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bobthemagicdoerguy Regular user I can't remember where I left my 186 Posts |
Tomsk - actually, that Penn + Teller routine (ok, just Teller) is actually exactly what I am talking about. They managed to overcome the limitation and make magic. Other routines I've seen are: Hey look! Some money. Look some more! Now I have alot! I'm going to stop now...
Now I know not everyone thinks the same way I do, but I also feel this is something that touches on something weak in coin magic. A lot of times, coin magic seems like the magician saying "Look at this. Shiny coins. Oops! Now they are here! Sure fooled you, didn't I? Clever me, stupid you. Now all magic has the potential to do that, but one of the things I don't like about coin magic is that it seems to do that more often. I don't look at it as a weakness of coin magic, but a challenge to overcome. It forces me to be more creative with my routines and make me a better performer. By having an intrinsic story or rationale for doing the routine, the element of "fooling" the audience goes away and it becomes a shared experience. That's why I referenced the ambitious card discussions in my comment. If you've ever surfed over there, there is a good discussion going on about the deeper meaning of doing the ambitious card. In short, it isn't just enough to say: "Look, the card's back on top again." Its one of those routines with no logical conclusion. The Miser's dream is the same thing. It needs a logical conclusion. Teller's routine managed to do that. I feel lots of others don't. |
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gmsmagic1 Elite user 405 Posts |
I've been contemplating buying the multiplying bottles routine, and I recently started doing Misers Dream. It then occurred to me that I could come out with the bottle in the pail as if to keep it on ice. Take the bottle out of the pail and go right into the multiplying bottles routine. End this routine wondering how I'm going to pay for all this champaign. Then realizing that the pail might possibly possess some magical powers that enabled the bottles to multiply in the first place, test it out with a coin and move right into Misers Dream! It's just a penny for your thoughts - although in this case, I use half dollars.
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jakeg Inner circle 1741 Posts |
The miser's dream is not about a bucket any more than the egg bag is about a bag. I don't think that anything in magic needs a logical conclusion. By definition alone, 'logical magic' is an oxymoron. As an entertainer, my only job is to keep the audience happy, and wanting more. Magic is the vehicle, not the destination. IMO the reason for the metal bucket is to engage the audience's sense of hearing along with their sense of sight and help create excitement. In most cases, the more noise, the better.
By the way, I have a bell bucket, (that tarnished on the inside, outside looks fine.) The only problem I find with it is the weight, but it sounds great. The utility pail is much more comfortable for me. |
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gmsmagic1 Elite user 405 Posts |
I agree with everything being said. Nobody has to justify the props being used as long as they entertain. But I personally find that if you tell a story through your magic and have logical transitions in your act, in engages the crowd even more so that they enjoy the overall experience better, get lost in the moment, and forget to even question anything.
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Lawrence O Inner circle French Riviera 6811 Posts |
Quote:
On 2010-06-24 09:58, Edith wrote: It all started in France with a bucket of Champagne which is a metaphor of happy drinking of an expensive beverage, a metaphore of the carefree pleasure that money supplies... Money doesn't supply happiness but what it offers resembels it so much... Now by then what was precious where silver or gold coins and we repeat the feat but without having adapted it to modern times. Yes! A bill or a creddit card doesn't make as nice a sound when tosssed in a Champagne bucket but we have forgotten to express that the "shower of gold" (initial name of the "miser's dream" in the early XIX century). Perhaps because we are too self centred on our skill to produce anything instead on focusing on the audience dream that carelessness can come by magic rather than hard work. Our task is to offer the fleeting and poetic dream that life could be lighter if magic existed. This is what scripting can offer to a trick but magicians are shying away from the art of scripting that they forget to cultivate when absorbed into the technique of their art (necessary but insufficient for magic to really exist). :)
Magic is the art of emotionally sharing live impossible situations
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funsway Inner circle old things in new ways - new things in old ways 9982 Posts |
Wow Ettiene -- makes my want to write story or poem or sing a song ;-)
"the more one pretends at magic, the more awe and wonder will be found in real life." Arnold Furst
eBooks at https://www.lybrary.com/ken-muller-m-579928.html questions at ken@eversway.com |
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Lawrence O Inner circle French Riviera 6811 Posts |
Ken, by any means, let us be your guest! Do contribute and offer it here...
:)
Magic is the art of emotionally sharing live impossible situations
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Edith Regular user Germany 131 Posts |
What logic do Penn and Teller give the miser's dream? Unfortunately I haven't seen their routine (and can't find it online). Anybody want to enlighten me? ;-)
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OliveroG Regular user 167 Posts |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZM4Iu0sosM This is their routine.
I hope you understand, my dear friend, that everything you are seeing is a lie, but everything you are feeling holds true.
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funsway Inner circle old things in new ways - new things in old ways 9982 Posts |
Best I could do in a half-hour. I will think on all of the implications for a while. The "Offer" and the "Dream"
................................. Come Magic Come then the fleeting magic … for I have dreamed too long – ingly of soft shadow – ed memories of hope – lessness. Come then the poetic dreams for – tune of faint melody too far – gone beyond thought – ful acts of kind – ness. Open hand and eyes of heart to offer pensive strange – r more than believed in – side churning mind – full throttle. What, what! Awake once more to the chains of drudgery? an offer made and taken … Give me the inexplicable, my friend – a hint of magic that my soul might be lifted – lighter than life, and a whisper of hope.
"the more one pretends at magic, the more awe and wonder will be found in real life." Arnold Furst
eBooks at https://www.lybrary.com/ken-muller-m-579928.html questions at ken@eversway.com |
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David Fillary Special user 662 Posts |
I just saw this which contains a Miser's dream routine with a very specific purpose:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spiFtBhG8U0 as well as a multiplying billiards routine done with mobile phones! The most unique performance I've seen in ages! |
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Magic is not dead!
CARDINI would have tears in his eyes! --I already do.
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Rainboguy Inner circle 1915 Posts |
From Tarbell...
"Deep down in our hearts, everyone loves MAKING MONEY! I've learned to make money the Magic way!" I've been opening my platform shows for over 30 years with the Miser's Dream for a VERY good reason....you can't perform Magic for people until you HAVE THEIR ATTENTION....and the Miser's dream GETS THE AUDIENCE'S ATTENTION! After I'm introduced and walk onstage or onto a platform, and tell the audience a little of my history (tongue-in-cheek...IE: I come from a Show-business family.. My dad was a magician.......everytime he walked down the street he turned into a bar......my aunts were siamese twins in the circus....one ate a watermelon and the other one spit out the seeds"... I begin... My setup, typically, has a Nielsen champagne bottle wrapped in a little white towel sitting in a Foster/Chavez coin bucket, with a small candel holder next to it with a birthday candle... First "I toast you, the audience, for being smart enough to be here......taking the champagne bottle out and saying..."oops...I fogot...I quit drinking years ago"...then placing the bottle in a small "wine bottle paper bag and making it vanish"... Next I say....."for those in the back who couldn't see that...let me add a little more light" and then light the birthday candle.... I have an Abbott's Palming coin rigged with an accordian-pleated piece of flash paper on the back affixed with a small dot of wax (a la Michael Ammar)...touch the flash paper to the flame...toss the coin up in the air which creates a BEAUTIFUL illusion of a little ball of fire turning into a coin!.... The I go into my standard routine....I ALWAYS bring up kids from the audience, and always use my coin wand, and the Foster "Throw-a-way" bit with the jumbo coin from the bucket. In my experience, I have never found an opening trick that's better than the Miser's dream for platform and stage work... This trick is about producing money magically...its NOT about the props....the audiences simply want to be entertained and enjoy themselves.... and in over 30 years doing this I have never failed to get a strong and enthusiastic audience repsonse with this trick... As an opener, The Miser's Dream has everything a magician can wish for to set the stage for the rest of the show.....it's mystifying, noisy, entertaining, involves particpants from the audience and it's FUN! What more could you wish for? My 2 cents worth! |
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ProfessorMagicJMG Loyal user 257 Posts |
I'm still quite new to magical performance, but I'm now getting around to adding tricks that require a little more skill than "completely automatic and self working." My show is about audience engagement, laughs, and presentation, not my ability to perform sleights. That said, my goals for this year are to develop some more classic and visual routines: sponge balls, linking rings and miser's dream, now that I have a good and simple way to do it (thanks Julian Mather!).
Here's a script I came up with, and an idea for a way to introduce Miser's Dream that makes sense: "Magic is MAKE-BELIEVE, and magic is about learning to use your IMAGINATION, to create stories with special effects that happen right in front of you, not just on a MOVIE screen. But if you learn to use your imagination, eventually you might just turn those great ideas into MONEY! That's right, someday people might PAY you just to come up with new ideas...so, start writing down your ideas! It's just like putting MONEY in the BANK! >>>SEGUE>>> My Dad never had a piggy bank; instead he used an OLD COFFEE CAN like THIS one (either use a big coffee can or decorate your pail like a coffee can), and all his loose change went in the can. When it filled up, he would take it down to the bank and cash in all that MONEY, and take me to the MOVIES! The more money went in, the sooner I would get to see a SHOW! Oh, I used to LOVE the SOUND of MONEY HITTING THE BOTTOM OF THAT CAN...it sounded just like THIS..." and then drop a coin to establish the sound, then go into whatever MD routine you want. My Dad actually did use a coffee can to collect his loose change.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Clarke's 3rd Law
"Any sufficiently primitive technology can mystify a postmodern audience." - JMG's Corollary to Clarke's 3rd Law |
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RCP Inner circle Two Minnie's in The Hell's Half Acre, The Republic of Texas 2183 Posts |
It comes from a time when money was not "cheap". It required many hard long hours of work for most....so the illusion that someone could "pluck" money from thin air was appealing.
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Tally_NSA Loyal user Essex, UK 222 Posts |
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On Jun 22, 2016, RCP wrote: That "appeal" is still very much alive today, as I'm sure you would agree. |
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Tally_NSA Loyal user Essex, UK 222 Posts |
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As an opener, The Miser's Dream has everything a magician can wish for to set the stage for the rest of the show.....it's mystifying, noisy, entertaining, involves particpants from the audience and it's FUN! I'm sure you know this already, but I'll say it anyway - not all Miser's Dream have noise and audience participation. Fred Kaps did a fabulous Miser's Dream, but there was no noise or audience involvement. Or, there is noise, but no audience participation. That's Norm Nielsen's version, and also my own. |
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The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » Nothing up my sleeve... » » Miser's Dream - Why pluck coins from the air and toss them into a metal bucket? (4 Likes) | ||||||||||
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