Unexpected Wonders

I've Moved

2007-11-14T14:23:00.000-08:00

Please visit the Unexpected Wonders blog at its new home: http://www.unexpectedwonders.com See you there!

Phenomenon?

2007-11-13T10:54:00.000-08:00

Well, I wasn’t abducted by inbred hillbilly psychos. Turns out they were really a bunch of cub scouts trying to help me up after I’d fallen – stupid alcohol diet. Actually I didn’t even make it to the woods…just some guy’s really overgrown yard. Oh well, maybe next year.

Anyway, of a morning I like to get up and check out what’s being said on some of the other blogs. Usually I have to fight off our Shi tzu pup, Emma, first who seems to think I’m her personal chew toy. I ran across this post at I, Magician and it got me thinking – or sort of thinking, anyway. Hard to form really coherent thoughts when you have a Shi tzu hanging from your hand.

First, I haven’t yet seen the show Phenomenon. I don’t watch much TV, and what I do watch I usually come across by accident. Also, I have an aversion to watching Criss Angel. It’s not that I don’t like him – well, that’s exactly what it is, I don’t like him. I’ve said before that I believe he’s talented, that he’s obviously doing something right to be where he is. But with Criss magic seems to be a byproduct. The main focus seems to be proving what an extraordinary guy he is. I understand selling yourself, but he’s taken that to an extreme.

So I haven’t seen the show, and after reading Andster’s thoughts about it I probably won’t go out of my way to catch an episode. However, I have a problem with the premise. As I understand it, the show’s supposed to be about finding the next big star of mentalism. Sounds good so far. It’s just that the people competing are already professional mentalists/magicians. They’re already polished performers. I find it hard to see the point.

I don’t watch American Idol really, but I understand the show. They’re taking a bunch of unknowns and giving them a shot at fame – it’s a great premise. Would the show be anywhere near as good if the people competing already had recording contracts, were already known singers? No, I don’t think it would be worth a damn. It’s interesting to see an unknown talent develop and ascend. Not so interesting to watch people who’ve already made a mark in the business compete against each other.

Andster thinks Gerry will probably win or would like to see him win. Gerry is a hell of a mentalist, no question. But he’s also already had his own hour long network special. If he wins, it’s hard to see how that’s much of a discovery.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think the show would be much more interesting if the contestants were non professional performers, real unknowns. There are some very very good amateurs out there, and I’d much rather see some of them get a shot at the big time. Just my humble opinion on it. See you next time.

A New Venue For Magicians?

2007-11-11T09:08:00.000-08:00

After having endured a period of illness which lasted about a year and sidelined me from doing much magic, at least in a formal sense, I’m eager to get back to where I was. It’s not easy. My confidence standing in front of people and doing magic has been slightly eroded by the time away. Therefore I’m anxious to find ways in which I might polish my material and regain the sense of ease I once enjoyed. Put another way, I’m scouting for groups I can do magic for, sans fee, just to get my performing feet back again.

Toward that end, I was struck last night with what I think might be a perfect solution. Watching the news, I learned that rifle season for deer had just opened in my neck of the woods. Now, I’m not a hunter. I went a couple of times when I was younger, when I thought engaging in a blood sport would give me more insight into Hemmingway. I guess stalking a defenseless animal with a large caliber rifle for the questionable joy of killing it struck me as a little strange. That and I’m satisfied with my penis size.

Anyhoo, I realized immediately that all through the woods there’ll be great numbers of unshaven, mostly inebriated men, toting rifles and looking to kill something. I put two and two together and thought: What a wonderful group to try my magic on!

I know what you’re thinking: Why didn’t I think of that? I mean, can you imagine the reactions I’ll get when I leap from behind a tree into the path of a bunch of grizzled men moving stealthily through the woods with weapons and say, “Think of a card, any card.” They’ll be like,”Holy hell, Ralph! It’s a magician, here to entertain us with his well honed wonders.” Or they might just grunt… Either way they’re sure to be utterly captivated and will probably throw money at my feet…or maybe animal parts…I guess I could always make some kind of stew.

It’s sure to be a win win situation. I just need to be sure to wear my new brown jacket and white cap – they’re very striking.

Sure, there’s always the chance of being captured and sexually assaulted by inbred hillbilly psychos a la Deliverance, but isn’t that a small price to pay for the joy of spreading magic? I mean, I could be introducing a whole new venue for magicians here. I see a book, Magic for Guys Who Want to Kill Shit, or, Hunter Magic: Making The Approach With Armed Parties. I see a whole new class of effects: The Vanishing Shotgun Shell and The Sprouting Antlers Trick. Good stuff.

So, wish me luck with this venture. I’m sure nothing will go wrong!

Note: This is Jim’s wife. I just wanted to let you know that shortly after entering the forest he was shot at several times then apparently abducted by inbred hillbilly psychos. I arrive at this conclusion because his last cell phone message was: “Help, I’m being abducted by inbred hillbilly psychos!” I think his Margarita diet led to this – I seriously doubted his assertion that, Alcohol burns fat. I’ll be sure to let you know should there be any new developments.

Considering Presentation

2007-11-10T10:19:00.001-08:00

In an earlier post I observed that a new magician who’s decided to create a character can be a frightening thing. Another kind of magician who can be equally frightening, or mind numbingly boring, is the one who’s decided he needs to focus on presentation in his magic.

Now, on the surface you’d think concentrating on presentation would be a very good thing. After all, magicians make a lot of ado about presentation. You’re always told, “Work on your presentation, “or “Develop an original presentation,” or “Presentation is the most important aspect of performance.” Those things are all pretty much true. So what’s the problem? Well, it seems that some, even some dispensing the advice, don’t seem really clear on just what presentation is.

I think it’s in Strong Magic that Darwin Ortiz talks about the guy who’s decided to focus on presentation and turns a two minute trick into a thirty minute excursion to hell. And that’s what too often happens. Some have the idea that having a presentation means coming up with some elaborate and involved storyline. It doesn’t. A trick doesn’t need a corresponding story to have a good presentation; actually a good presentation doesn’t necessarily have to be stated – it can simply be implied. Besides, story tricks are best served in small doses – performing magic and telling stories well are disparate skills and not easily married.

Let’s back track a moment and first define what a presentation is in the context of doing magic. At its simplest and most obvious, presentation is how you present a trick. More, I think it’s about why you’re presenting a trick. That’s right, at its core good presentation is all about the often ignored element of motivation.

I’ve probably said it before but it bears repeating: Magic without motivation is nothing more than meaningless and inconsequential tricks. It’s but a pale shade of what magic can and should be. Imagine if someone came up to you and took out a deck of cards and said, “Look what I can do.” Imagine he started to then cut to the four aces in a flashy manner. What would you think, what would you feel? While you might be momentarily impressed by such a display of digital dexterity, that would probably quickly be eclipsed by annoyance. The fact is people don’t like a show off. You might feel confusion – why is this person showing me this? What you wouldn’t feel is that you’d witnessed anything particularly entertaining or worthwhile simply because there was no logical motivation for the display.

Now imagine the same scenario except the person first tells you, “You know my uncle made a killing in Atlantic City…he’s a professional gambler. He showed me how it’s possible to always find the four aces. Would you like to see?” That’s a presentation. Admittedly it’s not the most artful presentation in the world – I just made it up – but it’s serviceable, it gets the job done. Most importantly it’s infinitely better than the first example because it establishes a reason for what the performer is doing. What in the first example was but a pointless display of skill is invested with meaning with just a few words. The dynamic is altered so the performer is not just showing off without justification but sharing something interesting and unique.

As you can see, presentation isn’t just about cooking up a long drawn out story – a presentation can be just a sentence or two and be very effective. A good presentation not only gives a logical reason for your actions but engenders interest in what you’re doing. Someone made a killing in Atlantic City by knowing how to control cards? That’s interesting to most people, it draws them in and they want to know more. Drawing them in, exciting their expectations makes them very susceptible to the magic to come.

Here’s another example. Imagine if someone said to you: “Reality is not static. It’s determined by our perceptions, but our perceptions are anything but infallible. Actually there’s a very simple technique for warping perceptions with a dollar bill. It’s a way to actually bend reality.”

Again, just a few words that provide a motivation for what you’re about to do and spark interest in it. This guy’s going to warp my perceptions with a dollar bill? He’s going to bend reality? This I got to see. Couple this simple presentation with a strong effect featuring a dollar bill – like the Mis-Made bill – and brother you have a potential miracle on your hands.

Now, I said earlier that a good presentation doesn’t even have to be stated – it can be implied. What I really mean when I say that is there are effects in magic where the motivation is self evident. You see a guy shuffling through some slips of paper. He looks at them on both sides. He folds them together, unfolds them and they’ve been transformed into a bunch of twenties. You could do that and say nothing and the effect would still register with most anyone because it’s such a logical action – at least it would be logical if magic was possible. Who wouldn’t want the ability to change blank paper into money? It speaks to our secret desires, our hidden wishes. Actually with effects such as these saying too much can damage the effect by clouding it with a lot of extraneous nonsense. There’s no need to explain why you’re doing what anyone would wish to do.

Another way in which a presentation can be implied is by introducing a problem and using magic to rectify it. You see someone taking his last cigarette from the pack and in the process breaking it. He brings the pieces together and fuses them back into a whole. The magic makes sense in and of itself. Something that is broken becomes useless – we all understand that. If one were capable of exercising special powers it would be logical to use said powers to fix something and give it worth again. Similarly imagine someone looking longingly at something he can’t have – be it an item of food or a beautiful woman. He communicates his desire through action and expression alone, and it’s clear that he lacks whatever’s needed to possess that which is desired. We all understand wanting something but lacking whatever’s necessary to have it. If the individual uses magic to get what he wants, to fulfill his desires, it’s very powerful indeed. He plucks coins from the air to buy a meal, or transforms a penny into a gold ring which he uses to win the heart of the beautiful woman. Words aren’t needed – the motivation is understood.

Now I’ve gone on a bit about having a logical motivation, but I want to make it clear that a good presentation doesn’t necessarily have to adhere to the logic of objective reality – it needs to be logical in the context of the effect. For instance, Paul Cummins has a very nice effect called Invisible Hand. His presentation is very simple: He asks the spectator, “Have you ever seen an invisible hand? It’s called an invisible hand not because it’s invisible but because it makes objects placed in it invisible.” He goes on to very convincingly demonstrate this by placing a coin into the hand and making it seemingly invisible. Of course the presentation makes no sense in the nuts and bolts world we live in. However in the context of the effect, in the action of seemingly placing a coin into his hand and making it invisible, it works perfectly. It does what a good presentation should – provides a sound motivation for what’s about to happen and creates interest in the coming magic.

Developing an original presentation is really no more than coming up with a good reason for what you’re going to do. That process begins with asking why. Why would I place a coin in a bottle? Maybe to demonstrate that the physical universe isn’t quite as solid as it appears. Sub atomic particles are really composed of nothing more than alternating waves of energy – the universe itself is nothing more than energy. What if there was a way to circumvent natural laws and for a moment render two solids as nothing but the energy they really are? Putting a coin in a bottle would prove that those natural laws had really been bypassed.

Of course presentations aren’t always one size fits all – that’s why it’s preferable to develop your own or at least add your own accents to a preexisting one. When I ask the why question my thoughts usually turn to the nature of reality and the very real absurdity of labeling something impossible when we find ourselves existing in an infinite universe. I want to stress this through my magic – the mystery of life and the plastic quality of consensus reality. But that’s me, those are the kinds of things that excite my imagination. You might have a completely different mind set, but that doesn’t matter. The process is the same – asking why and discovering a reason that makes sense of what you’re going to do.

I hope I’ve managed to demystify the subject of presentation in magic and demonstrate that far from being some abstract and hard to understand concept it’s really something quite simple and readily obtained. Like many aspects of magic, common sense is the key. To reiterate, a good presentation addresses the question of why – providing a sound motivation for your actions – and engenders the interest of those watching, making them receptive to what you’re doing. It really is that simple, and there’s no good reason to annoy people with pointless tricks when a trick coupled with a good presentation can create the illusion of real magic. See you next time.

Back Again

2007-11-09T14:28:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been busy busy busy (seriously, not just busy busy but x3) but now that things have settled down a bit (and they're letting me out nights and weekends) maybe I can devote some time to this project. Look for some new posts coming up shortly.

The Greatest Magician

2007-10-31T09:15:00.000-07:00

He came from nothing and through hard work and perseverance transformed himself into the world’s first super star. Those who knew him and saw him perform were nearly universal in the opinion that he was a mediocre magician; Jim Steinmeyer, in his highly recommended Hiding The Elephant, points out that the public of the time didn’t even think of Houdini as a magician. Yet his name is synonymous with magic and we still think of him as the greatest magician ever. Truly he was the master mystifier of this or any other age, a man capable of manipulating reality itself, of creating a legend that has achieved mythic proportions. He was the great Houdini.

Like many magicians my initial interest in magic was spawned by a fascination with Houdini. Very early on I read E.L. Doctrow’s Ragtime, which features Houdini as a minor character, and was totally hooked. There’s a scene in Ragtime where Houdini, overcome with grief at his mother’s passing, is expressing that grief, exorcising the demons that are devouring him, by performing magic at a maniacal pace. Coins are falling from his fingers; canaries are flying from his open mouth – it’s a veritable assault of wonders, a magician come from some dark corner of hell to terrify and astound. The audience’s wonder turns to disquiet…then to fear. Suddenly there comes an explosion from outside and the audience flees the theater in terror, thinking it’s some other infernal illusion he’s devised.

That scene made quite an impression on this young magician – it really helped form my view that a magician should be a mysterious character, and maybe not always benevolent. Of course it was entirely fictional, but then so much about Houdini was and is. I remember seeing the illustration in the mostly apocryphal The Great Houdini in which Houdini is tying his shoes with his toes – this was some years before I knew anything about Houdini or magic. That picture to me symbolizes Houdini – the weird talents, strange disciplines, the ever addictive sense of mystery. It’s so hard to determine where the apocryphal begins and ends. He was truly an enigma.

Here it is, Halloween eighty-one years after his death and we still remember. While there have been other legendary magicians, I don’t think anyone’s managed to achieve what he did – certainly no other performer has come close to equaling his success with escapes. He created the impression that he could escape from anything. He challenged the world to restrain him, and he could not be restrained. Is it any wonder that he reached mythic status in his own lifetime?

People wonder if he were alive today if he could achieve the same level of success. I don’t know. It was a very different world he lived in, and I think much of his success was dependant upon that particular time – I’m not sure if the concepts he symbolized would work today. Then again, I wouldn’t want to bet against him. If he were able to forge his showmanship in a comparable way – by working the lowest rungs of show business – I’d certainly give him a shot. And it’s without a doubt he was one of the most driven men ever. As Houdini himself so completely proved, anything’s possible.

So we remember, and tip our hats to the greatest magician of all time. For if a magician is defined as one who creates mystery, there’s no doubt he was the greatest. The fascination continues. See you next time.

Strange Days Indeed

2007-10-30T18:57:00.000-07:00

I’ve been out of town the last couple of weeks – just returned yesterday. While I was away I purposely stayed away from the Internet as I’ve found that without the occasional break from it you risk serious brain melt. Actually I stayed away from television too, so you might imagine my surprise when I was flipping through channels last night and learned that David Copperfield stands accused of rape.

Perusing some of the forums, I saw just the kind of responses I imagined I’d find. The story just doesn’t make sense, one particularly enlightened fellow was saying, ergo the accuser must be lying. Yeah…everybody knows that the perpetration of a violent crime adheres unerringly to a strict logical sequence. And if you were twenty-one and had just undergone a brutal and traumatic event you’d be able to recount the details without any sort of deviation or inconsistencies – otherwise you’re just a liar. Really sharp thinking. Wow, get the guy a job at the white house.

Besides the morons who desperately hope that the allegations aren’t true as it would wreak havoc on David’s name in magic and otherwise diminish his accomplishments – apparently hoping it isn’t true for the sake of the victim doesn’t enter into the equation – there were a number of folks advocating a common sense approach and saying let’s just wait and see. And that’s where I stand – I hope it isn’t true, and I’ll delay forming any real opinions until all the facts are revealed.

I also decided to take a look at the Magic Café thread and see what ever happened with the Richard James trick Linked. Apparently the original thread no longer exists. Now, I’m not one of those guys who knocks the Café, but I have to wonder why the thread was pulled? Because people were pissed and telling the truth? Very Kafkaesque kind of site.

In the new thread, it’s revealed that the trick that people finally got isn’t the same as what’s depicted on the video. You think? However you get the sense that people are already forgiving the guy and are ready to move on. So I guess the moral is if you want to make a fast buck just shoot a dishonest video and actually sell a different trick. Ultimately nobody cares anyway.

I’ll be back soon, hopefully with something not quite so depressing.

More Thoughts On Character

2007-10-15T19:50:00.000-07:00

We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
--Eric Hoffer--

In a previous post about character, I talked a little about how easy it is for the magician to miss the mark when establishing a performance persona and how it’s advisable that he play close to type lest he end up with an unbelievable creation. This time I’d like to comment on how liberating having a character can actually be.

Alexander Hermann, endowed with the natural attributes of a charming and entertaining showman, believed that great magicians were born, not made. Over the years I’ve known any number of performers who have concurred with this sentiment, and not surprisingly they have been people who were also naturally charismatic. I think what this view fails to take into account is the power of acting. If a magician is an actor playing the part of a magician, as Houdin observed, then wouldn’t one’s ability to inhabit a character be just as important as any natural characteristics he possesses that make him a good entertainer?

The fact of the matter is that many people attracted to performing are not naturally lively and outgoing. Johnny Carson, who started out with magic, was beloved by millions and became a comedy legend in his own lifetime; how many were aware that he was not as naturally engaging as he appeared onstage, that in reality he was quite reserved in social situations and ill at ease around strangers? What Carson had was not an innate ability to connect with viewers, but the ability to play the role of someone who could.

What I’m driving at here is that even if you’re not naturally gregarious, even if you’re not normally the life of the party, you can play the part of someone who is those things and succeed very well. This is done through the use of character. You’re in the business of selling you, but it’s an idealized version of yourself, a version more suitable for performing magic, if you’re naturally shy and retiring. And the ability to become a you who is lively where you’re withdrawn, fearless where you’re afraid, is very liberating indeed. Define your character well and there’s no reason to be nervous when you step onstage – it’s just a part you’re playing, a persona you’re projecting. It’s an opportunity to be the very best you you can possibly be.

If you’re not a born magician this is very good news. It means you don’t have to be held back by your limitations, that you can share your magic just as well as the natural performer. It’s really just a matter of how much you want it. Are you willing to go to the trouble of creating a character that works to your best advantage? If you truly love magic and want to share it, the answer is obvious. See you next time.

Spookey

2007-10-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

I’d like to invite you to check out Spookey a brand new PDF from Unexpected Wonders. You can get the full details from the order page, but I do want to say this is an effect I’ve worked on for a number of years and I think the handling related in the PDF is pretty damn good – I’ve had much success with it anyway. I’m not comfortable hyping my own stuff, so I’ll leave it at that. If you’re interested in a psychokinetic effect that’s visual and not so hard to do, please check it out.

Ever Had One Of Those Days?

2007-10-13T10:28:00.000-07:00

A young man moved to the big city in hopes of making it as an actor. He went to a lot of auditions, but couldn’t seem to land a role. One day he found himself with his rent overdue and his electricity about to be disconnected, contemplating a return home. That’s when his phone rang.

An agent he’d met had a part for him, albeit a small part, in a play – the actor who normally played the role had been in an accident. All he had to do was rush on stage at the end of the third act and deliver a single line: “Hark, is that cannon fire I hear?’ The catch was the play was about to begin and was all the way across town so he’d have to hurry.

Elated to get work, even if it was speaking but a single line of dialogue, he threw on his clothes and ran from his apartment. All the while he kept thinking to himself, “Hark, is that cannon fire I hear?” He ran to the subway and found the train he needed. As the train moved across town he whispered to himself, “Hark is that cannon fire I hear?”

He arrived at the theater with scant moments to spare. Backstage he was helped into a costume and shown where he was to make his entrance. All the while he kept reciting his line over and over, “Hark is that cannon fire I hear?”

He got his cue and stepped confidently on stage. There came a tremendous crash. He looked around and exclaimed, “What the fuck was that?”

I first came across this anecdote in a William Goldman novel many years ago and have told it off and on ever since.

New Bill Malone DVDs

2007-10-13T10:09:00.000-07:00

Got an email from L and L yesterday announcing the release of some new Bill Malone DVDs. Be sure to check out the video there on their home page. If this set is half as good as the last they'll be worth having. Even if you don't perform a single trick of Malone's -- and you'd have to be pretty damn picky not to find anything you like in the first set -- it's a pleasure just watching him perform.

Free Magic Secrets

2007-10-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

No, this isn't a post offering free magic secrets. Instead it's a look at how the secrets of magic are so readily available and what impact that's having, especially on beginning magicians. This was inspired by Steve Pellegrino's comment about having to earn information in yesterday's post.

It would seem that if being a good magician is all about one’s ability to access secrets, today’s magicians should be the best ever. Never before has so much information about magic been so readily available to so many. Not only are magic’s secrets easy to access, they’re being divulged more and more often at zero cost. There are sites openly and unashamedly devoted to the exposure and trading of magic secrets; YouTube hosts scores of magic tutorials on everything from basic sleights to tricks that are currently being sold. One need do little more than press a few keys to have more magic secrets than could be mastered in a lifetime delivered straight to his desktop at no cost.

Is this free access to magic secrets producing great magicians? It doesn’t seem to be. Too many of today’s young magicians demonstrate fundamental gaps in their understanding and execution of magic. It’s not unusual to see someone who can do a series of flashy cuts and color changes that flubs a double lift. Few seem interested in acquiring the basics; instead they’re forever hunting out the secret of the latest cool thing.

In a sense being a beginning magician on the Internet is like being a kid set loose in a candy store – free to sample whatever you want. It’s almost impossible to settle down and devote yourself to a single trick and master it because something new and enticing is always there to tempt you. You don’t yet possess the discipline or understanding to refrain from trying a little bit of everything. You don’t realize that by taking a little bit of everything you’re ironically going to end up with a lot of nothing.

But it’s more than that, isn’t it? I think it really comes down to value. Have you ever had the experience of winning or finding money? No matter the amount, you find that money won or found just doesn’t seem the same as money you’ve earned. It’s easily squandered and quickly gone.

The same is true of magic secrets. What value do you put on something you’re able to acquire for free? It’s likely you take a superficial look at it, overlooking completely its real worth, and reject it for something new. Getting the secrets for free tends to rob us of our ability to appreciate them for what they are.

We value something according to what we’ve invested in it, both monetarily and in terms of effort, and its overall scarcity. Many of us started practicing magic when secrets were at a premium and we coveted the few secrets we had. More we worked to acquire the knowledge; we weren’t complaining that Erdnase was too hard to understand – we’d dutifully follow the instructions and work to decipher the true intent. And when we found success we also gained something of value, something we would forever keep.

I don’t want to come off like some old guy bitching about how things were better in the old days, but in this instance maybe they were. Many of us mastered the basics of magic not because we were intrinsically better students than the kids today but because that’s all we had! You practiced what you had access to and in so doing gained an appreciation for why it was important. If there’d been this unimaginable thing called the Internet we’d probably have wasted our time hunting around for more and more secrets the way so many do today.

The genie is out of the bottle and there’s no going back. I guess the best we can do is point those just starting in magic in the right direction and hope they’ll listen. Many probably won’t. It isn’t an easy thing to ignore all those interesting secrets and concentrate on mastering a double lift or control. Who knows, maybe in a weird form of Darwinism those who survive the onslaught of secrets will be those most capable of carrying magic on into this new century. See you next time.

Exclusive Magic Secrets

2007-10-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

I don’t understand the mentality, which is especially prevalent online, that all magic secrets should be made available to anyone who’s interested in magic. Are today’s magicians not allowed to have anything that’s uniquely their own, that distinguishes them from their fellow performers?

I’ve made it pretty clear that to my way of thinking the real secrets of magic aren’t secrets at all. That is to say factors like charisma and the ability to connect with the audience are more important than how to control a card or vanish a coin. Then again, the methods we use, however mundane and simple when viewed apart from their presentations, are what separate us from other performers and allow us to create our illusions. We’re instructed early on not to reveal our secrets. I don’t recall any annotations that said it’s okay to give up secrets if the other guy is a magician who really really wants the scoop.

I’ve seen this a number of times. Someone posts a video of something they’ve come up with that looks really impossible. People speculate, sometimes openly, about how it’s done, but keep missing the mark. Finally they profess astonishment and want to know the secret. The creator doesn’t wish to divulge the secret. The people who want it advise they’ll pay to learn how. The creator says he has no desire to sell his creation and prefers to keep it for his own use.

What happens next? People get mad. They want to know why the hell he made a video if he wasn’t going to put it out. They accuse him of employing camera tricks. They condemn him for coming up with something good simply because he wants to keep it for himself.

Richard Osterlind has a bent coin effect, and I remember a time when folks were going crazy because he wouldn’t tip it. I don’t know if he ever did, but why should he have to? Isn’t it okay to hold back a pet routine just for your own use? Is it selfish to want something in your repertoire that an audience won’t be able to see anywhere else?

There are some magicians who aren’t going to let a creator keeping a trick to himself stop them. If there’s a video, they’ll watch it a thousand times until they can reason out the method, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. It’s so bad that Armando Lucero was (I don’t know if he still is) allowing people to view his videos only by invitation. Why? Because he doesn’t want his work stolen and poor reproductions of it posted all over the Internet, I would imagine. Or marketed by one of the less scrupulous magic dealers.

Mickey Silver has a beautiful retention of vision vanish. He was kind enough to send me, and many others, a DVD of it just for the asking. He doesn’t tip the work, but he thoroughly outlines the theory of manipulating the retention of vision, and it’s utterly fascinating. I remember reading a thread where one fellow who’d gotten the DVD was openly saying that he’d worked out the method and was practicing it. Even though Mickey didn’t want to tip the work, even though he was kind enough to send out a DVD for free, this guy apparently thought nothing of working out the technique and appropriating it for his own use. Unreal.

I also remember Mickey being on a coin magic DVD and not tipping the retention vanish and people complaining that he didn’t. Of course.

We need to respect a creator’s right to keep whatever secrets he wants to himself. There are actually professionals out there who won’t perform certain pieces if they think magicians might be in attendance. The magic community is better than that. We need to all stop turning a blind eye to this kind of thing and speak up when someone attempts to lift another’s hard won material that he wishes to keep exclusive.

I hope we’re better than that. See you next time.

The Why Of It

2007-10-10T17:16:00.000-07:00

Long experience has taught me that the crux of my fortunes is whether I can radiate good will toward my audience. There is only one way to do it and that is to feel it. You can fool the eyes and minds of an audience, but you cannot fool their hearts.
--Howard Thurston--

I’ve talked a little about how some professional magicians dump on amateurs and otherwise seem to think their title earns them king shit status online. What I’d like to do this time around is examine why someone might behave in such a fashion and what it really signifies.

First I want to make it clear that the majority of professional magicians I’ve known have been the friendliest people in the world. It’s pretty clear that they feel blessed to be in a position to do what they love and actually get paid for it – even when times are tough, which they can sometimes be. They aren’t worried about going to a magic forum or doing a blog and impressing everyone with their professional status; they don’t care about impressing other magicians. They care about impressing their audiences with their magic.

I think some people become performers for all the wrong reasons. While it’s probably true that most magicians crave recognition and acceptance, some few are absolutely consumed by such desires. They’re attempting to compensate for shortcomings in themselves, real or imagined, and are using magic to show the world that they’re worthy of love and adoration. Again, I think most of us want to be recognized and accepted. But those desires are but a component of the larger whole of sharing the art we love. Some few don’t really care anything about magic; they perform because it affords them a means to prove their worth.

The real problem is performing isn’t a substitute for therapy. It might even aggravate the problem. If you’re unable to connect with others in a meaningful way and get the love you’re missing, standing before them and doing tricks isn’t going to change that. They might laugh and applaud, but if you can’t connect the experience will ultimately feel hollow and superficial. Consequently resentment forms. You want to be a part of something and you’ve tried so hard but nothing has changed. Resentment ferments into anger. And hate.

What I’ve noticed about the people who come online and flaunt their professional title is that they’re almost invariably low level performers who’ve had limited success. This makes perfect sense to me, as you’re never going to succeed as a magician unless you can connect with people, unless you genuinely like people and they like you. You’ve tried and failed to show the world at large that you’re worthy of love and you’ve failed. The solution then is to show your fellow magicians what an expert you are.

I’ll admit that this is a lot of conjecture on my part founded on nothing more than personal observation. However, I sincerely believe I’m on the right track. It might very well be that those loud mouth know it alls who drive some of us crazy are crying out for help in the only way they know how. All I can say is that you’ll never get the kind of help you need online, and even when you succeed in proclaiming your status loudly enough that some of your ilk actually listen to your drivel it’s ultimately going to lead to another let down. I wish there were some easy answers, but there aren’t. A very good start can be made when you stop trying to belittle and demean and offer kindness instead. Just a thought. See you next time.

The Purse Frame

2007-10-08T21:59:00.000-07:00

In my posts about disliking props that don’t exist in the real world, I neglected to mention a prop I use that makes no sense but that I don’t try to justify. Such props form a category of their own and might be called magic objects.

The purse frame, invisible purse, or bagless purse has become a standard in close up magic for good reason – audiences invariably find it entertaining almost in and of itself. I really don’t know why this is so. I remember the first time I noticed this reaction. I was a teenager and had a purse frame but didn’t have any tricks to do with it. Some friends were over and we were in my room and I was showing them some of my props – in those days I had a LOT of props, which might help explain why my approach became more minimalist as time went on. I picked up the purse frame, just to move it out of the way, and they all started laughing. “What’s that?” they wanted to know. I knew from that moment that it was something special.

All these years later and the reaction is usually the same. People see a purse frame and start laughing. I guess the idea of a purse with no bag is so ridiculous that it strikes folks funny. Or it really engages their imagination and sense of fantasy. I’ve never tried to analyze it too closely, so I don’t know. I do know that if you couple the thing with some very simple magic – like pulling a silver dollar from it – it blows people away.

I’ve never tried to justify the purse frame because there’s really no justification for it. In the real world such an object would be utterly useless. As a magic object it makes a weird kind of sense. I never really say anything about it. When I use it I take it out and remove a coin or ball or whatever from it as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

A couple of things: I’ve found it retains its appeal more if it’s used sparingly. Remove a coin or two from it, do your stuff, and put them back in, to seemingly vanish, when you’re done. In a sense it’s just a sight gag, so less is more.

If you want to see how magical it can really be, check out Shoot Ogawa’s routine which is on the Cultural Exchange DVD. It looks very nice. See you next time.

Nice

2007-10-07T16:59:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me the link to this video yesterday and I thought I'd post it here. A very nice performance -- smooth, graceful, and polished. I don't know who this young lady is, but her skills are surpassed only by the charming quality she projects. Outstanding.

The Obligatory Awkward First Post -- Again

2007-10-07T12:24:00.001-07:00

As I’ve said before, I started blogging with Word Press but was too stupid to get the plugins to function correctly. Even though I’ve built a few websites, I’m not really a tech kind of guy – mainly I just keep trying until I get something to work. When I set out this summer to build the Unexpected Wonders site, my first attempt was less than successful...

Anyway, when I switched over to this blogging platform, I didn’t know how to get those first posts from there to here. I thought I’d reproduce my first post from the old blog here as I don’t think many people ever saw it, and I don’t really have much else to say at the moment. I don't believe I've come close to producing a sort of online magic magazine, but that's still the direction in which I'd like to go.

Well, here we are meeting for the first time. I hate introductions, and especially in the sterile environment of cyber space, where human interaction is mostly rendered a parody represented by a lot of arbitrary symbols, but there’s no avoiding this initial posting, no matter how awkward it might be. I guess it’s like my dad used to say during one of our frequent late night talks: “Shut the hell up and grab me another beer.” Which was followed by a lot of indecipherable slurring and cursing… Man, kind of makes me miss the old guy.

Maybe what my dad was trying to say, in his own highly medicated, abstract way, was: “Sometimes a man’s just got to do what a man’s got to do.” Which…kind of sucks. Thanks for the cliché, Dad. What, you think I’m being sarcastic? Now why would you think that? I think you’re the most wonderful father in the world. You touch mom again and I’ll break your arm, dude!

Sorry, flashback. Ah, those warm family memories. Sort of bring a mist to your eyes and a primal scream of rage from the depths of your soul. Sorry again, I’m being silly. And I digress. Let’s get back to this initial post business and square things away, shall we?

Now, I know you’re sitting there thinking that the world needs another magic blog about as much as you need some more of that really cheap flash paper that turned out to be old newsprint soaked in a solution of gasoline and gun powder — on the bright side it was an old suit and, when you get right down to it, who needs eyebrows anyway? Listen, I feel your pain. As a long time reader of magic blogs I know that, with a few notable exceptions, what started as a form of communication with the potential for greatness has too often slumped into a quagmire of mediocrity and imitation. Which kind of sums up the state of magic, all too often.

When you get down to it, magic blogs usually fall into one of two distinct categories. First, you have the lone nut bloggers who are pissed off about something, or just as likely everything. They rant and rave and call people names and usually burn out in a matter of months. A typical post from this kind of blogger might look something like this:

That’s NOT street magic %$@#ing Blaine ruined my art! Criss Angel??? @!$%# &^%$* *&^%$#! Steve Brooks #$%#@ *&^%* Vernon, Vernon, Vernon!

And along in that vein. Good for a bit of distraction, I suppose, but after awhile it’s sort of…uncomfortable. Like when you had that friend when you were a kid who was crazy – we all had that friend, didn’t we — who would do anything. The kid nobody would dare to do something outlandish because he always would. And even when you were hanging with that kid, laughing and having a reasonably normal time, you always found yourself secretly wondering, Is he going to kill me now? Which gets old after awhile. I wonder if they ever let ol’ Greg out of solitary?

Then you have the advertising blogs. These are the blogs run by magic dealers and the like and every single post is about how you can’t live without their latest release. Reading these blogs is like being tied in the basement and forced to watch reruns of Gilligan’s Island with the volume turned down and Carpenters records playing — don’t try that, by the way. It’s a miserable way to spend five minutes. A typical advertising blog post might look like this:

Buy buy buy buy BUY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Or something like that.

So where does your humble writer come in? Well, as you might have noticed this blog is part of site that’s selling magic. So let me give you a sample of what you can expect:

Buy buy buy buy BUY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wait a second, come back. I was kidding. I wouldn’t be cruel enough to subject you to something I can’t stand myself. Besides, when it comes to salesmanship I’m more of the soft sell type. I will tell you about the things I’m selling, yes, but I won’t do so constantly. And I wouldn’t sell anything I didn’t believe in.

Does that mean you’re going to get angry man? Well, maybe from time to time. I do occasionally get passionate about a subject, but I promise not to do too much of that kind of thing. There are things that I dislike, but running through the list relentlessly really isn’t going to do either of us a damn bit of good.

So what can you expect?

I’d like to find the middle ground and bring you something that’s fun and interesting to read and hopefully sometimes informative and helpful. When I first got online I had the bright idea of doing an online magazine – which lasted for all of one glorious doomed issue — and I guess that desire has never entirely died. I suppose that’s the kind of blog I’ll be striving for. And if I fail miserably what the hell. At least I tried. Right, Dad? What, you can’t even acknowledge me? Why can’t you ever just be proud of me!

Anyway, that’s the direction I’ll be trying to take this thing in – more like an online magazine than the typical blog. I hope you’ll give me a chance and bear with me as I’ve never done a blog before. Not that I’m completely without experience addressing an audience via the written word. I used to be employed by one of the bigger magic sites out there and for a good while did a weekly newsletter that was popular. And for a few years I had a site called The Magic Anarchist, and my erratic newsletters there were always well received. Actually they were the part of the site best received. I couldn’t get anybody to post in the forums, but they always wanted to make sure they were on the mailing list — which means you aren’t going to see forums here.

Okay, I’ll do my best to post things of interest. Stay tuned, take care, and thanks for staying with me through this awkward introductory phase. See you again soon.

Opinion Central

2007-10-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

I’m guessing Glenn Bishop took exception to my last post – the fact that he dropped my link from his blog roll is certainly indicative of that. I’d like for him to know that it wasn’t my intention to offend him, and I actually restrained myself in what I was writing.

The things I write here are colored significantly by my beliefs and opinions. I make no apology for that. I’m not trying to crank out newspaper articles and give a dry reporting of the facts. It’s more like I’m just talking about what interests me and hoping it interests someone else as well.

I can be pretty passionate about certain beliefs. You see I think magic is a wonderful thing that’s too often crippled by thoughtless allegiance to what’s come before. Magicians have a habit of justifying what they want to do by saying that so and so did it so it must be good. Well, what worked then isn’t necessarily going to work now. Things are constantly changing, and I think magic has to evolve to maintain, or regain, its stature in the entertainment world.

When I perceive something to be detrimental to magic – like the use of goofy props that make no sense outside a magician’s performance – I can get pretty wound up. But that doesn’t mean I’m right. It’s my perception, my opinion. I try to outline a reasonable argument for why I’m taking a position, but ultimately it’s just the way I see things. I’m old enough to know that thinking you’re right and being right can be vastly different things.

I try to live by the golden rule online and off. It doesn’t matter if you’re David Copperfield or a fourteen year old beginner; I’m going to do my level best to treat you the way I would want to be treated. When people are dismissive of “amateurs” or “hobbyists” it really sticks in my craw. They forget that some of the most legendary names in magic fall into that category. Being a professional doesn’t mean you’re any good. And it’s not a license to tell everybody else to shut up because your opinions are the last word. I’ve done magic for over thirty years as an amateur, professional, and semi-professional, and such labels don’t mean much to me. The only label that does matter is magician.

I guess I took a couple of little digs at Glenn in the last post because I felt he was being condescending about amateurs, and that’s an attitude I hate. Couple that with my dislike of strange magic props and I no doubt was somewhat snarky. I’m sorry he apparently took it to heart as there was no genuine malice intended. I think Glenn’s basically a good guy who has trouble expressing himself in a beneficial way. I wish him the best of luck.

Thoughts On Motivation

2007-10-06T12:27:00.000-07:00

Some magicians think too much. That’s how Glenn Bishop ends a post he made which was in response to my post about justifying the Okito box. While I would agree that some magicians think too much about the mechanics of a trick and work themselves into a corner so doing, I find the notion of thinking too much about the underlying motivation of a trick ludicrous. In my opinion some magicians think far too little.

Glenn seems to feel that you can use any kind of prop in your performances, without justification, as long as the audience is entertained. I suppose that’s true enough. Clowns tend to use colorful and outrageous props in their performances and they can be quite entertaining. I guess it really comes down to what kind of magician you want to be.

Personally, I want to create a realistic experience of the impossible, I don’t want to be the magician equivalent of a clown. Because I want to create a realistic experience of the impossible, I try to use props that make sense in the real world, props that the people I’m performing for can understand. On the rare occasions when I deviate from this protocol and employ an unusual prop, I want to have sound motivation for doing so, a reason that makes sense, if only in the context of the effect.

When we use a prop that makes no objective sense it detracts from the effect created. If it really didn’t matter, you could use one of these babies to produce something instead of doing a bare handed production. Which would an audience find more magical?

Glenn argues that in the case of the Okito if you go to the trouble of justifying it you have to also justify the use of half dollars and English pennies. I would point out that coins, even rare coins, exist in the real world – they make sense in and of themselves. A little round metal box you carry the coins in doesn’t. There’s no sound reason to carry the coins in the box, as I pointed out in the original post, especially if they’re rare coins which you don’t want damaged. I don’t know this just seems like common sense to me. Christ, if this constitutes over thinking I’m in serious trouble.

As I thought I made clear in the original post, coming up with a motivation for using an unusual object isn’t all that hard – it wasn’t like I was racking my brain to come up with the pick pocket scenario, I just exercised my imagination a little and tried to come up with a viable justification for using the thing. It worked and worked well. I was using it in my stand up act and it was always well received. So why would some magicians be resistant to searching out motivation when it’s not all that hard?

First, I think some magicians are simply lazy. No doubt it’s easier to say, “Well it’s all magic anyway,” and just use whatever props you want without coming up with any reasons. Then again, I guess some are simply incapable of exercising the limited bit of intellect needed to fashion a reasonable motivation. They tell themselves that as long as it’s entertaining it doesn’t matter. But again, clowns are entertaining, a monkey riding a little bicycle is entertaining, prop comics can be entertaining. Magic without motivation might be entertaining, but it’s a superficial species of entertainment at best, a series of empty tricks that do little more than pass the time. There’s no broader meaning imparted, no deeper engagement of minds. It is in a word empty.

I think the other reason some magicians take the easy way and ignore motivation is the mistaken assumption that laymen are idiots. Laymen are doctors and lawyers and teachers and scientists and on and on. Most laymen, when watching a trick that involves a strange prop, are going to immediately cop to the fact that the prop is somehow responsible. That’s fine if your intent is to trick people. Not worth a shit if you want to leave them with no explanation.

My two cents. See you next time.

Arcade Fire

2007-10-05T08:08:00.000-07:00

One of the worst things about getting older is feeling as if your tastes have become irrelevant. Take music. I listen to most current music and wonder, "What the hell is that?" In the car I always have the tuner set to the classic rock station...hard to believe that the music of the eighties is now classic. I imagine someday my contemporaries and I will be sitting around in a rest home reminiscing about Van Halen – shaking our fists impotently and proclaiming, “We can dance if we want to!”

I turned forty-four in May, which isn’t all that old in a society where Brad Pitt is about the same age. Then again, I didn’t look as good as Brad Pitt when I was twenty-three. For us mere mortals getting older just sucks. On the one hand you feel more sure of yourself than you’ve ever felt – after four decades you pretty much know who you are. On the other hand you’re experiencing the subtle diminishment of your faculties and knowing that the process will only become more pronounced as the days march relentlessly on, inexorably propelling you toward the abyss.

Hey, what a cheerful thought, huh? Aren’t you glad you dropped by? Maybe next post I can talk about mortuaries or picking out a tombstone or something equally uplifting. Coming soon: Autopsies, A to Z.

Sorry, my mind is straying – what do you want, I’m an old man! Back to the topic, such as it is. Um…what was it again? Ah, yes, getting old sucks. Where once you’re tastes were current, they’re now passé. That’s why it pleases me when I discover something new that I like, especially in music. It happens so infrequently that it always makes an impact.

When I first saw the video below on Saturday Night Live it certainly made an impact. I’d never heard of Arcade Fire and had no expectation that they’d do anything but bore me. Man, was I ever wrong. A great performance by one hell of a talented band – definitely something new I like. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go shuffle off and take me heart pill. Maybe eat a peach. Shake my fist at the kids walking across my yard. I’ll be back soon with something magic related…if the old ticker keeps ticking till then.

Okito Box Justification

2007-10-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

I don’t use the Okito box much these days. It’s not that I don’t think it’s a great little prop which can be used to create some extremely convincing magic, only that it doesn’t mesh well with the kind of stuff I’m doing now. One of the things that always bothered me about magicians who use the Okito is their failure to justify its existence.

What am I talking about? Well, the Okito box has no reason for being in the real world – sort of like those little plastic paddles which magicians wave around. The times I’ve seen someone use an Okito, they either say nothing about it, as if everyone carries a little round brass box in his pocket, or try to pass it off as a coin box.

I don’t think you have to be a numismatist to realize the idea of a coin box is pretty lame. Most people know that coin collectors keep their coins in little plastic sleeves and the like so they don’t get scratched – not in a metal box where they’ll be clacking against each other. There’s no logical reason for carrying coins around in a box other than that it’ll aid you in doing a trick. So saying it’s a coin box is going to ring false.

What does it matter? It can be argued that as you’re showing them a trick they know up front they’re being deceived so they’ll just accept the thing as part of the deception. The problem is they’ll look at this thing with no reason for being and determine – quite rightly – that it’s responsible for the deception. They’ll reason that if they had one of those nifty little brass boxes they could do the deception quite as well as you – and it doesn’t matter that they can examine the thing. The impact of the magic is lost by introducing an object without providing any justification for doing so.

When I was using the Okito fairly regularly I was doing a handling of David Roth’s Out With Four. The justification I used was that the Okito was something pickpockets used to sharpen their skills – the idea being to get the coins from the box one by one without making any noise. I was showing how you could reach a degree of proficiency where you didn’t even appear to come near the box, playing it as a display of preternatural skill.

Now you may be saying that calling an Okito box a pickpocket’s practice device is no better than saying it’s a coin box. The spectators will still discount the thing as being an aid to do the trick. The difference is the majority of people are going to have no idea if pickpockets really use such things for practice. Plus, it made sense in the context of what I was doing – in fact it was an integral component in the proceedings. It wasn’t just a thing I was using to do a trick, it was an arcane little device I was demonstrating the use of. It was accepted because I was providing a justification for it, even if that justification made little sense outside the performance.

I think it’s vital that we always find ways of justifying the props we use and reasons for why we’re using them. Even if the reasoning is implied rather than stated that justification needs to always be there. See you next time.

The Pressure To Be Better

2007-10-03T18:37:00.001-07:00

I’ve mentioned in a couple of previous posts that working for tough audiences will teach you the most. I wanted to elaborate on that idea this time around to try and show why.

I’ve lifted weights off and on for more than twenty years now, and one thing you find out from working with weights is that to gain muscle mass you have to overload. Say you’re doing x number of sets every time you go to the gym. If you keep doing the same number of sets without variation nothing changes. All you’ll really be doing is maintaining your current physique. To see some results you have to either do your sets faster or add more weight. Put simply, to get results you have to make it harder on yourself, and the harder you make it the better the results you’ll see.

The same is true of doing magic. Let’s say you do magic only for family and friends. If you continue doing magic only for family and friends you aren’t going to see any significant changes. Your sleights might improve, but you won’t grow as a performer. To make that happen you have to make things harder on yourself. You have to leave your comfort zone and take on new challenges.

I experienced this first hand starting out. Like many new magicians I took the advice given in books and gave free shows at rest homes, hospitals, VFW meetings, etc. Eventually I got pretty good at doing my twenty minute act in these kinds of venues. But after a while I realized I wasn’t really improving any; there was no real pressure to be any better.

The solution was fairly simple. I took out an ad in the paper and started doing birthday parties for a nominal fee. Suddenly I got better simply because I had to get better. The dynamic had been changed when I started charging for my services. To keep getting the work consistently I had to be better than the other guy.

As you can see, if you want to achieve a higher level you have to make things tougher on yourself. It’s not always as easy as charging for your services or charging more than the other guy. It’s much easier to approach a family when working in a restaurant than a group of loud, obviously drunk teens. Which group will test you as a performer? Which group will demand the best of your abilities to entertain?

Seek out challenges that will force you to improve. Take the tough gigs, the ones no one else will touch. Be fearless in this. The rewards aren’t just financial.

Would Malini have been the performer he was if he hadn’t plied his trade as a busker and saloon performer? Would Houdini be the legend he is if he hadn’t spent years working in dime museums and side shows? Leave your comfort zone and put yourself in positions where you have no choice but to be better. Do so and you might just surprise yourself. See you next time.

The Linked Saga Continues

2007-10-02T09:42:00.000-07:00

Well it looks like Linked may turn out to be a complete scam, as Intensely Magic originally suspected it might be. If you’ve been following the Magic Café thread, which has expanded to ten pages, you’ll see a letter from Magic Box posted by a Café member. It reads:

Thanks for your mail. Unfortunatly and very angrily, we are still waiting for linked gimmicks from the manufacturer. He has promised to post on all magic forums that HE HAS NOT YET, SENT THEM TO US as previously stated. He has told us (again) they will be sent out this week. We have set a deadline, and if we do not recieve them they will be removed from our site.

So apparently Richard James just said he had sent out another shipment. Maybe he was planning on saying wolves intercepted the deliveryman or something. I really expected people would get something, just not what was promised. This is looking more and more like blatant theft. If Richard James has any sense – which is certainly debatable at this juncture – he’ll immediately come clean.

You'd also think Magic Box would pull the pre-order until they have some assurance that this even exists.

Living Your Dream

2007-10-01T19:39:00.000-07:00

It's not always easy to live your dream. Hell, most people never even come close. I firmly believe that the reason most never come close is that they give up. That simple. The road gets too treacherous and they decide to park it at the nearest roadhouse and sip a cold one or something.

If you have a dream and want to make it a reality perseverance is the key. This YouTube video by Tony Robbins, talking about Sylvester Stallone's efforts to make Rocky, makes that pretty clear. It's not always easy to keep going when nothing seems to be going your way, but if you stick it out your dream just might come true.

Dedication

2007-09-30T18:00:00.000-07:00

Actor Christian Bale lost an astonishing sixty-three pounds to play the lead role in The Machinist. Standing six feet tall and normally weighing one eighty-five, he dropped to a weight of one hundred and twenty-three pounds. If you haven’t seen the film, he turned himself into a living skeleton.

Even more amazingly, for his next role, playing Batman in Batman Begins, he gained one hundred pounds and got into peak physical condition. When he first landed the role he was unable to do a single push up. For the next three months he lifted weights three hours a day.

How was Christian Bale able to achieve such remarkable physical transformations? In a word, dedication. He began each project with a specific conceptualization of what the character should look like then took drastic measures to realize his vision. He was dedicated enough to the outcome of his vision to do whatever was necessary to make it a reality.

Go to any magic forum and you’ll find magicians complaining that they can’t get the muscle pass down.

When you take a look at what some actors, dancers, athletes, and others do in pursuit of their goals, magicians can look like a lot of whiners. I think much of the reason for this can be attributed to the misconception that magic is easy.

If you’re over the age of ten, you probably already know that anything worthwhile isn’t going to be easy. That’s the nature of magic and the nature of life. Yeah, you can get some boxes that make coins disappear and that kind of thing – props that all but scream fake – and go out and conceivably fool people with them. You can do that pretty easily, I would imagine. But to transform the experience of being fooled into one of being entertained is going to take some work. It’s going to take some thought and practice. You can’t just walk into a shop and buy a self working trick and be a magician. You have to become a magician.

How do you become a magician? Dedication. You begin with your conception of what a magician should be and work to make it a reality. There’s no secret formula or arcane bullshit. You want the thing you have to do whatever it takes to make it real.

Many don’t want to do the work. They seem to think that kind of good is good enough. They reason that if they fool someone they were successful. Doesn’t matter if they hemmed and hawed around or cracked corny jokes or had the shakes or whatever else.

Listen: This isn’t about being a professional or amateur. Being a professional doesn’t mean you’re any damn good. It’s about doing your magic professionally even if you never make a cent from it. And you really have to be dedicated to achieve that aim. It’s not always fun doing something over and over until you have it perfect, but nobody ever said it would be. And if they did they were a liar.

Every single time magic is done badly, every single time a magician gives a mediocre performance, another spade full of dirt is added to the grave of magic. Each of us has a responsibility in this – we’re either part of the problem or part of the solution. The things we have to master are really pretty simple when compared to the rigors practitioners in other disciplines go through. We need only exercise our dedication to make our magic the best it can be. See you next time.

The Natives Are Growing Restless

2007-09-30T12:27:00.001-07:00

Even though Richard James said that Magic Box would receive a shipment of his trick Linked on the twenty-eighth, the site continues to list it as a pre-order item. I don’t know what delivery services are like in the United Kingdom, but it’s getting harder and harder to believe that he can’t figure out some way of making sure a shipment arrives. I don’t think saying the shipment was lost or delayed in transit is going to carry much weight anymore -- if that turns out to be the case once again.

As someone on the Magic Café thread commented, the correct thing would have been for Mr. James to personally send out the trick to those who had pre-ordered so they wouldn’t have to wait for their order to go through a middle man. Maybe he has a rationale for deciding that people who’ve already waited so long can just wait a little longer, but I can’t begin to guess what it is.

The clock is definitely ticking, and the natives are more than a little restless. And when the natives get too restless they have a nasty habit of dining indiscriminately. I hope for Mr. James’ sake that his latest shipment did in fact arrive on Friday and the orders will be going out soon. Otherwise his dwindling reputation and credibility are going to be served up as the main dish.

The Amateur Magician's Handbook

2007-09-29T20:19:00.000-07:00

When I was fourteen and had been interested in magic for a year, my mom bought me the Mark Wilson Course in Magic. At that time the oversize volume came with a close up mat, a couple of decks of Aviator bridge size cards, some gaffed cards that matched the Aviators, special Genii cards to do the tricks described in the book, and four blue sponge cubes. I could be forgetting something, but I remember those things pretty well. The course went for forty bucks – which was not chump change in seventy-seven. I thought I now had at my disposal all the secrets of magic.

Only…

Only I couldn’t help but think something was missing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an exceptional book for the beginner and some of the material – like the sponge ball routine – is superlative. But I felt it might’ve been a little too basic in some regards. I already had a year in magic, and the section on cards, for instance, didn’t present any challenges at all. I knew there had to be something more – a higher level I was missing out on. And I was hungry to learn everything I could about magic.

It couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks later that my older sister had taken me to see a movie – It’s Alive or Burnt Offerings or some such similar seventies horror fare – and afterwards we stopped by the mall. I remember doing the typical kid things – like walking up the down escalators. Funny how when you’re a kid you don’t need much at all to have fun. It’s only later that you spend lots of money – and often as not kill quite a few brain cells – trying to recapture what once was free.

I was in the basement of a department store where they had their selection of books in long rows of wire framed shelves. I was checking out the books to see what they might have that dealt with magic. I’d bought quite a few magic books aimed at the general public, and usually came away sorely disappointed, but I guess I was young enough at that time to be optimistic.

That’s when I saw it. The funky art deco cover seemed to grow invisible fingers which grabbed me and pulled me forward. Find money in the air, it read, with a drawing of a hand grasping a gold coin beside it. Make a red handkerchief turn green. Pour a drink from an empty jar. There was also a picture of a face with rainbow colors extending down from the right eye – an implicit promise of mysterious things, secret knowledge. And above everything the title: The Amateur Magician’s Handbook.

It has to be crap, I thought, remembering other magic books bought at newsstands and in drug stores. I was still optimistic at that age, but I wasn’t a fool. I plucked it from the shelf and leafed through it. There were numerous black and white photographs illustrating things I could only barely comprehend. What the hell is this, I wondered.

It was just about then my sister showed up. I had to go so I had to make a decision. Acting more on impulse than anything else I shelled out the dollar ninety-five. Hard to believe books were ever that cheap – the other night I bought a similar size paperback at Walden Books and it took the best part of a ten.

I took it home, this discovery I was intrigued by but still distrustful of. I remember taking it to my room, opening it up and reading the first line: The purpose of this volume is to help you become a good magician: one who can entertain others as well as himself with the wonders he works. After that I was hooked.

I can’t think of any other magic book that made such an impression – and that posed so many challenges. Henry Hay’s method of teaching was to introduce you to the sleight of hand magic first. His reasoning was simple and sound: If you learn an easy trick you’ll just run out and show people without investing any thought into how to make it entertaining. If you learn a sleight of hand trick, however, you have to put time into mastering whatever mechanics are required and will thus think about how best to present it.

First up was cards, and what a departure from the Mark Wilson course it was. On page twenty-nine I was first introduced to the pass, which fairly drove me crazy for months on end, wondering how this thing could be done invisibly. Then there was the side steal, the fan force, palming, false shuffles, and on and on. But this wasn’t just a collection of isolated sleights; each sleight was explained then used in a corresponding effect. Besides being my initial exposure to advanced sleight of hand, it was also my first meeting with Leipzig, Cardini, Zingone, Muholland, Downs, Vernon and on and on.

The coin section was every bit as fascinating, and sometimes frustrating, as the cards. The thumb palm, the Downs palm, the click pass, the DeManche change. It seemed like every day I could open this little book, which was a mere three hundred and something pages, and find something new and exciting. And although I bought many other books in the following years, none touched me in the same fundamental way. The Amateur Magician’s Handbook was my bible through my teenage years.

I’ve been prattling on and on, but I think I’ve failed to convey both how good the book is and how much it meant to me. I guess non magicians wouldn’t understand how a book of tricks and theory could have such importance, but for me it was a genuine magic book. It was like any question about magic I had, I would first turn to this simple paperback book because nine times out of ten I would find my answer within.

What more can I say? It’s a great book, from the opening essays through the tricks, to the advice on staging a show at the end. There’s a plethora of practical wisdom and effective tricks.

I never felt Henry Hay, born Barrows Mussey, got the recognition he deserved for writing one of the best magic books ever. Maybe that’s just the way it goes. I do know I’ll always be grateful that he produced such a wonderful book that helped and taught me so much. See you next time.

Something Cool

2007-09-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

Some newer readers of this blog may not know that this is actually the second version. I started with Word Press but couldn’t get any of the plugins to function properly – that vodka diet might’ve been a contributing factor…but what a way to lose weight!

Anyway, there are a couple of things that I wanted to repost here because I really enjoyed them, and this is one.

My wife is an art teacher, which means that body painting is not just an abstract idea around here…

Forget that. Because she’s an art teacher, and very into the subject, our areas of interest often overlap — I mean it might be even better if she was an art teacher/rodeo clown, but a man can’t have it all, now can he? She showed me a visual observation test the other day that I enjoyed so I’m passing it along. Here’s how it works.

Go to the first link below and watch the video. It takes a minute to load. The idea is to count both how many times the basketballs are bounced and how many times they’re passed. Got it? After you’re done click on the second link to see how you did. No cheating.

Test Link

Score link

Pre-Order?

2007-09-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

I can’t help but think that the debacle Richard James has created with his trick Linked could’ve been avoided if there’d been no pre-order. He now has a lot of angry people who shelled out their money contingent on receiving the trick at a certain time; after all the delays, it seems that unless the trick lives up to his claims (made by the video and what he’s said) he’s going to have effectively destroyed his credibility. Why not wait until you actually have the trick to sell before selling it?

From a marketing perspective, what’s great about the pre-order is that you can generate a lot of hype without having any actual reviews from consumers. Everybody’s talking about the thing and blowing it out of proportion, and soon you find yourself sucked into the hoopla and order something that nobody really knows anything about.

The problem with it is that people are usually disappointed when the thing actually arrives; it’s almost impossible for the product, even if it’s good, to match the expectations which have been raised. You see this over and over. A trick comes out you can pre-order, people are raving over the possibilities, then after it comes out all the talk dies and only a couple of people bother to say anything more about it.

The other problem, from a consumer standpoint, is it’s the perfect way for the unscrupulous to separate you from your money. A great concept is described; everybody gets on board imagining how incredible it must be, then the actual trick is without a practical method.

I don’t think I’ve ever pre-ordered a magic trick or book. The only reasons I can see for doing a pre-order are if a limited number of copies are going to be sold or by pre-ordering you’re going to save money. Even then I wouldn’t recommend it unless you know who you’re dealing with. Could be I’m old school, but I don’t like the idea of buying something that doesn’t actually exist yet. See you next time.

Too Good To Be True?

2007-09-27T08:57:00.000-07:00

You know my father was fond of saying, “If it sounds too good to be true…invest every penny you have, boy! Get in on the ground floor. This could be it!”

I should probably mention that dad wasn’t a very bright man. And had a fondness for recreational pharmaceuticals. That probably had something to do with his investing the family’s dwindling fortunes in the untried sport of hamster racing. That venture didn’t quite pan out, and we ended up living in a big cardboard box with a lot of really quick hamsters. Well played, dad. Well played.

Sorry, I digress. Actually most of us learn early on that if something sounds too good to be true there’s a catch somewhere – like a hamster’s inability to run more than a hundred yards without wheezing uncontrollably. Intensely Magic has a post where he mentions a trick I hadn’t heard of called Linked. He wonders if there might be a problem. I wonder the same thing.

What raises red flags early on is the video performance. There’s an unnecessary pause at what would be a crucial point. The creator says he’s going to post a continuous shot video, but as of yet that hasn’t materialized.

The video itself is fair enough, I suppose. But on the first page of the Magic Cafe thread, in response to someone saying the spectators will want to examine the card removed from the glass, he says:

Once the card is pulled off the glass, you simply place the glass down or give it to them. Ask for the center that was signed, give them the card with the hole in the center. The ripped out signed piece fits and they can examine Both the card, the center and the glass.

Things don’t quite add up. I have a lot of trouble believing that the effect would play as seen on the video. I could be wrong, and if I am I apologize in advance, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this will be one of those cases where the video is supposed to represent how the spectators would see the effect. If that’s how it is, the creator’s comments are disingenuous at best.

What’s worse is the continuous litany of excuses as to why the people who pre ordered have gotten the trick yet. Assurances are made and aren’t met. At the very least it’s an awful way to do business and is sure to negatively impact the creator’s future releases.

It’ll be interesting to see how this thing goes, and I can’t wait to see the first reviews. See you next time.

Crossing The Line

2007-09-26T08:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve had a long time interest in the paranormal and try to keep an open mind about its existence. It’s not always easy. After studying magic for awhile you begin to realize how ridiculously vulnerable human perceptions are. Yesterday I said that when you remove the magician from the exhibition of a trick the magic is magnified. What I neglected to mention is that charlatans realized this long ago. Substitute “magician” with “psychic” and a nothing trick becomes a miracle. The context has been altered by a simple change of roles. People watch a magician and know it’s a trick. They watch a psychic and think it might be real.

While I’m interested in introducing a sense of ambiguity about what I’m doing, I don’t believe in saying outright that it’s real. There’s a definite line separating magician from charlatan; I want to dance on that invisible line but not cross it. I want to entertain and possibly open minds to the possibility of magic, not lie and advocate a specific belief system.

I found the video below after watching one of the famous Russian psychic Nina Kulagina posted at Intensely Magic. I’d gone to YouTube to see what other footage they might have of her, and this is one of the videos that came up. Titled, “Replication of Nina Kulagina Telekinesis Feats,” I figured it was going to be a video of some magician exposing the rather crude methods she’d employed. But I was wrong.

Apparently the person who filmed this would have us believe it’s an actual demonstration of psychokinetic powers. What really amazed me is that the people commenting believe him! Now, I imagine that anyone reading this blog will see that this person’s powers are total bullshit. For anyone with doubts, I’ve been immersed in the study and practice of visual mentalism for a few years now and can state with absolute certainty that it’s one hundred percent fake. It’s not even a very good fake – if this guy were a magician he’d starve because his deceptions fall apart under anything more than casual scrutiny. Because the context has been changed, however, because he’s playing a psychic and not a magician, people overlook the obvious explanations.

I think there’s a lesson there for us all.

Creating A Sense Of Unreality

2007-09-25T08:09:00.000-07:00

When a magician performs, no matter how good he is, no matter how artfully he creates the illusion of the impossible, those watching ultimately will conclude that what they witnessed was just a trick. If you change the context by removing the magician from the picture, by having some inexplicable thing happening to the ordinary man on the street, the magic is magnified, and those who’ve witnessed the inexplicable act are unable to easily dismiss what they’ve seen. They experience wonder in its purest most primal form and entertain the idea that real magic might exist after all.

The above summarizes what the Magic Anarchist site was all about. It was a combination of magic and guerilla street theater, with the magician playing the part of someone to whom the impossible was happening. It was a performance style I started exploring way before T.H.E.M came along, and was inspired by both a desire to inject a feeling of unreality into the magic I was doing and a fascination with poetic terrorism.

I was reminded of this because I mentioned the Magic Anarchist site in the previous post. I miss the site, mostly the free exchange of ideas we had in the forum – I was lucky enough to have some very creative people as members. We were concerned with not only engaging in Magic Anarchy but ways to make our straight magic performances more powerful. Besides a lot of attention to visual mentalism, we focused quite a bit on creating a sense of unreality by subtle means.

A very simple idea that I mentioned there, and still sometimes do, involves nothing more complicated than putting some folded up napkins in the heels of your shoes. Imagine going to a party, either to do walk around or as a guest, and showing up with the napkins in your shoes so you’re an inch or so taller. You mingle; have a drink, do a trick or two. Then you excuse yourself, go to the restroom, remove the napkins and throw them in the trash. You return to the party and what’s great is they’ll notice the difference but won’t be able to quite place what’s changed. They get this low level sense that something’s strange but can’t quite pinpoint what.

Others suggested wearing colored contacts and secretly changing them and having a tattoo that moves from one arm to the other. There were many more that I can’t remember. The main thing is that the change be subtle enough that they can recognize it but can’t detect it.

I like the idea of a magician being a mysterious figure, and small strategies like this help create an aura of mystery.

Anyway, just something I thought I’d throw out there. God, it really makes me miss that site. See you next time.

Magic E-Book Pricing

2007-09-25T07:12:00.000-07:00

I’ve seen some talk recently (you know you’re on the Internet when you’re seeing talk…either that or having some heavy hallucinations) about the soaring prices of magic PDFs. While PDFs once were a cheap alternative to books, they’re rapidly becoming just as costly. As a matter of fact, I was just looking at a PDF priced at fifty dollars – the same price as a quality magic book.

Now, I can see both sides of this. On the one hand books and PDFs are just a means of communicating information; the relative worth of the information isn’t significantly changed by the format in which it’s presented. If it’s something good, something you’ll use, does it really matter how the information is provided?

On the other hand, many people, myself included, hate reading magic instructions off a computer screen and print their PDFs. That means anytime I buy a magic E-book I’m going to be spending extra money on ink and paper to print the thing. Shouldn’t that requirement be reflected in the price? The PDF itself costs nothing in production materials. No paper, no ink, no printers to pay – shouldn’t it therefore be cheaper than a book I can hold in my hands and put on a shelf?

Appropriately pricing magic E-books is a tricky proposition at best. When I put out PK Revolution I felt it was pretty good. I sent it to Banachek and Morgan and they thought it was pretty good. At the time I had The Magic Anarchist site and I thought a smart way to draw traffic would be to under price my E-books. My theory was if you give people a super bargain they’re sure to reciprocate by spreading the word – which would mean more visitors would come to the site and be exposed to the concepts I was trying to impart.

I priced the PDF at 6.50 and it did very well. I sold a lot of copies at Magic Anarchist, a lot at a UK site, and it’s been on the Lybrary bestseller list almost since it arrived there. Still, I think I shot myself in the foot by pricing it so low. Some people were reluctant to buy it because it seemed too cheap; I think it wasn’t taken seriously by some because of its low price. Maybe it’s the old maxim, “You get what you pay for”. Some folks look at something really cheap and just assume its crap. Even though it had almost universally positive reviews, some assumed it was bad because of the price.

Then you have the work factor. Someone writing a PDF invests just as much time and energy as someone writing a paper and ink manuscript. Forget the time put into developing and perfecting the effects themselves – describing how to do the effects in a lucid manner takes a lot of effort. Doesn’t the E-book author deserve to be compensated for his time as much as the book author?

I don’t know, it’s a slippery slope. I guess it all comes down to the quality of information. If it’s good and you can and do use it you’ll probably think it’s worth the cost. But what if it’s bad?

The thing about self-publishing is that it’s reached the point where anyone can do it. Once again, forget about the effects themselves, I’m talking about the quality of the writing. I’ve seen E-books that could’ve been better written by sixth graders – gross grammatical errors and little to no punctuation. And the thing is, unless you’ve bought previous works from the same author, you have little idea going in just what you’re going to get.

I have to conclude that overall PDFs should be cheaper than actual books, at least at this point in time, if for no other reason than it’s a crap shoot going in if the thing’s even going to be readable. There are exceptions, sure, but for me getting an attractive volume in the mail that I can pick up and read at my leisure is always going to trump studying some pages I’ve assembled in a binder.

That’s not to say that there aren’t superlative electronic offerings, as there certainly are – witness Michael Close. I think the concept of downloading a PDF to your desktop and being able to access the information you want quickly and easily is a definite winner and is still in its infant stage. But for now, I believe, magic authors need to keep prices lower rather than higher on electronic materials.

The comments are now on so feel free to add your two cents.

Thoughts On Character

2007-09-21T14:59:00.000-07:00

If you want to see something truly scary, watch a new magician who’s decided he needs to create a character. Suddenly you have a fourteen year old with a world weary expression talking about his recent excursion to the sacred temple of Kali, or a middle age guy who’s losing his hair and sporting a beer gut wearing lots of gold chains and throwing gang signs. Those might sound like gross exaggerations, but trust me, they’re not. In the hands of a magician a little character can be a frightening thing.

Why does this kind of thing happen, and happen with enough consistency that it’s become something of a cliché in the magic world? Why does the magician who’s discovered he needs to create a performing persona go to such ridiculous extremes?

Misinformation is probably the primary culprit. As has been observed in previous posts, the magic world is so focused on the mechanics of deception that learning valuable performance strategies is a catch as catch can sort of proposition. More, the very word character conjures up thoughts of foreign accents and eccentric affectations (ascot and monocle anyone?) and assuming a whole radical new identity. As we all fantasize about being something we’re not, the idea of a new identity can be very attractive indeed.

As with most things in magic, less is more. When setting out to define a performing persona, we must first take an honest look at just who we are. If you’re sort of pudgy and funny looking should you really be trying to play the debonair and charming gadabout? If you normally say things like “cool” and “freakin’ ballin’” can you hope to successfully portray a stuffy intellectual?

When actors play roles for which they’re not suited, it’s called playing against type. You don’t see Joe Pesci playing the handsome leading man roles Brad Pitt plays because it wouldn’t work. It’s not that Joe Pesci isn’t a good actor, only that he doesn’t have the attributes necessary to give such roles credence. If he were to try and play such a role anyway the result would be ludicrous. The entire fantasy of the movie would collapse.

When a magician plays against type, the result is the same. The fantasy of magic being done, of the impossible happening, cannot be sustained because the magician himself simply isn’t realistic.

To create a successful performing persona, build from what you have. Ricky Jay is intelligent and articulate, with an encyclopedic knowledge of bizarre performers, and the character he portrays is very much a reflection of those attributes. Criss Angel, on the other hand, is in great shape, good looking, and possesses a sort of street mentality that flavors his presentations. Imagine how ridiculous it would be if Ricky Jay tried to do magic like Criss Angel or Criss Angel tried to do magic like Ricky Jay. There are magicians out there right now who are portraying themselves in just such ridiculous ways.

Your performing persona needs to be an ideal version of you. A you who’s charming, funny, pleasant to be around. There will be things about you that are uniquely your own, and those are the things you need to concentrate upon highlighting in a favorable way. Don’t be a clone of someone else. Be the very best you that you can be. See you next time.

Laid Low

2007-09-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

If you’ve been checking this blog the last few days you’ve probably noticed there’ve been no new posts. If you haven’t noticed the absence of new posts, you might want to consider the possibility that you’re drinking wayyyy too much.

I’ve had a bug that’s kept me off the computer pretty much – low grade fever, nausea, that kind of deal. I’m feeling somewhat better today, so I imagine regular posting will resume tomorrow or shortly thereafter.

I actually was considering giving up this project. I haven’t been able to draw much traffic thus far, and that’s kind of frustrating. But I decided the things I’m saying are of some value to the right person, so I’ll plod along for now.

Suzanne is on board to provide some additional material, so stay tuned for that. Thanks to those few of you who’ve been reading this blog. Back again soon.

Poetry In Motion

2007-09-15T20:19:00.000-07:00

I have a close-up magic friend who’s fond of saying that in magic hell there’s only stage magic. While I wouldn’t go that far, I can certainly understand the sentiment. I appreciate that stage effects require skills that sleight of hand workers usually don’t possess, or even understand, but somehow the smaller wonders resonate with me in a way stage magic rarely does. Could be I’m just a strange guy.

This doesn’t mean I don’t like stage magic, just that given the choice I’d usually rather watch a close-up performance. However this video is a definite exception. A truly remarkable and artistic performance, and judging by the number of views I’m not alone in that opinion.

The Serious Student Of Magic

2007-09-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

Online you run across any number of self-described “serious” students of magic. That puts me in mind of the incident I related the other day about my college creative writing class coming down on me for saying I liked Stephen King. What I neglected to mention then was that those coming down the hardest considered themselves “serious” writers. I certainly see parallels.

You see what those “serious” writers of my college years were most serious about wasn’t writing. Effective writing is about clear communication; those communicating with the greatest clarity are those who are most successful. But as I related before those “serious” writers held the collective opinion that the most successful writer in history is a hack. Far from being dedicated to producing clean prose, those serious writers were most serious about themselves.

These were the kind of people who would walk around campus ostentatiously carrying obscure – and essentially unreadable – literary works. Many wore berets and haughty expressions and waxed philosophical about the state of modern writing. They did these things so anyone they encountered would know they were “serious” artists, real writers.

Which brings us back to those “serious” students of magic. Are they most serious about magic? Or themselves? When they dismiss and ridicule anything that’s popular, you really have to wonder. When they dedicate themselves to producing little videos of themselves executing sleights, instead of using what they know to entertain an audience, you can be pretty sure.

I’ve heard some very successful magicians describe themselves as students of magic. But I can’t think of one who describes himself as a “serious” student. When you throw in that bit of pretension the implication is you’re much more informed than the average student. Much better. No matter that you never really perform. No matter that you ignore the most useful tools a magician can possess – like a pleasant personality. You’re serious. You’re better. Magic is all about how well you can do the moves, right?

If you want to be serious about magic, stop taking yourself so seriously. Show them you’re a serious student, don’t tell them. Perform and succeed, that’s the name of the game. Then all the serious students can sit around and trash you. Until next time, take care.

Magic That's Simple And Elegant

2007-09-14T19:27:00.000-07:00

I really like this video of Cyril Takayama. True, it’s not his most amazing performance, but I think it illustrates that he’s not merely a “cyber magician,” as some would condescendingly categorize him. Instead he’s a magician well versed in his art and quite adept at sleight of hand. It’s a simple, elegant sequence executed with grace and ease – it’s a good lesson in how such things should look.

Hopefully I’ll have time tomorrow to post something more substantial, but for now here’s Cyril working magic with a cigarette. See you next time.

Modeling

2007-09-13T08:11:00.001-07:00

Success isn’t accidental. That’s what I used to say to those magicians who would smugly dismiss David Blaine’s phenomenal success as a fluke. The truth is anyone who’s consistently successful is doing something right, something that works, whether we see it or not.

Motivational speakers and success gurus advocate a technique called modeling to improve performance in whatever you’re doing. The concept is simple enough: In any field there will be those who have far surpassed the norm and achieved extraordinary success; modeling is simply the process of determining what actions are accountable for those top performers’ success and duplicating them. It’s actually a very practical approach. Imagine if you went to a lake to fish and saw one man with no fish and another with a full basket. Who would you model your fishing after? Who would you watch to see how it’s done?

What does this mean for the magician? That if he wishes to succeed with his magic he should look at the best in the field and model his behavior accordingly.

I can almost hear people saying, “The best? Are you saying that Blaine and Angel are the best magicians?”

In a strictly pragmatic sense, yes they are, and you can throw Copperfield and a few others in to boot. This actually reminds me of a creative writing class I took in which I made the mistake of saying I liked Stephen King. I spent the rest of the hour with essentially the entire class asking, “You think Stephen King has talent?”

Well, Stephen King is the best selling writer of all time. It seemed to me then, and now, that he obviously has talent or he wouldn’t be able to connect with so many people so consistently. He might not be to your taste, but he is talented and one of the best writers in history.

I guess “the best” is always going to be a somewhat subjective proposition, but who’s the most popular certainly seems like a reliable yardstick upon which to measure. In all honesty I don’t care much for Criss Angel, but I recognize that he is talented and is doing something right, and I’m interested in knowing what that something is.

Now, if you have no ambitions of performing magic for anyone other than family and friends, or a camera, your interpretation of the best is likely to be much different from mine. Similarly, if your desire is to perform only for other magicians, modeling the actions of a Blaine or Angel isn’t likely to get you far – might even get you beat up. If you want to bring your magic to the widest audience possible, however, they are the performers you need to study because they’re most popular among the general public. Again, they’re doing something right whether we can see it or not.

Modeling is not imitation. No matter how well you imitate someone else you’ll forever fall short of the original. This isn’t about copying a performer’s style or their material – it’s about learning what they did in their careers to end up so successful. Were they especially good at getting their name in the papers? Did they take bold risks that paid off? The idea is to find out, as precisely as possible, what specific actions led to their success. And when you find a characteristic that most top performers share, it’s gold. A characteristic shared by multiple magicians at the top of their game is definitely one you should cultivate in yourself.

This is why I’ve always been a big fan of interviews – I get a new magic magazine I’m going straight for the interview. That’s where you can hear first hand from a performer what he or she has done or is doing to achieve success. You can learn much from their success and mistakes if you’re willing to open up and listen.

So I guess the real question is, who would you model yourself after? This isn’t about favorites. I’m an admirer of Larry Jennings and Dai Vernon, but I wouldn’t want to model a career as a magician after them, no matter how much I favor their work, as they performed primarily for other magicians. This also isn’t a practice which can be applied only to living performers – the great magicians of yesterday can also prove great models, although you do have to take the differences of their time into consideration when studying their success.

Modeling is definitely something to think about if you’re interested in reaching the largest possible audience. See you next time.

Dry Skin Solution

2007-09-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

If there’s anything that hinders your ability to perform sleight of hand more than dry skin – with the possible exception of wild squirrels mercilessly biting your ankles…trust me, it can happen – I don’t know what it is. Coins pop out of classic palm, cards slide uselessly through your fingers – any sort of fine digital action is complicated. To deal with the problem you can either apply a bit of saliva to the fingertips before a crucial move – which is unsanitary and a little off-putting for the next person asked to take a card – or you can use some kind of lotion. Finding the right kind of lotion can be as much of a pain as the dry skin.

Over the years I’ve tried just about every hand lotion on the market. None have worked for me, or at least worked for very long. I mean, I used Neutrogena for a long while, but it tends to wear off after fifteen minutes or so – not good if you’re doing a thirty minute program. I’ve seen any number of hand lotions touted on magic forums as the best, but usually you just end up with something that makes your hands too slick and greasy – which is probably worse than too dry. Some magic dealers sell concoctions for outrageous sums guaranteed to be specially formulated for the magician, but these usually turn out to be a waste of money. So what works?

A while back I heard that Larry Jennings favored Chamberlain Golden Touch lotion. Paul Wilson currently uses it, and I don’t know who all else. I ordered some online as I couldn’t find it locally. It was cheap – and I had serious doubts.

Turns out it’s the best stuff I’ve ever used. It’s not slick, not greasy, and gives the hands a subtle tackiness that makes handling cards and coins a dream come true. If you’re looking for a lotion that really works well for the sleight of hand guy, you might want to give it a try.

A Dearth Of Imagination?

2007-09-10T06:49:00.000-07:00

Probably my favorite novel concerning magic and magicians is The Prestige by Christopher Priest. While the movie version of the book has its moments, overall it fails to capture the essence of the novel – winner of a World Fantasy award. The obsessive rivalry which propels the main characters is rendered in broad, sometimes clumsy strokes in the movie. Worse, for much of the movie a sympathetic character isn’t present, which isn’t the case in the book.

When the movie first came out it was a natural topic of discussion on the magic forums. What surprised me was how many people saw the film and would post something like this:

It seemed like a good movie, but then it got into all this science fiction stuff and lost me entirely. Just not realistic.

I remember sitting there reading such words thinking, Um, it’s a fantasy. A fantasy story, by nature, is going to contain elements that aren’t realistic.

I think what really bothered me is the definite anti-fantasy vibe I kept picking up on. Stop and consider that for a moment: Magicians, purveyors of magical fantasies, who don’t like fantasy. Ironic, huh?

I mean, maybe I’m making too much of it, but I can’t help but wonder what kind of magic a guy who dislikes fantasy might make. When I do magic, and I think most others are the same, it’s all about pretending. I invite the audience into a pretend world where the natural laws get thrown out the window and anything’s possible. The whole affair becomes a mutual exercise of the imagination – I’m pretending to do the impossible, and the audience is pretending I can. The underlying context is that if I’m able to so easily do the impossible then maybe reality’s broader than the audience might’ve first suspected; maybe they’ll even come away from the experience with a more open view of the universe and a fresh sense of appreciation of just how magical it really is.

Take away the imagination from the equation, take away the fantasy element, and what have you got? I’m going to show you a trick. That’s all it is, a trick. All it means is I have a secret bit of knowledge you aren’t aware of. Put another way, I’m clever and you can’t see what I’m doing. I’m fooling you. Isn’t that fun?

That’s not magic. It’s shit.

Without the compact with an audience in which the imagination is engaged and exercised, you’re left with pointless displays of subterfuge. I know how this works and you don’t. Forget about any kind of meaningful connection; forget about engaging them emotionally. The only engagement will be purely intellectual. Arguably this sort of intellectual engagement can be entertaining, provided the displayer is able to make what he’s displaying interesting. I mean, I don’t know much about holograms, but a good lecture about them with visual demonstrations would probably engage my attention. But it’s not magic. There is no deeper level, no larger meaning. It is what it is.

Could this apparent dearth of imagination be a result of the atheistic philosophy espoused by some in the magic community? I certainly think that’s a reasonable supposition. I simply cannot understand those so intent on demonstrating their superiority of reason that they would leave magic gasping in the dust. Listen, I see no problem with exposing a charlatan who’s bilking the gullible. But when you start insisting there’s no magic, that everything can be explained, that there’s no God – brother, you’ve crossed the line. You’re a magician, ranked slightly more favorably in the entertainment world than a freaking clown. For you to have the hubris to announce there’s no God is ridiculous almost beyond comprehension.

People hunger for mystery. They always have and they always will. Einstein said the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. Magicians should be purveyors of the mysterious, not its rapists. It seems to me we can leave that task, when it needs to be done, to those more qualified and respected. And we certainly should never be such monumental assholes as to smugly dismiss anyone’s religious beliefs.

Take the imagination out of magic and you take the theater out of it. You’re left with a sterile demonstration of ability. You might as well be juggler or a clown. By removing the imagination from magic you’re removing its spirit.

Ricky Jay And His Ladies

2007-09-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

I first saw Ricky Jay on television in 1976 on Doug Henning’s second World of Magic Special. With his long flowing hair and full beard, and dressed in a conservative suit, he was a striking contradiction in terms – especially for that time. When he did his now renowned handling of The Exclusive Coterie from Erdnase...

I remember after the special it was all my older sister and I could talk about. This was before I got into magic, so I didn’t really understand what this thing was I’d seen – but I knew I liked it a lot. Three decades later and, while the details are now hazy, I still remember the joy the trick gave me.

Here’s Ricky Jay performing the effect on his 52 Assistants HBO special.

Posting Frequency

2007-09-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog I made a resolution – no more than two cocktails after dinner. Okay, three if it’s been an especially stressful day…

I’m kidding, of course. I drink as much as I want!

Seriously, I made a vow to post something every day. I didn’t want to have one of those blogs where you could take a trip to the farthest reaches of Siberia in between the owner’s posts. Besides, I’ve been writing about as long as I’ve been doing magic. So coming up with something new to add every day shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Well…

The problem, as in so many things, is time. I simply can’t find the time to sit down and write something worthwhile every day – not as long as I want to keep frivolities like sleeping and eating in my life. Oh, I suppose I could come up with something new every single day, but I might end up making a lot of posts like this:

Went to Wal-Mart earlier. Some kid gave me a funny look. Stupid kid.

Not exactly intellectually stimulating, huh? I guess the choice comes down to quality versus quantity. Much as it is with magic, where you can choose to have a whole slew of so-so tricks or a handful of really good ones, I can either post a lot of superficial, mediocre nonsense on a daily basis or thoughtful, and hopefully insightful, things with less frequency. The choice seems pretty clear.

The good news is at this juncture I still have material on my hard drive I haven’t used. But things might be slowing down just a bit. I don’t want to squander my store and have to rely on posts about Wal-Mart.

So for today this is probably it. I have a party this afternoon and time is limited. But stay tuned because there’s much new on the way – interviews, reviews, effects, more essays, and maybe a contest. And maybe I can finagle some more stuff from Suzanne – always a good thing. Take care and I’ll see you next time.

Give Them What They Want

2007-09-08T08:19:00.000-07:00

I’ve been busy reworking the Unexpected Wonders site, so haven’t had a chance to sit down and write. I think the new design looks much cleaner – this is about the third redesign so far, and should be the last for a good long while. I started off with a hodgepodge of images and text that looked to have been thrown together by a hyper twelve year old who forgot to take his Ritalin, but I think the design now looks more or less professional. I certainly hope so, at any rate.

I still have to finish some pages, though, so don’t have time to write anything new today. Plus I have an engagement later this afternoon that’s making time especially tight. So here’s the second chapter from the project I posted about yesterday. See you again soon.

Having established the importance of the audience in the previous chapter -- never forget they are crucial to your success -- common sense dictates that you should do everything in your power to give them what they want. A good performer defines what his audience wants and focuses on fulfilling those desires. A bad performer ignores his audience and concentrates instead on satisfying his own wants, with any entertainment derived by the performance being little more than an accidental byproduct. Unfortunately, many magicians fall into this latter category.

As magic is so move oriented, it's hardly surprising that very few magicians are aware, in any but a peripheral way, of what constitutes good entertainment. It's completely normal for a magician to invest thousands of hours into the mastery of his moves and little or no time into discovering how to transform those moves into something of interest and value. There are scores of magicians fitting this description in the magic underground, persons who have developed extraordinary technical skill but seem incapable of putting that skill to work in a way that would interest and engage an audience. They are hypnotized by their own prowess, and can't understand why anyone but other magicians aren't also entranced.

To avoid this pitfall, it's important to remember that a good magic performance is not just a display of skill. This is not to say that a good performance can't contain skillful displays, only that they should be enhancements, not the main attraction. A juggler's performance can be one continuous display of his abilities or skills and be good because that is the main focus of his craft. A magician, on the other hand, is in the business of creating the illusion of the impossible. He might describe himself as a sleight of hand artist and let the audience know that the things he's doing are brought about by great skill. However, if skill becomes the primary focus, as opposed to the illusion of the impossible, he is doomed to fail -- it would be somewhat like a talented guitarist putting all the emphasis on his ability to play intricate notes instead of the music itself. They can know that what you're doing requires skill, but it's the impossible aspects of what you do that sell the performance.

Therefore, as a magician your audience expects from you, first and foremost, an experience of the impossible -- a magical experience. They could care less if your pass is the best in the world or if you can deal perfect centers -- unless you're doing a gambling type act where exhibitions of skill would be the primary focus, but that would not constitute a magic act. They may be impressed with flourishy displays, they may realize that what you're doing is born of hard earned skill, but what they are most interested in is that their signed card somehow defied physical laws and ended up in your pocket. They are most interested in the magic.

The common trait all audiences share is the desire to be entertained. As a magician, they expect you to entertain them with magic. All other elements of the performance are secondary or should act as enhancements. Remember, the primary objective of the magician is to entertain with magic.

Let's take a moment to look at entertainment in broader terms as so many in the magic world seem to have no concept at all of what entertains. Entertainment might best be described as something that engages an audience's interest and provides pleasure and amusement. In the case of the magician, that something is the apparent experience of the impossible. The real secret of magic is not how to do the trick, but how to make the trick interesting -- how to make it pleasurable and amusing to experience.

The good news for all performers is that people want to be entertained. This is witnessed by the phenomenal amounts of money spent on the pursuit of entertainment and the sundry forms it takes. Entertainment is a form of escape that we all need, a chance to momentarily leave all else behind and simply enjoy ourselves. If presented with a choice between boredom and entertainment, anyone sane will opt for the latter.

However, because there are so many different forms of entertainment, many more in our technological age than ever before in history, the magician has to make what he's offering preferable to the many other diversions available. We'll examine techniques to make you and your magic more attractive in coming chapters, but for now we'll just say that to entertain with magic you must make what you're offering more valuable than any other competing entertainment at that time.

Just as important as what the audience wants is what it doesn't want. Things the audience doesn't want can be described as the antithesis of entertainment and when eliminated from your performances can dramatically improve your abilities as a magician.

Audiences do not want to be demeaned. This should be painfully obvious, yet we've probably all had the experience of watching a magician single out a hapless spectator and proceed to embarrass that spectator, sometimes mercilessly. Arguably this kind of thing can generate laughs and be entertaining if played correctly. But how entertaining is it for the person being made a fool of? My guess is that this person would harbor a dislike for magicians from that day forward. That's not good for the art of magic, and especially not good for the next magician he might see -- this is how some hecklers are born. Even when bits of this nature do entertain, there is invariably an undercurrent of unease about the proceedings. We resent the performer and begin to sympathize with the person being ridiculed, even as we laugh at his plight. It's all too easy to see ourselves in the other guy's shoes.

Again, correctly presented, bits of this type sometimes do entertain...but it's a very fine line to walk, and on the whole not worth the risk. There are much safer and more effective ways of generating laughter than at the humiliation of another.

This is why sucker effects should be eliminated from your repertoire or, if kept, restructured to diffuse the sting or direct it back upon yourself. Being played as a sucker is neither entertaining or desirable to the recipient. Such effects are too reminiscent of practical jokes to be truly amusing to anyone but the instigator.

Similarly, eliminate any lines which might be construed as insults. This is really a matter of common sense, and the golden rule of doing unto others as you'd have them do unto you holds especially true here. Strangely enough, many magicians are either lacking any common sense or are operating under the delusion that insults constitute strong humor because they sprinkle their patter with one cutting remark after another and expect the recipients to somehow enjoy this. Again, use common sense. You can use lines which might be otherwise insulting if your delivery makes it clear that you're joking, and if you are willing to direct such jabs back at yourself. Witness the way in which Bill Malone calls a spectator "sucker' in his Sam The Bellhop routine and how he has structured his delivery to make it clear that he is joking. He immediately corrects himself by calling the spectator "sir" (in effect apologizing for the slip) and holding up his hands in a please-don't-hit-me gesture (subtly demeaning himself). If he merely called the spectator a sucker and moved on without letting the audience know he wasn't serious and without directing the insult back upon himself, he would be regarded as rude and arrogant. The main point to remember is that there's a world of difference between an insult and a joke and if there's any doubt, leave it out.

Never be rude to the audience. Don't order them about, tell them to be quiet, etc. Again, there are exceptions here. If the audience is well aware that you're joking some mock rudeness will be tolerated. However, it should be kept to a minimum, and make sure they know you're joking.

Finally, don't make the audience work. The audience does not want to invest undo effort into the proceedings. They're willing to help out by signing a card or holding out a hand. They're not willing to remember three different cards and that each is exactly three cards down in three packets, etc. If you do make them work they will resent it unless the payoff is huge, but even then they're liable to remember more about all they had to do than what the outcome was. Audiences want to watch you work. They expect you to entertain them. Therefore, everything you do should require minimal effort on their part; everything must be clear and easily understandable. We'll take a look at what kind of material best fits that bill in the next chapter.

The Greatest Teacher

2007-09-07T06:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was going through some old files, searching for any more material Suzanne might have sent me, when I found the remains of a project begun several years ago. Written in conjunction with another magician, the project was to be a work on the essentials of doing magic successfully. What I found interesting was how much of what I was writing then mirrors what I've been saying on this blog -- some of the things I said just yesterday could've come whole cloth from the piece. Anyway, as I have nothing else to post today, here's the first chapter of that work titled "The Greatest Teacher."

Magicians tend to idolize teachers of the art. The main reason this is so can be attributed to the fact that the vast majority of magicians are obsessed with how tricks are done rather than how to do them -- that is, how to best perform them. As most of the material taught deals with how tricks are done, anyone who is able to clearly communicate the workings of a trick, the methods, is held in the highest esteem, is lauded as a great teacher. It is not unusual for prolific creators and purveyors of methods to obtain iconic stature; they become veritable demi-gods in the magic universe, their names employed with near religious reverence by legions of hyper loyal acolytes.

One of magic's dirty little secrets is that some of its most vaunted creators and teachers were, at best, mediocre performers. True, they developed approaches and techniques of considerable value -- along with a great number of monstrosities, if truth be told -- but if they'd been required to earn their sustenance by performing for real world audiences, as opposed to other magicians, most would have surely starved. Many possessed only a rudimentary sense of showmanship...and some none at all.

We point this out not to diminish the accomplishments of these individuals, but to work from a base of truth. The simple fact is that of the legendary teachers in magic, past and present, only a handful were competent performers and only a very few ever touched upon the knowledge that will make you a better magician. This is easily evidenced by the fact that names that any magician would recognize, and whose words are quoted as gospel, are completely unknown to the public at large. Conversely, performers with names that laymen would recognize are often cited in the magic world as bad magicians! Think about that for a moment: Those who succeed in fulfilling the primary objective of the magician, to entertain with magic, are quite often looked down upon. True, most didn't produce books aimed at other magicians, so aren't praised as great teachers. Why? Maybe because they were too busy actually performing magic for the real world instead of a lot of other magicians who hoped only to discover a clever new move.

The real problem with this state of affairs is that the new magician, wishing to learn more about his art, is directed to the teachings of these masters and is quickly consumed with the methodologies that constitute the greater part of their work. Any advice that they uncover on how to do magic is often erroneous or untested. They are led to believe that those they most admire, those public performers who probably sparked their initial interest in the art, are not good magicians -- never mind their success! Soon they are totally consumed with the methods of magic and are eagerly directing others in the same direction. Thus the cycle repeats itself ad nauseam with only a very few ever breaking free to discover the important truths.

Magic is a performing art. Yet some of its best known "experts" could not perform. At least ninety percent of all the available information pertaining to the art of magic deals with the techniques of deception -- and that's a conservative estimate. Ironically, even though magic is a performing art, the performance of magic, in the magic world, is often viewed as of incidental or no importance at all.

If we work from the position that the greatest part of that taught about magic is concerned solely with the technical, and that magic's greatest teachers often were poor performers, where do we turn to learn how to perform?

When it comes to learning how to do magic, as opposed to how it works, there is no greater teacher than an audience.

Your audiences can teach you more about how to do magic than any book you'll ever read, video you'll ever watch, or lecture you'll ever attend. If you'll listen to what they're saying. Most magicians can't or won't.

Ever had the experience of watching a bad magician perform? Ever ask yourself why that bad magician didn't seem aware that no one was laughing at his jokes -- some might've even been groaning -- or why at the conclusion of his performance the best he elicited was a polite smattering of applause? Was he even aware that the audience existed at all?

Probably not. Many magicians seem so involved in either the mechanics of what they're trying to do or are so unsure of themselves or are so convinced that what they're doing is good, that they completely ignore the responses the audience gives them. Upon the completion of a performance, if they somehow noticed that the audience was less than enthralled, they will console themselves with the lie that they just had a bad audience.

That is the biggest lie you can ever tell yourself, and if you take nothing else from this work please read the next two lines carefully and apply them to your magic: There are no bad audiences, only bad performers. The audience is always right.

That's not to say that there aren't audiences that are more difficult to work for than others. A group of drunken men at a bachelor party would be a much tougher crowd to entertain with magic than a group at a church social. However, it is from those really tough audiences that one can learn the most, because their positive reactions will be genuine -- they're a lot less likely to give you good reactions just to be polite. Max Malini, one of the greatest close up entertainers ever, honed his showmanship by busking in saloons as a young magician. Imagine how difficult it would be to walk into a tavern and perform magic powerful enough to engender the crowd to cough up money when you passed the hat. Tough audiences can teach you priceless lessons about what works and what doesn't.

If you're doing something and the audience is not responding favorably, there's a problem with what you're doing. It's that simple. Again, the audience is always right. Therefore, the first step is becoming aware that the audience exists. Remember, the whole point of doing magic is to entertain -- not yourself, but an audience! Far from being some abstract part of the equation, they are the most integral part! Without them you're not an entertainer and you can't truly be a magician. Doesn't it make sense to treat them with the importance they deserve?

Next, you must focus on what the audience's reactions are saying. In order to do that you'll have to know what you're doing so well that you can concentrate on the audience and not your props, the secret move, that great gag, etc. We'll cover this in more detail later, but for now suffice it to say you must know your material so well that you don't have to think about what you're doing while you're doing it.

Finally, you must apply the lessons the audience is teaching you. It does little good to focus on the audience's message if you're not going to use it to make your magic better. This is where many magicians run into trouble. They are so in love with a certain trick or move that they continue to use it even when the audience is telling them that it's not good. The fact is, it doesn't matter what you like. If you can't find a way to make them like it then it should be eliminated. They will tell you the truth if you will listen.

In conclusion, the greatest teacher a performer can ever have is his audience. If you will use that knowledge to your advantage, you'll be light years ahead of most magicians. Listen to what they're saying and apply it. They are the best teacher because they are never wrong.

Suzanne On Working With Agents

2007-09-06T09:23:00.000-07:00

Here's another post from Suzanne. This one concerns itself with the business side of the game, and she makes some great points as usual.

Working With Agents
Buy/Sells vs. Straight Commission.

Twenty years ago it was common practice for agents to work on commission. They‘d sell an act for as much as they could and then the act would pay the agent a previously agreed upon commission, usually 15 to 20 percent. This was fair because how much the agent was paid was in direct proportion to what the act was being paid and everyone knew how much everyone else was making in the deal. Somewhere down the line though, agents changed the balance of power. Now most agents, at least here in Minneapolis, do Buy/Sells.

How Buy/Sells work: Agents sell a show for as much as they can. Then they find an entertainer who will do the show for way less than the sell price. When this happens the agent ends up cutting corners; he won’t be able to get a great entertainer and still leave a big enough profit margin so he has to lower his standards. This in turn, lowers the quality of entertainment because the more talented entertainers can't/won't work for what the agents are willing to pay. Only the hungry entertainers end up being available and they will work for way below what they’re worth.

Buy/Sell contracts: Agents used to have one contract signed by the agent, the client and the entertainer. Everything was above board. Clients knew the break down of what the entertainer was getting and what the agent's fee was. A Buy/Sell contract is usually not signed by all three parties. There are usually two different contracts, one for the client/agent agreement and one for the entertainer/agent agreement. The client doesn't know how much they’re actually paying for the entertainer and the entertainer doesn't know how much total is being paid for the show. The agent’s fee is lost in there somewhere and no one really knows how much he’s making from the deal except him.

Let’s say you’re a magician just getting into magic and you charge $75 an hour for walk around magic. That’s what you get when you book yourself and that feels like a fair price for what you know how to do. You don’t feel like you’re cheating the client and you also feel like you’re getting enough so you want to do the work. You get a call from an agent and he wants you to work for 3 hours. Wow! That’s the biggest gig you’ve ever had and you’re going to make $225. That’s cool! You take the gig!! You sign a contract between you and the agent and do the gig. Then you find out that the client paid $500 to the agent. We don’t need to go into how you found out for this exercise, let’s just say you do and leave it at that. Do you think, "Well that’s fair that the agent made more than I did because I still made $225 and that’s the biggest gig I ever had. Anyway I wouldn’t have even been able to do that gig if I didn’t get it through the agent." Or do you say, "Hey, wait a sec… "?

Looking at the above scenario, let’s see what really happened. Either the client got ripped off because he had an entertainer who was really worth half of what he paid for or the entertainer got ripped off because he doesn’t know how much he’s worth and he needs to start charging more when he books himself, or a combination of the two.

Personally I don't think Buy/Sells are a good idea because it means the agent is working only for the agent. Part of the problem is agents don't have to really care that much about whether the price is fair to the client or the entertainer because the actual price is hidden. The way it is now makes a bad name for entertainment because they are buying poorer quality entertainers and selling them at a much higher price than they are worth. People who hire through agents don’t know that this is how it works so they don’t even think to find out how much the entertainer is being paid. I have a hard time believing that the client would not care if they found out they were paying $500 for a magician who is only worth $225. I’m sure they know that a fee is tacked on top of the magician’s fee for the agent, but I bet they have no idea how much that fee is.

Sadly the Buy/Sell mentality is running rampant in our society. The entertainment industry has been raping entertainers for decades. Just see this article. This is about the music industry but it's a good example of how skewed the balance of power is. Everyone is out to make the biggest dollar they can, and they don’t care whether it’s right or wrong.

What do I think would be a good solution? I can only speak for novelty entertainment like magicians, comedians, jugglers, etc. I think this entire problem would be eliminated if entertainers would stop acting so hungry and didn’t sign contracts unless they knew the whole score. The contracts need to be between three parties, the entertainer, the buyer (client) and the agent. All dollar amounts need to be in the contract. This way the entertainer is working with full knowledge of who is getting what. If the entertainer wants to do a gig where the agent is getting $275 and the entertainer is getting $225 then that’s OK because it’s above board. If the client wants to pay an agent fee that is more than 50% of the total sell price then that’s OK because it’s above board. I’m certainly not opposed to agents making what they deserve. What I want is for everything to be out in the open so no one is being taken advantage of. The only way we as entertainers can stop this trend is to not let agents scare us. They should be working for us. We can get gigs without agents, but agents can’t get gigs without entertainers.

Move Love

2007-09-05T09:56:00.000-07:00

There’s a now famous anecdote about Larry Jennings performing for a guest at the Magic Castle. He was doing a trick that required a pass, and was very much enamored with his handling of the move. At the point where the pass was employed, however, the lady he was performing for looked away. Larry reset the cards and admonished her for looking away, and then directed her to watch his hands closely because she wouldn’t see a thing.

Now, I don’t want to come off as if I’m trying to diminish the accomplishments of Larry Jennings – he’s actually one of my all time favorite magicians and his card creations are unparalleled. I was reminded of the story because Suzanne alluded to it briefly in her post from yesterday. It’s a helpful story as it demonstrates a common failing among magicians who do sleight of hand: Move love.

I guess it’s not unusual for a sleight of hand artist to become captivated by the moves he employs, considering the amount of time he invests in perfecting them. It would almost seem a cruel bit of irony that something for which the magician has worked so hard is something never meant to be seen. What we must all keep in mind, however, is that those moves, clever and hard won though they may be, are always but a means to an end. Our primary focus needs to be on the wonders they’re used to create.

I think if you change the context you can see just how absurd move love really is. Imagine a carpenter who loves his tools more than he cares for what he’s building. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be in a house he constructed. More, you’d probably think a guy who wouldn’t let his hammer and saw out of sight because he cared for them so much was insane. The long and short of it is they are tools. They might be especially good tools, but they’re tools all the same.

Sleights are tools, nothing less and nothing more. They might be tools which you have to give great quantities of time to possess, but they’re still tools. We use them to build. Otherwise they have little use at all.

If this seems like mere common sense, it is. And yet all over the Internet there are videos of magicians demonstrating moves. Did you see it? No? Invisible, huh? Wow, you realty nailed that! Magicians see moves being exposed and are up in arms on the magic forums. This is the end of magic! Those damn kids are ruining my art. Oh dear God I can’t believe he exposed that. What can we do? Can we sue him?

In other words, magicians are obsessed with secrets – which in the case of the sleight of hand worker means moves. They horde their secrets and guard them zealously and sometimes attach near mythic significance to them. They covet the other guy’s secrets and sometimes steal them. To what end? Often to no end at all. The secrets aren’t put to any use. They’ve stolen the show and become a thing unto themselves.

It’s been said that more books have been written about magic than any other performing art. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’d wager it is. Of all those thousands of books, how many touch on entertaining an audience with magic in any but the most peripheral way? I’d estimate that 95% -- and that’s a conservative estimate – are devoted to secrets, they’re books of tricks. The small handful of books that concern themselves with performing often become classics – not because they necessarily offer exceptional advice, but because there’s so little competition! Those who’ve come to realize that the secrets alone aren’t getting them anywhere hunger for guidance, but such guidance is in woefully short supply.

New magicians come along and see the sometimes fanatical attention given to secrets and think that’s what magic’s all about. The cycle continues. Too few break free.

I’m sure I’ve said all this before in one way or another, but it bears repeating. Be on your guard. Keep the moves in their proper place. Give your love to doing magic and not the means whereby it’s accomplished. See you next time.

Awesome

2007-09-05T08:23:00.000-07:00

The title says it all. The video features Australian magician Raymon Crowe, and it's become my favorite youtube video of late. If you haven't yet seen it, enjoy.

Suzanne On Magic Clubs

2007-09-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

Over a year ago I told my friend Suzanne I was interested in doing a blog and asked if she’d be willing to contribute. She immediately sent me a couple of things she’d written because that’s the kind of person she is. I ended up having some health issues which effectively kept me off the Internet lo these many months. Once those issues were resolved and I finally got this long envisioned project up and running, the first thing I did was ask Suzanne if I could still use the pieces she’d sent.

At which point she told me to go to hell.

I’m just kidding. Actually she said go ahead, so here’s the first thing she sent me way back when, a brief observational piece on the magic club scene.

Before we get to that, let me tell you that Suzanne is a magician well worth listening to. Mentored by Al Schneider, he of Matrix fame, she’s been working as a professional magician almost from the time she first became interested in magic, and appears regularly at the Magic Castle.

And yet…

And yet you hear very little about her. There was a piece about her in Genii a few years ago, but the amount of notice she garners doesn’t seem to match the caliber of talent she possesses. Why? Could it be because she’s a female magician? Could it be that in many regards magic is still rooted firmly in the nineteenth century?

I don’t wish to detract from what she has to say, however, so for now I’ll limit myself to telling you she’s someone I listen to unhesitatingly and so should you. Here’s Suzanne on magic clubs. Enjoy.

Take a look at this scenario. I wonder if you see anything wrong?

A young woman is interested in magic and doesn’t have much experience so she joins a magic club. Oh, is she ever welcomed in. A girl, who does magic, isn’t she cute. The guys are so nice and they want to help her so much. They all want to give her advice and sit next to her at the meetings. She learns, she practices; she’s actually pretty good.

She thinks, why do magic if you’re not out there doing if for regular people? That’s what the guys in the club are always talking about all the time anyway. She starts calling around and gets a couple gigs at family restaurants doing table magic on the weekends! Wow!! It’s a dream come true. But wait… the guys… they aren’t as chummy anymore. Weren’t they happy for her? Wasn’t she’s out there doing what they said they wanted to do? Oh well… It’s probably her imagination.

She works at the family restaurants and really learns her stuff. She finally gets a job at another restaurant, a really good one this time. Not just a family place where you’re working with mostly kids. This place is where people go on dates, where businessmen take their clients from out of town, where all the beautiful people in the town go for dinner. Wow… this is the big time of restaurant magic!! This is cool! The guys at the club are going to be so happy for her!

Well, they don’t seem that happy… in fact… hey some of them seem sort of jealous. Wait a sec… why didn’t she see this before? They support the other guys when they get gigs, they go see the other guys when they’re working at a restaurant… but come to think of it they never once came to see her! Hmmm how could she have missed it? Maybe she was so excited that she was doing what they said we as magicians were supposed to do, which is performing magic for the public, that she didn’t even notice that they weren’t rallying behind her saying go-go-go. Some were encouraging, she has to not forget them… but for the most part the club itself wasn’t behind her, or at least they didn’t show it.

They would act funny when she came to the meetings; they wouldn’t talk with her like they did before. They treated her differently somehow. Then she remembered how they talked about one of the magic masters who happened to live in her area.

He didn’t always come to the meetings, only once a great while. When she was first going to the meetings, before she started working she would hear them say, “Oh the king himself may grace us with his presence tonight.” She thought they were just joking around.When the master got there they were nice to him… but there was sort of this weirdness in the air. She didn’t know what it was until they started treating her in a similar way. It didn’t feel good to her. She figured out it was envy. Oh, they didn’t think she was a master, far from it, that’s not what I’m saying. But they did envy her and that came through loud and clear.

Later she heard through the grapevine that some of the guys were saying things about her. Like she didn’t deserve to have the gigs she had, that she didn’t know how to do moves, she didn’t even know that many tricks. Then she heard the one thing that hurt more than anything else. She heard they were saying she slept with the management to get the gig at the really nice restaurant. That hurt her to her core. Why would she go to club meetings and hang out with people who would say things like that. Not everyone said it; in fact only a few did. But did the other guys come to her defense? Not that she could see. Did she feel supported? No. So the club lost her. She still did fine without them, and they did fine without her. But what they, she and the club, could have learned if she had not left? We’ll never know will we?

This is just one scenario of the magic club culture. There are so many more. I’ve heard many stories of young magicians not feeling welcome for whatever reason, or they are abused in one way or another. Don’t even get me started on some of the stuff that goes on in SYM because I’m a mom and that shit ain’t right! For some reason, outsiders and the young are prey in the magic community.

Is that how we want our magic clubs to work? Is this type of behavior good for magic? I know some of you will say, “Well that’s life. There are jerks everywhere and you need to have a tough skin.” I hear that too often! “Boys will be boys so let them beat each other up on the playground. Jerks will be jerks; you just have to not let it bother you.”

I don’t know, a magic club doesn’t seem like an environment where you would want to let playground rules rule the playground. This is supposed to be a safe place to work on a common interest. This is where we’re supposed to support each other and all move toward a common goal.

The advancement of the great art of magic, isn’t that what we hear? But what is it a lot of times? I’ve seen it be a dick waving ego fest! You walk in and everyone is showing everyone else how good they are. No one is watching anyone else, they are waiting as patiently as they can (which in most cases isn’t very) for you to finish your stupid little trick so they can show you their great move they just perfected.

You know the guy! You’ve seen him! The guy who will show all the other guys the “great moves he perfected” and not one guy will tell the Movemaster that he’s flashing up a storm. Not one! So Movemaster shows me his great move and I tell him he’s flashing (cuz I don’t play that “oh you’re so clever to come up with that move” game. If you flashed I’m gonna tell ya and if I flash PLEASE tell me cuz that’s the only way I’m gonna know!) and he walks away like I’m some evil person who just killed his puppy. Don’t these guys know what we get together for? Do they just want strokes and for people to ooh and aah over them?

Why are we not honest with each other? Why do we let other magicians beat up on young members? Why don’t we treat each other with respect? Why do we take it personally when someone tells us we flashed? I don’t get the magic community. How are we supposed to be able to entertain and be in front of other people and help them have fun when we can’t even treat our own kind with respect?

I’m so upset now I think I’ll go sit in a dark room and practice my pass. Oh hey did I show you my pass? It’s this new one that’s really invisible and I just perfected it!! You can’t see me do it even if you know when I’m doing it. Don’t look away or you’ll miss it. The lay audience misses it every time. If they only knew how great I am.

Reach For The Stars

2007-09-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

Over the years there’s been a lot of debate among magicians, especially online, over books versus videos. Indeed there’s been so much debate over the subject you sometimes find yourself wondering if magicians just like to argue. I personally don’t see why it has to be an either or proposition, as each format offers particular advantages. Books engage the imagination. You’re forced to imagine how an effect should look. This can be a good thing as it compels you to put the requisite work into something to make it match that imaginary interpretation, essentially making it your own. Videos, on the other hand, show you how tough sleights should be executed; often seeing something done can make all the difference, as translating timing and smoothness via the written word is not always easy to do. More, you’re afforded the opportunity to see how an effect plays before an audience. It seems to me that limiting yourself to one or the other on the basis of principle is kind of nuts.

I guess if I had to choose one over the other I’d take books, mainly because I enjoy reading, and when I started in magic there were no videos. Over the years I’ve read a great number of magic books. Some, not surprisingly, were a waste of time and money. Most have fallen somewhere in the middle ground, offering a viable effect or two or an idea to play with. A few, a very few, I consider to be master works on the subject of magic.

If I had to recommend a single book to the serious close-up magician, I’d unhesitatingly suggest the original Stars of Magic. Originally written and released as a series of individual manuscripts, the collected work features effects by some of the most gifted close-up artists of the day, the forties and fifties -- artists whose contributions to the art have given them legendary status. People like Dai Vernon, John Scarne, Tony Slydini, Ross Bertram, Francis Carlyle. These are the people responsible for creating modern close-up magic, and I can think of none better to learn from.

It’s not just the contributors that make this such a superlative book, however. If the contributors were anonymous any serious magic student looking at the work dispassionately would still have to conclude it contains a wealth of strong practical material. I don’t know if any magic book is completely sans filler, but Stars of Magic comes pretty damn close.

The Vernon material dominates the book, just as Vernon the man dominated close-up magic in the twentieth century. Indeed, the Vernon material alone is easily worth more than the price of the book. Effects include the original Spellbound and the original Triumph. Here we have two effects which have spawned volumes of variations, yet I’m not sure if any of them come close to matching the originals’ quiet and certain power. You also get Vernon’s Cutting The Aces, if you’re looking for a flashy commercial wonder, Kangaroo Coins, Vernon’s Ambitious Card, Impromptu Cups And Balls, Mental Card Miracle – are you starting to get the idea? There’s a true abundance of quality effects you can use.

Additionally Mr. Vernon has two sections at the end of the book, one devoted to Malini and one to Leipzig. In these he offers some recollections of these two giants and also tips some of their pet effects. Of particular interest is Leipzig’s Opener, a very effective revelation with cards that’s not all that difficult to do.

Vernon is not alone in offering great effects, however. Francis Carlyle serves up one of the best effects in the volume, in my humble opinion, with his Homing Card – a brilliant card to pocket that, like much of the Vernon material, is often imitated but rarely equaled. If you do walk around, this is an effect that should be in your repertoire as it’s user friendly and kills. Vernon’s friend and confidant, S. Leo Horowitz, gives us Chink a Chink. The incomparable Slydini tips several wonders including his broken and restored Cigarette Miracle. Slydini also offers a section on lapping – a must read if you ever work sitting at a table.

I’m sure there are wonderful things I’m forgetting – it’s just that kind of book. Its small size belies the immensity of material it offers. If you’re serious about close-up and haven’t yet acquired this treasure, do yourself a favor and get it as soon as possible. This is the one book I would heartily recommend without qualification. See you next time.

A Dirge For The Spirit Of Magic?

2007-09-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

When I was first starting out as a conjurer, much was made of the spirit of magic. It was something the people I learned from talked about and did their best to instill in me. The spirit of magic was an attitude of friendly helpfulness. If a magician from out of town was doing a show and had neglected to bring along a certain prop, that prop was provided by someone in the magic community. If someone was struggling to make sense of a sleight or trick, someone with more experience was glad to provide instruction. I guess the underlying philosophy was there are so few magicians we ought to stick together and help each other out. Magic was considered a true brotherhood, and the spirit of magic was like our code of conduct.

Many years later, when I first got online, I had a hell of a shock. It seemed the spirit of magic was an anachronism in the cyber world. Instead of extending kindness, many seemed to extend nothing more than vitriol.

Starting out, there were people who were very kind to me, who gave of their time because they loved magic and wished to help me avoid the pitfalls they’d already encountered. They allowed me to ask questions and state opinions – hell, they encouraged me to ask questions and state opinions. When they felt I was wrong, they patiently explained why. They brought reason to their arguments. I wasn’t expected to take their word on something simply because they’d been at it longer than I had.

Online the attitude is shut the hell up and do what I tell you and don’t you dare ask a question or offer a dissenting opinion. There’s no regard for the beginner, no desire to help and guide. Magic beginners online are condescendingly called “newbies” and commonly dismissed as if they’re the lowest form of shit on the planet. It’s a wonder that anyone who starts out in magic online sticks with it. I can’t imagine I would.

Now, I don’t want to give the impression that everyone online treats beginners like garbage; there are a lot of good people out there who do their best to help those starting out, who foster the true spirit of magic. I would say, however, that the majority see nothing wrong with being scathingly dismissive to beginners or anyone else they feel is inferior to them. It’s as if the very worst elements of the magic clubs – those colorless losers with fractured self esteem who use magic as nothing more than an ego boost – reign supreme in the online magic world.

It’s easy enough to spot such people, both in the real world and online. While lording it over those viewed as inferior, they waste no time kissing the asses of those they know to be their betters. In the real world such people are viewed as an annoyance and usually aren’t taken seriously at all – if for no reason other than their version of magic sucks, as they possess no understanding of magic beyond what it can do to enhance their image as someone special. Online, it can be much more difficult to tell what’s what. I mean, if you visit a magic forum and someone has ten thousand posts, you’re likely to conclude they must know what they’re talking about or they wouldn’t be so prolific. And if you’re just starting out and have no experience upon which to gauge what they’re posting, it’s easy enough to assume what they’re saying is right.

So the bullies dominate. They back each other up, form little cliques, and soon they’re running the show. The kid who saw Blaine or Angel on TV and was impressed and wants to learn what magic’s all about reasons these people must know. He innocently asks a question or states an opinion and the wolves fall on him. Then the kid either says screw this or models his behavior on theirs as there seems to be little alternative.

I recall reading a thread where a kid – I think he said he was fourteen – stated that Criss Angel sucks. I don’t think he meant what he was saying, but was only parroting what the other posters were driving at. But being a self professed beginner he was immediately taken to task for having the gall to express an opinion, and no matter that it mirrored the consensus. He was told he had no right to say Criss Angel sucks as Criss is a professional who’s worked hard, while he was just a little nobody wannabe. The kid tried to fight back – pointing out rightly that just because he was a novice didn’t mean he couldn’t formulate a correct opinion – but it was hopeless. These “adults” tore into the kid like hyenas into a fresh kill. One “adult” even said, “I bet you don’t even know who Vernon was, do you?” I guess he forgot to include na na na-nana.

If I sound angry it’s because I am. I don’t like bullies, and I especially don’t like adults who are so pathetic as to bully kids. I further don’t like those who would corrupt the spirit of my art because they didn’t get enough hugs and are trying to compensate for what miserable losers they are by demonstrating they’re real life magicians.

I few years ago I was hired to run a magic site that catered mainly to beginners. I did my best to make sure everyone was treated equally and with common respect, but I don’t know how successful my efforts were. Even among those just starting out, there are divisions, with those who have just a little more knowledge and experience looking down on those without. I don’t know, maybe it’s the nature of the beast.

I guess the best I can do is keep believing that the spirit of magic isn’t dead. If you feel the same, please try to treat beginners with the respect you’d wished to be treated with. Exercise a little patience, take a deep breath, and do your best to help, not harm. See you next time.

Vernon The Performer

2007-09-01T09:22:00.001-07:00

I am one of the many who hold the works and wisdom of Dai Vernon in highest regard. Indeed any practitioner of close-up owes a huge debt to Vernon, for it was mainly through his efforts that the art acquired its modern form. While performers like Malini used intimate sleight of hand wonders as a means to draw audiences into their larger shows, Vernon recognized the value of intimate magic as a thing unto itself. More, it was his efforts to achieve naturalness in sleight of hand – a philosophy espoused by Dr. James Elliot whom Vernon held in highest regard – that truly transformed magic. He did away with or streamlined that which was cumbersome; he identified and refined the most direct path between points A and B. He was an artist, expertly stripping away the extraneous and creating wonders which continue to inspire and astound today. On The Spirit of Magic documentary, Max Maven says that Vernon essentially created the template upon which modern magic is built, and that’s a particularly apt observation.

If you study the life of Vernon at all – and if you haven’t yet read book one of David Ben’s Vernon biography you’re missing out on one of the most entertaining and enlightening biographies of a magician ever written – you soon come to realize that in many respects Vernon was a contradiction in terms. Here was one of the most brilliant magic thinkers and sleight of hand artists the world has ever known, and yet he seemed to care very little for performing. For Vernon it was all about the next thing – the next move, dodge, subtlety. He would meticulously deconstruct a move or trick, identify and correct its flaws, master it…and then move on to something else. Once mastery had been achieved, the thing no longer held his interest and he was ready for something new to sink his teeth into.

Vernon was no mere move junkie, however. Anything but. His ability to identify and correct the weaknesses of a piece weren’t limited to mechanical considerations alone. He seemed to have an almost instinctual ability to identify the best presentational approach as well. Further, he was attractive, charming, and at his ease among groups of people. So how does one reconcile his abundance of attributes with his disregard for performing?

I’ve had correspondence with a couple of people I respect who say Vernon couldn’t have made it as a working magician, that he lacked the discipline a professional must have to perform the same act over and over. I don’t agree that he couldn’t have done it. When Vernon chose to work he plied his trade in the most exclusive venues around at the time, and always garnered glowing praise from the critics. So he clearly had the ability to make it as a professional. In the Ben book there are letters written by Vernon’s friend Faucett Ross where he exhibits a nonplussed attitude in regards to Vernon not working as a magician, saying in effect that he could put all the other guys working out of business if he so chose. So what was it?

I think first you have to consider that when he did work as a magician, Vernon’s approach was very unorthodox. The traditional approach of the working professional is to develop a core act and do that same act, with minor variations, over and over again. You know exactly what you’re going to do, what you’re going to say, when to hurry, when to pause, etc. etc. Everything’s been mapped out to render maximum reaction, constantly building to a hopefully stunning and fulfilling climax.
Vernon, on the other hand, improvised. Now I don’t mean there was no set order of what tricks he would do and what he would say – I mean, with a deck of cards in hand, he improvised the tricks themselves as he went along. It was like playing Jazz. He knew so many moves and subtleties that he was able to literally make it up as he went along.

There’s no way in hell one magician in a hundred could perform in such a fashion and make anything but a mess, and yet Vernon was most comfortable performing in this way. It’s just another testament to what a brilliant magical artist he was. But I think it also explains his disdain for performing, at least to a degree. The fact is he did get bored when he had to do the same tricks over and over. When he was doing his legendary Harlequin act he kept trying to add new effects and change existing ones – something the people who’d engaged him to do the act didn’t much care for. Even when he was working New York’s top night spots and afforded the freedom to improvise, he invariably got bored with the grind of coming in night after night and performing. But was it just a lack of discipline?

Here was a man who practiced sometimes for seemingly days at a time. Every night, all night, relentless in his pursuit of perfection, he would work to master a move or trick. Such behavior doesn’t denote a lack of discipline. I think it’s much closer to the mark to say his fascination overrode practical considerations. For most magicians practice and mastery are but a means to an end – culminating in the ability to wow others with our magic. In Vernon’s case the fascination with and work to master something was the end. He didn’t care about using what he had to make a buck. Others stole his ideas, published and profited from them, and Vernon never seemed to really get upset. Maybe it was because he knew there was always going to be something else to capture his interest, that anything he worked on was transitory and eventually something else would claim his all consuming fascination.

I have no doubt that he could’ve made it as a working magician; he just chose not to. And in a very real sense we’re all fortunate that he followed the path he did because it was his willingness to immerse himself in his art, to give himself up to it, that has given us, his magic descendants, so much we might never have known.

Now, there are those who look at Vernon’s life and say he was selfish. It’s true that he didn’t chase money or the spotlight; it’s true that his wife and sons endured many hardships due to his utter disregard for practical considerations, like paying the bills and providing a place to stay. But I don’t believe this was due to his simply being a self-centered person. Again I think his fascination with magic overrode all other considerations. Vernon was one of the most gifted silhouette cutters of the twentieth century, and yet he never seemed to view his extraordinary talent with scissors as anything other than a means to survive, as a way to keep going in pursuit of another elusive move.

Saying he was selfish or irresponsible is too easy and doesn’t adequately portray the man. I guess those who want to dismiss him in such terms, and there are many, derive some secret satisfaction from being able to make a chink in the armor of a legend by casting such aspersions. I think it’s much more a case of a man giving himself up so completely to his art that there was little left over for anything else. An artist who does that, and they’re few and far between, isn’t merely a weak or selfish person, but an extraordinary one. And magic will forever benefit from his contributions.

Another Key Component

2007-08-31T07:40:00.000-07:00

I happened to be channel surfing the other night when I came across a show on VH1 called The Pick Up Artist. From what I watched of the show, it seemed kind of silly, as quite a lot of reality TV strikes me. The premise here is some nerdy guys are taught how to pick up women by an expert pick up artist, a guy called Mystery

As I was watching, Mystery was telling the guys that when talking to women they should be enthusiastic. He said it didn’t really matter what they were talking about as women find enthusiasm irresistible, or words to that effect.

Well, he was half right. Actually both sexes find enthusiasm captivating. Like confidence, which I touched briefly upon in the last post, enthusiasm is a key component in that larger variable known as charisma, and it’s something you can employ to improve your appeal to an audience.

You’ve no doubt heard the expression, “Enthusiasm is contagious.” It really is. I remember in college having to attend an algebra class. Now, I am not a math person. Actually that’s putting it mildly – I hate math. For whatever reason, my brain isn’t wired to work well with numbers, and even doing elementary calculations can be a trial.

Anyway, I was sitting there the first day in this algebra class, an English major who loathed math, thinking what was to come was going to be about as enjoyable as getting teeth pulled. In walked the instructor, this rather plain looking guy in a short sleeve shirt and tie and wire framed glasses. He might as well have had a slide rule in his shirt pocket and a tattoo on his forehead that read Math Geek. No, I decided, this wasn’t going to be as enjoyable as getting teeth pulled – I’d stumbled into one of Dante’s inner circles of hell.

Then…

Then magic happened. He started to speak. He started to explain to us why algebra was important and what a fascinating subject it really was. And I found myself listening and believing what he was saying. Why? Because he was really into what he was saying. He wasn’t just giving it lip service. He was excited about what he was teaching, passionate about his subject. In a word, he was enthusiastic.

It ended up becoming my favorite class that semester, not because of the subject – I finished the class with a high C and was grateful for it – but because of the instructor. More than teaching me about constants and variables, he taught me that enthusiasm is a power unto itself. Here was a guy who at first glance appeared as boring as watching dust accumulate but who was able, through his enthusiasm, to become during class time one of the most captivating people I’d ever seen. It was a real revelation.

So how can you put that power to work? By simply being enthusiastic about what you’re doing. It’s that easy. Do you love magic? Probably so or you wouldn’t be here reading a magic blog. Do you find magic fascinating, does it hold your interest as nothing else can? Share it. Share your passion. Get excited about what you’re doing! If you’re excited they will become excited and everybody wins.

That doesn’t mean you have to jump on tables and yell, “Wow, watch this!” You want to communicate enthusiasm, not insanity. Passion loses none of its power for being restrained; to the contrary, quiet passion can be even more captivating as it suggests much happening below the surface. The most important thing about enthusiasm is it be genuine. Like sincerity, nothing’s more difficult to fake and when faked devolves into self-parody.

I guess what I’m saying is don’t be afraid to show people how you feel about your magic. Allow them into your secret world, your private heart. Fear is probably the biggest obstacle to overcome in displaying your enthusiasm, just as fear is the biggest inhibitor to charisma. Imagine a guy standing there mumbling, afraid to look into the eyes of his audience, huddled over his props as if someone might grab them. Would you feel captivated to watch such a person? Not unless you had a perverse desire to see him fall flat on his face. Contrast that image with one of a performer speaking passionately about what he’s doing, looking directly at each and every audience member, open with his gestures and body language. I think maybe that’s the real difference: One performer is closed and one is open. Enthusiasm opens you to the audience. Listen to me, they want to like you, they want to be entertained. Being enthusiastic about what you’re doing allows them to do just that.

Magnetic

2007-08-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

They look where you look. It’s a fact that magicians (hopefully!) pick up on very soon, a fundamental of physical misdirection. When you look at the audience, the audience looks at you; when you look at your left hand, the audience directs its attention there in turn. The simplicity of the concept belies its power, as it gives you the ability to move a group’s focus from point A to point B unobtrusively. You’re secretly manipulating their attention, and they don’t have a clue.

Only…

Only it doesn’t always seem to work, at least for some. I recall talking to a young magician who was having a lot of trouble directing attention away from his right hand at a crucial point. I watched him, and from a strictly physical standpoint he was doing everything correctly. He was looking where he was supposed to be looking. So what was the problem?

Those watching him weren’t following his gaze. Why? His gaze was weak.

Okay, you may be sitting there thinking, how can a gaze be weak? Maybe it even sounds like a lot of subjective nonsense, but I assure you what I’m talking about is firmly grounded in objective reality. The eyes of an audience won’t be led by a weak gaze. Your gaze needs to be masterful and captivating to successfully lead the audience’s.

I’m sure you’ve had the experience of talking to someone who seemed incapable of looking you in the eye or, worse, whose gaze transmitted fear and uncertainty when he did. That’s a weak gaze, and it can be disastrous for a magician. On the other hand, you’ve no doubt talked to someone whose eyes never left your own, whose gaze bespoke confidence and power. Whose eyes do you think you’d be more likely to follow? It’s a subtle thing, sure, but so is the idea that they look where you look. If you want to boost your ability to control attention with the eyes, a commanding gaze is a must.

Fortunately this isn’t something you either have or you don’t. It’s a component of charisma, and the good news is charisma can be learned. That’s right, charisma isn’t just the natural gift of those lucky few -- the characteristics responsible for charisma can be learned.

As to developing a more powerful gaze, you can read this article for some useful exercises. I found the first exercise described in a book (the title escapes me) when I was a teenager, and it really helped me out. If you go to the trouble of doing it.

Sadly, many will never bother, will dismiss it as stupid, not worthy of their time, etc. But those who do go to the trouble will note a definite improvement in their ability to direct attention with gaze alone.

Don’t dismiss this. A magnetic gaze is gold to a performer as, beyond its uses in physical misdirection, it also provides you with a visual manifestation of confidence. If there’s one thing missing from many magicians personas, it’s just that, confidence. You need to cultivate the ability to draw eyes upon yourself, and a magnetic gaze is a wonderful way of achieving that.

The Show

2007-08-30T08:55:00.000-07:00

Over the years I’ve worked a good number of children’s parties. I suppose if I had my choice I’d rather work for adults only, but when you live in an area that’s comparatively low in population it’s often a case of taking what you can get. Besides, the magic I do for children is essentially the same as what I do for adults. I recall reading long ago that when working for children you can either go down to their level or expect them to come up to yours, and I’ve always found the latter approach works best for me.

It’s not my desire to discuss the pros and cons of working for children, however. I bring it up because, if you’re obliged to work children’s parties or not, out of necessity you often find yourself taking gigs which are anything but stimulating. Sometimes you ply your trade for lively and engaging audiences who offer great feedback, and sometimes you find yourself before folks who could care less. It’s ironic that the tough groups are often the most rewarding to work for because when you succeed in winning them over the feeling of accomplishment is immense.

Even when you have an ideal audience, it’s easy to get bored. When you’re first starting out and each performance is a challenge, there’s real excitement in what you’re doing. But after doing the same act hundreds of times it’s very easy to find yourself wishing you were doing anything else. That’s what I want to talk about.

I remember a Saturday some years ago when I had to do the same act multiple times in one afternoon. I think I was on the third repetition when it suddenly occurred to me that I was strictly on auto pilot. I mean I wasn’t putting anything of myself into what I was doing; I was delivering the lines and doing the effects strictly by rote. I realized I’d been gazing rather blankly through the people watching and was actually thinking about washing the car or something. Not good.

That moment had a real effect on me and helped to shape my philosophy when it comes to performing. You see what I realized was that I had been cheating. Here was a group of people who had paid me their hard earned money in return for a service, but instead of rendering that service to the best of my ability I was providing an imitation of it. I wasn’t really there, and not being there was incapable of giving my best.

What I came up with shortly thereafter was the approach to performing that’s served me well ever since. Simply put, I treat every performance, no matter the venue, no matter the audience, as if it were The Show.

What do I mean by The Show? Well, imagine if you were booked to do a show which was to be attended by those you admired and revered most, a show which would decide the rest of your life in magic, what caliber of magician you would forever be remembered as. In other words, the single most important show of your life. Would you go out and do it on auto pilot? Would you stare through the audience and think about watering the dog?

No, you would put everything you had into making it the best show you’d ever done. You’d diligently rehearse what you were going to do even if you’d done it a thousand times before. You’d look your best, sound your best, be the very best you could possibly be.

Treating performances in this way is a terrific motivator. You stop settling and start giving everything you have to insure that what you’re doing is going to be stellar. It’s really a kind of pledge to always put your best foot forward and not short either your audience or yourself.

Listen, it can’t be an abstract concept. You have to treat it with seriousness and really go out of your way to pretend that it’s so. But you know the best part? By treating every performance as The Show you’re always ready for the time when The Show is a reality. Because the truth is any performance you give has The Show potential. There might be a producer in the audience just looking for the next great TV magician, or an agent who’s able to make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. You never know when opportunity is going to come knocking, and doesn’t it make sense to be at your best when it does?

Again, it’s a simple philosophy and one I feel has made a great deal of difference for me. Now if you’ll excuse me I have some practicing to do. That’s right, The Show is coming up. Catch you next time.

Street Magic?

2007-08-29T08:04:00.001-07:00

In a post yesterday I expressed my rather low opinion of the argument that magic’s not an art and in passing also mentioned my equally low opinion for the argument that what David Blaine and his copyists do is not street magic. I want to return to that last for a moment for a closer look.

The main argument against Blaine style magic not being called street magic, from what I can piece together, is that calling it street magic takes away from performers like Jeff Sheridan, street performers who were plying their trade long before the term street magic came into vogue.

Now, to the people for whom such distinctions matter, serious students of magic, I can’t imagine there’s any confusion about the differences between Blaine and Sherridan. As for the rest, new students of magic and the general public, the first group will certainly be made aware of the differences, should their interest continue, while the general public is likely to never give a damn. That might sound harsh, but do you think the general public has any real grasp of who Vernon was, Charlie Miller, Max Malini, and on and on? Unless magic undergoes some unimaginable renaissance in which the general public develops a deep and abiding interest in the history of the art, there will continue to be scores of legendary conjurers whose shoulders we stand on who will never get the public acclaim we feel they deserve. That’s just the way it is, and no amount of belly aching is ever going to change it.

As a matter of fact, all such belly aching is likely to do is reinforce the negative stereotype that magicians are strange, anal people who fret over their secrets and complain that they don’t get any respect.

Look at it another way. Elvis Presley was the king of rock and roll, right? I think most folks would go along with that statement. But Presley didn’t invent rock and roll. There were people who came before him, many who’ve never gotten the credit they deserve, at least in the public arena. What those people were doing probably wasn’t exactly mirrored by Elvis. There were those who derided what Elvis was doing as but a phony imitation of the original sound. But Elvis gave a face to a new kind of music – he was able to establish the concept in the public mind.

The truth is that David Blaine has done more for the public perception of close-up magic than any performer in history. Close-up magicians are working today because Blaine popularized what we do. It seems to me that he deserves the title of street magician, even if his kind of magic doesn’t fill the earlier criteria, if for no other reason than that.

I have to wonder if things were different if the argument would exist at all. What if it hadn’t been David Blaine who did a special called Street Magic, but a more traditional performer – a guy in a cheap Tux doing sponge bunnies or something. Would the old guard be so upset then?

Considering that most of the people doing the bitching seem to be the older guys, you have to wonder.

Could it be that the real problem is that Blaine represents something they fear? Something called change?

I’ve written before that that which does not change stagnates…and dies. The very nature of life is change. If magic doesn’t change, and continue to change, it dies. That doesn’t mean that we ignore those who came before. It does mean that while respecting and remembering our predecessors we also embrace that which is new and different, because it just might be our art’s salvation.

Growing up I remember very well the old guard’s initial reaction to Doug Henning. Henning came along and shook up magic at a time when it seemed to be on its last legs – he revitalized the art, made it popular again. Yet some acted as if he were the devil incarnate, as if no good could ever come from what at the time was such a shocking break with tradition. Of course they were wrong. And history repeats itself.

So there you have it, my feelings about what Blaine does being called street magic. I’m sure there will be those who agree and many who disagree. C’est la vie. See you again soon.

Morph

2007-08-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

Morph is a PDF I recently authored which contains eight transformations for the close-up performer. These transformations were created and refined over the last few years, and I’ve used all at one time or another in my close-up work – I still use half or better on a regular basis. The effects were developed with practicality foremost in mind – in other words they’re easy to do and look great. These aren’t difficult pipe dream effects. They’re fairly easy, audience tested workers that you can use.

I’ve long believed that quick magical changes like these possess a power all out of proportion to their working. When your lighter won’t fire and you change it into a box of matches, people can relate to that on a deep level. We’ve all experienced the desire to change one thing into another in the course of our day to day lives, and these effects address that desire and vicariously fulfill it for the audience. It’s effects like these that an audience is likely to remember long after a performance is over.

You can get the full details of the effects here. Hope you’ll give this one a try as I sincerely believe it’s quite a bargain for the price.

Artist At Work

2007-08-28T06:16:00.000-07:00

I’ve read a couple of essays recently which postulate that magic is not an art. Now for my money such essays are little more than transparent exercises in self-aggrandizement, much the same as those that rail that what Blaine and his imitators do is not street magic – and never mind that Blaine and his imitators are doing their magic on the street. Such minute, anal distinctions serve no purpose that I can discern other than demonstrating what oh-so-enlightened-thinkers their authors are. They’re pointless intellectual exercises at best, and self serving bullshit at worst. Whether or not magic is, by exact definition, art and whether or not what Blaine and company do is, according to self-styled experts, street magic doesn’t matter much to me either way. After all, I’ve got grass that needs watering and carpets that need vacuuming, if you get my not too subtle drift.

I bring this up because to me the highest compliment one magician can pay another is to say he’s an artist. Being an artist implies, to my maybe primitive way of thinking, that the practitioner has transcended the technique of his/her particular medium so that the technique itself has become invisible and we see only that being created. In the context of magic, we see just that, magic. No bumps, no hesitations, but only a seamless and straight forward whole without explanation.

I want to show you an artist at work. Click the YouTube clip at the end of this post. It’s a clip of Morgan Strebler bending forks. Why do I call him an artist? Because he’s completely transcended the technique of what he’s doing. I know every single move he’s making, and those of you familiar with metal bending, and his DVD Liquid Metal, probably do as well. However, I am unable to detect the moves, even knowing them. There’s simply nothing to see.

Even more amazing, I was talking to Morgan about this clip some time ago and he said he can’t detect the moves himself. That’s right – the guy making the moves just can’t see them. Now if that’s not transcending the technique I don’t know what is.

How did he acquire this level of expertise? By performing the routine thousands of times. Read that again, performing the routine. You don’t attain that level by doing it in the mirror or in front of the video camera. It’s only through taking a routine out into the world and working it time and again before audiences that you’re able to refine what you’re doing to such a state.

I think you also have to remember that Morgan honed this routine before audiences that would make the average magician cringe. I’m talking about audiences composed of the super rich and famous, people who’ve seen it all, done it all, and who are having a few drinks to boot. This routine was mainly polished to its current state by being done in some of Vegas’ most exclusive night spots, including the Caramel bar at The Bellagio. Now, if you think an audience is an audience, I would invite you to perform an act for a group at a family restaurant and the same act for a group at a bachelor party. Tough audiences make for exceptional performers.

Again, the guy’s an artist, what more can be said? It’s a lesson in what can be attained through hard work and repeated performance. I’ll be doing a review of Morgan’s Taste Conditions sometime in the near future. Stay tuned.

What Moves Do I Need To Learn To Be A Magician?

2007-08-28T05:29:00.000-07:00

In the previous post I observed that what someone needs to learn to be a magician is the ability to interact with others. Now, because I have strong feelings about the subject, I may have inadvertently given the impression that moves are of no importance at all. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just that it sticks in my proverbial craw that whenever the question of what’s most important to learn comes up, interpersonal communication is usually not even mentioned, let alone seriously considered.

Look, I love sleight of hand – nothing gets me going like a really clever and deceptive move. It’s just that in the overall scheme of being a magician, I would argue that the moves are subordinate to other less tangible attributes. Think about it for a second: Who do you think would fare better before an audience, the person who’s naturally charismatic and gets along well with others, armed with a couple of self working tricks, or the guy who’s withdrawn and socially inept, yet imbued with astonishing manipulative skill? I know who I’d put my money on. It’s a hard fact, and one that drives certain enthusiasts crazy, but manipulative ability takes a back seat to communication ability.

When you see magicians bashing someone like Blaine, this is what they fail to comprehend. His double lift sucks, he mumbles, he has no presentation. What they’re missing is that Blaine has the ability to connect with an audience, and he does it exceedingly well. The audience isn’t scoring his double lift or ability to speak clearly or denuded presentation. They’re responding to him, they’re connected to him. And that ability is worth all the moves in the world.

On to the moves, which is what I wanted to focus on this time around. Because if you want to be a magician, especially of the close-up variety, you’re going to need an arsenal of moves to make your wonders possible. Some might say you don’t need any moves, with the wide range of self working effects available, but I would disagree. I’m no sleight of hand purist, but merely a pragmatist who believes in the best tool for the job, and many times the best tool is a sleight. More, if you rely solely on gimmicks, there will come a time when something goes wrong and a sleight can bail you out. When taking piano you learn and practice scales; in close-up magic you learn and practice sleights. But probably the greatest argument for mastering some sleights is the ability it affords you to do magic anywhere, anytime, with just about anything. That, my friends, is about as close to real magic as you can get.

Where to begin? When you venture into the land of close-up sleight of hand you discover right away that there’s an overwhelming assortment of choices – moves which can accomplish nearly any secret action you can imagine with cards or coins or other small objects. The other thing you better discover quickly, or risk a lifetime of mediocre magic, is that there’s no way you could ever come close to mastering everything, or even learning everything. There’s way way too much information available. Discernment is key.

There are certain criteria you can apply to prospective moves to gauge their potential value. The first thing you should ask yourself — and it might seem obvious, but judging by the bad magic out there ostensibly it’s not – is, can I use this? Do you have a specific purpose for the move, or are you simply taken with its cleverness? How exactly can the move be used?
Assuming it is something you can use, you should next determine the extent of its usefulness. If it’s a move which can only be used for a single effect, is that effect worth the investment of time required? A move with sundry applications is usually far more valuable than a move with minimal uses.

How practical is the move? Can it only be employed with the audience directly in front of you looking down at your hands? To go into it do you need to have the deck balanced on your left heel? To get out of it do you have to flip the deck so it lands on your head? Okay, I’m employing a bit of hyperbole…but not much!

How difficult is it? You have to balance that response against the previous responses to decide if it’s worth the time. Are you willing to spend ten years practicing something with only a couple of uses, or something with angles so restrictive you’ll only be able to use it one time out of ten?

As you can see, there’s no secret formula at work here, only common sense. And yet magicians devote years to monstrosities with limited use that are so difficult as to be nearly impossible. Hey, if you’re the type who enjoys practicing in front of the bedroom mirror, maybe that’s for you. God knows there’s a legion of move junkies out there, so enamored with developing their digital dexterity they’ll never see the forest for the trees. If you want to do magic, however, you have to keep things in perspective and remember that the moves are but a means to an end.
What moves, specifically, would I recommend to the beginning magician as being worth his or her while?

I remember in Paul Gertener’s book Steel And Silver he talks about meeting his mentor in magic. He showed the guy some goofly and unimpressive little tricks using the glide, after which the mentor patiently asked, Can you palm a coin?

I’ve always liked that story as it pretty much sums up everything I’ve been talking about here. How many magicians are out there, do you suppose, who could show you any number of obscure sleights but would be unable to do something as seemingly basic as palm a coin? In David Ben’s Vernon biography he talks about how Vernon was reluctant to release some of his moves because magicians on average didn’t go to the trouble of mastering even basic moves. The more things change the more they stay the same.

If there’s a fundamental starting sleight in close-up magic, I would say it’s the palm. It has more uses than just about any other move I can imagine. Think about it – it’s the ability to secretly conceal an object in the palm of your hand. If you’re a magician without a use for that ability… Well, maybe you should take up the guitar or juggling or something.

Here’s the amazing thing. It’s the most basic sleight in close up magic and yet there are people out there who say they can’t palm a coin! Even worse, the so called experts come along and say, Well so and so couldn’t palm a coin either so you’re not alone, and it took me twenty years to palm a coin correctly.

Listen to me: If it takes you twenty freaking years to learn to palm a coin or do just about anything else you are in the wrong game.

My take on this is that the people claiming they can’t palm a coin are under the mistaken impression that the hand must be held perfectly flat when an object is palmed. Wrong. Take a look at your own hands. Unless they’re flat on your desk, or you’re just a very strange person, you’re not holding them flat. Holding your hand perfectly flat would be weird. A hand relaxed is slightly curled with the thumb about parallel with the index finger, not sticking out. If you can’t palm a coin you’re just not doing it right. It’s not that you’re genetically unable, etc. You just need to go back and learn how – or even better get someone to show you how.

So that’s where I would advise any would be magician to start. Learn to palm, and by no means limit yourself to coins. Try to palm any small object you can, and once palmed try to keep it palmed while doing other things. Any time I’m in a store I’ll be walking around with coins palmed in one or both hands. After a time you don’t even think about it. That means that in performance it’s a natural thing, second nature. You don’t think about it and neither will anyone else.

Beyond the classic palm, I would learn the Thumb Palm and Downs Palm, both moves with many potential uses. Learn a couple of vanishes, at least one of the Retention of Vision variety, if for no other reason than to understand this very important concept. Moving to cards, the palm is again something that can’t be over rated. Vernon’s Topping The Deck is a very good, invisible way to palm a card. Learn a control, and it doesn’t have to be the pass. There are lots of good alternatives, which is why people like Daryl and Ammar don’t use the pass themselves. A double lift that looks like a single card being turned over – and not being thrown all about in the process. Hell, learn to do a neat in the hands shuffle. There are kids who have multiple packets of cards flying around who can’t do a neat shuffle.

Learn the basics, get them down. They’re basics because they have so many uses and have proven themselves time and time again. From there the choice is yours, but by having a firm grasp of the basics you’ll be building on a solid foundation and that’ll make you a much better magician.

What Do I Need To Learn To Be A Magician?

2007-08-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

What do I need to learn to be a magician?

It’s a question that’s been put to me more than once over the years and one that often pops up on the magic message boards — often posed by beginners who are then summarily derided and ridiculed for daring to ask a question…but I don’t want to get started on that. It’s the kind of question that, when asked, tends to draw a lot of stock responses which are generally superficial and fail to get at the bone of the query. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with advising a young magician to study the classics or read Erdnase, but are those kinds of activities, in and of themselves, truly going to produce a better magician?

I think a large part of the problem is that when presented with the question many immediately start running through mental lists of moves that would be most helpful to the beginner. Mastery of moves won’t make you a magician. I don’t care if you have the best pass in the world or a double lift that can’t be detected with a microscope — those moves alone won’t do it. As a matter of fact, devoid of solid routines those moves would rate as minor curiosities at best.

To address the question we first must have a clear idea of what a magician is or, at any rate, what kind of magician the questioner wishes to be. First the questioner needs to ask himself if he wants to be one of the lost many who view mastery of sleights and the ability to impress like minded peers with said sleights as the end all of being a magician. If that’s what he’s after there’s really no problem. Study the classics, read Erdnase, etc. etc. Put in the work, make some videos of yourself demonstrating your pass, sit back and garner praise. It’s that easy.

On the other hand, if he wishes to be one who entertainingly pretends to do the impossible, the work has only begun. Actually he can throw out a lot of those hard won moves because they won’t be needed. I’m sure there will be those who will vehemently disagree, but that’s only because they haven’t taken their brand of magic beyond the bedroom mirror. The truth is in real life performing situations a double undercut will get you as far as the best pass in the world. It’s not about the moves.

So what is it about? Relating to people. Interacting with people. The ability — yes, it is an ability — to relax in front of others and offer them yourself and your magic. The truth is Tony Robbins and Dale Carnegie can teach you more about being a magician than a thousand magic books. Because until you develop the ability to relax and have fun with an audience you’re just going to be butting your head against the wall.

I believe the best exercise you can do is to attempt to entertain without magic. Learn to tell a story, a joke, engage the interest of others without the tricks. That’s the ability you need to cultivate. All the rest is in a very real sense only window dressing. You’re the main attraction. Al Goshman said, “I’m in the business of selling me.” Any working magician worth his salt will agree whole heartily with that sentiment.

Now, maybe you’re sitting there thinking, Great, I’m screwed. Maybe you’re shy, introverted, unable to loosen up around others. It would seem many magicians share just those characteristics. It doesn’t matter. Remember, when you’re doing magic you’re playing a part, a bigger, better version of yourself. Some of the world’s most legendary performers have been shy and reclusive people. That kind of thing’s only going to stop you if you let it. But you will have to learn to get around other people and let yourself go, to relax and have fun. I guarantee you that if you will make a real effort to improve your ability to interact with others you will make significant improvements as a magician.

That’s it for now. I think next time I will talk a little about what moves you should study and what’s a big waste of time. In the interim take care and have fun.