The Magic Caf
Username:
Password:
[ Lost Password ]
  [ Forgot Username ]
The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » REEL MAGIC MAGAZINE - TV For Magicians » » Simon Lovell: Crumundgeon Par Excellence (0 Likes) Printer Friendly Version

gaddy
View Profile
Inner circle
Agent of Chaos
3570 Posts

Profile of gaddy
His little rant about magicians who can't read was highly amusing.
*due to the editorial policies here, words on this site attributed to me cannot necessarily be held to be my own.*
RS1963
View Profile
Inner circle
2738 Posts

Profile of RS1963
I watched it Saturday night and I have to say I agree with him 100 percent. Of course I'm old too I'm 44. But that is beside the point.


30 years ago I heard some magicians say the samethings ones now do. I can't learn from magic books that well. I am not a good reader etc... But know what? They read anyway and it payed off for many of them. If there were no dvd's V.h.s. tapes or the internet magicians would still do just fine learning from books and each other.

Simon is 100 percent correct in saying that learning magic from dvd's causes a lot of copycats. You can't personalise magic as well from wathing a dvd as you can from learning from a book. A book leaves it very open for you to develope your own style and routines for what magic you do.

There would not be less magicians if there were no dvd's either there would be the same amount as there are now. It's just that everyone would have to work harder and more to learn magic.

I'm not saying dvd's are all bad either. But there not the true answer to learing magic. There more of a crutch and an excuse to be lazy.

Randy
gaddy
View Profile
Inner circle
Agent of Chaos
3570 Posts

Profile of gaddy
Quote:
On 2008-02-04 22:54, RS1963 wrote:
I'm not saying dvd's are all bad either. But there not the true answer to learing magic. There more of a crutch and an excuse to be lazy.

Randy


They're also a way for magic marketeers to charge a lot more money for a lot less product. But that's been said many times before, as well...
*due to the editorial policies here, words on this site attributed to me cannot necessarily be held to be my own.*
Paul Emanuel
View Profile
New user
8 Posts

Profile of Paul Emanuel
I see this a lot and I agree with Simon. I use to run a local Magic Shop in Fayetteville, NC. Most of the local Magicians would also ask me if I have a certain book in DVD format. Many guys miss out on a lot of good material just because they rather just watch something online or on video. I believe you can use your imagination a little more with a book. You create your own style instead of mimicking what we see on video. We all do it naturally. We see certain things like posture, facial expressions and body language. Then we try to perform the same way by instinct.
Eric Jones
View Profile
V.I.P.
Director of Product Development
2101 Posts

Profile of Eric Jones
Just playing devils advocate here, but there are a ton of moves and routines that simply don't read as effectively in print versus the visual medium. Josh Jay's Talk About Tricks column is a prime example. Mr. Jay even expresses on the video that he hears all the time that some of the effects from the column just don't read as well as they look. I speculate this is one of the reasons that he opted to produce a dvd set with some of that material.

As argued elsewhere on this forum, video is a great way to publish material that may be hard to follow in print. Ray Kosby's Raise Rise is a prime example of this. At other times, it's difficult to imagine the timing or misdirection neccessary for a technique. Consider Juan Tameriz' Crossing the Gaze for instance.

I'm personally fond of the way the Camirand Academy does things. A book to read, and a accompanying video containing performances of the routines and descriptions of the hard to follow moves. Best of both worlds really.....
“We're two tigers away from an act in Vegas.” Greg House M.D.
<BR>
<BR>http://www.ericjonesmagic.com
MrMajestic
View Profile
New user
57 Posts

Profile of MrMajestic
I actually just finished watching that part of the DVD, and in watching it I think he was expressing his little bit of outrage at the modern magic youth who works solely from DVDs. I don't think he hates the idea of the visual medium as a whole, and that perhaps supplementation may not be altogether a bad idea, as the gentleman above me mentioned. He seemed more irritated with the *replacing* of books with DVDs.

LONG LIVE THE PRINTED WORD!!
The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible - and achieve it, generation after generation.
- Pearl S. Buck
marty.sasaki
View Profile
Inner circle
1117 Posts

Profile of marty.sasaki
Part of the problem is that writing is hard, and even though it is hard, good writing isn't as valued as it once was. As a result a lot of what is written today is hard to read and understand. I find this to be true of magic, and especially true in my profession, computer software. I suspect that many of the problems that some folks have with written instructions are due to not quite understandable writing.

Technology has made writing easier, but it hasn't done anything to increase the quality of the writing that is produced.

I find that trying to figure out what is being written about really helps me in understanding what is being said.
Marty Sasaki
Arlington, Massachusetts, USA

Standard disclaimer: I'm just a hobbyist who enjoys occasionally mystifying friends and family, so my opinions should be viewed with this in mind.
ragingoptimist
View Profile
New user
61 Posts

Profile of ragingoptimist
I LOVE the value of books over DVDs, as they give so much more bang for the buck. However, it can be tough to get some timing based moves down without seeing them done. Reading about a top change or retention vanish is a different animal than seeing it done by a pro. Card College is about as perfect as the written word can get for teaching magic, but some sleights I read in there didn't click until I saw them performed once.

I will still, however, treasure my books over my DVDs. I'm a bibliophile, and I think I always will be.
gaddy
View Profile
Inner circle
Agent of Chaos
3570 Posts

Profile of gaddy
Seeing it done will give you a visual reference that is very valuable, that's true. No question about it.

But actually reproducing it from nothing from the written page to your very own hands will give you a mastery of the sleight that the other won't.

If you watch it on a video, you'll know how to do it. If you learn it by trial and error and discovery via a book, you'll also know how NOT to do it.

Both are good tools, I'm just saying...
*due to the editorial policies here, words on this site attributed to me cannot necessarily be held to be my own.*
dmoses
View Profile
Inner circle
2282 Posts

Profile of dmoses
After watching his last rant about XCM I just laughed.
"Easy Grandpa!"
"You're a comedian. You wanna do mankind a service, tell funnier jokes."
TPR by Dave Moses and Iain Dunford
Dave Moses @ Secrets of Dr. Dee
gaddy
View Profile
Inner circle
Agent of Chaos
3570 Posts

Profile of gaddy
Quote:
On 2008-05-21 18:50, dmoses wrote:
After watching his last rant about XCM I just laughed.
"Easy Grandpa!"


Heh, no doubt!

Card juggling (XCM? Oh please...) is now, like it or not, a part of magic. Not a big part, but a part. "The kids dig it..." and so it sells videos, and so magic shops stock it and promote it, and so it sells more videos. That's marketing! Everyone wants to be the "life of the Party". Also, a spectator can see what a magician is doing from a stage with those cards -in a sense, card juggling is an offshoot of more traditional manipulation routines, which have all found acceptability by magicians everywhere.

But again, Simon is right in that card juggling is not all that and a bottle of coke. It takes a lot more- a lot more manual dexterity to juggle 5 balls than any amount of deck cuts. So it's hard for me to be at all impressed by these great card flourishes because I know that even jugglers with simple routines have much better chops than these kids (and it is kids, god bless 'em, doing this kinda stuff -we all know this...). Also, I understand that "Laypeople don't know that" and that's fine. I agree that this sort of thing, indeed, does have a place in the panoply of magic. I'm just not running out and buying a ticket, a dvd, or a 500$ deck of Jerry Nugget's playing cards on ebay... Yes, we've seen those cards now go for five hundred dollars... I dunno, sounds a bit faddish to me...
*due to the editorial policies here, words on this site attributed to me cannot necessarily be held to be my own.*
The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » REEL MAGIC MAGAZINE - TV For Magicians » » Simon Lovell: Crumundgeon Par Excellence (0 Likes)
[ Top of Page ]
All content & postings Copyright © 2001-2025 Steve Brooks. All Rights Reserved.
This page was created in 0.02 seconds requiring 5 database queries.
The views and comments expressed on The Magic Café
are not necessarily those of The Magic Café, Steve Brooks, or Steve Brooks Magic.
> Privacy Statement <

ROTFL Billions and billions served! ROTFL