B.J. Talley, a magician and hypnotist out of St. Joseph, entertained the Worth County Fall Festival crowd with a magic show and then a hypnosis session Saturday night. He opened the magic show with two rabbits, "Hippity" and "Fred," which he turned from white and black to yellow and blue. He also switched their location from one hat to another.
His second trick was a rope trick, in which he took three ropes of different lengths, turned them into ropes of equal length, and turned them back into ropes of unequal lengths. His next trick was one where he and a helper tore some red and black sheets of paper, folded them, and made them into a hat.
The next trick was a satire on TV advertisements; the commercial that he played promised a yellow bandana, but he got a banana instead. He followed the instructions literally; he folded the banana in half and then folded it in half again. He took a red, green, blue, and yellow bandana that came with the kit, turned it into a makeshift bag, and then made the banana disappear.
Talley's next trick was to handcuff himself and try to beat Harry Houdini's record for escaping from handcuffs; he had a member of the audience make sure the handcuffs were solid, waved his hand at the audience, and then proceeded to escape from the handcuffs in seven seconds (Houdini's record was six according to Talley).
The most dangerous trick to that point came next when Talley recruited "Dink" to test one of Talley's new contraptions that he just got in the mail that day. It was a guillotine-shaped device that was to be used to cut carrots and other vegetables. Talley had some carrots handy and the machine was supposed to chop the carrot in the lower hole while keeping the one in the large hole intact. However, two attempts to test the machine were unsuccessful as it was chopping the carrots in the large hole as well as the ones in the small hole. Finally, Talley had "Dink" stick his head in the hole and the machine worked as intended -- it chopped off the carrot in the small hole below "Dink" while leaving "Dink's" head intact.
But the next trick that Talley did was even more dangerous -- he put his assistant, Lacey, into a box, removed the middle part of her body, and then replaced it as Lacey came out intact. His next trick was a leviatation spell in which he took a member of the audience, gave her a wand and crown, turned her into a princess, and had her floating in midair as he was playing the Disney theme song. For his final trick, he drew a picture of one of the audience members and sang the Louis Armstrong hit, "What a Wonderful World" along with the face.
Talley began the second part of his act by talking about the concept of hypnosis, where the subliminal part of the mind activates. For instance, he said that if someone were eating something, 90% of their audience would activate their saliva glands. There are six different levels of hypnosis; in the lower levels, a person is merely suggestible while at the highest levels of hypnosis, he said that someone could lay you up and take out your appendix and you wouldn't even notice. In fact, Talley said that hypnosis is commonly used in other countries in surgery when anathesia is not available; he said that he is called into the local hospital 2-3 times a month to hypnotize a patient who has an allergic reaction to anathesia. One hour of hypnosis is the equivalent of the body getting six hours of sleep. However, there was a catch -- the subject has to be a willing recipient. "If you fight it, you will win," he said.
After bringing up 17 people from the audience, he took them through a guided relaxation exercise to get them into a state of hypnosis, pushing them to ever-increasing levels of relaxation. The effect of the induction was such that even a few members of the audience in the front fell asleep while listening. The first exercise involved the participants smelling each other over because they were the best-smelling things that they had ever seen. Sidney Davenport declared that her neighbor smelled like candy while Travis Troutwine Jr. declared that his neighbor smelled like flowers and Kevin Austin declared that his neighbor smelled like Jasmine.
But then the scene changed and the participants now were told that their neighbors had the most gross smell ever. Austin declared that his neighbor smelled like a sewer while Kellie Warne declared that her neighbor smelled like a pig while Davenport declared that her neighbor smelled like a skunk. And then, Talley told everyone that they were the source of the foul odors, which led to participants trying to get the gross smells off of them.
After that, Talley put them back to sleep except for Austin and "Dink," the hero of the guillotine trick from the magic show, who both felt like they had to go to the bathroom worse than they ever had in their whole lives. The problem was that Tally told them that they were stuck to their chairs like superglue and that they could not get up and go. Eventually, Talley allowed "Dink" to get up and go to the portapotties just southeast of the stage, only to tell him that his hands were stuck in his pockets and he could not get them out. Then, "Dink's" zipper would not come down.
Then, Talley woke up the participants to find the cutest little birdie on their little fingers that they wanted to play with all the time. They were playing with them and showing them to their neighbors and giving them names. One was named "Tweety" while another was named "Smoky" and another was named "Grant." "Dink" then got up and sang "Old MacDonald" in front of the crowd.
After that, Talley changed the scene again and they were strapped in a bucket in a roller coaster that was 20 stories high and had a top speed of 115 miles per hour. They were screaming and holding hands as the roller coaster bounced up and down. Then, "Dink" became a martian named "Herb" with Kellie Warne as his interpreter; "Dink" would not tell where he had landed his spacecraft and said he was 100 years old.
The group then turned into a rock band and led the audience in doing the "YMCA." Then, they turned into a ballet dance troupe, first with "Dink" and then Kevin Austin in the middle as the star of the show. Then, Talley consigned the group into a haunted house where they were afraid and huddling close to each other and calling for mommy. Finally, in order to live, they had to do jumping jacks.
Then, the cast turned into Miss America contestants where they were competing for the $500,000 Miss America prize. Asked why they wanted to be Miss America, Grant Parman declared that "she" was cuter than all the other contestants; "Tater" declared that "she" was a single mother with four children and that "she" deserved it more than the others; Travis Troutwine Jr. declared that "she" was the hottest person in the world; Sidney Davenport declared that she was the most gorgeous and sang "row, row, row your boat;" "Dink" strutted "her" stuff and declared, "me so sexy;" Kellie Warne declared that she was the brightest one there, while Kevin Austin declared that he was for world peace and beauty and because "these people are scum compared to me." "Dink" was chosen the winner and strutted "her" stuff, while "Tater" cried because "she" didn't get the prize.
Finally, Talley turned all the guys into "Barney," who went around into the audience and gave the kids hugs. Then, he removed all the suggestions, except when he said, "Good night," all the ladies shouted, "I'm sexy!" and then wondered why they just said that.
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