The effects or routines I use are sort of like exclamation marks or proofs of the story. I use storytelling in all my venues. It allows me to do bizarre magick for children's shows, stage shows, home parties, and I even use it when doing readings. I can't, or should say I won't do the simplest of tricks without cloaking it in a story. The audience remembers the story and the person who tells it well.

I am sure there are other roles or persona one can assume but I believe the above cover most of Bizarre Magick.

Once you have decided what your role or performing persona is going to be life becomes much simpler. For one thing it should dictate to you what effects you will use or buy. When something comes out that everyone is buying, ask yourself, would my character do this, and if the answer is no, don't buy it. This is not to say, don't look at new things. Perhaps the effect will not fit you as it is sold but there may be something in the method that you could twist and turn and make it your own. Just don't fall into the trap of buying something because it is all the rage. You know everyone will be doing it. Do you want to be like herd. As a Bizarrist you should be the innovator, not the sheep that only follows.

Early on, when doing routines with a voodoo theme I tried to make the dolls as authentic looking as possible. I even carried them in a small coffin. On a whim one day I decided to change all that. The doll is still carried in a rather eerie looking small coffin but it is not the same doll. I found, in a Kids-R-Us store an adorable little girl doll with red curly hair and freckles. It was soft, stuffed with cotton or something similar and very cute. I made an opening in the stomach that could be resealed.

In my routine I gave it the same build up as I had in the past before I opened the coffin. When I took the cute doll out there were laughs in the audience and they dropped their guard. I opened the slot that I had made and placed some finger nail clippings and hair from the intended victim into it and re sealed it. Then going through the usual Voodoo mumble Jumble I plunged a long sharp needle right between the dolls eyes. I could hear the audience gasp and almost feel the jolt that they received. When something terrible happens to a sweet innocent thing it is very shocking and the audience never forgets it. I know. Years ago I saw a very short piece of Grand Guignol Theater. On stage, with a back drop of a park a young woman, wheeling a baby carriage appeared stage left. You could hear the baby crying. From stage right a group of punk rockers appeared, saw the mother and child and picked up rocks, and with much violence, hurled them into the baby carriage. There was a sound like something being crushed. I suspect they had a ripe watermelon in the carriage. The mother screamed, the rockers laughed and the stage went black. The whole piece lasted less than a minute, but I will never forget it.