No, your comments just seem a little out of sync with what angel says in the interview. Penn and Criss both agree that it doesn't matter if what he is doing s REAL. You can't seem to get past the fact that his show isn't REAL! ACK...

"It's obvious that you ALL think that Chriss is talking about the "Other" magicians. Your egos have blinded ALL OF YOU! He is talking about YOU!"

Slim, I think if you check many of the responses you'll find the posters have agreed that Chriss is right - we KNOW he's talking about us. Many of us are cheesey, the public's perceptions of us and magic as a whole is that we cheesey. I agree. Doesn't make anyone a bad magician in terms of their skills. Look at Copperfield, good magician, cheesey as they come. Nightmarishly Las Vegas and don't get me started with those hand movements...

We - are - cheesey. I can live with that otherwise I wouldn't do it, I don't care what other people think. But I get the feeling that some of us are hoping that we're taken seriously by the public, that we should matter more than we really do. We don't. Ask the average Brit' who Corinda, Anneman, Osterlind, Banachek - or even in many cases Derren Brown - is and they will not know. The most famous of us all do not matter any more to them than (in fact a hell of a lot less than) the average one-hit wonder.

Traditional magic has got a bad rep because of years of doves, cups and balls and 'woofle dust'. Mentalism may go the same way once we've had a couple more years of exposure on TV, I don't know. But in the eyes of the public, where it really counts, we will always be cheesey, no matter how good we are.


CarlD

In all honesty who cares what Angel boy thinks, he'll be around for a bit, probably have a short career in Vegas as everyone prefers Cirque shows and then he'll fade into obscurity sitting alone claiming to be the best in the mirror to himself.

The last person I would ever listen to in regards to what makes magic bad or good is a guy who uses edits and stands on the shoulders of giants.

Also this guy works primarily stage and tv a totally different audience to most of us here who do mainly close up. Close up is where you'll hear the real comments about your act, people discussing methods almost the second they think you can't hear and in some cases even when you can.

I think IF Angel dust had worked the real hard places and for close up audiences he may have a better grounding and humility with his fellow performers.

I can't stand kids magic but I take my hair piece off to any performer who can brave 50 screaming kids and actually control them for two hours.. That is real Mind Control..

A.R.

Kids were my crowd for nearly 9 years, I can definetly agree with the statement that that is real mind control. It is tough. I think that Criss does have great respect for ORIGINAL performers. He gives props to penn and teller, and employs some of the most original thikers on the planet on his show.

He only credits those he has some affliliation with, he owes a lot to Blaine for making a pathway back into television easier however he constantly puts him down publically..

Again I mention some of my posts about other performers.. in question Doug Segal and Marc Paul.. Here with you I would voice my opinions however if I was performing for a client and they said "Last year we had Doug Segal, he was great." Whilst I would disagree with his praise I would NOT show it publically.

Criss Angel would get so much more Kudos if regardless of what he thinks of Blaine personally he simply said "The guy does a good job and has brought magic back into the public arena."

But he can't and that to me shows a lack of professionalism. If you are the next big thing why show you are bothered what anyone else is doing? Just get on with your own thing.

A.R.

P.S. 9 Years Icy Rabbit.. That is some serious jail term, I would have eaten them after 9 minutes..

Yeah -- it was a loooong haul. I cringe when I get calls for kid shows now. See the trouble with that argument is that a lot of US bash blaine, and angel. so what does that say about our level of proffesionalism. Blaine took intense heat from the magic world for his street levitations as well.

There are two lines of thought here: the old, professional manners (say something complementary about the other guy) or today's trend of talking smack. The amusing thing to me in this entire thread is that it isn't contributing anything in any substantial way, and I'm sure Criss doesn't know about it. And even if he did, I doubt it would bother him.

Some people on The Café need to study WWE and stop whining.

John

~LOL~ exactly. Criss is human, and entitled to his opinions. If you lose a bit of work from this then you are doing something very wrong, and maybe Criss isn't the problem, maybe your act, personality, etc is the problem.

John says
"Some people on The Café need to study WWE and stop whining."
Fact is...... At least twice a week you can see me practicing my "Fanisms" on TNA wrestling on Spike TV. I'm usually right next to the guy swinging the white towels on the first level of the stands directly in the cameras path about half the time.( I get a lot of camera time this way. LOL)

Fact is ..John is right when he states this.
"There are two lines of thought here: the old, professional manners (say something complementary about the other guy) or today's trend of talking smack."

But John's wrong again right here.
"The amusing thing to me in this entire thread is that it isn't contributing anything in any substantial way, and I'm sure Criss doesn't know about it. And even if he did, I doubt it would bother him."
Chriss does know and it bothers him! That's why he says that he doesn't give a %^$&^ about what we think. Just like you or I would do.

One last thought and I'm done.
If you have a vat of sewage, and you dump in a bottle of wine, you have a vat of sewage.
If you have a vat of wine, and you dump in a bottle of sewage, you have a vat of sewage.

My bottom line is this.
The Magicians that I personally know here in Central Florida are not cheesy, hokey, or stupid.(Unless their character leads them that way)...They perform at Conventions, Hotels, Theme Parks, and some have their own shows. I will state as a fact..MOST OF THEM ARE NOT HOKEY, CHEESY, NO NOTHINGS.
Sorry about the rest of you.
Bye
Dave

Slim they are hokey. You are just blind. You are also a magician. It takes a swallow of pride to admit something you love is hokey.

Just for the record I think Criss is hokey. Magic really is a hokey thing. I love it and will do it until I die. But a lot of what we do has no reason behind it.

LOL. Look CarlD, here's the point. I was about to write the EXACT same thing that Salsa did (i.e., I am too lazy to go listen to a whole interview so could you just tell me what he said). I have reread Salsa's post over and over and I cannot see why you would even think he is referring to you, especially, as you said you listened to it. In my OPINION (which is all it is), the only way you could make it about you is if you were completely egocentric. I really can't see any other explanation and I have tried and tried and tried to see it your way.

Your response, besides being completely off the mark, was rude and consisted of personal attacks (once again, for something that most reasonable people would agree HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU). Apologize all you want but you have shown your true colors. Never been called egomaniacal? Maybe because you have so little power in your day to day life that it isn't obvious. But based on your attitude, assumptions, and reactions... you know what, I have to take back the egomaniacal comment. You are a paranoid egomaniac with a case of schizophrenia. Or maybe I am kidding (not that you can tell the difference between seriousness, kidding, and what is and isn't directed toward you). Actually, one question, what in the heck even made you think it had anything to do with you at all?

-Carlos

In CarlD's defense, I took Salsa's post the same way. I realize now what he meant but reading it the first time I thought he was directing it at CarlD.

Rudy

This whole thread has a weird vibe going on (which was why I was going to stay out of it initially) so I want to stress that, while I disagree, I want to stress that I am doing it with respect. Having said that...

I really think that most magicians' sense of what is and isn't hokey is skewed. Down below are some definitions of hokey, so let us go ahead and see whether magic is hokey or not...

Hmm, is magic "effusively or insincerely emotional"? Oh yeah, completely and totally. From Michael Close and his "OK" hand gesture to the emotions that escape artists (including Burton, Angel, and Houdini) try to make their audiences feel, magic revolves around the whole idea of generating emotional responses to something that didn't really happen (which most people know on an intellectual level). I'll have more to say on this in a bit but let's look at the next definition of hokey...

Is magic "artificial: artificially formal"? Once again, absolutely. You need to wear a suit to see a guy pretend to rip a card up only to pretend to put it back together. Do I even need to say more?

Slim, I think the problem here is that you are in the industry. You have forever given up the ability to look at the industry and the performers with an unbiased eye.
Magicians do the most silly and inane things and expect others to be entertained by it. Grown men (and industry giants such as Michael Ammar) use "magic" wands in their act and spin them all around. Nah, that is totally un-hokey, right?

Look, I am glad that you disagree. All I am saying is that asking a magician to say what is and isn't hokey is like asking a magician what is and isn't cheesy... Maybe a different comparison would be better... It would be like asking television executives which network they think is the best. Many will be telling the truth (at least in their mind) when they say it is their network, even the soon to be merged WB and UPN networks. They just don't know any better.

I have been in 3 countries (other than the US) in the last year. I have seen magicians from Israel, Mexico, the US and other (don't always ask or know). I have been to the Magic Castle and to other magic shows and dinners and can say the following with utter and complete honesty. Magicians are cheesy, hokey, and downright disconnected from their audiences. I never, NEVER mention I am a magician because then the magic gets even worse. Magicians do magic they like to see and that is vastly different than what the public wants; ever wonder why all the successful magicians are generally not liked by the majority of people in the industry (Blaine, Angel, Henning [when he started], Houdini [who also was an outspoken critic of many magicians], and so on and so forth)? Because their shows were not focused on magicians but on the public. Magicians love the hokiness, from the stupid patter lines to the inane setups for hard to follow effects. They try so hard to make the magic real, even though the audience knows it is fake, and that, in my opinion, is where the problem arises, where the hokey comes in. Interestingly, my theory also explains why mentalism is, generally, seen as less hokey than magic.

Why? Glad you asked, it is because many people think that it just may be possible for mentalism to be real. These are the same people who believe it when people say we only use 3/10/20% of our brain (an absolute falsehood, but good enough when putting on a show). Since it *might* be real, it immediately falls from being hokey (once again, BY DEFINITION). Many of you will, and maybe should, argue with the points but, as far as I can tell, magic is, BY DEFINITION, hokey.

It is also cheesy and, furthermore, 99.9% of magicians aren't very good because they practice the sleights and the patter without understanding their audience or how show business is as much business as it is show. Just my opinion and nothing is meant as a personal attack (i.e., I am not calling anybody specific hokey, well, except for every professional magician I can think of...).


[From Google]
Definitions of hokey on the Web:

bathetic: effusively or insincerely emotional; "a bathetic novel"; "maudlin expressions of sympathy"; "mushy effusiveness"; "a schmaltzy song"; "sentimental soap operas"; "slushy poetry"
artificial: artificially formal; "that artificial humility that her husband hated"; "contrived coyness"; "a stilted letter of acknowledgment"; "when people try to correct their speech they develop a stilted pronunciation"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Quote:
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On 2006-02-16 17:44, Rudy Sanchez wrote:
In CarlD's defense, I took Salsa's post the same way. I realize now what he meant but reading it the first time I thought he was directing it at CarlD.

Rudy


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Fair enough, but here;s the question then, do you go on an all out attack or do you actually ask for clarification?

Quote:
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On 2006-02-16 17:44, Rudy Sanchez wrote:
In CarlD's defense, I took Salsa's post the same way. I realize now what he meant but reading it the first time I thought he was directing it at CarlD.

Rudy


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So Rudy, would you agree that by saying you realize now what he meant you are really saying that you read the words on the page and just took them at face value??? Or, put another way, did you start putting other words into Salsa's mouth even though he didn't say them? An honest answer, please.

-Carlos

And you say that magicians arnt hokey etc etc

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......=5&1

I hate to keep harping on the same point, but in a 5 page thread I guess it is my right. I won't bother finding a link because the details don't matter but here is, IMHO, the epitome of how hokey and cheesy magic is:

When somebody asks you how something is done, what is your response?

Common responses are the ultimate in cheese:
"Can you keep a secret? Well, so can I."
"Very well, thank you" (in response to, "How did you do that?")
The list goes on and on.

Why not just answer that it is a secret? BECAUSE THAT WOULD DESTROY THE HOKINESS THAT MAGIC IS.

-Carlos

Ellsworth Toohey cornered Howard Roark and said, "We're alone now, Howard, tell me, what do you REALLY think of me? You can tell me." Roark answered, "But I don't think of you."

Hi Carlos. I think you'll find the situation has now been sorted out between Salsa and I. Good posting though, some wonderful leaps of logic there.

Thanks Rudy, I was beginning to think it was just me:)

CarlD

Leave me alone and stop picking on me! You lot are as bad as Criss Angel. Sheesh.

Slim,

Just catching up here...of course my act is cheesy! That's part of the fun!

I had postcards printed for my Flea Circus. I ran into someone I know who is in public relations. I gave her one of the postcards, with the flea leaping through the flaming hoop. She said, "Oh GOD, that is so CHEEEEESY!"

Of course it's hokey. But as for being unfresh, no one out here in the provinces has ever seen a flea circus, most had never even heard of one. I had educated people ask me about the finer points of raising the little bloodsuckers.

As for nonsense, well it's all nonsense, of course. People enjoy cheesy, hokey nonsense. Remember that farce is only funny if it's played dead straight. Maybe people are just showing up to stare at a grown man with an education do cheesy, hokey nonsense that he totally believes in, at least while performing. They like the various shows. No one has ever asked for their money back. On the street, they give it of their own free will because they had a good time.

Now let's look at Criss Angel. There is a lot of cheesy, hokey nonsense in there. There are camera edits, stooges, his carefully crafted crappy attitude and artfully disordered hair. And he plays it dead straight too. So what's the difference? Of course he has to cast himself as the saviour of a moribund art form practiced largely by pimpled dorks.

One time when I saw Penn and Teller in Las Vegas, Penn had a great line slamming Siegfried and Roy, playing just down the street. He described the act as "a couple of airbrushed Germans stuffing mutant wildlife into mirror boxes." When Roy was attacked by the tiger, however, there was Penn in an interview telling the world how these master magicians put on a beautiful show, and made you forget about the danger, but the danger was always there. He had the highest respect for them and their craft.

Well, Penn and Teller are the bad boys of magic, or at least they were. Now there's this new punk.

It's a show, Slim, it's just a show. Cheesy, hokey nonsense in a world increasingly filled with nasty, violent, senseless nonsense that isn't in the least amusing. People need a break. I know that you do a good show. Relax!

Yours,

Paul

Well said.

Carld