Monday Mailbag #32
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I discovered your site back in March. I started reading from the beginning, but being a father of five I couldn’t “binge” the site so I set aside 30 minutes in the morning before everyone woke up to read through it. I went at a leisurely pace and took notes and finally today [Oct 14th] I am caught up. That’s almost 200 days of reading half an hour a day.
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I just want to know what your “best case scenario” for the site was before all this started. It doesn’t seem like you intended on writing it for years. Did you have a plan for how it would go when you began writing? What was the ultimate reward?—BH
First off, that’s insane. I feel weird that anyone has spent that much time reading this site. And then, extrapolating from that, how much time I’ve spent writing it makes me feel doubly weird.
No one is more surprised than me that this site is still here and readership is still growing. I had planned to write the site for a few months while I had scheduled some downtime between work projects. But then it just got momentum and people got behind it and it just made sense to keep it going.
My best case scenario? I’m not sure I started the site with any best case scenario in mind. I don’t think I ever planned to be “rewarded” in any way. Although when the readership for the site started going up I did think some magic companies would come calling and I do remember having two thoughts related to that at the time.
First thought: “One of these magic companies—or maybe a few of them—are going to give me access to all their downloads and/or lectures. “ That seemed like a no-brainer to me. It would cost the company essentially nothing, and by being exposed to these thing, there was a good chance I’d end up mentioning something on the site. It was free advertising. But nothing close to that ever happened. Maybe they thought there was just as likely a chance I would trash their products as praise them. I don’t know. (This was before I realized getting free stuff was a burden, more so than a gift.)
Second thought: “I bet some magic company is going to hire me to write for their site or write their marketing emails.” You know when a trick is released and you get five identical boring emails from five different magic companies? I thought someone would approach me to come up with something different. But that may have been naive of me to think. They would probably be concerned that I was going to say “cunt” or “go choke on a dog’s cock” or something when describing a trick. Like I’m some retarded animal who can’t adjust his writing for the audience.
So, early on, those were the ways I thought I might be “rewarded” for the time I was putting into the site. I’m glad neither of those things happened though, or the site would not be what it is.
In your blog posts you mentioned that if you want to leave people a strong experience for long time you will make sure there is no "Easy Answer"...So they don’t just create a solution and dismiss the magic experience.
But in this post you mentioned the following....it makes me a little confused because in my understanding these concepts go against each other..
Now, here's the thing. That final effect only fooled me for a matter of moments. I experienced the effect, was blown away by it, but almost immediately knew what must have occurred. (Or, at least, I have a workable theory of what occurred.) And I don't think that's just true of me as a magician. I think any intelligent audience member would say, "Ah, when we were looking here, this must have happened over here." (I'm being coy to preserve the moment for those who haven't seen it yet.)
But that moment was still powerful to me. Even though it didn't "fool" me in the long run, it was still so surprising and visually and conceptually interesting that it's one of my favorite pieces of magic I've ever seen.
—LC
Yeah, I can see how that would seem contradictory, but I’m really talking about two different things.
For the sake of the magic trick and the feeling of mystery, you can’t have any Easy Answers.
For the sake of a memorable experience, then I would value thrilling an audience over fooling them.
If my options are between thrilling them, but not fooling them long-term or fooling them but not thrilling them. I’m going to go with the former.
What do you think spectators would rather experience:
A) looking out the window and seeing what looks like a real live dinosaur (even if they realize it’s only an illusion seconds later)
B) a boring card trick that fools them
It’s going to be option A 100% of the time.
But the two concepts aren’t at odds with each other. Ideally you want both. Methodologically you want something that has no Easy Answers. Presentationally you want something that thrills the audience. Not every trick we do will live up to those standards, but that’s the goal.
I mentioned [in a previous email] that I figured out Duplicity from Bannon's own performance video. I may or may not ever perform it, but should I? I have figured out other tricks, some I'll never do (e.g., D'Angelo's Touch) and others I'd really like to do (e.g., Shuffle Bored, which I figured out watching Lennart Green perform it).
Here's what I'm leaning toward. I think it would be wrong for me to reveal a trick I've figured out to someone else. I also personally feel it would be wrong to perform it in a paid gig (which is not and most likely never will be an issue for me). Where I'm a little stuck is performing a trick just for fun for a friend or whatever. It feels to me like if I was able to figure it out from a demo or performance, it's probably ok to perform it in that kind of context, provided I don't reveal it.
On the other hand, of course, Bannon for example certainly deserves compensation for developing such awesome stuff. I have his books and videos on my list of stuff to get hold of when I'm able. But in the meantime, what would be your sense of whether it's ok to perform, say, Duplicity, AK-47, Collusion, Prophet Motive III, etc., all of which I've figure out (at least I think I have!) from watching them? —LT
My rule is simple: If I’m going to perform something, I pay for it.
There’s a practical reason for this; the fact that you’re going to end up picking up on nuances of the trick that you wouldn’t otherwise.
There’s an ethical reason for this; that fact that, as you said, people deserve compensation for the time and effort they put into coming up with this stuff.
But my rationale is more of a cosmic one: I want to keep the scales balanced. I don’t want to be a taker.
This is not a rule I’ve implemented for the sake of others. I do it for myself. It keeps me happy.
If there is something I like, something I use, or something I get value from in some way, I don’t ever try and get around paying the price for that thing. (It may not always be a monetary price.) I know it sounds corny, but I’m convinced this practice plays a part in me being pretty damn content and happy. And while I’m just one data point, it’s also true that 100% of the most miserable people I know are all takers.