talkmagic.co.uk

I wonder how many working magi are there out there who sit alone for endless hours coming up with new stuff to work with rather than with the explicit intent of selling on? People quietly making a good or even excellent living from their talent.

I'm willing to believe that there are many people who never dream of touching the Internet for magic other than to buy bikes and balls and who handcraft their own effects using solid skills, which we'll never hear about. Maybe to them, these things are pensions, to be written up after they retire, and know they're stuff's really good and solid.

When I think about it, I'd rather see some unknown using scratch built magic he knows inside out, or at least something he's stripped down to the bare mechanism then built back up to make it uniquely his own. And if I see another spec pretending to shuffle an ID exactly as per the piece of paper it comes with, I think I'll scream!

Every time you see someone tap a bottle with a coin, you know exactly how it'll turn out, but if it penetrates the glass and turns into, say, a live baby grass snake that people can subsequently play with or stroke, you've really got something worthwhile going on...

you wouldnt have to reveal methods...just list the books and other media and let them get on with the hard graft...

just the same as history of music books dont tabulate every song, i think it would be far more workable if the magic one didnt either...list them sure, recommend them, but the grafting...nah...

just say if Magic Castle were involved, they could update the site with say brief histories of magicians, what they did, "famous" or not, then list what literature they published or where involved in...along with any inventions/names of sleights they came up with..

i only meant access as in for updating the site by the way, not for who could view it on the internet...

Now thats starting to sound workable. But we're the only two talking about it ....

I feel a campaign to save real magic coming on ...

Like CAMRA?

Join the Campaign for Real Magic today!

or... "Keep Magic Live!"

you could always suggest to all the major magic retailers online and static, that if they advertise the library, they can have similar back...

online visions might be a good start, R. Shane has been very friendly and helpful to me on a couple of things that i have thought about...and we know that Craig has already done his e-book on Mentalism and all the other stuff...

maybe even the BBC at some point, imagine all the old photage they must have from the 70s onwards...interviews and performances...(i know they used to wipe over old recording in the 50s n 60s, but even so...)

...if you build it, they will come...

How about QUINTUS SEVERUS? meaning from below....the logo could be the inverted pyramid described...

One of the few words entirely without meaning, this confusing term is still used in a joking way by those making 'magic.' It was first mentioned in a poem by Quintus Severus Sammonicus in the second century. A cabalistic word intended to suggest infinity, 'abracadabra' was believed to be a charm with the power to cure toothaches, fevers, and other ills, especially if written on parchment in a triangular arrangement and suspended from the neck by a linen thread.

Abracadabra is of unknown origin, though tradition says it is composed of the initials of the Hebrew words 'Ab' (Father), 'Ben' (Son), and Ruach Acadsch (Holy Spirit). When toothache strikes, inscribe the parchment amulet in the following triangular form." From "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997). The triangular form starts with ABRACADABRA on the first line, then the next line is less one letter (ABRACADABR) and so on until just an A remains.

oooh and this:-
"By arranging the letters in a reverse triangle, the celestial energies which the charm claims to entrap are directed downwards. Accordingly, the figure should be seen three-dimensionally as a funnel. The magic letters slanting down from the wide mouth to the narrow spout comprise the lines of force of a mighty whirlwind. Woe betide the powers of evil which it strikes since they will vanish forever from the world above into the abyss from which there is no return." From "The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols" by Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant, translated by John Buchanan-Brown (Penguin Books, 1996.)

anyway, back on topic..i'd be happy to help out in someway...

pdjamez wrote:we're the only two talking about it ....

But there are lots more of us reading, nodding in agreement and quietly uttering, 'Yes - at last!'

Mandrake wrote:

pdjamez wrote:we're the only two talking about it ....

But there are lots more of us reading, nodding in agreement and quietly uttering, 'Yes - at last!'

Ab-so-lutely.

Hear hear!

pdjamez wrote:I feel a campaign to save real magic coming on ...

Yep. I'm all for that.

Oh boy, how I hate it when you show someone a fantastic Marlo or Green routine, and your spectator says: "Yeah, but can you push a coin through a tin can, or can you do that one where the card shatters on the floor?"

Help me, I am getting old.

This is something that I have been thinking about for a while. Everyone admits that the market is becoming somewhat saturated. Loads of new inventors - the problem is, there has been so much magic now that totally new effects are becoming hard to come by. What's more there are very few new methods in existance that are financially viable. Magic culture now seems to be more focussed on in your hands, wham-bam-thank-you-mam knock-em-rock-em-sock-em effects - 'streetish' sort of magic I suppose.

I personally think that until new technologies for magic become available at a reasonable price these single effects are going to remain fairly similar.

But ah yes, the long-forgotten table-top routines. Elegant sessions of carefully structured routines, slow but effective. But it seems that a lot of magic is mainly being sold to a target audience of the young newcomers, and it would be a sad thing if future generations, by and large, grew up with this sort of magic and the classics died out.

Now don't get me wrong, I am all for this close-up single magic - in moderation of course (come up with a few bits like it myself), but I also think that the classics should be saved from extinction too.

Cardza wrote:This is something that I have been thinking about for a while. Everyone admits that the market is becoming somewhat saturated. Loads of new inventors - the problem is, there has been so much magic now that totally new effects are becoming hard to come by. What's more there are very few new methods in existance that are financially viable. Magic culture now seems to be more focussed on in your hands, wham-bam-thank-you-mam knock-em-rock-em-sock-em effects - 'streetish' sort of magic I suppose.

I personally think that until new technologies for magic become available at a reasonable price these single effects are going to remain fairly similar.

But ah yes, the long-forgotten table-top routines. Elegant sessions of carefully structured routines, slow but effective. But it seems that a lot of magic is mainly being sold to a target audience of the young newcomers, and it would be a sad thing if future generations, by and large, grew up with this sort of magic and the classics died out.

Now don't get me wrong, I am all for this close-up single magic - in moderation of course (come up with a few bits like it myself), but I also think that the classics should be saved from extinction too.

Ugg just seeing the word street gets me ill. It seems that every body and every site is going street. What the hell does it even mean now days. "Hey when I did a trick I was standing on the street, so I do street magic" And when you talk about routines it seems that since the DVD only had one trick they can't do more than that. The worst thing is when they get a trick that BLain did and suddenly they think they are that good. They need to realize that copying a trick Blaine did does not mean that you are next for a television special. Whenever I think I'm getting the hang of this ,magic thing I watch my Lennart Green tapes, and realize I suck. A good analogy is seen in martial arts. It seems that as soon as a guy gets a black belt he thinks he is Bruce Lee, yet he fails to realize that there are 2nd,3rd etc ahead of him. According to my teacher Black Belt is simply the first level of less suckage.

Actually Lennart Green is a great example. I love his stuff yet he is almost unknown to the average joe. I mean if all it took was skill and not ripped abs he might just be better known. But it doesn't seem to bother him as he has respect from the people he cares about having respect from..us..other magicians.

Just to let you guys know... Im with you on this one. I may be a young'n but I can still see the increase in commercial blammo one-hit effects.
It is rather tiresome, and in my own experience I have found that researching some of the old greats has paid off far more than buying some temporary wonder.

IforwardRealMagic!

I feel it should be mentioned that not one bit of information regarding content and product has come from this site, and already it's being panned.

Commercial blammo one-hit effects and all other comments about over-hyped garbage is fine - we all see it in every magic shop.

However, I think all of these comments should be kept to ourselves until we actually start to see some of the stuff coming from the project. You can't really complain about something before it's even on the market.

Do you think its wrong to maybe worry about submissions to this project? Whats to say they wouldnt steal your effect and rip it off?