Hi there,
My name is Rafael, I'm 24 and I think I "discovered" magic through an uncommon route. This post is a lenghty one, but If you have some time it might be interesting.
I was always amazed by magic and always admired magicians, of course, but I never thought I could be one of them, or even really felt to urge to learn the art. However, I've always been drawn to arts. I write a lot (or at least used to - lots of short stories and a few novel drafts), I play the guitar, bass and drums (but can't sing), and always loved to draw and paint. I ended up a graduated designer, but, unable to find a good job as a "mere" designer, was sort of forced to start learning computer programing a couple months ago.
Curiously enough, this got me very interested in mathematics, the very subject I loathed throughout my educational history, even though I've always been hooked on math and logic puzzles. Now that I've finally seen the beauty of it, I can't get enough of logic, algorithms, probability and discrete mathematics in general.
Because of all this I stumbled upon the books of Martin Gardner, most notably Martin Gardner's Table Magic and Mathematics, Magic and Mystery (Cards, Coins, and Other Magic). I read a few reviews, did a little research online, found a few card/coin tricks and suddenly it "clicked": this is something I could do!
I ordered both books Friday but they'll take a while to get here, so I started browsing like crazy, searching for more and more tricks and reading on the subject, and this is how I found this forum (and spent virtually all of my waking hours in the last couple days).
My goal is not to become a professional magician or even to perform for a strange audience. I only want to have a good time with my friends and make our nights together on the bar, playing cards or just chilling in someone's place even more enjoyable. I can only imagine how much fun we can have!
Now, what really got me hooked was something someone said on one of the reviews:
if you can do magic any time, anywhere, with anything, then the magic is not in the props, but in YOU!
I've always been the 'cerebral' type, the one to come up with toothpick puzzles at the table and stuff like that, so to make everyone's dinner more fun, so I feel that my goal is to learn:
- coin and card magic (close-up magic?);
- impromptu magic;
- mentalism (mostly eery tricks and spooky experiments);
- magic with random objects that require little or no previous preparation at all (impromptu magic again?). I'm really not drawn to the gimmicks and props aspect of magic, and don't plan on buying any trick.
I imagine that came out like a complete layman's wishlist (I suppose coin/card/close-up/impromptu magic overlap greatly) but anyway, I'm just sharing; based on my browsings on this forum I already have a pretty lenghty list of books and dvds to buy, and also a lot of intangible but invaluable general tips.
So I plan to use this forum to ask beginners' questions such as this one, and I hope to learn a thing or two from your combined extensive experience.
PS: I hope my initial goal of not aiming to become professional or even to perform for audiences is not frowned upon. I'll strive not to give magicians - and magic - a bad name and vow to resist my friends insisting to reveal how and what the hell I just did.
PS 2: Please excuse my english, I'm not a native speaker.
