Marc,

I realize you are most often around magicians both in your home and at various other gatherings so perhaps much of your performances relate to mystifying magicians.

I am curious about your take on magic to fool magicians and magic to fool laymen. I have seen more than my fair share of effects that usually floor magicians while those same effects are somewhat of a letdown to laymen. Some often attribute this type of difference to the performance alone or blame it on the magician.

When you are creating a piece or putting something together do you focus more on entertaining magicians or entertaining laymen? Why do you think that some pieces fail to play as well for laymen when the magicians are totally enthralled? Personally I never perform for magicians aside from just fooling around at your place or to perform something new I learned to a fellow magician at a convention or something along those lines.

I think that too often lately magic effects target fooling the magician instead of the laymen. Something like a coins across routine usually pales in comparison to a coins through glass routine (Dean's Triangle for example) for laymen whereas I have seen many a magician foam at the mouth watching a coins across routine and snub their nose at a coin through glass. Are magicians looking for the impossible move or undetectable sleight? While laymen are just looking to be entertained with a great plot and storyline surrounding an effect?

--Jim

p.s. Have a nice holiday even though I will probably catch you on e-mail between now and then =)

One of my favorites that Marc does is his Die of Destiny routine from his book. I think this is one of those rarities that is commercial enough for the real world, and will also fool the pants off of most magicians. Look it up. Better yet, don't, and next time you see Marc, be prepared to be pantsless.

Well Jim, I rarely design anything to fool magicians, that is just a happy by-product. There are not enough hours in the day to create material for that purpose specifically. I used to do it. I think a lot of the material in my old competition acts were somewhat designed for that purpose, but as time went on and my performing persona changed (matured), I found that magicians were just as entertained by my "real world" material. SOmetimes, it was because of some tough sleight of hand, sometimes the slightly bizarre method, but most times because of the presentation.

Die of Destiny is a great exampple. It is my handling of a great trick I learned from Claude Rix back in the 70's. I refined the presentation and used it continuously for laymen. I rarely showed it to magicians...I wanted them to forget the trick...a little greedy on my part. It worked tho. I constantly floored magicians with it and laymen are totally blown away. It is one of my closers.

The problem with magician foolers is that they depend on the fact that magicians know too much...they are taken down the wrong path. This also means that these routines don't often fool laymen. They don't think like magicians!

Marc