Sam X: If you could only be remembered for one of your many achievments which one would it be and why?

David Acer: Yesterday, I bent down and picked up a quarter I had dropped while standing in line at a movie theater and I didn’t kick it under my foot, then pretend to make it vanish at my fingertips and reappear on the floor. I’m quite proud of that.

Matt Field: Is your name properly pronounced "Aqua" or "Anchovy"?

Sinogeek: Aw Matt! Don't get 'im started on that again.

David Acer: "Ointment"

Matt Field: Is that pronounced "weentment" or "waintment"?

Kris Sheglova: For the pronunciation you might want to play the following game:

http://www.asquaredproductions.com/games/

David Acer: "Acer"

Sinogeek: A boring question perhaps but I'd like to know...Every magic forum has at least one thread discussing preferences for which playing cards to use. Which brand are you using these days and why?

David Acer: It's interesting, here in Montreal you would be hard-pressed to find a magician who doesn't use red-backed Bicycle cards, myself included, and in fact, that has become so ingrained in me that, recently, when I went to Kitchener Ontario to conduct an interview with a wonderful manipulator by the name of Romaine for an upcoming issue of Genii, I thought he was messing with me when he offered to show me a trick, then pulled out an old, worn, slightly yellowing pack of Bee cards (you know, the kind with no white borders).

But Romaine said that he liked practicing with old, crappy decks because he figured if he could work with those, then new packs would always be a breeze. Conversely, if he only practiced with new decks, and someone handed him an old pack at a party one day, he would automatically be at a disadvantage.

Sinogeek: Couldn't agree more! (Whatever it was you said.) I prefer Bees all round (well rectangular but you know what I mean) though I use Bikes most of the time.

I'm waiting eagerly for some of those white bordered World Poker Tour Bees I've ordered to hit my mailbox. I don't particularly like the WPT logo on them but if that's all I can get I'm taking it.

David Acer: You fool! World Poker Tour Bees are too powerful! YOU'LL KILL US ALL!!!

McDermott: Well done! You made me laugh!

Sinogeek: Since you are having such an easy time of it tonight...(so far)

What do YOU make of the (yawn...) Black Tiger Deck? Ryan Swigert's poke at them was one of the funniest things I've ever seen , but I'm easily impressed mind you.

That was my last one for tonight. It's almost 3.30am here in China and I'm off to bed soon. Once again thanks for everything.

David Acer: They strike me as being more of a novelty for people who play cards at home than something that's of any real use to magicians (like round decks, mini decks, decks with naked pictures of Jay Sankey).

But theatrically, I have a bigger problem with GIMMICKED Black Tiger decks. I mean, if you’re doing the Invisible Deck with these freaky cards, people are MUCH more inclined to want to examine them at the end. What do you do then, huh, you’re so smart? WHAT DO YOU DO THEN?!?

Tubz: Is there anything Sankey wont put out? About the red decks though...We now have red, blue, black, black tiger, and the new green backs from Magic Box, and I have the say the quality of the newer cards seems to be a lot better than the old standard reds and blues. Fancy a change, Mr. Acer?

KillerMagic80: Do you think somebody with an entertaining presentation sometimes comedy, could include and be effective of course some more serious effects with serious presentation?

To be more specific: for example you could see Daryl perform a mind reading effect, or a floating effect? You could see Gregory Wilson, Simon Lovell, David Acer perform PK stuff (M5 for example, the bat). I am referring to them because they are effective entertaining magicians with pleasurable and entertaining performances. Can see those artists include in their SAME repertoire effects that really requires you to be serious, and be accepted by the audience? (And I am not referring to comedy versions of bending forks or comedy presentations of mental magic like ''Boris Pocus Extremely Mental” DVD.) What do you think?

We bother you a lot but that was a great chance to contact and talk with David Acer and ask him several things with interesting replies. Thank you very much David. (By the way you used to work on a cruise ship the last summer?)

David Acer: Another great question. Intuitively, my feeling is that it's easier for a magician who establishes a "dramatic" character at the outset of his show to throw a little comedy routine somewhere in the middle than for a comedy magician to suddenly become serious.

In fact, when I first started doing "Party of Six" at comedy clubs (the only trick I did in the set), there were actually times when, after the comedy build, I would nail the climax, and the audience would just stare. No applause. No laughter. Everything just stopped dead. It's like they couldn't compute that we were all just having fun a second ago and then, suddenly, they were fried. It didn't take long to fix the problem (it was just a question of how I set up the trick), but it's an interesting example of an apparent character shift that an audience was unwilling to go with.

The other problem with a comedy magician suddenly shifting gears and performing a more "serious" effect (a piece of mentalism, PK stuff, whatever) is that, when you're doing comedy, you're generating a consistent and audible response (assuming you're not bombing). At the clubs we refer to it as a "laughs-per-minute" ratio. That's something that the audience feeds off as much as the performer does. Now, if you suddenly take that away from them by performing a "serious" magic trick, regardless of how good the trick might be, they are likely to feel a void and, at least on a subconscious level, they might even begin to wonder if the show isn't going as well. Not to mention the fact that whatever momentum you built on the comedy side is undercut by doing a non-comedy based trick, so, when it's time to return to the comedy, you have to build the crowd back up to where you had them when you shifted gears.