Mailbag #19
/
You mentioned a different schedule and content for next year. Can you give us any idea as to what that might be? —RG
Sure, but don’t hold me to this.
As I’ve mentioned before, my thinking is that the website is going to be for shorter, timelier, and stupider stuff.
The newsletter will contain more in-depth ideas, reviews, and effects.
And tricks/theory/testing that is fully completed or that has proven to be particularly valuable to me will be in whatever the annual publication is.
I actually planned on making this change last year, as described in this post. But the idea didn’t really stick because I didn’t have things set up properly. I needed to have more issues of the newsletter and more scheduled breaks from the site (to devote more time to the newsletter). That’s why next year the newsletter will go from four quarterly issues to ten issues monthly from March-December. And to make time for that ,the site will work on a schedule of, like, three weeks on, one week off. Or 20 days on, 10 days off. The “off time” will be when I’ll prepare that month’s newsletter.
This is all up in the air, of course, but that’s the plan as of now.
Here’s a question I’m hoping you can shed some light on. When spectators watch a card manipulator act are they thinking, “oh my, he’s materialising cards from thin air”, or are they thinking “oh my, how is he hiding those cards on his hands and pulling them out one by one?”
I genuinely have pondered about this and have no idea what an audience makes of manip acts of this kind.—NA
I think you probably know the answer to this, but you may have been in magic so long that your perception is clouded.
The combination of an adult so naive that they believe in the physical manifestation of objects from thin air, and a manipulation act so fooling that it would support that delusion, would be a rare thing indeed.
I sometimes think, what if there was a guy who could genuinely produce and vanish billiard balls or playing cards? I mean, someone who could do it for real. Would we watch that shit for more than 30 seconds? Probably not. We would want that guy in a lab being studied by scientists, not boring us on a stage.
I’m not saying manipulation acts are boring. I’m saying the thing that makes one watchable is the fact that it’s fake.
(If you know of any great manipulation acts of any sort from the past 5 years or so, send me an email and let me know about them. I’d be interested in checking them out.)
I assume you’ve seen people change their style of performing to a more casual, conversational style from the standard presentational style. If that’s the case, what is the biggest stumbling block or mistake you see them make?—MM
Hmmm… good question. The first thing that comes to mind is that they present the material in a way that is too tongue-in-cheek. There is too much of a wink and a nod to their presentation.
I was watching the download for one of Gregory Wilson’s coffee-shop tricks the other day and he and David Gripenwaldt were discussing the motivation for why they would do a torn and restored sugar packet. They mentioned a time-travel presentation. Then Greg said:
“I think the key is, you don't want it to sound like fantasy patter. You don't want to make it look like, 'Welcome to my little romper room, sesame street story, that only exists in my head.' So you do it with tongue firmly planted in cheek.”
This is the exact wrong advice. (Perhaps it’s the right advice for the situation Greg was performing in, where he was a stranger approaching random people in a coffee shop for the purpose of showing them a magic trick, but so few people are actually performing in that circumstance that it’s almost not worth mentioning).
If you’re showing a trick to friends, acquaintances, or anyone who has known you for at least 60 seconds, you don’t need put your tongue in your cheek when you tell them that you can travel back in time 15 seconds. Give them a little credit for being able to discern it’s not meant to be taken seriously and give yourself a little credit that you don’t come off like a fucking lunatic to people.
There’s really no purpose in doing such a presentation if you’re not going to take it seriously.
You might say, “But I want it to be funny, not serious.”
Ah, there’s the problem. You have a magician’s understanding of humor. You think letting everyone know you’re not serious is going to make it funny. That’s the opposite of how it works. If your premise is ludicrous (like using time-travel to reseal a sugar packet) then it’s only funny if you take it incredibly seriously. The more humorless you are, the funnier it is.
So that’s the mistake I see people make when they’re transitioning away from a traditional style of performance. It’s almost as if they feel like—since they’re not using close-up mats and scripted patter—they need to go out of their way to let people know that this is still “just a show” or “just a trick.” This sort of leads to the worst of both worlds. The audience isn’t getting the polish and professionalism of a formal presentation, and they’re not getting the immersive aspect of a social interaction because the magician is too busy winking at them and letting them know it’s just a goof.