Brian Foley, Contributing Writer
Mentalist/magician/comedian duo Larry and Raven performed at the Waterfront at the Hunt Union on Feb. 12, at 9PM. I have mixed feelings about this performance because I myself have been just such a performer with over fifty years of experience. I have seen some of the best, and a few of them have actually performed here.
Larry and Raven went over well with the vast majority of the audience of sixty or so students. There were gasps and lots of applause when Larry read their minds and made several predictions, some with playing cards, such as his version of “The Tossed Out Deck,” and some with notes on paper. There was also an attempt at spoon bending. Raven used her intuition to divine the thoughts of some of the people who participated. Then she did a version of “intuitive painting” which impressed the crowd.
Accompanying the act was soft “mystical” music played in the background. I found it mildly annoying. Raven seemed to have the need to comment on everything Larry said, in a kind of call-and-response. Larry would say, in a comically exaggerated tone, “Now we are going to do something really weird…” and Raven would add, from the other side of the room, “That’s right.” Then Larry would emote another statement, and Raven would have to say, “Uh, huh!” This didn’t seem to bother most of the people in the audience, though.
This college has a great history of hosting several of the great mentalists in the past, Falkenstein and Willard, and Gil Eagles being among them. Once you have seen the classics, it’s hard to be impressed by unoriginal material. I do understand that if you are new to this kind of thing, it can awe you. On the other hand, there is so much great material available in the public media. “America’s Got Talent,” “Masters of Illusion,” and Penn and Teller’s “Fool Us,” offer us constant exposure to some great mentalists and magicians. Youtube offers a hit-and-miss variety as well.
If you want to experience the masters of their art, the Student Association books The Evasons each year. They fill the ballroom, with good reason. If you were lucky, you got to see them here this past September. Hopefully you will get a chance to see them next year.
In the meantime, do yourselves a favor and check out amazing mentalists like Asi Wind or British phenomenon Derren Brown. You can find a thoughtful interview with Asi on the Huberman Lab Podcast and you can see the Derren mess with people’s minds on Youtube.
The upshot is that as far as the trend of “give the people what they want,” Larry and Raven’s act was perfectly adequate, it might be better to raise the bar a little for a college audience.
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