by wardy2001 » Dec 28th, '05, 23:06
Hi Demitri,
I have been posting quite a bit, just trying to make up for lost time and wading through the mountains of posts on the site, great fun it is to.
I agree that I view the effect through a "magicians" eyes, in fact I would say that if I cannot perform an effect that would suitably fool or mislead an amateur I would not perform it. That is a quirk of my personal preference and perhaps is not a good one. But I also think that not crediting the spectator with enough intelligence is equally as bad. Most people have seen the occasional "magic reveled" on TV or have an uncle who can do the odd card trick or two, some of them might even know a couple themselves, to present them with a trick that leaves more than one question rattling around their head does no favors for magic or for your status in their eyes.
I also agree that I am guilty of seeing the effect as a stand alone piece, but I don't like the thought of bolstering it by adding it to the end of an Ambitious card or the like.
I think the main problem I have with it is the premise of the trick, the style presented by Jay is that the card can be in two places at once but as I said before, at no point in the effect does the spectator really feel like this is possible let alone actually happening. Perhaps if this were presented in a different way I might feel differently, but it still does not get past my initial feeling of obvious and not expanding on the plot.
But I agree, this is probably more to do with the way it looks "to me" rather than the trick itself.
"I don't know art, but I know what I like"