talkmagic.co.uk

Me and my friend were joking about this recently. When do you call a card manipulation a flourish or a disply of XCM. Well the way I see it is that a flourish is flashy card manipulation that can have just basic utility use to the performer. A few examples are Fans and Spreads. They are neat to look at but are also perfect for having s spectator pick a card.

Now XCM is much further beyond this. This type of manipulation is so elaborate and complex that its rediculous to think of using it for a card trick. Its an almost "pointless" trick for anything besides looking super cool. A few examples would be the Smooth Opener and the Cobra Cut. First off opening the box with the SO is so insane its bizarre. And if your playing poker and the dealer asks you to cut the cards, are you really going to use the CC (I mean really!)? Its actually funny when you think about it.

Its an almost "pointless" trick for anything besides looking super cool

well the pointless bit is correct.. dunno about the supercool bit though... never saw fonzy trying a cobracut

the_mog wrote:

Its an almost "pointless" trick for anything besides looking super cool

well the pointless bit is correct.. dunno about the supercool bit though... never saw fonzy trying a cobracut

now that would be "supercool", fonzy going "eyyyyyyyyy" with 2 hands worth of cobra cuts.

but i totally see your point there, i was doing magic for some friends and as a "losing your card in the deck bit" i sat there doing sybil cuts and varitions for about a minute.. at the conclusion someone said "well, that was a bit excessive". true!

Yup. You got it... I was gonna come into this thread lol.

XCM is just manipulation of cards on its own. I don't believe in it either. I only do that stuff for videos and for my own fun. I really enjoy doing it. I almost never practice magic, mainly flourishes.

I would never say it's pointless! Doing it for your own fun is much more than "pointless". We kinda had this arguement in my previous video "Last Night". I don't think we came to a conclusion, did we mog? lol.

Anyhow, just to sum up, I don't ever only do card manipulation on its own but it does look kinda cool even to specs. e.g. the Flipback fan, I've done it to my friends before and the reactions were better than some of my magic tricks! Honest!

I think its good to be able to do it, it looks so cool!

It is good to be able to do a few fancy false cuts, because these look excellent and looks like the pack really has been messed up

XCM is its own artform, but is connected with magic, as mostly people who do magic do XCM, or the other way around.

Jerry and De'Vo make a very nice living thank you doing XCM. They wow audiences, they get repeat bookings.

It's like anything - there are good magician's doing card tricks and bad magician's doing card tricks.

As to incorporating flourishes/XCM into card routines - check your history books because Houdini did it and was/is the most famous magician of all time.

It's all about how you apply and present it - be it 'pure' XCM or XCM as an accent to an existing card effect.

TheMightyNubbin wrote:Jerry and De'Vo make a very nice living thank you doing XCM. They wow audiences, they get repeat bookings.

It's like anything - there are good magician's doing card tricks and bad magician's doing card tricks.

As to incorporating flourishes/XCM into card routines - check your history books because Houdini did it and was/is the most famous magician of all time.

It's all about how you apply and present it - be it 'pure' XCM or XCM as an accent to an existing card effect.

Jerry and Devo dont do magic though?

i cant recall seeing anything about houdini doing XCM theres a difference between flourishing as part of a routine and doing XCM.. take cardini for example... Cardini was and will always be the greatest flourisher ever..BUT what is now termed as XCM is nothing like what cardini did..its just "masturbation" magic to coin a phrase..pointless and purely there for no reason than to say "wow im soooo much better than all of you"

the_mog wrote:its just "masturbation" magic to coin a phrase..

Hilarious!

I'll agree with you though mog, card Flourishing and Manipulation are very different from XCM.

The Likes of houdini, would have been performing flourishes similar to those performed by cardini or maybe Jeff McBride, i mean we are talking fans and producionts here .. not 1 million packet cuts and things like that.

I'm not a huge fan of XCM, but each to thier own ... i have a couple of DVD's on the subject but it just isnt somthing that i could really get my head buried into.

Flourishing, which has a practical application i can get into, Card productions in particular have a firm MAGIC element to them, someone performing endless amount of back palms and pulling cards seemingly from thin air is definatly magical. It is therein that my point lies, i feel that Flourishing and basic Card Manipulation can be classed and worked into a magic routine ... where as XCM is a different form all together.

Rob

Ok, mog I'm sensing by your replies that regardless of what anybody says/does you're never going to be a fan XCM/Flourishing. You don't like it and think it's pointless, that's your opinion - fine, but others have a different view.

Let's get some terms agreed here - XCM=flourishing, flourishing=XCM - they're the same. De'Vo invented the term XCM to differentiate himself - but it's pure marketing speak, XCM=flourishing.

An XCM routine refers to a sequences of moves done back to back - there is no traditional magic effect in a pure XCM routine.

Firstly, Jerry does both magic and XCM - EXACTLY the same as Houdini did. Both did segments of traditional card magic intermixed by XCM. Of course XCM didn't mean anything in Houdini's day, it was called flourishing or card manipulation. Go and research this - for example, there is a famous poster of Houdini doing an arm spread - this is now known as an XCM move today - same moves just different language.

Cardini gave the moves a context - that of a tipsy upper class gentleman, he was brilliant, it was perfect for his day.

Today however, is 2006 and things move on. Just doing something impressive, stripping it down to it's bare bones and showing off pure skill and dexterity is now considered entertainment in a whole range of fields. For example, freestyle snowboarding, freestyle skateboard or BMX. It's sequence of tricks - done back to back in an entertaining way - and Tony Hawks has made a few quid BECAUSE there IS a market for it. The guys into freestyle snowboarding or BMX do not see it as 'masturbation' - far from it.

This is same with flourishing/XCM - younger people (and others for that matter) are attracted to it for exactly the same reasons as freestyle snowboard or BMX.

Mog - you may liken it to 'masturbation' and dismiss it in that derogatory manner but many more enjoy and perceive this new artform very different to you.

I hope by reading this you'll understand XCM/flourishing better and the similarites to other endeavours and respectfully ask you respect opinions and disciplines different to your own.

fair enough but since you stated

An XCM routine refers to a sequences of moves done back to back - there is no traditional magic effect in a pure XCM routine

and since this is talkMAGIC then theres no place for it here is there?

as i have said many times before if this is what you want to talk about or show off then there are plenty of places on the web for this.

How did this turn into such a huge page! One thought. Cardini's style of magic was very interesting in that he incorporated flourishes and palming methods to make an entire performance of random vanishes and productions. I think of this as magic with flourishes and not XCM. Just an idea.

the_mog wrote:fair enough but since you stated

An XCM routine refers to a sequences of moves done back to back - there is no traditional magic effect in a pure XCM routine

and since this is talkMAGIC then theres no place for it here is there?

as i have said many times before if this is what you want to talk about or show off then there are plenty of places on the web for this.

Hmm, this comes across as slightly agressive and dismissive mog - I'm interpreting what you're saying as 'I'm not interested in this area at all, go away and talk about this somewhere else'.

As I said earlier in the thread, flourishes can be utilised in TWO different ways,

1) pure flourishes done back to back

AND/OR

2) as an enhancement to traditional card magic.

So when done correctly as 2) they are very much a part of card magic routine. They make card magic, more attractive and visually pleasing to a spec - hence they ENHANCE a standard magic effect.

To illustrate my point of how flourishes can enhance a card effect, check out this video by a Magic Bunny member:

http://www.magicbunny.co.uk/phpBB2/view ... hp?t=24512

Shaun's inclusion of a few flourishes did not detract from the magic, it made it more visually pleasing and entertaining for a spec to watch. It ENHANCED what was already there.

Seems to me this is a perfectly valid thing to be discussing on a forum with a major emphasis on card magic.

Im fully aware of how good Shauns video looks but thats not not what would be termed XCM. Shaun has used a few flourishes to show the "ordinaryness" of the deck.. but what your talking about is nothing like this...you can have a few things like this in a routine and i have no problem with it.. BUT when you do a 5 minute slot of nothing but flipback fans or superdooperflimflammers with no other point than to say "look what i can do dont i look good" then it becomes nothing more than masturbation.. and yes you can argue against it as much as you like but XCM is not magic.. simple as that. Use Handlordz forums or suchlike if you want to do xcm but if you want to do magic then use this one.

and just as a side point since you used Shaun as an example..then check out his comments about Chardinis videos.. you'll find that they are similar to my comments here..if you want to post XCM stuff then use the appropriate forums.. if you want to post magic stuff then use magic forums.

If you think that it has no place here, why do you let Stevebo post his vids on this forum?

(I'm not saying I want him to stop making vids, and to stop putting them up, I am just interested as to what you answer)

Let's get some terms agreed here - XCM=flourishing, flourishing=XCM - they're the same. De'Vo invented the term XCM to differentiate himself - but it's pure marketing speak, XCM=flourishing.

We need to be very careful about adopting such hard and fast rules - check out http://www.xcm.org.uk/ and http://www.xcm.co.nz/ for well-established other meanings to those 3 letters.