Dancing On The Ceiling

As a thirteen year old I did a birthday party for a young girl in my neighborhood. I did 20th century silks using a Tommy Windsor type popcorn box,

Chinese sticks purchased from The Coney Island Faker himself, Al Flosso, (I remember after demonstrating the trick for me I said “Pretty good”. To which he replied, “What do you mean pretty good!?)
I bought them right away. They served me well for many years! At the party I also did Zombie, and Card on Ceiling as taught by Bruce Elliot in “Great Secrets of the Master Magicians”. Good effect, easy sleights. Since then I occasionally performed Card on Ceiling but not that often. I suppose I didn’t want to have to play “help the magician pick up his cards”. Later I saw Whit Hayden perform it with the deck bound with rubber bands. (I regret I did not get to know Whit better while we lived in the same town!). Every time I met Whit he was kind, friendly and always professional. One class act guy! Not to mention, one of the very finest ring routines you'll ever see!
Since then I’ve seen other magicians perform Card on Ceiling in simular ways. I didn’t perform it much anymore. I could do a few nice card sleights but those paramount (and difficult) ones still eluded me. After seeing it performed by real professionals I felt like I was wearing training wheels and lost interest in performing the effect.
Since my return to magic last August, Card on Ceiling has been on my "must become proficient with" list. I chose it not only because of it’s powerful impact but also because it serves as another vehicle for the classic, professional quality sleights I've been working so hard to achieve. I knew my CP was up to scratch (could still use improvement)
and now it was time to test my one handed TP. So last night while sitting in the car while my kids were having piano lessons, I hatched an idea for a plot. The script pretty much wrote itself. I wrote the misdirection onto the script for the crucial moments and the story line was something people could relate to and allowed for plenty of humor. I felt like I had a gem! I got to school early and beat the devil out of a brand new deck throwing it at the ceiling.
The first performance was just lame. My fault. The tricked worked (Sort of. More on that later). But my delivery was crapola. The next performance was a little better. By the 5th and 6th performance the drama and humor were on track. And after throwing the deck at the ceiling the audience gasped and broke into applause as the signed card came floating down. Floating Down? Yes floating down. You see the acoustic tile ceiling would not do. But I did have a 5 or 6 inch wide beam across the ceiling I was going for. Being a computer lab it was also quite cold in the room which had a negative effect on some very old and cheap material I was using. Am I disappointed?
Not a wit sir! First, the audience did not expect to see a card stuck to the ceiling so there was no let down. (So to speak) The performances (except for the first one) were interesting and produced laughter. When the deck hit the ceiling the card released itself and (because of the extra weight) floated down flat and face up making it easy to pluck from the air and display with triumph. But the main reason I am grinning ear to ear tonight is because 6 times I successfully pulled off the CP and one-handed TP semi-surrounded by a demanding and skeptical audience. After months and months of practice I can now add these powerful weapons to my arsenal. Now I’m going to have to peel myself off the ceiling!