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There is also another saying that goes> "A lot of good effects can often times be ruined by improvements." IE: if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it.

So because YOU ended up being a loud mouthed kid and ruining somebodies act, you are now trying to ruin good effects because of something you did when you were 5? Honestly, how many loud mouthed kids do you think you'll be performing for? Really, think about it. Because I can bet you that if you are getting gigs (which I doubt highly.) or performing for normal people. That none of them are questioning the things you are trying to improve on.

Dear lord what a waste of time.

And no I am not going to specify what I am referring to, I am going to allow people to make up their own minds.

Eshly wrote:Magicians are part of your audiance too.

...

Either way, just because they are magicians doesn't mean their views don't matter.

I could not disagree more.
Magic uses various ruses to create an altered reality. This entertains those who are prepared to suspend their disbelief. Magicians know what's going on. They may appreciate your presentation and may occasionally be baffled, but that's not the goal.
You don't agree. I get that. But I believe you are wrong and in a very small minority with your view. This, I suspect, is why you generate so much frustration amongst others here.

What Kolm suggests with the ID is really all you need to do to suggest that the deck is normal, are rather to prevent them thinking it is anything but. Don't forget that by using Silent Running for the thought of card, you are introducing a flaw in the effect, especially if you are presenting it in a way that suggests that you are influencing choices. It's not always a good idea to suggest you are using a force when you are doing just that. What Kolm suggests allows the spec to have a genuinely free choice, which is not something to be given away lightly.

I think also you need to remember that the ID works because you change the moment that the magic happens. As far as you're concerned the prediction has already been made, and now you're just going through the process of finding it. You've moved the moment into the past; the spec realises this which is why the ID is such a powerful tool. And believe me, if you cut the deck in the way Kolm suggests, and flash the back, that's really enough for specs. A few minutes later they will think that they saw all the backs of the cards any way.

You're worried that people will think the deck is gimmicked but this seems to be just magician's guilt. I suspect you're confusing knowing how the deck works and knowing how to use it properly. When you are finding the specs card, that is exactly what you should not appear to be doing. Take an ordinary deck of cards, reverse a card, shuffled the deck, then find it. Be aware of your manner when doing this; be aware of the speed at which you are doing this; this is the behaviour you need to adopt when using the ID. Your one job with the ID is to remove the card as if it were simply a bit of admin, because that is exactly what it is. It is not the trick.

For what it's worth, one of the things I do dislike about the ID is that the spec must announce their card before you can find it. This, I think, is a much more potent "tell" than the spec only seeing the back of two cards. To solve this I dispensed with the "think a card" plot all together, and perform it as a card coincidence. I retrieve their selection before even they (let alone I ) know the identity of the card. I don't personally have a problem with presenting coincidences as effects, because I'm interested in creating that "fellow traveller" spirit between myself and my participants. One day I may even succeed! I realise this might irk the purists, but the ID is a tool, and the card coincidence is (I think) a strong effect utilising it. And everyone does the thought-of-card.

There's just no arguing with the truely ignorant is there?

please, elshy - never buy Dunninger's Delight...i think you'd implode...

all this talk of flashing bottoms...makes me wish i'd joined the navy like my dad...

here's the bottom line...do as thou wilt...not many of us will ever see the other perform...

if you want to spend all your time fretting over magicians and skeptics, or even skeptic-magicians...go for it...

you'll waste time, money and energy...but thats for you to waste...

tom - do you pass out your thumbs before you s***i? just in case...y'know...

would you let someone sit down and read an entire book before a book test?

IAIN wrote:if you want to spend all your time fretting over magicians and skeptics, or even skeptic-magicians...go for it...

you'll waste time, money and energy...but thats for you to waste...

When Banachek came to Tabula Mentis earlier in the year, he too made this very point. I think his story about the first time he ever met "real" magicians and mentalists was quite profound.

He believes he would not have invented half the techniques he did had he spent his formative days around (and more importantly trying to impress) other magicians and mentalists.

They are such a small part of any prospective audience it makes no sense to panda entirely to them. I am not saying disregard them but your act should certainly not pivot on the possibility of a magician or skeptic being present. If they are truly a magician or even an intelligent skeptic (oxymoron?), they will not want to spoil the effect for you, they should stay quietly smug while everyone else continues to be entertained.

A_n_t wrote:They are such a small part of any prospective audience it makes no sense to panda entirely to them. I am not saying disregard them but your act should certainly not pivot on the possibility of a magician or skeptic being present.

If it suits you, Eshly, think why Derren Brown puts little in-jokes into his stuff? He's tipping a nod to those already in the know, which is quite a powerful, inclusive gesture; earnest, but aimed at getting the magicians in the audience on-side.

Oy,
I just want to touch on one earlier element about magicians being fooled. Magicians are usually fooled due to the presentation. the method is so cleverly hidden that it is never suspected.

During one of the Vancouver Magic circle meetings Shawn Farquhar pulled out his deck of cards and killed us with an effect. There we were 25 experienced magicians with our jaws hitting the floor. We were completely entertained and baffled. Shawn being one of the most generous magicians I know taught us how it was done. 'KEY CARD' that was it, those two words left his mouth and we all just looked at him stupidly and started to laugh. It was so obvious! What was different was Shawn's presentation, the structure of the effect.

Seriously, you want to fool magicians at a magic meeting. Show them a well done svengali deck, they won't have a clue. For an initiation once into a magic club I vanished a dollar bill with a cigerate vanisher. I just did it in a very unsuspecting way. Magicians after the 'ceremony' kept asking if it was something I sold in the store.

As a parting note, you really want to impress a fellow magician, don't try to fool them. Try to entertain them. A real magician goes to a magic show because they love magic, love to be entertained. They love to watch the audience react to a good magician.

Mr_Grue wrote:

A_n_t wrote:They are such a small part of any prospective audience it makes no sense to panda entirely to them. I am not saying disregard them but your act should certainly not pivot on the possibility of a magician or skeptic being present.

If it suits you, Eshly, think why Derren Brown puts little in-jokes into his stuff? He's tipping a nod to those already in the know, which is quite a powerful, inclusive gesture; earnest, but aimed at getting the magicians in the audience on-side.

My favourite was for Derren's 'living-dead test' when someone came on here and asked how he did it. Derren actually says at the end 'wow.. wow.. that's um.. that's out of this world!'. But yes, magicians SOMETIMES could be in the audience. So could an infallible Sherlock Holmes- does that mean we should quit, so that nobody ever works anything out? As somewhat of a member of the freternity, if you wanted to impress me- you'd have to do it by total equanimity when it comes to the magician's world. I gained even more respect for Derren when I saw him doing essentially a Corinda effect (although with origional presentation) and not giving a damn. Look up Marc Salem, everything he does is essentially Corinda: do people leave believing in him? Do people leave entertained? Yes. Because he's a great showman. So, now I have done my duty of agreeing with everyone, I now must break conformity and do something very strange and disagree with everyone.

Sometimes though, I get the suspicion people disagree with Tom for the sake of it. It is quite sensible to improve things as best as you can. I know that the cut force works, I have done it. But I'd still rather use the classic force. Why would I want to use a method which an astute or erudite audience member might conceive when a better one is available. Conservative mediocrity and even worse contentment with that apathy and mediocrity has never got anyone anywhere. I have heard so many magician's blabbering about 'presentation not method' as a justification for not constantly refining and improving methods but when it comes to it their presentation isn't too fantastic either. I mean, if they are Tommy Cooper, or Vsevolod Meyerhold, then maybe that's an excuse, but unless you genuinley do divert every fibre of your being into improving your presentation and being origional (which few do) then it is just common sense. Improvement and advancement keep art alive, and magicians always go on about art aswell. Rarley though, when I watch them perform, do I see art. What would have happened if Anneman accepted the status quo?

Randy wrote:Forgot to mention one thing, the completely hands off approach to something is good, but it also falls under the "Too Perfect" theory. Meaning that if the work was done before you did anything. Some spectators will have it in the back of their minds that you used a gimmick, and some might be inclined to question you about. Spectators know about things like a stacked deck and all that stuff. So don't fool yourself into thinking that it will instantly fool them.

The other thing is that when you perform, You are supposed to look like you had a hand in what happened.

Ok granted, if Tom concentrated on presentation no question would be raised about his psychological skills. But Presentation is such an elusive word- and if the emphasis is on realism (which, for some it may not be, but for Tom it is) then that simply means you have to recreate what the real circumstances would be. Elementary, dear readers. 'Method acting' is all about that. So what would a real mind reader be doing, and how would he be doing it. I believe this has been discussed in magic literature copiously. Maybe they would have a method, what is it? Personally, I am fascinated by Paul Ekman's work and it is an interesting thing to discuss with people, they truly find it interesting. I can do all the jargon about 'twitches in the obicularis oculi, Action Unit 6 (Or 12.. nobody has ever questioned me on that though. I think it might be Zygomaticus major, but I'm not sure anyway, we were talking about?), revealing concealed duping delight and therefore deception' or whatever is needed. As a result, the emphasis is on the face, or my mental faculties or the spectator- not on the effect. So I am influencing someone to think of a card. Nobody cares how I have predicted it, the question is have I predicted it? Oh.. well the card is upside down in the deck so he must have predicted it as there is no conceivable way of cheating... blah blah. If you are presenting it right then you control the subtext, and nobody questions deceit. ANYWAY.
The too perfect theory. This is stupid. It is the too perfect theory Eshly rejects when he says what he does, but because of who he is, people find it difficult to look past that and see that he is absolutley right to reject this stupid theory. Is he right because he is the voice of experience and a genius... probably not. He is right because he is applying common sense, regardless of how frustrating he can be. Martin Luther King said that he dreamt that his children could be judged by the content of their character and not the colour of their skin. Well I hope that one day we can judge an argument on its content and not on the reputation of the person propagating it.
Lets look at the 'too perfect theory'. Similar, although not equated, is the 'If it ain't broke don't fix it' argument. The too perfect theory, as stated by Johnson and Racherbaumer (the two who conceived it) is the notion that:
'some tricks by virtue of their perfection, become imperfect. Some tricks, by duty of their imperfection, become perfect'
I shall avoid digressing into an inquiry into the aesthetics of perfection and philosophy of it all, but perfection does not exist. Improvement is a constant, living endevour: there is not an end, there is simply the journey. To aim for perfection is just as stupid as this theory. To not aim for betterment and the endevour which carries us closer towards a non-existant, perpetually diminishing concept of perfection- is even stupider. Tommy Wonder commented on the too perfect theory, saying that it was an easy solution but its price was progress. And he was right: who doesn't want to believe that having to think less and not climb the mountain of betterment and refinement actually creates perfection? It is a nice thought, but if you don't climb the mountain you don't see the view. You sit there are let the art rot.
The too perfect theory is illustrated by the exaple of a magician trying to improve the nest of boxes effect: a borrowed watch appears in a box. The rational spectators of the real world, not the stupid spectators of the south parkian imagination land, expect that the watch got into the box somehow. They don't quite know how, but they know thats how it was done; 'I don't know when you did something, but I know you did it'. The magician rejects the too perfect theory and improves it, until the box is not even touched. Of course then, there is no opportunity for the previous assumptions. But the new assumption is that its a duplicate watch. The method was improved, but it had a worse effect. Alas, the too perfect theory.
That theory admits defeat, and accepts mediocrity, because otherwise the magic becomes too unbelievable and we wouldn't want that now would we? So we either have them believe they have missed the move, or that I am using a duplicate watch. Once more today, I observe a flaw in logic. This is a false dilema, do they have to believe that the watch is a duplicate? Well no, it simply means you have to THINK about it, you have to climb the mountain and feel the pain of something called effort. It means you need to think of a way of proving that the watch is the same one and keep the stronger method. So to all the maxims floating around, I add another:
Nobody said betterment is easy. But it is better.
After all, nothing worth achieving is easy. But 'if it ain't broke- don't fix it' does not mean that we should reject being as best as we can. It is common sense, that anyone who cares enough about magic wants to do it as best as they can, I cannot conceive why people do not understand that. If it ain't broke don't fix it implies something is broken. I never said there was anything wrong with the cross cut force. I am simply saying I think its better to use a cleaner force. Think people.

SamGurney wrote:After all, nothing worth achieving is easy. But 'if it ain't broke- don't fix it' does not mean that we should reject being as best as we can... Think people.

Sorry for shortening your thread to such a short line. I hope that it encapsulates the main point you wanted to make.

So... quite right. We should, wherever possible, improve things. But what do you mean by 'improve'? Over-engineering a method to the point where the presentation is adversely affected is counter-productive. That is what the thread has been about for some while now.

The presentation is far more important than the method. You could create the world's least detectable force, but if it is so laborious to perform that people watching become bored then you've not achieved the only true goal, which is to entertain.

Thanks for your encouragement to 'think'. However, plenty of people on here are doing just that. Except Tom, of course, who expects to be spoon fed. And then spits it out.

SamGurney wrote:It is quite sensible to improve things as best as you can. I know that the cut force works, I have done it. But I'd still rather use the classic force. Why would I want to use a method which an astute or erudite audience member might conceive when a better one is available.

Yes, I also agree It just so happens that I changed my default force because I wasn't happy with the one I use

I should be clearer. If it makes the presentation more streamline and tidies it up, then by all means change or improve the method. You gave a very good example. A classic force is quicker and more natural than a cross cut force, and in my case a slip cut force is more streamline (and easier to do) than a riffle force with a break

But if you choose a particular method over another just because of magician's guilt "You can see the bottom of the cards if you do it this way" is just silly - unless you particularly need to show the bottom of the cards (proving lack of gimmick isn't a good reason) then why not just hold the cards a couple of inches lower?

Eshly wrote:Because I'm clever.

Well, aren't we the arrogant one. Teller used to teach Latin, and reportedly knows how 99% of tricks work (Penn has said in a couple of interviews when he visited the UK that he often looks to Teller for the answer when a trick baffles him). Yet he never shouts out during a performance "YOU'RE DOING IT LIKE THIS" (although the fact he rarely talks doesn't help here...) and doesn't care if other magicians know how his tricks are done. He even tips the method to laypeople if he feels it makes the performance better

The by product of all this is that we're getting some seriously good help and suggestions from a good cross section of TM members and I've had several PMs from budding magi who've expressed their appreciation for the help. I'd hate the lack of proper accord and reception to dull that process !

The problem is that sometimes it is hard to know when it is time to take something live. For example, I’ve been working on a new routine in juggling for a year and a half, and it is not perfect – but, at some point I need to know where it works and where it doesn’t.

It is scary taking the step where you bring something to people for the first time, knowing it is not perfect.

I could work on the routine for another year, but I know it still wouldn’t be perfect, so at what point do you bite the bullet and see whether what you’ve been working on is “good enough” to entertain people?
It’s going to go public soon.

It’s worse with magic. If you drop as a juggler all the other jugglers are sympathetic. If you flubber it as a magician all the other magicians will snigger behind your back.

I think you only learn what needs to be improved in front of real people.

It is my opinion that the Hands-Off-Brainwave (hereby just called "Brainwave) is much easier for me to perform than an ID.

It suits my charecter better, it has pretty colours, it allows me to relax and let the audiance do all the hand work (not that there is much). It suits my personality and persona a lot better, because I see my charecter as someone who can perform miracles.



You may not care, but I find that the psychological forces, and hands off presentation, help my persona and presentation of the effect.






Tom
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