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tommy
Eternal Order
Devil’s Island
13321 Posts
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Posted: May 2, 2012 8:01pm
There two sides of a magic effect that are nicely explained by S W Erdnase when he describes the card trick The Exclusive Coterie in his book The Expert at Card Table.
First he explains The Action, or The No Nonsense side of a trick this;
i.e.
The Exclusive Coterie
“In Effect. The four Queens are selected and laid face down in a row on the table. Three indifferent cards are placed on each Queen. Now the company selects one of the four packets, and it is found to consist of the four Queens only.”
Then he shows by example how its dressed up.
He concludes by saying:
“It will have been seen by the foregoing that the presentation of a card trick may contain much more bosh than action, and indeed the performance of the one just described might be advantageously prolonged by a great deal more nonsense. In all card entertainments the more palaver the more the interest is excited, and the address and patter of the performer will count as much if not more than his skill in manipulation.”
“The Bosh” is the “Nonsense” side of it.
“The Action” or “No Nonsense” side of it is rightly clinically described by SWE. The action side of a trick is approached by its audience in a clinical, questioning, logical way as they are dealing here on this side with the cold hard facts of the case. There is no “lets make believe”, on side, no lets pretend “The four Queens are selected and laid face down in a row on the table. Three indifferent cards are placed on each Queen. Now the company selects one of the four packets, and it is found to consist of the four Queens only.” The audience and magician are treating this side like scientists more or less. They are paying attention, making sure everything is fair and no one is cheating and all of that. There is art in this is side.
The “Bosh” or “Nonsense” side of it is an altogether different kettle of fish. In this side lives the lets make believe! This is the stuff the audience accept without questioning it. They will go along with anything the magician suggests to enter into the spirit of it as Maskelyne said, as they want to be entertained. The audience will accept the Queens are an Exclusive Coterie, the feminine portion of the Smart Set, that our table is the scene of this grand function and so on. No one is going to say stop! That table is just a table! No, they accept, they make believe it is so. They treat this side as art.
So in the presentation of magic trick, when presenting the action chose from the left and when presenting the bosh chose from right inventory to satisfy ones audience completely;
http://painting.about.com/library/blpaint/blrightbraintable.htm
And know as our brains are organised in the same way as a trick that our mind is an imitation of magic and our magic is an imitation of our mind.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy
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critter
Inner circle
Spokane, WA
2334 Posts
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Posted: May 2, 2012 10:02pm
Are you telling me that there are hippies and office drones in my freaking brain????!!!!
I throw stuff.
Follow Critter on Twitter: @Critterdun
Ichi-go ichi-e
"Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage."
-Theodore Roosevelt
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tommy
Eternal Order
Devil’s Island
13321 Posts
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Posted: May 2, 2012 10:09pm
Brains not brain.
What in more important, what you say or the way you say it, depends on if you are presenting the action or the bosh though I guess.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy
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Jonathan Townsend
Eternal Order
Ossining, NY
25248 Posts
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Posted: May 3, 2012 4:46pm
One brain
mind or mental function has components
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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critter
Inner circle
Spokane, WA
2334 Posts
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Posted: May 3, 2012 4:52pm
I didn't think it was worth arguing about.
I throw stuff.
Follow Critter on Twitter: @Critterdun
Ichi-go ichi-e
"Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage."
-Theodore Roosevelt
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tommy
Eternal Order
Devil’s Island
13321 Posts
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Posted: May 3, 2012 6:24pm
You can argue with the action but not the bosh, as the bosh can never be wrong.
The Bosh can be the stuff that reveals, or gives one a glimpse into the mind’s eye of the individual magician, to appreciate how very differently an individual magician can ‘see’ the world in which he lives. The Bosh can be the stuff that the magicians dreams are made of. It allows one to see that his table is not a table but a scene of a grand fuction. Or it can be what ever you please and who could argue with that?
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy
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Pop Haydn
Inner circle
Los Angeles
1031 Posts
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Posted: May 4, 2012 9:57am
There is weak bosh, stupid bosh and offensive bosh, good bosh, better bosh, and great bosh, Tommy. We argue with people's bosh all the time. How do you improve the bosh otherwise?
I find bosh too general to be useful. There are many parts to bosh--story, backstory, acting, script and humor. Calling it all one thing doesn't help in analyzing it.
We really have no way of knowing if Erdnase was a good entertainer, or an artist at presenting magic.
--Pop Haydn
The Sphere of Destiny
Pop's Soapbox
Pop Haydn in the 21st Century
Los Angeles magician
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Brad Burt
Inner circle
2410 Posts
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Posted: May 4, 2012 10:38am
I noted a long time ago and I think this is part of what Tommy is talking about that what we say, the story need not be 'sensible', BUT in the context of the routine is has to make 'some' kind of sense. That goes to Pop's first line above. You can even give an audience something weak, but you have to give them something. The stronger and more relevant to the actual actions that they see the more readily they will accept whatever premise for the trick is presented.
And, sensibly these things are contextual in that, using an illustration from a book I forget the title of, but not the lesson, if you are 10 years old telling a story about how you were hunting in Africa or fighting on the beaches of Normandy.....well, that just the worst kind of Bosh. You can tell the goofiest of stories and depending on 'how' you tell it it will be either accepted as integral to the routine or it will cause focus to shift in an unproductive way.
Best,
Brad Burt
Brad Burt's Magic Shop Online
www.bradburtsmagicshop.com
Brad Burt's Private Lesson Teaching DVDS:
http://www.nexternal.com/bburt/Category18
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tommy
Eternal Order
Devil’s Island
13321 Posts
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Posted: May 5, 2012 8:00am
The way I see it is, why take my playing cards out of a box when I can take them out of a squirl hole in a tree? The bosh is my poetry for describing the action that I show them, as everybody knows.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY2XYRL9pQk
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy
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Alan Wheeler
Inner circle
Athens, Georgia
1560 Posts
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Posted: May 9, 2012 9:16pm
Pop has always said that the better bosh is not poured on like ketchup or tossed on like parsly but arises organtically from the effect.
The best bosh probably goes through stages of development, too: from convoluted, extensive, tenuous elaborations to tightly-woven, sharply-honed, telescopic nuggets.
Thanks for the inspiration, Tommy!
--Alan Wheeler
English Instructor and
Performing Magician
Athens, Georgia U.S.A.
Racial Harmony
Jesus vs. the Occult
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tommy
Eternal Order
Devil’s Island
13321 Posts
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Posted: May 10, 2012 9:22am
The act of presenting an entity can be done either with or without poetry. I mean by “poetry” The essence or characteristic quality of a poem, meter. The presentation of an entity such as a magic effect can be presented in a cold, clinical way but there still is a presentation. Its the way and not the what that is presented that makes the difference between the entity such as a drawing being technical or art. The presentation is not “poetry” unless it has the essence or characteristic quality of a poem, meter, in it. The good magician presents a scientific experiment in a poetic way. He does so to satisfy the left and right hemophers of the brain in the head of his audience. So does the the good computer maker etc. “Seeing” the big picture first helps me understand the details. Maybe you can get it better by listening to this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/14664694
I get mean get what I am trying to say. 
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy
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cirrus
Inner circle
his minions made
1474 Posts
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Posted: May 10, 2012 10:39am
Even a magic trick that has a presentation where there is no word spoken, there still is a presentation. Your whole body speaks a language of it's own. Five points in magic by Juan Tamariz explores this subject. Your body says a whole lot more then your words actually do.
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tommy
Eternal Order
Devil’s Island
13321 Posts
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Posted: May 10, 2012 1:54pm
There is nothing new in the idea. Browning most frequently refers to poetry in terms of art. In fact, he believes that all art is poetry and all poetry is art. He talks of painters and sculptors as if they were poets. John Stuart Mill also reiterated this idea. Mill believed that poetry, though it may come in many forms, must be felt – it must produce “any impression beyond that of tickling the ear”. I agree and if you want to stir emotional feelings you have to get to the right hemosphere of the brain as well as the left. You can do so with art, which is poetry. The only art in magic is poetry. The rest of it is the craft. The art is in the lets make believe of it all. Lets make believe I am like Merlin and lets believe these Jacks are like acrobats, lets make believe Juliet is like the sun and lets make believe this dragon I have painted is like a dragon. This idea tells you why you need a character, why you need acrobats etc at all. Why else but to satisfy the right brain. If people did not have a right brain you would not need any of that as you would just show them the cold hard effect and they would be altogether satisfied. If people did not have a left brain they would be altogether satisfied with depictions of magic and I guess we would not have to perform an effect the way we do. If people had no brains it would be a waste of time altogether doing anything at all.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy
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Alan Wheeler
Inner circle
Athens, Georgia
1560 Posts
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Posted: May 11, 2012 7:35pm
Poetry is sound and sense, elements of rhythm and rhyme, metaphor and imagery, meaning and myth.
Verse is just a jingle, prose in lines with maybe a rime as in "Thirty days hath Septemeber..." or "McDonald's is your kind of place..."
Poetry is an art and a craft.
Verse is just a craft.
The left and right hemispheres of the brain are needed to do anything--whether poetry, painting, computer engineering or burger-machine calibration.
When the hemispheres are bifrucated, psychologists find some unusual results.
There is a science to art and an art to science, supporting the yin-and-yang theory of one of the Magic Café's most honored contributers.
My magic needs better art and it needs better science. So again I thank you for the inspiration, Tommy!
--Alan Wheeler
English Instructor and
Performing Magician
Athens, Georgia U.S.A.
Racial Harmony
Jesus vs. the Occult
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