is not professional, I'll have to get back to you a little later" and led me back to my seat...............




..........................................................





.........................................................................................





(WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)



However, the more I think about it the more unsettled I become. Here's why:

a) First of all, I say I cheated on my question because I wrote it in english. I can't help asking myself if that's why he asked me if I was translating the word zut in my head.

b) My question was simply this: "will the answer be yes?". I can't really talk about the actual context of the question yet, but I will say this: it has to do with hubby's and my careers......

c) Sitting in the audience was one of my bosses. I can't help thinking that Roberto sensed this and thought it was perhaps not a good idea (read: professional?) to "answer my question" in front of my boss which, it's reasonable to say, is right.

d) However, I had written my question as ambiguously as possible precisely because my boss was in the audience but then again, is that why Robert had said my question was not "a simple yes or no" matter? .....

The rest of the show was more astonishing performances and intriguing precise guessing games. I have to say that the show he put on for our clients was just as mind boggling and several of our guests later came up to tell us how impressed they had been by Roberto's show.

So what do you say? Do you believe in this stuff?
If so, do you think he knew about my unshaved legs? gulp!!

Fned.

P.S. For those of you living in Paris, I totally recommend his show (every Monday evening at the Thêatre Clavel (19th district) -- 3 euro fee).