Until August...
/This is the last post until Tuesday, August 1st, which is also when the next issue of the Love Letters newsletter will be released for supporters.
This short video of Muhammad Ali performing magic is pretty delightful.
I mean, the magic isn’t anything impressive, but you can tell how much he enjoys it (perhaps more than the audience does). He doesn’t really have much of a presentation other than calling everything a miracle. The girl at the end can barely contain how underwhelmed she is after the >FWAP< of the appearing cane.
Even one of the most charismatic people in the world has a hard time keeping people entertained when he’s just showing something “impossible.”
But put the trick in a different context, and add some personality, and suddenly it’s a big hit…
Last month I did a series of posts on The Limits of Visual Magic. This moment, from an interview between Derek Delgaudio and Pete Holmes, has Pete—a non-magician—making a similar point to what I was making in that series. People actually don’t want magic to be too direct. It robs us of the narrative.
(I cut off Derek’s response only because I’m not sure that he understood what Pete was saying in that moment.)
What if I completely fucked over my supporters and my next book was just a transcription of this Michael Ammar video from the 80s?
If you don’t have time to watch it now, I’ve captured the best moment for you…
(Thanks to Harry M., for tipping me off to some of the links above.)
Alright, see you in August. I’m outta here.
