talkmagic.co.uk

cardtrick - you are completely wrong to expose tricks of any kind...not yours to reveal, no excuses whatsoever...

if you have any decency, you'll remove them all from your site - have you released any work yourself? all original to you? if so, please give us all a free copy now...for nothing in return...

wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong..you've completely missed the point of magic and any kind of fraternity/brother-sisterhood with it...nonsense...

I know I can't change your perspective with that or anyone else, but please...

Respect my perspective.

cardtrick - if you create a trick from an idea of your own then you are perfectly at liberty to do with as you wish - however your site reveals other peoples methods, which is plainly wrong.

Since you are not doing any of this for any financial gain, I really cannot understand why you are doing it, or how you can justify your actions.

tell you what, how about you respect magic enough and dont reveal things that arent for you to reveal?

OR, i can easily contact some of the people whose work you've exposed, and they can sue you instead...

your choice...

this is what I was planning to do. Hows about we team up and get his a**(dont know if I can say it) sued!

Ok since you don't want my site. I'll remove it. I have to find another passion of mine and have some financial gain from it.

BTW, thanks for the bashing.

dont come all hard done by...if you love magic so much, you'll know that you never reveal a secret...isnt that always the case?

a magician guards an empty box...

dont just remove the link from your signature, remove the stuff from your site that isnt yours...i'll be watching...

beeno wrote:The only thing that exposure does, is force you to be original.

Bingo....when presented properly and in a unique manner without the use of "canned/scripted patter" you would be amazed at what/who you can fool with it.....we all know the dl....but watch it in the hands of someone like blaine, etc....you never be sure they are doing it until it is too late. They are masters of the trade and they present it in a packaged fashion that is unique to them......

cardtricksecret wrote:Ok since you don't want my site. I'll remove it. I have to find another passion of mine and have some financial gain from it.

BTW, thanks for the bashing.

First, you deserved the bashing. Here's the thing: If you had an original trick that you had worked on and polished over hundreds of performances, getting it down to near perfection, then you'd have every right to expose it. But that's not what you're doing, is it?

No, what you're doing is taking other people's work and exposing it. Not only is that unethical, it is downright rude. In all honesty, I have a better word for it, but the software of this site will edit what I have to say.

Find another passion? Do you like kids? Why not sell them. I hear that there is quite a market for young children in several European and Asian communities.

Why, exactly, do you feel that you must take your "passion" and sell it? If it really is your passion, then why not put together a show and sell it to laymen? A kids show maybe, or a close up adults show, or a stage show, or whatever kind of show that you may be drawn to performing.

Of course, that's the hard way to do it - you actually have to work, rather than learn a few sleights and sell those to the rabid masses of magicians who will buy any old cr@p that they can get their hands on...Like the Black Widow, which is nothing but another form of the Raven, which is nothing more than a gizmo based on an already published effect in Bobo. Hell, they're getting $250.00 a pop for the Black Widow - a much better profit margin than selling the DL for 5 bucks.

I wonder why surgeons don't sell their methods to doctors...Oh, wait, that's because you need a diploma to be a surgeon, unlike a magician who only needs buy a DVD to claim to all the world that he is a magician. How about a lawyer selling his techniques to laymen so that they too can be great lawyers...Oh, wait, a lawyer also needs a diploma. In fact, most any profession requires some kind of degree from a higher learning establishment, unless it is a minimum wage job...Not magic, though - any door knob can be a magician and the quality of magicians now-a-days only points up that fact.

Watch a DVD and sell "your" material to other magicians. Disgusting.

Exposure doesn't do very much at all to hurt the magic community. What hurts magic more than anything else is magicians. We've come to the point where even mimes are more welcomed by the public than magicians. We are the dregs of the dregs. That's not exposure's fault - exposure has been around since the first magic trick was invented.

It's our own damn fault. I think I'm going to vomit if I have to see the 135th "improvement" of jumping aces go up for sale on E or P or anywhere else. How the hell can the laymen respect us when we don't even respect ourselves? Running around, buying up the latest hold out and paying a high price for it isn't respecting ourselves, it's simply showing what a bunch of moronic idiots we are.

What other industry out there has such a tiny core of people interested in it, but makes millions upon millions yearly selling to that tiny base of customers? None that I can think of, really. I wish I had a dime for every time I've seen someone come onto these pages, or the pages of other forums, proclaiming that they have an original effect that they are selling, simply because they hold their pinky finger in a position that nobody else does...Sadly, there are those who will buy that effect, because it is the cutting edge, newest thing on the market.

Well big friggin' whoop.

I know I can't change your perspective with that or anyone else, but please...

Respect my perspective.

I'm not sure if that is an irony or a paradox. Maybe a bit of both. You have no respect for the people doing the work and you sell material that is not yours to sell, then have the audacity to proclaim that we should respect you...Let me explain: You have to give respect to get respect.

Your pespective is one of the cancers that is so rife within this community. Much like E selling an effect as "new" that came straight out of the pages of an Anneman book published in the 1950s, then taking it off the market because it was dangerous.

We have kids approaching strangers trying to show them "something wierd." Is it any wonder people think magicians are idiots? And, where did they get this "wierd" thing that they are going to show? From guys like you who have taken someone else's work and sold it to them. You know - the generic brand.

And that's what we've become, isn't it? Generic. Is it any big wonder why magicians are a lower form of "entertainment" than any other form on the face of this earth? Do you think that maybe it's time to get over the "Ambitious Card" and start actually coming up with some original ideas? Good God, take a look at the dozens, if not scores, if not hundreds of renditions of ACRs that are on the market.

Here's a thought

Learn a DL and DON'T do an ACR with it. Find a different use, do something creative, something new, something innovative.

Nah, nevermind; that's just a stupid idea, anyway.

"Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea." -Kansas-

Mike.

Thank heavens for Mr Jay! Now there's a man with passion.

Michael Jay wrote:I'm not sure if that is an irony or a paradox. Maybe a bit of both. You have no respect for the people doing the work and you sell material that is not yours to sell, then have the audacity to proclaim that we should respect you...Let me explain: You have to give respect to get respect.

Off topic, but it reminds me of 'gangstas' waddling around with their trousers seats round their knees, demanding 'respect' from people when they a) show none and b) have done nothing to deserve any.

@Michael Jay-
Credits are intact to the original creator. No claiming of own tricks was done. No selling was done.

Exposure is the thing, not selling nor reinventing then selling them.

so if i set up a site offering free downloads of your work, but say they belong to you...yet you get nothing out of it, that's ok is it?

not that you have any of your own work by the looks of it...

you are not helping magic at all...end of argument..do you perform? what if half way through NFW, someone stops you and says "ah you can stop that, i know how it's done thanks..saw it for free on a site yesterday..."

your taking the wonder out of it...think on eh...

One of my favourite arguments about exposure and the nature of magic uses the linking rings as an example. Anyone can figure out how the linking rings work. There is only one way the linking rings *can* work. But to see someone perform the linking rings well is entertaining. I think it really crystalises what magic is about, and it's not the presentation of puzzles. The exposure sites are as redundant as a site that demonstrate that a lot of stuff you see in the movies is done with special effects.

The problem is that accessablity has enabled people to take it up as a hobby like stamp collecting.

You have always had ,poor magicians doing tricks for there friends at work, "down the pub" at social events.

The problem is now only that there are more of them.

What is happening is that the natural audience for magic that stayed with it during the period when it was very, very uncool are now instead, of being curious actually learning magic (maybe badly, maybe well) as well as watching.

I would bet for example that at least 20% of the TV & 40% of theatre audiences for Derren Brown's shows are members of forums like this one.

The key for the future of magic is to regain (which Derrens show has) a mainstream audience.
The way we do that is to not present magic.
I don't do magic.
In fact very soon none of my publicty will even say "mind reader".

None of my corporate clients have ever booked me thinking they are getting a magic show. I wouldn't get a quarter of the bookings I do if I did magic (or mind magic or mentalism or what ever "magic" name you want to give it).

What I do is a show in which I talk about how my background as an advertising psycologist (absolutely 100% true) allows me to understand the way people think, what desicions they may make and how to influence their decisions. I show them a few examples of how that might look.
I explain exactly how I am doing what I am doing as I do it.

That's what they find interesting. These same people wouldn't dream of watching a magic show because it "would be boring and I don't like magic". Neither would they find a mentalist picking up their thoughts through "psychic" means credible.

If you see what I mean........?



EDIT: Just realised I left something important out: Thats the trouble with encouraging people to take up this great "hobby of ours" (Magicians helping Magicians - Secret hunters helping secret hunters more like!). Peolpe like this Card Magic guy think that magic is about demonstrating that you know a secret. Thats the issue. That's attitude of wanting to demonstrate how much you "know" (actualy nothing!) is rife these days.

Don't get me started on people who laucnh their author careers as "one of the most innivotive thinkers in mentalism" (it's always mentalism isn't it?) off the back of forums (The Magic Cafe is the biggest culprit) after 5 years experience.

Exposure has always been a problem . Its something that I've always had a problem with. Think about it >Every book you pick up on the subject says don't give the secret away .Every professional teaching you will say don't give it away. If I or any of you buy a trick my guess is that most will guard that secret . After all its important to us as performers. Right from the very begining of my own involvement with this art form (and thats what it is) I resolved not to give anything away unless I was in discussion with others also involved in magic. This is what I was taught.

I used to try new stuff out on my partner she used to say "I don't need to know how its done what I want is to be shown something that lifts me out of the ordinary"and again that surely is what we do!!

Now then everything was fine and then We had the masked magician in fact we still do happily giving it away for a fast buck . Then I saw some magic shows broadcast in America and there was this guy ( a professional) giving away some real gems as entertainment. I remember sitting there thinking "I'm watching professional magicians happily exposing their craft. " what is going on .
I remember watching the TV recently as the "Masked Magician " revealed some of my favourite pieces with disgust -Shame on him I say. I do recall wonderting what the inventors / creators of these effects thought but if I remember correctly not one was forthcoming. During this period a lot of guys I knew put the tricks away and stopped. Totally disapointed with what was happening It fact I did so myself for a while. Now of course there's the internet.

My take on this now is this . Exposure - we have no grounds for complaint . The professonals have made it so and they should be our gold standard. The little guy sitting at home with his webcam putting a trick on youtube from his bedroom is no different from the professional who does it on a TV show - I would suggest the professional is worst. For myself I still would not give a secret away .It has been noted in previous pieces that people have short memories , we can change an effect or try a new way. Prehaps we need to regulate ourselves!!!!

I believe the only way to combat exposure is to lead by example.

Sorry to have gone on a bit but this is close to my heart .