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As you become more and more involved with magic in general, do you find you start to deliberately focus on "your area" and try and avoid learning the secrets to other effects in order to retain some of the mystery?

I am a bit of an information fiend and like to learn as much about a subject as possible but as I discover solutions to effects I have no intention of performing I find myself a little disappointed at times at the way it is accomplished, not necessarily because the original effect was not brilliant, just that knowing the answer takes the... well magic, out of it a bit. It is creating a conflict between the side of me who wants to know everything and the side that wants to appreciate things for what they are.

I just wondered if you all have similar thoughts about things and sometimes think "dammit, I wish I was still ignorant to how that was done".

I'd go along with that to some extent. I certainly don't buy anything outside my performance interest any more, although that is much about economy as interest. Also, I think your attitude to "method" changes over time too. I feel like I'm moving towards that effect-led kind of creativity where method ceases to be about the application of this or that sleight, but more to do with finding ways to achieve what needs achieving.

I'm finding this very difficult to put into words.

I'll certainly agree that you begin to really cherish the stuff you can't work out; frustratingly your subconscious will pick away at it though, and you can't always stop the penny from dropping.

A_n_t wrote:As you become more and more involved with magic in general, do you find you start to deliberately focus on "your area" and try and avoid learning the secrets to other effects in order to retain some of the mystery?
.

Nope.

Mainly because the longer your involved with magic and its related genres, the more you get to apreciate that all kinds of usefull cross over information can be found.

And often in the most unlikely of places.

as an example, ive concocted a huge Derren-esque publicity piece, that i really should do one day, from the pages of Rice encyclopedia of silk magic.

I just don't have time to learn countless effects for the sake of curiosity. I should try harder, but I rarely do.

Sponge dragons notwithstanding.

I dont learn effects either. That's what my librarys there for.


As long as i know what effect i wish to create is, i can then consider the options, and look up anything relevent.

I shocked someone on Friday, when i was asked how long i had been doing magic.

I said.. "well, i started off at the age of 5, so ive been doing it for... 41 years."

by the way the person i shocked.. WAS ME!.

I mean, that's only 9 years less than Cliff richard's known the Shadows!

daleshrimpton wrote:I mean, that's only 9 years less than Cliff richard's known the Shadows!

Ah, but were you once considered as big a threat to the nation's youth as Cliff was?

Tomo wrote:

daleshrimpton wrote:I mean, that's only 9 years less than Cliff richard's known the Shadows!

Ah, but were you once considered as big a threat to the nation's youth as Cliff was?

Was...?

A_n_t wrote:

Tomo wrote:

daleshrimpton wrote:I mean, that's only 9 years less than Cliff richard's known the Shadows!

Ah, but were you once considered as big a threat to the nation's youth as Cliff was?

Was...?

I won't comment as I don't want to get in trouble.

Incidently, if you write something about someone's sexuality which they consider to be wrong and a defamation of character, is it considered libel or slander?

my lawyer will let you know in due course.

I seem to remember there being a precedent for this, think it was in Australia.

Oh and libel is written.

Ah thought so, this may be a different one though.

Could have been worse, you might have killed your husband and then faked it as a suicide...

I really enjoy being amazed and I really appreciate it when I see an effect and I'm totally baffled. Unless I really want to use the effect in some way I don't try to seek out how its done. Unfortunatly I usually wake up at 3 in the morning and I have it figured out and am really disapointed.

I remember watching Paul Daniels once. He had the spectator remove a deck from a box. Shuffle, cut blah blah blah then remove one card. Mr. Daniels never touched the deck and the spectator was behind him the entire time and without asking anyquestions Mr. Daniels pulled out an envelope and had the spectator remove the prediction and hold up his card. They matched and my jaw hit the floor. The only thing I could figure is it had to be a stooge. Two days later I was demonstrating a trick in the store and out of the blue it hit me how it was done. I almost dropped the props on the floor and then I just started to laugh. The customer thought I was insane. And just like that the magic was gone.

Some interesting points (including the silliness) but I'd have to say that in the 40ish years I've been around it all that there's only two key fields I know anything of depth about; Mentalism (including Bizarre) and Grand Illusion. They are the only two areas I've ever worked in at any extended level though I do have more than just a bit of background in Escapes and a very limited bit of experience doing Close-up... and I'll add, nothing overly spectacular, just very basic stock stuff.

There are areas in magic I deliberately don't want to know much about though, mainly so I can still be mesmerized by them. This is especially true with Close-up but likewise traditional stage manipulation acts. Where I do know some of the inner-workings it's just not my field and thus, I don't put too much time into it out of fear of overload.

The majority of the full-time working pros I know more or less follow this same course, having little time to invest when it comes to learning "the rest of it". I remember Kirby Vanbirch who at the time was a 28 year veteran to magic, had no inkling that something like Mentalism even existed before he met me. He was a major stage performer and nothing other.

But yes, Magic is a nasty mistress that can be quite demanding at times. It's best to be cautious or she can eat you alive.

i dont try and learn everything, the very basics of coins, a fair bit of card stuff - of which nowadays i've reduced a great deal and altered to suit my mentalist needs...

nowadays - if i like the presentation of something i may well buy it, or the visualness of it - like ichange recently...i liked the visual impossibility of it...i wont ever use it, but now i know its dark and dirty secret I'm messing around with a couple of things that work on the same principal...

there / and / back / again

written on the cards...

anyway - I'm not into reverse engineering effects, or how the latest derren show was achieved, i still enjoy magic and mentalism...i can switch that part of my brain off...