What many older magicians fail to realize is that the young people are truly the future of magic.”
-Chris Kenner
I thought this quote from Chris Kenner, while still being a truly great quote, also fits in with the subject of this essay. First off, I’ve been hearing a lot of magicians lately… younger magicians, mind you, that view magic as a failing art. The question is… why? Is it really dwindling down into a mere past-time? Or is it all in our heads? We’re going to discuss these subjects, some in more depth than others, in this essay, and I predict that it will grow to be quite lengthy… so let’s begin!
Exposure. The one word that sends many new magicians running. The double-edged sword, as it is often referred to as. On the one hand, exposure helps new, or often “poor” magicians get into the art. But, on the other hand, it rips off many creators, and supposedly ruins many magicians’ performances. This may be true in some very rare instances, but I find it hard to believe. Think long and hard… way back to the last time a spectator called you out on an effect, saying, “I saw how to do that on YouTube!” or, “I’m going to go home and look up how to do that online!” Odds are I now have many of you desperately groping for a memory that just isn’t there. To be honest with you, most people have lives other than the internet and figuring out magic tricks (except for a select few… and you know who you are). In other words, the majority of the people don’t even know such things as exposure videos even exist. The few people that do know about them and watch them are, in fact, magicians themselves. We have had our guard up for so long that, like every “organization” there comes a time when a handful of people think they can change things for the better, and take drastic measures to do so. We are, quite literally in fact, destroying ourselves from the inside.
Something else that ties into excessive exposure quite nicely is excessive secrecy. The truth is, we’re too afraid of letting out a few secrets every once in a while to help out the new generation of magicians, that it encourages these new magicians to get out of the art as quickly as possible.
Many older magicians are, like I hinted earlier, guarding an empty safe. Something inside of them doesn’t want them to help new magicians, to teach them a few cool things… to refuse to be mentors. What they fail to realize is that these new magicians whom they are unwilling to help are the future of magic. They are the next David Copperfields, Harry Houdinis, and Lee Ashers! So please, to all you older magicians: help us to be the best we can be! To better ourselves and to better the future of our art!
Magic these days has, although it doesn’t really seem like it, become very mainstream compared to what it used to be like. Nearly every effect you see performed these days can be learned by quite literally anybody with access to the internet… or possibly just a local library. This means not only more exposure, but more magicians. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but the majority of those new magicians won’t really care about furthering the art, and won’t care if they don’t practice their effects enough and therefore mess them up. So essentially, by making magic so mainstream and easily accessible, we are brining in more bad magicians and lowering the overall opinion of magic. Remember the good ‘ol days when you had to find a magician that was willing to mentor you and really care to learn the art of magic?
A little comparison that would like to bring up now is the magician vs. the musician. On hand, we have the musician, who practices their music over and over so they can play it for people. When they do play for an audience, the spectators can clearly see how they are doing it. However, as magicians, we strive to do exactly the opposite. We practice, locked up in our rooms for countless hours, so that the audience cannot see how we are doing what we are doing. The audience has no idea how much work we put into our art, and they probably never will. You can’t tell me that that prospect isn’t even a little bit frustrating.
Now take into account the bad artists from each field. When an audience sees a bad magician perform, it forever tarnishes their opinion of magic, and they probably won’t ever want to see a magi perform again. However, if the same exact audience sees a bad musician, although they will probably lose all respect for that particular person (as a musician), their overall opinion of music will not bear a noticeable change. For example:
“You’re sitting at Applebee’s waiting to be served, when all of a sudden an older man in need of a haircut, with dirty fingernails, an old purplish suit, and one of those extremely annoying flashing LED nametags announcing himself as the house magician… Henry. Henry pulls out an old, dirty set of sponge balls, and in the midst of his performance, drops one in your soup. At this point you are truly disgusted, and kindly ask him to leave.”
Now granted, this situation is a little extreme, but perfectly plausible. If this had happened to me while I was a laymen, I probably would lose all respect for magic, and I would not be where I am today. However, if a nicely groomed, well-mannered young man approached my table and performed some very professional-presented magic for me, I would more than likely be impressed with what I saw, and I would be very interested in seeing magic again.
Do you see how one performance can completely ruin the image of magic n the eyes of a spectator? Now, apply the same situation to music. A few friends are walking down the street when they see an aspiring guitarist/singer sitting on a corner. They ask him for a performance, only to find that he completely blows at what he claims he does for a living. The girls pitifully throw a couple of bucks in his tip jar, and quickly walk away.
In the above scenario, do you think that the girls will ever want to listen to music again? Or watch a musician perform again? Of course not, that would be absurd! So why is it just the opposite in magic? Why should one artist be able to have the power to completely ruin magic in the eyes of the public? I don’t really think there is an answer to these questions, but I think one possible solution is that music is more popular… there are more artists in the field of music. Thus, the good out-weigh the bad. However, it is, once again, completely the opposite in magic. There are many more bad artists in our art than good artists… which, although “glorifying” the good, does not end in an overall good view of our art. It shows that the majority of magicians aren’t willing to put enough time into the art they supposedly love to at least perform respectably.
So, now that we’ve established that one bad performance or performer can completely destroy a spectator’s view of magic, let’s delve in why for a little bit. Why that statement is true, why performers don’t care that that statement is true, and many other questions that I hope to answer.
Why can one bad performance ruin a spectator’s view on magic? Although it’s a complex question, I believe it has a simple answer. The truth is, apart from the David Blaine specials and a couple episodes of Criss Angel: Mindfreak, most people will not experience magic in their lifetime. Therefore, they will often remember your performance, which you often cast aside as un-important, for the rest of their lives. Your performance will be what they always base their opinion of magic on. So practice, rehearse (yes, there is a difference)… for the future of magic, make your performances the best they can be!
We’ve all played the devil’s advocate for exposure before, pretending as if it’s helping “poor” magicians and brining new magicians into our art. But is it really? I don’t think it is. Personally, I think that exposure in itself gives magic a horrible image. An image that says we’re too cheap and don’t care about our art enough to respect the creators and pay our dues when dues are due.
And of course, then there is the opinion that exposure is a good thing because it is motivation for creation. I think that this opinion is the dumbest thing I have ever heard regarding exposure. There are many ways to motivate creativity in people, but ruining the material they have already created is definitely not one of them.
Earlier I mentioned the good ol’ days, when to get into magic, you had to seek out somebody already advanced in the art, that was also willing to mentor you. I truly believe that those days were when magic was at its best. Once you found a mentor, he/she would take you under his wing; train you in the art of magic. And you didn’t even think about performing for an actual audience until your mentor told you that you were ready to do so.
-Chris Kenner
I thought this quote from Chris Kenner, while still being a truly great quote, also fits in with the subject of this essay. First off, I’ve been hearing a lot of magicians lately… younger magicians, mind you, that view magic as a failing art. The question is… why? Is it really dwindling down into a mere past-time? Or is it all in our heads? We’re going to discuss these subjects, some in more depth than others, in this essay, and I predict that it will grow to be quite lengthy… so let’s begin!
Exposure. The one word that sends many new magicians running. The double-edged sword, as it is often referred to as. On the one hand, exposure helps new, or often “poor” magicians get into the art. But, on the other hand, it rips off many creators, and supposedly ruins many magicians’ performances. This may be true in some very rare instances, but I find it hard to believe. Think long and hard… way back to the last time a spectator called you out on an effect, saying, “I saw how to do that on YouTube!” or, “I’m going to go home and look up how to do that online!” Odds are I now have many of you desperately groping for a memory that just isn’t there. To be honest with you, most people have lives other than the internet and figuring out magic tricks (except for a select few… and you know who you are). In other words, the majority of the people don’t even know such things as exposure videos even exist. The few people that do know about them and watch them are, in fact, magicians themselves. We have had our guard up for so long that, like every “organization” there comes a time when a handful of people think they can change things for the better, and take drastic measures to do so. We are, quite literally in fact, destroying ourselves from the inside.
Something else that ties into excessive exposure quite nicely is excessive secrecy. The truth is, we’re too afraid of letting out a few secrets every once in a while to help out the new generation of magicians, that it encourages these new magicians to get out of the art as quickly as possible.
Many older magicians are, like I hinted earlier, guarding an empty safe. Something inside of them doesn’t want them to help new magicians, to teach them a few cool things… to refuse to be mentors. What they fail to realize is that these new magicians whom they are unwilling to help are the future of magic. They are the next David Copperfields, Harry Houdinis, and Lee Ashers! So please, to all you older magicians: help us to be the best we can be! To better ourselves and to better the future of our art!
Magic these days has, although it doesn’t really seem like it, become very mainstream compared to what it used to be like. Nearly every effect you see performed these days can be learned by quite literally anybody with access to the internet… or possibly just a local library. This means not only more exposure, but more magicians. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but the majority of those new magicians won’t really care about furthering the art, and won’t care if they don’t practice their effects enough and therefore mess them up. So essentially, by making magic so mainstream and easily accessible, we are brining in more bad magicians and lowering the overall opinion of magic. Remember the good ‘ol days when you had to find a magician that was willing to mentor you and really care to learn the art of magic?
A little comparison that would like to bring up now is the magician vs. the musician. On hand, we have the musician, who practices their music over and over so they can play it for people. When they do play for an audience, the spectators can clearly see how they are doing it. However, as magicians, we strive to do exactly the opposite. We practice, locked up in our rooms for countless hours, so that the audience cannot see how we are doing what we are doing. The audience has no idea how much work we put into our art, and they probably never will. You can’t tell me that that prospect isn’t even a little bit frustrating.
Now take into account the bad artists from each field. When an audience sees a bad magician perform, it forever tarnishes their opinion of magic, and they probably won’t ever want to see a magi perform again. However, if the same exact audience sees a bad musician, although they will probably lose all respect for that particular person (as a musician), their overall opinion of music will not bear a noticeable change. For example:
“You’re sitting at Applebee’s waiting to be served, when all of a sudden an older man in need of a haircut, with dirty fingernails, an old purplish suit, and one of those extremely annoying flashing LED nametags announcing himself as the house magician… Henry. Henry pulls out an old, dirty set of sponge balls, and in the midst of his performance, drops one in your soup. At this point you are truly disgusted, and kindly ask him to leave.”
Now granted, this situation is a little extreme, but perfectly plausible. If this had happened to me while I was a laymen, I probably would lose all respect for magic, and I would not be where I am today. However, if a nicely groomed, well-mannered young man approached my table and performed some very professional-presented magic for me, I would more than likely be impressed with what I saw, and I would be very interested in seeing magic again.
Do you see how one performance can completely ruin the image of magic n the eyes of a spectator? Now, apply the same situation to music. A few friends are walking down the street when they see an aspiring guitarist/singer sitting on a corner. They ask him for a performance, only to find that he completely blows at what he claims he does for a living. The girls pitifully throw a couple of bucks in his tip jar, and quickly walk away.
In the above scenario, do you think that the girls will ever want to listen to music again? Or watch a musician perform again? Of course not, that would be absurd! So why is it just the opposite in magic? Why should one artist be able to have the power to completely ruin magic in the eyes of the public? I don’t really think there is an answer to these questions, but I think one possible solution is that music is more popular… there are more artists in the field of music. Thus, the good out-weigh the bad. However, it is, once again, completely the opposite in magic. There are many more bad artists in our art than good artists… which, although “glorifying” the good, does not end in an overall good view of our art. It shows that the majority of magicians aren’t willing to put enough time into the art they supposedly love to at least perform respectably.
So, now that we’ve established that one bad performance or performer can completely destroy a spectator’s view of magic, let’s delve in why for a little bit. Why that statement is true, why performers don’t care that that statement is true, and many other questions that I hope to answer.
Why can one bad performance ruin a spectator’s view on magic? Although it’s a complex question, I believe it has a simple answer. The truth is, apart from the David Blaine specials and a couple episodes of Criss Angel: Mindfreak, most people will not experience magic in their lifetime. Therefore, they will often remember your performance, which you often cast aside as un-important, for the rest of their lives. Your performance will be what they always base their opinion of magic on. So practice, rehearse (yes, there is a difference)… for the future of magic, make your performances the best they can be!
We’ve all played the devil’s advocate for exposure before, pretending as if it’s helping “poor” magicians and brining new magicians into our art. But is it really? I don’t think it is. Personally, I think that exposure in itself gives magic a horrible image. An image that says we’re too cheap and don’t care about our art enough to respect the creators and pay our dues when dues are due.
And of course, then there is the opinion that exposure is a good thing because it is motivation for creation. I think that this opinion is the dumbest thing I have ever heard regarding exposure. There are many ways to motivate creativity in people, but ruining the material they have already created is definitely not one of them.
Earlier I mentioned the good ol’ days, when to get into magic, you had to seek out somebody already advanced in the art, that was also willing to mentor you. I truly believe that those days were when magic was at its best. Once you found a mentor, he/she would take you under his wing; train you in the art of magic. And you didn’t even think about performing for an actual audience until your mentor told you that you were ready to do so.
