I thought it was a great read. He wrote a really thorough, well-thought out article, and argued all of his points very well. Of course, I don't agree with anything he said, but it was still a good article.
His stance does come across as that of an old curmudgeon though. He's trying to define "Street Magic" as if it's something that needs definition. Mike Segal said it best: "[Street magic] is contemporary. It seems unvarnished. Like punk rock." I couldn't agree more. Swiss's article sets out to "find street magic." But in doing so he's missed the forest for the trees. Street magic isn't about fitting into a newly created genre with definable borders. It's more of an attitude and approach to magic--that magic isn't just for older guys in top hats on a stage making good money. It's for people who want to disrupt the mundaneness of every day life, who want to make some waves and disrupt their environment and make wherever they are a party. It's about having fun, and astonishing people for the love of it, not the paycheck.
I won't waste my time on his attacks on Ellusionist and similar companies, as he wasted more than enough of his on it. But I will say, in short, he just doesn't get the new generation of magicians, and it's a shame because they're going to pass him right by. He picks on Puncture in the article as an example of "lousy magic" because "it violates the Too Perfect Theory." I have two retorts:
1. Not everyone subscribes to the Too Perfect Theory, and if they do it's still something subjective that people will have differing opinions on anyhow. The Too Perfect Theory is just that--a theory, not a law. Because of this, it cannot be "violated."
2. He has clearly never performed Puncture or seen it performed live for a real audience. There is a reason Blaine put the trick into his last TV special--its strong. I've been performing it for about a year now. I make my own gimmicks so that I can let my spectators keep the coin after the trick. And it always gets a strong reaction and the people are always astonished.
Seems like this is a perfect example of Swiss already getting passed by by the new generation of magicians.
I don't want to debate his article point by point so I'll take the two biggest points he makes, which are that street magicians don't exist, and that there is no audience for them.
"I propose that street magic does not exist in terms of performers. At least not for professional performers – because without a camera crew in tow, no one can make a living at this."
He says "performers" in a broad sense, yet immediately afterwards finds himself having to justify that claim with "at least not professional performers." So does music not exist unless it's being played by a "professional?" Is it only people who have chosen/been capable of making a living with their art that are a part of our reality? Of course not, that's absurd. Again, as Mike Segal made the comparison, street magic is akin to punk rock. And how many punk bands can you think of that felt they needed to be signed to a big named label for validation?
"I propose that street magic does not exist in terms of audience. Because without a camera crew, who wants to be accosted by strange adolescents threatening magic?"
He's creating a straw man argument. Of course no one wants to be "accosted" by "strange adolescents" "threatening magic" or anything else. But since when are those the ingredients for street magic? They're not. Right now I'm a 27 year old high school English teacher--certaily not a "strange adolescent." And yesterday, without accosting anyone, I performed what I would call street magic. I went into a store to buy a ring. After I bought the ring I performed two phases of Garrett Thomas's Ring Thing with my new ring. The girl who sold me the ring was astonished into silence. I thought she wasn't impressed until she quietly muttered, "I'm sorry, I'm just so freaked out right now." Her and her friend were smiling, clearly woken up out of their mundane day at their little jewelry stand. To me, that's a better example of street magic than what Swiss put forth (which is clearly nothing but an attempt to slander the idea that there is an audience for street magicians).
I've worked professionally as a magician, but I have to say, I prefer performing "random acts of magic" (as Sankey calls it)--what many would call "street magic"--much more. To me that's where magic really exists. If it didn't, then perhaps Paul Harris wouldn't have dedicated a large portion of his life to exploring how magic exists in the real world, away from a stage and a paid gig. Seems to me that if this kind of magic didn't exist PH would have come to the same conclusion Swiss has and gone home by now.
I'm just afraid that T11 might soon fall into this sort of criticism. Hopefully it doesn't.
