I have many loves in my life. At the top of the earthly list, there are the three females with whom I live. There’s getting up at 3:15 each morning — when anything and anyone with any kind of sensibilities at all is still snoozing — and having my first cup of coffee waiting on me to pour (thanks to the miracle of Cuisinart and real Kona coffee beans) to take with me outside the back door to survey the world. I love finding elegant solutions to hard problems. There are friends to tell all of this to.

And then there are movie quotes. I loves me some movie quotes.

Col. Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I’m entitled.
Col. Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth.
Col. Jessep: You can’t handle the truth.

Do you want answers, or do you want the truth? Sometimes we want the answers when we really need to hear the truth. As human beings with precious egos in danger of bruising, sometimes our itching ears want to hear what we want to hear; we can’t (or would rather not) handle the truth.

We perform and we want (need) feedback. Sometimes we ask friends or associates, feigning the earnest desire and expectation of stark honesty but actually wanting a Hershey’s Kiss. And don’t think for a second most people aren’t well aware of that mental confliction two seconds after the question rolls off your tongue. They are aware, as evidenced by the deer-in-the-headlights look staring back at you.

Want to know how most people feel when you ask them, “How was my performance?” Just remember how you felt the last time someone asked you, “Does my ass look big in this?” It’s pretty much the same thing.

And then there’s the determination of who is qualified to say what. If what you want to know is whether or not your performance was entertaining, as a general rule you hardly need to ask. “I was entertained” is generally conveyed in big, bold, underlined body language. If you have to ask…well…you already know the answer, don’t you? Still, “normal” people are in a better position to answer that question than our brethren. It’s a rare, rare magician who can put on the shades and judge a performance by spectator standards.

On the other hand, if what you want to know is if your invisible pass was really invisible, you’ll need to ask a fellow performer. Why you’d want to know is beyond me, but he’s who you’d ask.

What most people really want (need) to know is, “What part of that sucked?” or “What should I change to make it better?” It’s been widely reported that, for years, this is essentially what David Copperfield asked backstage. It’s a good question to ask because it erases doubt as to what you want to hear; “put it right between the eyes.”

And sometimes that’s exactly what you get and then you realize it’s not what you’d rather hear. And this points to another interesting confliction performers sometimes experience.

If you spend every spare moment of three or four weeks learning to be nearly adequate performing a knuckle-busting move — you know, the kind of stuff The MAN, Martin A. Nash, can do while napping — it doesn’t exactly do your heart good to get less than a stand-on-your-head-and-sing reaction from an audience. “All of that work and no one noticed.” — which is probably the way it really should be anyway.

Want to completely strip away any remaining shred of dignity? Do a spongeball routine for normal people and compare their reaction to your Fizbin Drop or whatever. (Nothing — and I mean nothing — emphasizes the difference between us and them than the reaction to a good spongeball routine.)

Eugene Burger has stated his love/hate relationship with spongeballs. As long as Burger performs for normal people, they’re going to love seeing a good spongeball routine. Why? It’s probably our punishment for the 21-Card trick. But that’s just a guess. (Actually, Eugene has discussed this in a number of his essays. You have read everything Burger has written, haven’t you?)

There’s a list of tricks that, as a general rule, are silver bullets when it comes to making close-up audiences delighted. Spongeballs — and their first-cousins, sponge bunnies — are on that list. A great trick using an Ultra Mental deck is also on that list (and for most people, that would be a word-for-word channeling of the Don Alan “Invisible Deck” routine.) One of the many terrific versions of Paul Curry’s “Out of this World” is on that list. A great routine using the Scotch and Soda set makes the list, too.

Those tricks all have something in common: they are not technically demanding and, done well, the audience reaction is so far out of proportion to the work required to perform them does make more than just a few ExTrEmE CaRd SlEiGhT GuYz despondent. Spongeballs, in particular, are hard to do badly. Not bad for something used to clean the inside of heat exchangers, wouldn’t you agree?

This is not to say I have anything against showy flourishes. Not at all. Learning to do some of that stuff takes an awful lot of time and, when you invest that time and learn to do it well, it fosters a sense of accomplishment. Most people find a lot of satisfaction in a sense of accomplishment. Just don’t confuse it with magic. Juggling is not magic.

So, do you want answers or do you want the truth?

Find someone and ask them if they’d feel comfortable being stark-nekkid-honest with you about your performances. This lets them know up front a.) you don’t want anything candy coated, and 2.) you acknowledge this is not a comfortable thing to do. If you get a non-hesitant “yes” listen to the answer to, “Did that suck?” It’ll likely be right on the money.

What else can you do? Get Ken Weber’s book, “Maximum Entertainment“ and read it. Then read it a few more times. Believe me, you’ll have the ghost of Ken hanging over your shoulder asking you questions you didn’t even think about.

And remember for whom you are performing: yourself, or a wider audience — because it does make a difference.