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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
I agree with Kirk. I think the main problem is that so many magicians rush to change a routine without really learning and thoroughly understanding the routine as it is. You can not thoroughly understand a routine until you have performed it many times for lay people.
You should never change a routine by Vernon or any of the greats just for the sake of being "different" or "original." That is stupid. You change or add to a routine because you have sufficient reason. Perhaps you want to work in surrounded conditions, as Kirk suggested, or you need to make the routine shorter or longer, or you find a flaw that you feel needs to be addressed. Those are all valid reasons for looking for a way to improve the routine for your own needs. But you should be very careful about rushing in where angels fear to tread. You need to really study and understand a work like Vernon's cups and balls. There is much more there than meets the eye, and much that is invisible to those who haven't actually performed the routine for lay people. So many people say things like, "I just wanted to do something different from the other guys" or "I just needed to make it fit my personality." Those are usually the words of a duffer. Part of learning a routine is to find the ways to make the routine as written fit your performing persona. That is where you really learn the routine--by fitting yourself around it. This enables your performing persona to grow and stretch and develop. Otherwise, all of your routines will begin to look and sound alike. |
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edh Inner circle 4698 Posts |
Whit, I agree with what your saying. However how would you address people here that say you have to be original in your handling and not to just copy someone elses work? If I like an effect the way it is written I will do it as written.
I am at a stage in magic where I feel I do not have the creative juices or experience to adequetly(sp?) modify a card effect and be able to do it justice.
Magic is a vanishing art.
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KirkG Inner circle 1391 Posts |
Edh,
Then don't. Just perform it the way it is written and do the very best you can. After a few hundred performances, not practices, you will find it has changed, through no concious effort on your part, to be a new and sleightly different routine that reflects your personality. Good luck. Kirk |
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Yiannis Veteran user Chicago USA 349 Posts |
Kirk,
what you said is very important. Only through actual performance you can hope to make another's magician trick to fit your personality. And I can testify to that, from personal experience. |
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Ben Train Inner circle Erdnase never had 4639 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-09-05 18:17, Cain wrote: I love the elegance of this response and I applaud you for it. As far as the Giobbi comment in question, I hope for his sake it IS nothing more then a hyperbole. The disheartening notion that magic creation stagnated in the 50s and 60s with Vernon’s work would leave us little hope for the progression of our art, and if this disheartening notion is excepted, would lead to a collapse in creation and innovation. With the ever-changing environment to perform magic in, I believe one must look at Vernon’s work as a skeleton to adapt. I’m not advocating for complete or even minor changes in his work, just that we look at them with the potential for change. Yes, some people will butcher them, muddle them, and downright remove the magic, but others will elevate them to a new level. And I think that’s worth the sacrifice.
If you're reading this you're my favourite magician.
Check out www.TorontoMagicCompany.com for upcoming shows, and instagram.com/train.ben for god knows what! |
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-09-07 14:00, Nordatrax wrote: Yes, it is the same with Shakespeare. Too many actors rely on the old flowery text from 400 years ago instead of rewriting Hamlet to suit their own personalities. There is nothing stultifying in learning and respecting the routines of the masters. It is very difficult to learn without copying. I have used this example many times, but here it is again. In Zen brush painting, the master would take several apprentices on for an eight year period. Each day they would watch as he made several paintings. All day they would attempt to capture identical paintings using the same types of strokes at the same speed and with the same motions. They were never allowed to do anything original. After eight years of this, he kicked them out. The original and talented ones by now had absorbed his technique, style, and artistic vision. They could instantly and effortlessly capture any thought that came into their heads, and could advance the art with original concepts on the firm artistic footing that the master had prepared. The master had lifted them to his shoulders so that they could advance the art higher. Those students who could not advance the art, because of a lack of drive, intelligence or artistic sensibility would always be copyists. But they would be good copyists and could make a decent living the rest of their lives by making paintings that were nearly as good, if not excitingly different, than the master's. This was expected and fine as well. I don't see the problem in magic today as being one of a lack of originality, but rather there is a great deal of originality and very clever magic that is simply crap because the creators have not learned the basic elements of magic--have not studied the craft. There is not a surfeit of people doing Slydini, Dai Vernon, Marlo, Leipzig, etc., well. There are way too many butchering the work of these men by tinkering with it for the sake of "originality" before they even understand what is there. These are the people who take magic many steps backward. Being unique, or different is a completely other thing than originality. One can be a complete copyist and yet by careful selection of material be entirely different from any other performer in his own venues. The goal is to become a knowledgeable craftsman, and then an innovator. But in order to be an innovator, one should first not only know what has gone before, but to have mastered it. I find so many people in magic who after making their first paycheck as a magician think they are qualified to critique Vernon or Jennings, and to "improve" or fiddle with their work in order to make it fit them. They lay magic out on a Procrustean bed and chop it up or stretch it out to fit some idea they have of what magic is supposed to be. They are inventing magic afresh, perhaps, but by starting out from scratch and not benefiting from the work that has gone on for the last few hundred years. This comes from a lack of respect for the art and an inability to comprehend the depth and artistry that has been so assiduously applied to this form for so many years by so many brilliant and talented thinkers. They rush in where angels should fear to tread. It is like watching a painter become original by improving Van Gogh's paintings. They decide to make the flowers look more like, well, real flowers... They did not learn what drove the artist to his style first, they did not know the history and traditions that the artist was reflecting, criticizing and expanding on. They act as if Van Gogh was a unique painter, cut off from the history of art and not a part of a long tradition or of his contemporary artistic community. They have no concept of the breadth and depth of study that went into the artist's "original" and "innovative" work. They think they are doing something new, when they are actually setting the art form back hundreds of years. They are truly original, just not new. Not innovative. Not an improvement. They are idiots who can not even appreciate the work they are looking at, and to any artist with knowledge and understanding they are duffers and bufoons. I don't have a problem with someone changing Vernon's work, as I said above about Kirk's cups and balls. But first, one must truly understand what Vernon was doing, and why, and that only comes from studying and learning Vernon's routine and performing it in front of lay people. After you have mastered the routine, and truly understand it, then you can change what you have reasons to change. The more you know about magic, the more difficult this task will appear. I am constantly appalled by the lack of humility and respect for the long and fascinating tradition of magic that is reflected so brightly in the work of the masters. Magic is not an art when it is treated with such disrespect. It is simply a racket. |
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bumbleface Elite user 434 Posts |
The simple answer to this question is how you define what an improvement is...
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El Mystico Special user 573 Posts |
A very interesting topic.
An interesting side issue is that Mr Giobbi either doesn't read this forum, or doesn't think it worth contributing, which may be a lesson in itself.... My answer to the question is this. In Genii Sept 04, Mr Giobbi, referring to a Vernon location effect, says, "The resourceful card expert will come up with interesting variations of the basic idea". So clearly he belives card experts can vary Vernon tricks. But can they 'improve' them? In his original post, Charlie talks of Ortiz's 'improved' version of Vernon's Travelers. The inverted comma suggests this is a quote, but it isn't. As far as I can see, Ortiz does not present his trick as an improvement. Certainly, he does say the Vernon trick is "fundamentally flawed". But I'm reminded of the thought attributed to Daley that every trick has a discrepancy. In summary, then, to me - Ortiz noted what he viewd as a weakness in the Vernon effect, and is offering a variation which has eliminated that weakness - but by introducing others. It is a variation by a card expert, not an improvement. no wonder Giobbi approves. |
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asper Veteran user 364 Posts |
Part of the problem and confusion is that some of the so-called Vernon handlings in print aren't what Vernon deemed as the final solutions to the problem.
For example, Vernon didn't perform Triumph as described in Stars of Magic. Same with Slow-Motion Aces. Those versions that were published were "easier" versions so those buying the manuscripts could actually do the tricks. |
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scorch Inner circle 1480 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-09-16 09:39, asper wrote: Good point, but I think the only "problem" or "confusion" is that some people are reading too far into something that Giobbi wrote in passing, and taking it out of context. |
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T. Joseph O'Malley Inner circle Canada 1937 Posts |
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On 2005-09-16 09:39, asper wrote: This becomes evident as you watch "Revelations". The same can be said for other tricks, some from sources other than "Stars", like the 5 Card Mental force and "Cutting the Aces" (from "Stars") - the methods that Vernon talks about and teaches on the tape are quite different from what is written up in the books. You do see that Vernon made "improvements" or "variations" to some of his earlier material when you read through the Chronicles books. He clearly never stopped thinking and analyzing.
tjo'
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KirkG Inner circle 1391 Posts |
I think Mr. Vernon, like all people continue to change and grow as they continue on through life. The written word is just a slice of time preserved. If Mr. Vernon were still alive and working on these routines, he would continue to evaluate them and see if any of today's new techniques could better solve the problems. He was aways looking for ways to streamline his magic. He often said, "Magicians stop thinking too soon."
Kirk |
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