talkmagic.co.uk

V.E. Day wrote:

Part-Timer wrote:
What if a magician absolutely sucks at performing? There is no charm, no speaking ability, no empathy, just tricks. Are some people really just hopeless cases? What if the very best someone can ever be in performance terms is average?

I went to a lecture last year with a magician who grew up with a speech impediment which caused him alot of embarassment when he was younger. As a result of that he favoured performing silently to music and put together a very successful dove act that he toured round Europe and UK and was was successful with the dove act for over a decade and is still performing magic now. Some of us are given obstacles and disabilities in life that we have to over come, it just means that we have to work harder to succeed. So if, as you say, someone has no charm, no speaking ability, no empathy, then I think these are not so much disabilities but just small things they can work harder at. As has been suggested they can do this by exaggerating aspects of their personality that do work, or adopting character that gives them a greater stage presence.

Many years ago I read a book called "The Importance of Feeling Inferior" The author contended that a feeling of inferioriy drove many people to success. I remember him quoting people like Liberace and Charles Atlas among many others. After all if you are satisfied to be as you are why try to improve yourself?

The4thCircle wrote:

V.E. Day wrote:

mark lewis wrote:
only one out of twenty magicians are female

and another 9 out of 20 want to be.

Well they should get a move on and do something about it then, this is the 21st century!

- Stacy

You should be pleased that there are few female magicians. In fact the less the better for you. That way you can stand out among the crowd. If you are good I would imagine it would be huge advantage to be female.

im i the only one that also hates the term "magic tricks" as well. because again i feel it creates that lame feeling

i for one resently have intoduce myself as a kind of magician, like derren brown explains in his book. to perk interest and to get away from that horrid image

sammy_789 wrote:im i the only one that also hates the term "magic tricks" as well. because again i feel it creates that lame feeling

I don't like "tricks" because I think with people somewhat adverse to magic it sets them off - "Oh, yes, you think you're better than me and can trick me, bah!" It feels to them like a battle of wits and they resent losing just because the magician knows how it works and they don't. Magic should be about entertainment, not hoodwinking - the goal for the spectator isn't to solve the riddle but enjoy not knowing the answer.

I'd say "Would you like to see some magic?" or "Would you like to see the performance I've prepared?"

I don't know about ya'll, but whenever I go to a gig, I always aproach a table, group, individual, et cetera, and say "I'm with the entertainment tonight, would you like to be amused?" Most people don't really know what to make of it, but when they say "Yeah, go on then." I get out a deck of cards and begin some false cuts - straight into the performance. The typical reaction is "Oh, you're a magician?" and I say "sleight of hand technician" as a joke to break the tension/ice. People are usually fairly receptive to me after that, especially when compared to my old method: "Hi, I'm the magician for tonight, you guys wanna see a couple of tricks?" "NO!".

deebeex4 wrote:I say "sleight of hand technician"

Oh, I like that.

*thinks*

You could say "I used to say I was a Prestidigitator but people assumed it was something to with flattening potatoes."

or "I'm a legerdermainist, and that's nothing to do with accountancy or hairdressing."

I'm a magician, because I do magic!

I never use the word sleight of hand, because that's the method. If people have a method (even if they don't know the specifics) then it's not magic.
You certainly wouldn't say, 'Hi I'm an IT technician." Would you?

Consider which is best...
That guy is good with cards, or that guy just did something impossible - he did magic!

I will quote again, Simon Aronson...
"There is a whole world of difference between not knowing how something is done, and knowing that it can't be done."

My advice, don't settle for what other people 'think' a magician is, don't change yourself to fit a lower form, up your skills in both the technical aspect of magic and the performance of magic, and people won't care what you are called.

If people hate all magic, then that's their choice - I would argue that it's narrow minded to dislike an entire art form, based on one or two previous performances - do you see a poor musician and then hate all music, no? but I don't argue with people during my gigs, I say "no problem" and then I move on.

There are plenty of people who do enjoy magic, and I can honestly say that I get booked to perform shows because I'm a magician, not because I'm 'clever' with cards.

It's a good point, however, I would say that my own performance style is one I like to attribute to sleight of hand. It very much depends on how you like to be seen. I love the idea of telling people I do sleight of hand and then later bringing something out that I say is more subtle and things that take years and years of practice to up the tension. These are often self-workers like Triple-coincidence which make people look out for the method SO hard, but they never pick up on it because they're expecting sleights.

A hero of mine was Peter Warlock. I always remember the final words of his mental act. "It's a trick! Everything you've seen tonight is a trick! Or is it? Goodnight."

The worst thing someone can say to me after a performance is, 'Oh that was clever.'
I would rather they said, they completely hated it - at least they feel something.
'That's clever' is such a nothing response.

Why be clever, when you can be artistic, dramatic - you can be mysterious, magical !!

One of the problems with juggling is that it's lost it's art. Juggling can be all of the above things, but commonly, it's just about how many balls or sticks you can get in the air - what's interesting about watching someone show off?

fiftytwo wrote:

sammy_789 wrote:im i the only one that also hates the term "magic tricks" as well. because again i feel it creates that lame feeling

Magic should be about entertainment, not hoodwinking - the goal for the spectator isn't to solve the riddle but enjoy not knowing the answer.

I'd say "Would you like to see some magic?" or "Would you like to see the performance I've prepared?"

I couldn't agree with you more, fiftytwo.

It is this mindset that made me want to pursue magic. I would have that exact feeling, of thriving off the mystery and bafflement, after seeing a good magician perform right in front of me. Of course I would ask myself how he did that, or say to myself that what I had just seen shouldn't have been possible, but at the end of it, I wouldn't have wanted to know, because I enjoyed the mysterious aspect of it more than anything.

But that's what magic is to me......it's the enjoyment and mystery of seeing natural laws and physics defied, right infront of a person's very eyes, and wondering how such a thing should be impossible, when the laws of the universe say otherwise.

As for the term magic trick, I think it has a time and a place, depending on the audience. To me, there's nothing more patronising than the cliche type of magician trying to convince adults that magic really exists, it's a bit cringy, in my opinion. Although, I think it would be totally valid to use the term "trick" if you were doing a magic trick that could be edged towards cheating with cards or a cardshark style performance and patter.

Incidently, this is what I often do when I peform a rise or swap or ambitious card routine, with certain audiences (adults). Instead of saying , and I click my fingers and the card comes back to the top, I would say something like...."I'll place you're card in the middle of deck, okay, but actually it's a bit of an optical illusion, you card looks like it's gone in the middle, but actually it's still on top, it's convincing isn't it"?......and then proceed as normal from there on.

It just seems a little less patronising for adults, because people certainly don't want to be infantiziled, so I think a performer must be sensitive to that issue. People want to be fooled, mystified and baffled, yes,......but treated like a child, no.

Jing wrote:The worst thing someone can say to me after a performance is, 'Oh that was clever.'
I would rather they said, they completely hated it - at least they feel something.
'That's clever' is such a nothing response.

Why be clever, when you can be artistic, dramatic - you can be mysterious, magical !!

One of the problems with juggling is that it's lost it's art. Juggling can be all of the above things, but commonly, it's just about how many balls or sticks you can get in the air - what's interesting about watching someone show off?

Possibly the worst response to a magic trick, I've ever seen. Not in a negative way, but there was just no reaction whatsoever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K9sH6bg ... ure=relmfu

There is another thread in this forum about how to approach people. This is a perfect example of what not to do. This man, I won't call him a gentleman, never mind a "magician", approaches a young woman, supposedly a stranger to him, and asks her to take part in some kind of 'experiment'. He talks about her 'feelings'. The impression given is that she should separate photographs of people she feels good about froom the ones she doesn't like for some reason and, having done this, he blandly shows that she has separated living people from dead people.
Was anyone surprised that there was no response. The poor woman was in shock!

I think Paul Curry would agree there was nothing wrong with the handling of his trick but the presentation was dreadful. The trick itself is one of the best il magic but this presentation was disgusting.

Come to think of it, I've never liked "Living and Dead Tests" anyway!

I like dead or alive, and Brown's undertaker piece is very impressive. It totally fooled me, until I saw DBP, but this is a really neat trick. I think it's something that would work well at Halloween, because it's got a spooky vibe to it.

Yes, the handling is fine, but it's not the sort of trick I'd do for a stranger, because I'm sure they'd come away thinking I was a bit less than sane. As I think this woman did. Maybe try something like spectator cuts the aces, or something nice and direct....rather than hey, have a look at my dead friends, lol.

Best to have a good strong rapport with the person or audience before you perform something like this, I think. Or if I rememver DB's performance of this, wasn't it done on a guy who worked in the funeral industry?....or someone suitably connected to death, like such. Makes sense.

Some of the youtube comments were spot on and very funny to boot....this one made me laugh.

"Why are people surprised at her non-reaction? A man you know nothing about walks up to you and pulls out a bunch of photos of people he knows. As if you couldn't care less already, he gives them to you and tells you to tediously sort them all out. Then when you do he turns the pictures over and starts talking about how half of them are dead.
Now tell me, how would you see this person: as a magician with some props just out to entertain the public, or a psychopath?"

My point was that if this guy insists in doing "Living and Dead" tests on a complete stranger at least give the person some idea of what is going on. Death is a big deal to lots of people.