Mirth & Mentalism By Mark Strivings

The very first thoughts in this amazing new work deal with my own hesitation at releasing this collection at all. The reason I have been hesitant is because comedy is subjective. What’s funny to one person isn’t necessarily funny to someone else. But at the end of the day, whether we, as performers, are successful at the humor portion of our job depends entirely on us and how we approach it. Everyone’s approach will be different. What works for one, might not work for another. There’s no single path. It requires patience, experimentation, sensitivity, imagination, creativity, a willingness to fail, and courage. And that’s just the short list. But the successes make it all worth it!

In this new collection, I am bringing my successes to you, completely explained in all of their glory. These are not just bits and gags and jokes. These are fully-flushed routines. And each routine has its own individual goal.

Some of these funny-babies exist primarily for laughs. Comedy is the goal, but the mentalism/mystery is definitely there.

Others exist primarily for mystery. Mentalism that is hard-hitting and powerful, but the ‘funny’ is either built in automatically, or the room for it is infinite. In the end, all of this depends on the performer.

I know this stuff works for me. If you read it and think it’s funny on any level, there’s a solid chance that it will work for you, as well. That’s just how being funny works. It’s got to be funny to the performer first.

There are EIGHTEEN routines in this new collection, and they range from powerful to ludicrous, insane to reserved, and they allow either the performer to be funny or the audience to be funny…or both. Either way, funny is funny. And that counts huge.


This amazing collection includes -

Fully Visible Sightless Vision - The craziest blindfold handling you have ever seen. It’s positively surreal and hysterical. I came up with this nearly thirty-five years ago and I have never tipped it until now. (See the note below!)

Necessity is a Mother - An insane and funny routine that allows you to perform clairvoyance for a family audience. It’s incredibly fun and so easy to do.

Will The Persiflage Coalesce? - My handling of a mentalism classic that has the ‘funny’ literally built in.

The Mindreading Handkerchief - Easily one of my favorite creations ever. It’s surreal, hysterically funny, and the payoff at the end is completely unexpected. This is the first time I have ever explained this in print.

The Warted Wonder - Clairvoyant frogs. Need I say more?

The Chicken Coop - The craziest ‘danger’ trick ever. It’s Russian Roulette without the muss and fuss of brains being splattered all over the place. And it features a mind reading chicken!

You Make The Call! - A wonderfully weird sports-themed version of the classic baby gag, that actually plays like genuine mind reading and not just a ‘gag’.

Psychic Psnoop - An incredible prediction effect using two spectators that is hysterical, and for once, the performer doesn’t even really need to be funny. Your helpers do it all for you!

Lover’s Voodoo - A wonderfully weird voodoo-ish effect wherein the twisted feelings of one part of a couple for the other are predicted ahead of time.

A Confabulous Vacation - An incredibly unique handling for the classic Confabulation plot that allows your audience to be the funny part of the show!

The Precognitive Phinger Puppet - an amazingly simple and wonderfully fun prediction effect that can be played for the entire family.

The Top Ten Booktest - You get a complete staff of world-class comedy writers doing your writing for you. The funny is built in.

The ACME Thought Transmitter - an outlandish and fun-filled effect wherein your audience reads the mind of your helper. This is crazy!

And much more!