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The ace of hearts in the ace of hearts and Alice is Alice. Let's leave them that way.

Personally, I hate it when a magician says, "Let's imagine that this rope is a fish" or anything like that!

To ask the audience to pretend is to insult their intelligence. They are already doing you a favor by watching; don't add to it!

There's nothing wrong with stories; I use them all the time.

But there's no meat on the bones in this case!

...Being a Junior in a California high school, I guess I might fit your model of an ill-educated American... We do read some Shakespeare though...

My point wasn't that it's impossible, but stories like Sam the Bellhop has a structure that lasts a while and uses call-back lines and requires no knowledge of anything outside of the routine itself. Like Peter said, this particular story doesn't have content.

I'll admit, fantasy stories in magic are a bit of a pet peeve of mine. It doesn't fit my personal view of what magic should be. I might change my mind after reading about the guys your mentioned.

I was actually trying to suggest reading the thoughts of Teller. Teller is the one who is very well known for being brilliant at structuring routines. Even if you dislike their personal beliefs and approaches, you have to admit Shadows and Silversfish are beautiful pieces of magic (both are Teller's routines, not Penn's).

I don't think I'm particularly ill read, I just never read through Alice in Wonderland. I didn't say he was wrong, I was giving him my opinions and thoughts- just like he requested of us.

I must say that the story telling is a dangerous realm if not handeled correctly, and not used only at the right times and places. The problem is, you can leave the audience wondering whether they should be listening to a story, or be amazed by magic. If you tell a story like the one above, you may end up not putting enough focus on the effects. Magic is about the moments.

It's about those specific moments when the "magic" happens. You take away from those moments when you just tell a story with a bunch tricks in it.

If you do do magic with a story, perhaps instead of putting all those tricks in at different parts, how about you use one great effect that the whole story comes to as a climactic effect. That way, you are performing a magic effect accompinied by a story to set it off!

Best Regards,

-Ben

themagicwand wrote:Alice in Wonderland is as much a part of the British psyche as Jack the Ripper.

To the point that some nutter once wrote a book putting the case that Jack the Ripper was in fact Alice in Wonderland's author Lewis Carroll.

phil j. wrote:

themagicwand wrote:Alice in Wonderland is as much a part of the British psyche as Jack the Ripper.

To the point that some nutter once wrote a book putting the case that Jack the Ripper was in fact Alice in Wonderland's author Lewis Carroll.

Did somebody really write that?

Richard Wallace-Jack the Ripper: light hearted friend put forward ideas that Lewis Carol possibly did it from analyzing anagrams, numbers used in the writings. Full on crackpot theory material. Jack the Ripper the celebrity suspects by Mike Holgate sums a whole load of the more far fetched suspects. Well worth flicking through in bookshops for a bit of laugh and peoples extreme ideas. Aleister Crowley, Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, Rasputin, Queen Victoria, no one is above suspicion for Ripperologists.