So you figured out the method...

[NickSkye]

so all of you are saying that you have never seen a new trick which involves a doule lift and then tried it. i bet most of us have seen an ambitious card thing and tried all of the ways we can to get it to work. its expiramentation, we have all done it, if it works, why not do it.

 

[CDarklock]

What you want to say is that only the rich persons will be able to be magicians and the poor without money will remain in the attempt of being magicians .

Actually, the rich will be magicians who bought tricks on DVD, while the poor will be magicians who checked books out of the library.

The latter will usually end up better magicians.

An awful lot of the world's greatest magicians grew up very, very poor. I'm rather a fan of Tony Hassini; you might want to read his story.

Money doesn't just open doors, it also makes things easy. You get used to things being easy. And then, when you come across something tnat isn't easy, you start looking for ways money can make it easy. In magic, that's buying DVDs and gimmicks instead of learning your foundation.

And the same thing happens with the internet. It makes things easy. You get used to that. So when something is hard, you try to use the internet to make it easy - like searching out trick tutorials on the web and downloading ripped trick DVDs. Again, instead of learning your foundation.

Do you see the pattern here?

Magic isn't easy. It's that simple. All the things that make it seem easy, like gimmicks and pre-defined routines on DVD, are nice to have... but ultimately do not make you a better magician. I've been smacked pretty hard in the face by that reality this past week, and I've put away all the fancy crap - chop cups, invisible thread reels, even magician's wax - so I can concentrate purely on foundation. I already know this stuff doesn't make me any better, but because I have the money, even I tend to forget it.

Now I have a deck of cards and a $10 book. I'll add something on basic XCM in a week or two, but that's going to be it for a while.

Thoreau said it best: "Simplify, simplify." Your magic is not at its best when nothing can be added, but when nothing can be taken away.

 

[Austin Fields]

Amen to the above post.

How do we weave out the people that are serious about magic and people that are on the band wagon?

We wait.

Till the Angel/ Blaine hype is over, till magic dies down and becomes almost purely underground again. We wait.

There are moral ethics behind sitting at your computer and reverse engineering a trick because you're too cheap and immoral, and seeing an effect then coming up with your own method and it ends up being the same.

difference.

~Beans

 

[Sergey]

Money doesn't just open doors, it also makes things easy. You get used to things being easy. And then, when you come across something tnat isn't easy, you start looking for ways money can make it easy. In magic, that's buying DVDs and gimmicks instead of learning your foundation.

Magic isn't easy. It's that simple. All the things that make it seem easy, like gimmicks and pre-defined routines on DVD, are nice to have... but ultimately do not make you a better magician. I've been smacked pretty hard in the face by that reality this past week, and I've put away all the fancy crap - chop cups, invisible thread reels, even magician's wax - so I can concentrate purely on foundation. I already know this stuff doesn't make me any better, but because I have the money, even I tend to forget it.

Thats the only part of your post I disagree with, because magic isn't just about sleight of hand, it's not about the method at all.

 

[CDarklock]

Thats the only part of your post I disagree with, because magic isn't just about sleight of hand, it's not about the method at all.

I would go on to say it's not about the gimmick at all, either.

Using a gimmick in your magic doesn't make you a worse magician. There are lots of effects you might want in your routine that you can't do without a gimmick, and that's fine.

But if you don't have and can't get that gimmick, you shouldn't have to throw up your hands and say "now I can't do my trick". It's very easy, with a shelf full of gimmicks, to "practice" your magic by deciding how you'll carry all the gimmicks and in which order you'll perform them. A monkey could do it.

Throw out all the gimmicks, and you don't have that option. Now you're looking at two hands and a deck of cards. It doesn't have to be a deck of cards - it could be a set of cups and balls. It could be an invisible thread reel. You can pick whatever you want. What's important is that you're artificially restricting your choices to spark creativity.

Because that's the magic. It's not that you knew the card your spectator picked, or that you suddenly revealed a potato under the cup, or that you made the pen dance. It's the creativity you display in the performance of the trick. Fundamentally, once you slip-force the ace of clubs on your spectator, the trick is over. Everything else is just a game. It's not whether you win or lose, as the saying goes - since you always win - it's how you play that game. That's why people pay to see magicians. They want to see an entertaining and innovative game.

It's okay if you can't play this game without a gimmick. The problem is when you can't play any game without one.

 

[gamma105]

Methods are simultaneously the most coveted and most worthless part of magic.

The only part that I don't agree is that the method is the most worthless part of magic. IMO, Without the method, there won't be an effect, thus the method isn't the most worthless part of magic. I would rephrase it as the method isn't the single most important part of magic. Presentation, timing, method, technique..etc are all equally crucial in presenting magic.

just my 2 cents

 

[Steerpike]

The only part that I don't agree is that the method is the most worthless part of magic. IMO, Without the method, there won't be an effect, thus the method isn't the most worthless part of magic. I would rephrase it as the method isn't the single most important part of magic. Presentation, timing, method, technique..etc are all equally crucial in presenting magic.

just my 2 cents

A method without a good presentation is just some slick moves. A method without an audience is masturbation.

Magicians guard their methods and secrecy with more fervor than a CIA agent guards his identity. And for what? I'm with Jim Steinmeyer on this one, we really are guarding an empty safe.

 

[CDarklock]

Without the method, there won't be an effect, thus the method isn't the most worthless part of magic.

You have to have a method. But you don't have to have that method.

There are lots of methods that can get you from this setup to that effect. If you can't use one, you'll just use another. So that one effect you can't use it worthless, anyway.

 

[robotsunshine]

Magician's boot camp.

Take a bucket and fill it with household objects - a deck of cards, some quarters, paperclips, a spool of thread, a book, etc. - and pull out a handful of stuff at random. Use any or all of what you grabbed to make a trick.

Levitating eraser. Color changing pens. Disappearing text from a book.

When you do that, you start to rely on principles rather than methods. You start thinking about exactly what you can do while you're palming something, or if your coins are making noise during the move and how to fix it. You'll discover a new way to do certain moves, and even invent entire new slips, glides, and passes. It will demonstrate what your foundation is like, and if you need to improve on the basics - what you're truly equipped with.

 

[CDarklock]

Magician's boot camp.

I don't know that I'd call it boot camp. Seems a bit advanced for that. I couldn't do it.

 

[robotsunshine]

I don't know that I'd call it boot camp. Seems a bit advanced for that. I couldn't do it.

WELL IT'S MY INVENTION SO WE'RE CALLING IT BOOT CAMP

YOU CAN'T STEAL THIS FROM ME, IT'S MINE

IT'S BOOT CAMP

BOOT CAMP

Just today, playing with thread, I discovered upon an impromptu broken / restored thread idea. You'd be surprised, just by playing idly with an object while your attention is focused on something else, what kind of unorthodox concealments and moves you can come up with.

 

[jimbowmanjr]

Magician's boot camp.

Take a bucket and fill it with household objects - a deck of cards, some quarters, paperclips, a spool of thread, a book, etc. - and pull out a handful of stuff at random. Use any or all of what you grabbed to make a trick.

Levitating eraser. Color changing pens. Disappearing text from a book.

When you do that, you start to rely on principles rather than methods. You start thinking about exactly what you can do while you're palming something, or if your coins are making noise during the move and how to fix it. You'll discover a new way to do certain moves, and even invent entire new slips, glides, and passes. It will demonstrate what your foundation is like, and if you need to improve on the basics - what you're truly equipped with.

Sounds like Iron Chef but for magic =) Sounds like a neat idea to try someday.

--Jim

 

[Vastago]

Regarding the topic....

Well maybe a solution could be editing the effects performance... Kind of like what Oz pearlman did to his "True love" effect, you can see the ending, and maybe think of a possible way... but the only way to know if it is true is buying the effect...

 

[jimbowmanjr]

Regarding the topic....

Well maybe a solution could be editing the effects performance... Kind of like what Oz pearlman did to his "True love" effect, you can see the ending, and maybe think of a possible way... but the only way to know if it is true is buying the effect...

They tried that here with Lee Asher's Witness release and people were bickering left and right because the entire routine from start to finish isn't shown. It was probably the method hunters making the most noise but I remember clearly there were quite a few people complaining that a certain part of the routine wasn't shown.

Personally I would rather not be shown demo's and full routines of effects before buying them but I am positive there are people who feel completely the opposite and they won't buy anything without a full demo. Unless something is incredibly convoluted in method and prep I know before I buy something if it is something I would perform or at the very least think about trying to perform it.

Enjoying performing something is every bit as important to me as how enjoyable it might be to the spectator.

--Jim

 

[CDarklock]

WELL IT'S MY INVENTION

Actually, it's not your invention; it's a staple exercise in improv comedy, and has been since at least the 1960s. Monty Python has used it extensively as a scripting exercise, and it spawned much of the Flying Circus' second season - and I'd be very surprised if magicians weren't already doing it.

So calm down already. Geez.

 

[robotsunshine]

Actually, it's not your invention; it's a staple exercise in improv comedy, and has been since at least the 1960s. Monty Python has used it extensively as a scripting exercise, and it spawned much of the Flying Circus' second season - and I'd be very surprised if magicians weren't already doing it.

So calm down already. Geez.

I was kidding =P Sorry about the misunderstanding.