talkmagic.co.uk

Here is something to amuse you all.

http://www.youtube.com/user/JHinchliffe83

'Not only have I found your card, I have canged it into another one' is something which has saved me a fair few times!

It is indeed an excellent gag but I have two other variations on it which I have no energy to describe.

Some of the gags in the clips are from my own brain and some are standards.

Interestingly enough the entire 6 card repeat and presentation came from Harry Stanley who actually worked on it with me hour after hour. I always hated the six card repeat but Harry forced me to do it kicking and screaming. I am glad he did.

mark lewis wrote:Interestingly enough the entire 6 card repeat and presentation came from Harry Stanley who actually worked on it with me hour after hour. I always hated the six card repeat but Harry forced me to do it kicking and screaming. I am glad he did.

I'm a big fan of Vegas Visit by Joshua Jay, especially with his handling

I have never heard of Vegas Visit but presumably this is the work of the younger generation. I never study tricks that are invented after 1954.

Why? I know I belong to the 'new generation' but we all have the same objective- strong magic. Yes we need to know the history of our art, and many people could benefit by looking back into 'old school' magic instead of inventing new, pointless magic, but ultimatley strong magic is strong magic weather it was invented before or after 1954.
Just my opinion.

It stems from a private joke that I have made public. A certain famous magician married a person who worked for me and has been of great assistance over many years. In fact she put together my website. Many years ago she told her husband all about me. He enquired, "has he read my books?"

She retorted, "Of course not! Mark never reads anything written after 1954!" taking a dig at my old fashioned ways.

It isn't 100% true but it is pretty accurate nevertheless. After all, I learned my trade a long time ago and did so from older texts. So I already have my knowledge. How many tricks am I supposed to learn? All of us have enough tricks already. We need to work on the ones we already know rather than constantly learning new ones which we do for our own entertainment rather than the entertainment of our audiences.

Furthermore from what I have observed all the so-called new tricks are merely old tricks rehashed or even worse convoluted impractical rubbish that isn't of any use anyway.

Herb Morrissey, a magic dealer of Toronto, used to say, "All these young magicians come in to me and say "what's new?" when they don't even know "what's old" yet"

Is it just me who really enjoyed the "key-ring" part?

Thought it was hilarious!

I do have an odd sense of humour and felt inclined to make that remark for my own amusement. However this is a public forum that laymen can read so I shall say very little concerning the matter. I will say that it is amazing what you can get away with. I often fumble and bumble the Chinese Ring trick but it never makes a blind bit of difference.

Did the pig trick amuse you? (of course it isn't a trick anyway).I will confess that it came out after 1954 but since it is a gag it doesn't count.

You will notice that the Rings and the card tricks are as old as the hills.

mark lewis wrote:It isn't 100% true but it is pretty accurate nevertheless. After all, I learned my trade a long time ago and did so from older texts. So I already have my knowledge. How many tricks am I supposed to learn? All of us have enough tricks already. We need to work on the ones we already know rather than constantly learning new ones which we do for our own entertainment rather than the entertainment of our audiences.

Not at all, we can always keep learning. Magic is far from at a stand still, and the newer inventors are thinking of things that older generations never thought possible

If I didn't spend hours every week reading books and articles about my trade (web design) I wouldn't be very good at my job. It's a struggle to keep up to date with just what's out there, to even know if it's any good or not. How can I discount it without looking into it first?

I understand completley Mark, that is this new generation of magic emerging which concentrates on what's new. There is a magic hobbyist who I know around similar age to me, and he talks to me about loads of magicians who I have NEVER heard of. Occasionally we strike a name who we are both familiar and he tells me 'I don't know anything modern' and I tell him 'You don't know anything old'. I think those are the situations where it is a bad thing. You need to have a solid base in order to progress and that is what I am saying- the old material has tonnes of great material and has to be learned and studied, but equally, progression and evolution is what magic, and indeed any craft revolves around. I may have said before, but there are a good few tricks in my repertoire which I have been performing scince maybe even before I started out in magic. Out of this world being an example, I perform it regularly and I think it would be a disservice to magic if I just left it. I am always thinking of different ways of doing it, different touches and playing with more 'modern' methods of doing it, different presentational devices and different ways of presenting it. Obviously it has it's roots in the past but the modern touches progress it- the two are important parts of the equation. Yes, you could argue it was a great effect to start with, but what would the world be like today if Einstein had said 'Newton is already good enough' which, to be fair, it was (and also a lot simpler) but still, Einstein's work was built... coincidentally, on the shoulders of giants like Newton. We cannot sustain magic with this culture of only caring about 'what's new?' and that is not what I am advocating, but we can only survive or improve, as with everything, with progression and developement. Both presentationally and methodologically. But Equally, the roots of progression are lodged in the dusty old, and great books of the past.
I hope I have not gone into this TOO deeply, and apologise, just letting out some thoughts.

Dearie me. Youth is wasted on the young. I would commend to you the old saying first coined by Al Baker (and naturally I expect none of you young hotshots have ever heard of him). Here it is. "Many a good trick is killed by improvement"

And that seems to be the case in most of the c*** (not the best) I see nowadays that has been "invented" in recent years. As for Einstein I think it is safe to say that none of the young twits who put out stuff nowadays are in the same class as Einstein. Even foetuses are putting out books, manuscripts and DVDs nowadays.

As for the young man from Manchester with the funny name I must inform him that I have utterly no need to "keep learning". I can assure him that I know everything anyway. And one of the things I know is that it is better to do a few tricks well than it is to do several hundred badly. And most of that several hundred came out after 1954.

Some years ago on TV I saw everyone's favourite magician, Criss Angel ( ) do his Gothic style version of the sub trunk/metamorphosis routine. No curtains, just smoky pyrotechnics at the right moment and it was extremely well done. Nevertheless, it was still the old sub trunk routine routed in history, thus well before 1954, as performed by many long forgotten as well as renowned magicians. New using the old or old teaching the new? Doesn't matter a flying fez as long as it entertains the audiences and gives them their money's worth.

That is exactley what I am saying- that it does not matter, strong magic is strong magic- weather it was put out 60 years ago or weather it was put out yesterday. i have never once said I think it's a good thing that even sperms are puttin out manuscripts, all I said was that progression can never be a bad thing, and our objective is strong, entertaining magic. Take, for example, Banachek, he has developed upon old foundantions and is now one of the greatest names in magic. That is what I am saying, I don't think anything should be overdone, but if something is worth doing it is worth trying to perfect it, no matter how futile. I cannot understand any logic that says progression is a bad thing, in the same way I am not saying that 5 yr old magicians are Einsteins it was simply a metaphor.
Sorry for being stubborn, but I will stick to my guns.
We all agree that old magic is great and oftentimes (very much so) neglected, but I am merely saying that there is always room for progression and improvement, as far as I can tell the flip side of the coin seems to be that there isn't.

mark lewis wrote:As for the young man from Manchester with the funny name I must inform him that I have utterly no need to "keep learning". I can assure him that I know everything anyway.

Evidently not, I'm female