Don't Make Women's Bras 'Disappear' During Public Meetings
Opening public meetings with a magic trick or two can help you engage with your audience and ease them into the seemingly endless boredom-torture to come—but use discretion! Tricks that involve disappearing coins are probably fine. Tricks that involve disappearing women's undergarments are probably... not fine?
Yes, that seems to be right. Wayward magician Russell Fitzgerald, who chairs the committee of Abington School in Abington, Massachusetts, recently learned this lesson the hard way when he recruited committee member Ellen Killian to participate in a trick that made it seem as though he—and magic—had stolen her bra "with the pull of a handkerchief." The Brockton Enterprise reports:
The handkerchief trick needed three participants. Fitzgerald picked [teacher Steven] Shannon and Killian, both of whom played along as Fitzgerald tied the two handkerchiefs into a knot and gave one end to Shannon. He then instructed Killian to hold the knot tightly against her chest.
Both men then pulled on their end of the handkerchief and out from under Killian's folded arms popped a bra tied to the handkerchiefs.
When asked why he performed the trick, Fitzgerald responded, "I like it." Fair enough! Sadly for him, no one else at the meeting said, "I like it," because personal boundary issues/embarrassment of women/creepiness/etc.
