talkmagic.co.uk

One of our newest members, Weasel made some interesting points in his introduction thread...

Weasel wrote:My interests lie in card magic, specifically cheating at card type routines and my ambition is to avoid all the usual stereotypes. I know this isn't the best way to introduce myself, but I do cringe when magicians use magic words, waves or ridiculous claims because it just seems incredibly condescending. I am aware that most people understand how many sleights work (or they know it is a sleight even if they miss it), so I want to build this in to my performance to use it against them. So I can ackowledge that nothing trully magical, psychic or otherwise is necessary whilst still fooling them and leaving them entertained.

This brings up some interesting points but certainly it has given me pause for thought. On the whole I am not entirely sure I agree with his statement, although having said that I am not sure that makes him wrong - just that he performs in a different way to me.

Firstly - there are different genres of magic and I believe that the approach to how we perform each one differs. Let us take some examples.

A. Gambling Routines - in which I include Weasel's magic of choic, Card Cheating Routines
B. Mentalism.
C. General Card Magic - let us say tricks like the Ambititious Card, Card Warp, the Biddle trick and Dr. Daley's last trick (I use these as they are all likely to be known by most card magicians in one form or another).
D. Childrens Magic

Starting with "Gambling Routines, simply because it is Weasel's focus at the moment - I do agree that it is best performed with no iluusion of magic. You are on the whole demonstarting skill and in my own experience the most entertaining perfomance - and what the audience wish to see is skill. After all we all know these gamblers are out there - and seeing someone who can claim to have been "banned for all UK casino's" etc, is quite exciting for an audience. However "skill" is this example is not necessarily the method - although I don't doubt it can be, but simply how we explain what we are doing. I know that with many of the gambling effects I do, I am more than happy to use many self working metods, or mathematic prinnciples that come across as being skill.

Next up is mentalism. Now again there is no way I would pretend this is magic, however I would maintain it is something, and I believe the secret of a good mentalist performer is making the spectators believe you are doing what you say you are doing. If they don't believe then frankly you may as well be selling it as a magic trick anyway although it would be better (IMHO) if you just didnt do mentalism in the first place if this was the case. The crux of the matter is though credibility. Whereas with the gambling effects - "skill" is the main method claimed (although I accept that you may wish to inlcude other supposed methods as well), Mentalism has a whole host of possible credible methods, starting with body language, muscle reading, suggestion, hypnosis etc, which are fairly easy to make credible - but then I still believe there is a way to make some of the psychic abilities credible as well. How far you can go with this will depend on the performer and the spectators.

Moving swiftly on to General Card Magic - this is where I believe the lines blur. Do the lay audicence believe you are doing real magic? No. Of course not. But I do however strongly believe this doesn't mean we shouldn't be performing in a magical way. Performing magic tricks like the ones I mentioned with no "magic" can make it very much into just a puzzle, and can also make it look like we are just being clever. We also need to be entertaining - but not as some say 99% entertainment - I believe there still needs to be some magic involved as well. It is true as I mentioned no one believes that when "you cast a shadow over the cards, the magic happens", but boy oh boy it can make a routine a lot more fun, and in my own experience you will get much better reactions from thigs such as a simple colour change by "performing magic" and not merely "doing a trick"

Weasel claims that todo this is condescending - and for Gambling Rourtines I agree. For General Card Magic though - no. Magical is good.

The other category I mentioned is children's magic, where I would hope that all children's performs do maintain they are doing real magic. What a waste iof they are not. Children are so lucky to be in the position where they can still believe in real magic. How I envy them.

As a final thought (for now), I used to think that Mentalism is the last true genre of magic in that this is the only genre of magic whereby our audiences believe we do what we say we do, however having just written this, I think that gambling effects and children's magic (or more specifically, magic performed to children) can also be included into that category.

Anyway - Weasels introduction certainly gave me food for thought...

The thing about gambling effects (which are billed as such) is that they aren't really magical at all. They are only one step away from card juggling ("Xtreme Card Manipulation", if you prefer). The only difference is that with gambling tricks is that you don't necessarily know how they are done. Sometimes, the move is even explained (but then it's not always the right move that is explained...).

I think gambling routines work because audiences appreciate the skill involved (same with XCM), because they enjoy trying to catch out the "cheat" (or are suprised when the fairly dealt hand is a straight flush or four aces) and because gambling routines do something many magic tricks do not; they demonstrate something useful. My gut reaction is that people who enjoy gambling routines like to imagine how useful it could be to do something like that (courtesy of Richard Osterlind's writing).

In the classic Mission: Impossible TV series, Rollin Hand (and others) used magical skills to cheat in games of chance and to pick pockets. He didn't make a little sponge ball splt into two.

Bear with me, I love sponge ball routines!

A lot of what I call general magic is pretty useless. I suppose that, if you were mountain climbing, and your rope split, it might be handy to join the two pieces together, as good as new, but largely the things performers do have little purpose. That's OK, because magic should be fun: not everything needs a purpose. However, I think you face a slight disadvantage over gambling routines because you have to work just a little bit harder to entertain people, as the underlying thing you do has little intrinsic value. On the plus side, tricks with brightly coloured sponges, hankies and shiny props have visual interest and there's a lot of variety to be found. Presenting it as magic is playing along with the fun idea. I think it would be odd to do the multiplying sponge bunnies as a demonstration of skill. People know it's not really magic, just as they know that bloke on stage isn't a Prince of Denmark, but most understand that you must go along for the ride.

Illusionists really ramp up the showmanship side of things. Never mind people knowing about sleights, could there be anything less confounding than that mysteriously large box covered in stars? Even if you have no idea exactly how it works, you know that huge prop, with the skinny dancer in it, is a bit suspicious. This is also the style of magic that probably has the most sex appeal. In my somewhat cynical older years, I wonder if this is because there's not a lot left if you take away all the glitter and skimpy outfits (sometimes on the assistants too).

Mentalism heads back towards the territory of believability (but not as obviously realistic as gambling or sleight displays). You also come back to the idea of an ability that might be useful in real life. The nature of mentalism has been somewhat done to death (at least in what I have read), so I'll keep it short. I'll just mention Chuck Hickok's writings on the levels of plausibility that mentalism effects have (some are more believable than others) and Osterlind's thoughts on how audiences go for tricks that seem to demonstrate something with an underlying use.

I've seen people do the whole, 'I'll explain this, I'll explain that, and look I still fooled you' line of presentation before, and I don't like it really. It makes people feel small.

The idea of magic, and I think a lot of beginners miss this is, is that you have to aim to make people question their reality.
People know it's not real magic, they know it, they know it, they know it BUT you just showed them something completely impossible! Now they have to rethink, hold a second, back up, do that last bit again.

The worst thing someone can say to me after watching a performance is "That's very clever."
I could hit em when they say that - it means they didn't care!

The best thing is, "Do that again."
It means they liked it, they want to experience it again.

I'll quote as I have done several times before, Simon Aronson,
"There is a whole world of difference between not knowing how something is done, and knowing that it can't be done."

I don't think that performing it as actual magic is condensing at all. Sure you can't convince EVERYBODY that it was magic, but you can perform it in a way where it looks like you didn't do anything at all or where you end up giving people an answer and then crossing it out. Guys like Whit Haydn, Juan Tamariz and tons of other top performers use that type of style.

I've always felt that, if I perform as though *I* believe my magic is real, the specs are more likely to question their own perceptions.

Anyway, I always thought magic WAS real; dunno' what you lot are talking about

My wife tells me all the time "Magic is real. I prefer to just believe that rather than know how it is really done."

Magic, whatever it's form, should be about entertainment. If you are entertaining your audience will willingly "believe" whatever twaddle you tell them.

It's much like watching a film, you know John McLane did not really take out a helicopter with a car but it still looks awesome and is much more enjoyable if you pretend he did.

Three words:

Suspension of disbelief

Sorted!

You can acheive that supension by atmosphere, persona, patter, comedy, sheer spectacle, good old fashoned BS or a combination of all those plus others - as long as the specs enjoy what you do the choice is yours.

Ant that is my point all the time I even had an argument with a musician friend who was saying magic is not real. So I wound him up about music not even existing as it is only a vibration of the air that stimulates our ear drums in a way that we hear as sound.

Anyway, what about bizarre? A style that wants you to believe what you see is real

Reality is only as real as our delusions allow

I think mentalism and bizarre have to be presented as if they're real. With those, most of the effect happens in inside the audiences heads and works by playing on the fact that what they're seeing jst might well be real. Without that believability, most mentalism would just look like (not very good) magicians tricks and a lot of bizarre just wouldn't work.

Mandrake wrote:Three words:

Suspension of disbelief

Sorted!

You can acheive that supension by atmosphere, persona, patter, comedy, sheer spectacle, good old fashoned BS or a combination of all those plus others - as long as the specs enjoy what you do the choice is yours.

As usual Mandrake cuts to the chase. If you don't believe it how can you convince an audience? As a child playing Superman; in your mind you are Superman. However logic stops you from trying to fly out of a second story window! When you see an internationally renowned actress pretending to die of consumption or starvation on stage, it can bring a tear to your eye even though your logic tells you that, after the performance, she will be driven to a sumptious resturaunt or her five star hotel in her limousine.
When emotion and logic are in conflict emotion always wins.
Or, to quote Robert Houdin, "A conjurer is an actor playing the part of a magician."

Acolophon wrote:Or, to quote Robert Houdin, "A conjurer is an actor playing the part of a magician."

See I agree with that somewhat but I am a magical person, I can do magical things and I can also help other people to do magical things

Just about every motivational speaker I've heard has said virtually the same thing. If you adopt a confident and successful persona you most certainly increase your chances of actual success. People/spectators will watch and listen to someone who is confident, knowledgeable and professional. Rev T’s remarks above are exactly that, he knows he’s a magical person therefore he will do magical things – using all the skills and talents at his disposal. Robert-Houdin, Houdini, David Copperfield and the zillion other successful magicians use the same technique, skill, talent, experience, confidence and the ability to entertain the audience. Easy to say, not so easy to do without some hard work.

Mandrake wrote:Just about every motivational speaker I've heard has said virtually the same thing. If you adopt a confident and successful persona you most certainly increase your chances of actual success. People/spectators will watch and listen to someone who is confident, knowledgeable and professional. Rev T’s remarks above are exactly that, he knows he’s a magical person therefore he will do magical things – using all the skills and talents at his disposal. Robert-Houdin, Houdini, David Copperfield and the zillion other successful magicians use the same technique, skill, talent, experience, confidence and the ability to entertain the audience. Easy to say, not so easy to do without some hard work.

Years ago when I got back into magic and me and a friend used to do a lot of card tricks he asked 'How come when you do it, it looks like magic but when I do it it looks like a trick?'

I simple said 'Because I believe i am doing real magic'

And I still believe that

Even doing mentalism I believe I can read minds, not NLP or suggestion (not saying that people shouldn't do it that way just that it's not my act)

Lady of Mystery wrote:I think mentalism and bizarre have to be presented as if they're real. With those, most of the effect happens in inside the audiences heads and works by playing on the fact that what they're seeing jst might well be real. Without that believability, most mentalism would just look like (not very good) magicians tricks and a lot of bizarre just wouldn't work.

Bless you for mentioning bizarre, which was strangely absent from Bananafish's list. There are some great ways to invoke the scholar rmagicians of the Renaissance and couch performances in ways that make reference to real magic...I think folks like Paul Voodini and others are doing the kind of material that gets as close to real magic as anything I have seen...