Not looking for major skills or in-depth expertise, just little tricks that you can perform to liven up a (very) boring gathering.
I can:
[ul]
[li]Recite the alphabet backwards with ease[/li][li]Juggle three balls[/li][li]List the U.S. presidents in order[/li][li]Perform a rubber band trick that always kills[/li][li]Do some card tricks, some of which involve sleight of hand[/li][li]Do that pen spinning around the thumb trick[/li][/ul]
And I am currently teaching myself to shuffle poker chips.
That thing where you move a quarter (or half dollar) across your knuckles, flip it under your hand, and do it again, or reverse and move the coin backwards across your knuckles.
As in, have two stacks in your hand and press down on the mat and squeeze together, and ease up so that they form one stack neatly interwoven with each other? Or as in taking one stack in your hand and grabbing a few with the other hand and throwing them back on top so they eventually form a more-randomized stack? Because I can do the former, and was getting pretty good at the latter when I was playing Mage Knight, a board game with several stacks of poker-chip-sized monster cards that you need to randomize at the game beginning.
I can really wiggle my ears (still can’t move them independently) - there are tiny scalp muscles behind and above the ear which I can, for gawd knows why, activate them.
After all these years, I really should have a larger repertoire…
I do a bar trick that gets some chuckles. Friends who have seen me perform the trick will mention it to someone, “See that guy, kayaker, over there? He can taste your beer and identify it”.
So, there are 35 beers on draft and they think the trick sounds interesting. I pick up the glass, study it closely, take a sniff with my eyes closed. I grab a swizzle stick off the bar-caddy, dip it into the beer and sample a droplet. I close my eyes again and furrow my brow. Then I sigh, pick up the glass and drain it down my gullet. I belch, and guess what the beer was, often getting it right.
Then the “mark” says, “hey . . . my beer” and we all laugh.
It’s hardly a party trick but I can name and place pretty much every country on the planet thanks to my obsession with learning the name and place of every country on the planet.
I can’t do it in alphabetical order though. Sorry!
I used to do a bar trick with a cigarette, seemingly making it roll across the table on its own by creating a “field” around it. It’s even more impressive if you have someone else in on it and sitting across from you calling bullshit.
I also know my driver’s licence number. Not so handy in bars, but when I get asked for it occasionally people are amazed that I happen to know it. (15 digits.)
Lots of little bar tricks and magic tricks.
-I can coin snatch 16 quarters at a time.
-The rubber band trick from upthread (crazy man,s handcuffs).
-Balduccci levitation
-Rip an aluminium can into two pieces in under 5 seconds.
Most of this stuff is just to entertain nieces and nephews when they’re young. Once they become teenagers it’s not that cool anymore.