ArchivedLogs:Street Magic
| Street Magic | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | 2014-02-13 Jim, Kate and Joe have a chance meeting |
| Location
<NYC> Gramercy Park | |
Known as a quiet and safe neighborhood, Gramercy Park is home to a lot of families, a lot of yuppies, and a lot of townhouses and pristine architecture. There are not any skyscrapers to be found, here, just quiet shops and quiet homes. The eponymous park in the center of the neighborhood is one of the only two privately owned parks in the city, and access is only allowed to those living in the surrounding neighborhood -- those who pay a fee are granted a key giving them access to the two acre parkland. "Something kinda funny about a guy talking about magical card tricks when he's standing next to a talking snow bank," Jim comments deadpan from behind his camera, watching the world through a cyclopsian single lens. CLICK. "G'wan, David Copperfield, let's see it." Click-click. His snowman can cop a snow-attitude, if with more vicious New York cheer, managing to cross its twiggy arms and turning towards Kate and, more specifically, the font of information that is /her/ snowlady. If you look close, his white face is a little grubby, dirty slush and gravel dulling his white snow unapologetically, where a gouge in one side of his face matches the scar garishly marring Jim's. Kate is just about to take a bite of her falafel, having given up on letting it cool down, apparently, when the call for attention is heard. She shuffles over, chewing on a bit of falafel as she finds a spot to stand and watch. "There's something kinda funny about a lot of stuff, but it doesn't mean it's any less interesting," Kate snorts, offering a cheeky smile, "It's like one of those claymation Christmas specials. Just a few months too late. Still kinda awesome." Her snow-person looks sheepish at the attention from the other snow-person, "Oh! This is... the... Ama... I'll tell you later," the snow-woman trails off, turning her shiny button eyes towards Joe and his card trick. Kate keeps her gloved hands in her pockets, though her posture is easy and comfortable as she waits to see the trick with perhaps a hint of naivete in her expression. With a few folks gathered around, Joe goes slow in his demonstration so everyone can see each move, but mostly so his little assistant can keep up with each step, mirroring the trick next to Joe. "Ok, so the important part is to shuffle like this, but keep in mind, the preparation is just the Pledge. The invitation to your audience." Joe grins, and though his smile is not pretty, his expression reflects pure joy. "That's the easy part, if you can sell it. Next comes the Turn. In this trick, that means I ask someone to take a card, 'any card'," he says with a wink. He holds the cards out and happens to come to Jim first but takes the man's stony expression to mean he should move on and seamlessly continues to Kate without stopping. "If you would please, miss?" Jim's expression remains curdled and intent, poking up from behind his camera to spear Joe with hard blue eyes then ducking down behind it again. In the way photographers are often wont, he's not /shy/ about his open, almost aggressive interest, stepping back with increasingly bent knees until he's squatting, to get an angle from which the hidden sides of the cards can be seen, Joe's arm's silhouetted against the pale winter sky. Joe's wretched-happy smile puts a ragged sincerity to the picture. "How long you been at this act anyway, buddy?" Chk-chk. Click. He has the flash off, so there's only the quiet mechanical shutter to mark each snap. Kate blinks a few times when Joe approaches her to pick a card, but she looks decidedly amused to have been picked. "Oh! Sure," she chirps, tenatively pulling one gloved hand from her coat pocket to select a card from the offered deck. She glances towards Jim and his camera, but shrugs and picks a card as requested, pausing before looking at it, just holding it a little uncertainly. "Whatcha need me to do with it?" she asks for clarification, grinning lopsidedly as she waits for further instruction. Joe just keeps right on smiling, answering Jim's question, "Most of my life, actually. But only just got a stage show off-broadway." His gaze lingers on the camera for a second, and then looks on while Kate picks a card. "An excellent question! This is where I ask you to show it to everyone but me." Mr. Icy has been mirroring the act so far with his own deck of cards, and timidly offers Jim's tough-looking snowman a card as well. "So just show that around, and slip it right back in here, anywhere." He winks once she has the card in place and turns to face everyone again. "But since I told you all I'll /teach/ you a trick today, I'm actually going to give away the 'prestige' as we call it. This part is a little tricky, but if you watch, you can see how my finger has traced exactly where she put the card. So with a little practice, you can start shuffling the deck /around/ that card, without ever losing track of where it is." Joe makes a couple of slow shuffles to show what he means, and then his hands really start to flash quickly and it's easy to see how someone might lose track of the original. In a showy flourish and roll of his hands, he produces Kate's card and holds it up for everyone to see. "I believe this is your card?" Jim's snowman is game to /oblige/, his frozen face somehow managing a smirky bemusement when he takes a card off Mr. Icy, flips it over to take a peek at its face. Rocks on his snowy-rounded heels then slips it back again with a friendly little chin-jerk. GO ON THEN. "/Braodway/. Hell, man, you kidding? And you're handing out a free performance on the streets?" Jim has a heavy journalistic style of hanging back outside the line of action. "What's your handle then, if I wanna google you later?" He's edging behind Kate to get a shot of her card - chk chk chk. Kate happily obliges, showing her card off to the modest crowd, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she slips the card back into place. "I'm horrible with actually doing this sort of thing," she admits in a hushed tone, stepping back and watching the movements of the cards, "Oh? Off Broadway? Cool." In case the wide eyed wonder weren't enough, the slight drawl to her voice certainly declares that she isn't from around these parts. When the card is produced, Kate grins and nods, stepping back, "Yup! That's my card!" Kate steps back carefully to keep from stepping on Jim or his clk-clk-clking camera, raising an eyebrow at the crouching man, "You some kinda paparazzi or something?" "Oh geez," Joe says with an embarrassed smile. "/Off/ broadway, man. Off-off-broadway really, but yeah you know, it pays the bills and beats hustling on street corners like I used to do." He shrugs and grins. But when Jim asks about his handle, every single snowman turns and offers with pulsing cheery helpfulness, "He's the Amazing Zerah!" In unison. Not creepy at all, certainly. Until that one waves from across the street and calls the same thing after it gets quiet again. "Uh," Joe says, looking around at all the snowman people who seem to have gone back to whatever it was they were doing before. Mr. Icy is picking up the card he dropped when Jim's friend passed it back, and it looks like someone squeezed a drop of red dye onto his cheeks as he blushes icily. Joe frowns slightly, and then smiles again in bewilderment. "Well look, everyone, I've got two-for-one passes here, if you want to check out the show." Joe passes out flyers to whoever wants one, but isn't particularly pushy about it. Though his camera remains focused on Joe, Jim's head slowly turns away towards first the left, then towards the right, to /stare/ demandingly at his own snowman. His overgrown hair falls forward over his brow from the slight /forward/ lean of his head. "What," The snowman says, shrugging. And /grinning/ back. "You asked, bro." Jim shakes his head, the lens sliding deeper into his camera as he finally lowers it. "Uh. Yeah --." He lets a flyer be pressed into his hand, and looks down at it with an eyebrow raised. Then, he crams it into the inside of a jacket pocket. "Thanks. I'll think about that." It's actually impossible to /tell/ if he's being sarcastic or sincere; everything Jim says is kind of bland-snark in tonality. "Anyway. Good luck, guy." And with a /thump/ of elbow against his snowdude's arm, he turns to head deeper into the park. His eyes ever roving for another picture to snap. Kate looks considerably startled at the chorus of snow-people, side stepping away from her companion defensively, "Well, um, that's... new." She blinks repeatedly, looking between the snow people and Joe, raising an eyebrow suspiciously. She accepts one of the fliers, grinning cheerily as she glances over the paper before tucking it away into the pocket of her coat. "Neat. I might check the show out at some point," she says, sounding earnest in her statement, at least. Her expression is a bit confused at Jim's continual photo taking, but she shrugs and watches him leave, figuring he's just another odd-ball of New York, strange city that it is. Joe nods as Jim leaves and pockets his deck of cards while nodding his appreciation. Then he turns to face Kate and offers his hand to shake, as everyone else disperses as well. "Cool, yeah, definitely come by some time. And, my first name is just 'Joe'. The stage name is... well, yeah." He shrugs and rubs at the back of his neck, obviously a little embarrassed. Kate doesn't quite disperse yet when everyone else does, still reading over the flier in her hand, idly chewing on her lower lip while she reads. Joe's embarassed introduction gets a warm smile from Kate, and she shakes the extended hand with her still-gloved hand, "I'm Kate. Thank you for demonstrating the card trick. Always sorta wondered how that sort of thing was done, besides 'magic'." There's a look of concern that flashes across her features when she is close enough to shake his hand, but she offers a cheery smile, "I'll have to check out your show some time. Still kinda getting settled in a bit, so it may be a while - schedule's a bit strange right now with work." "Oh well, just remember what Pratchett said," Joe says with a smile. "-It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works.- I always liked that quote." He blinks at Kate's brief concerned expression, but doesn't pursue it. He's used to people being uncomfortable around him, of course. He raises an eyebrow when she mentions her work schedule though. He's actually having a conversation with a pretty woman! "Oh, are you new in town? What kind of work do you do?"
"Heh, yeah, being new /anywhere/ sucks," Joe says with a chuckle. "But you know, welcome to New York, Kate." Joe smiles his crooked smile and looks like he might have more to say, but Mr. Icy tugs on his elbow. "Hey sorry Joe," it says. "You gotta get ready for the show tonight." Joe nods, "Yeah yeah, of course, thanks buddy." Joe offers a final smile and curt bow before taking his leave. | |
