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panlives Inner circle 2087 Posts |
My question is prompted by David Ben's post of 10/28/10 10:21 AM, here:
http://www.geniimagazine.com/forums/ubbt......st231772
"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." "The dog did nothing in the night-time." "That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes. |
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Doc Dixon Special user Pennsylvania, USA 655 Posts |
I don't feel qualified to add to Mr. Ben's comments, other than to say I'll get to the underground as soon as I've mastered all I want to in the overground.
I'd like to echo Kent Gunn's comments later in that thread: "I'm so far from the underground of magic I didn't even realize magicians had their own subway." Kent is my hero. Too many books and not enough time. Doc BTW, thanks for the link to the David Ben post. Interesting stuff. |
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Roger Kelly Inner circle Kent, England 3332 Posts |
There most certainly is and one of the biggest names in magic, Davenports is situated within London's Underground.
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slim23 Veteran user 309 Posts |
Indeed, very interesting post from david Ben.
I guess there used to be a kind of underground magic circle in the days Vernon would write and correspond with other magicians. For example, when he learned about the center deal from Kennedy, he would not show it to everybody. At least, that is what Mister Ben wrote in the last revelation. Still, I like the idea about this underground thing that would alloy Vernon, Bertram, Downs and the likes. It sounds cool and I would have loved to witness a session "back in the days". Slim |
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MField2000 Special user Hastings, East Sussex, England 590 Posts |
Of courrse there is a magic underground. This consists of a haphazardly organized group of magicians who trade stuff they've invented, dug up or dreamt about. There are probably several of these 'undergrounds'. Mine includes people like Bob Farmer, Harvey Rosenthal, Peter Duffie, Richard Kaufman, Mike Close, David Ben, Steve Draun, Jon Racherbaumer, David Britland, Angelo Carbone, Lewis Jones and several others. Stuff goes on within this group that is 'safe' because we all know no one will leak it to the magic world at large.
It's like any other group of friends with a common interest who want to express themselves candidly and perhaps take more chances than they would on an otherwise 'public' forum such as this one. Then there are the so-called 'underground' publications, ranging from those of Karl Fulves to "Facsimile" and the illicitly copied manuscripts of people from Vernon to Steranko. Matt Field |
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The Burnaby Kid Inner circle St. John's, Canada 3158 Posts |
There's certainly a magic underground, and with cards there's an added aspect to it simply because some people dabble in both the gambling and magic worlds, where keeping secrets has incentives above and beyond simply invoking the word "underground" to make it sound like there's a group of cool kids who don't let just anybody into their club, usually invoked by somebody who claims to be a part of said group of cool kids.
JACK, the Jolly Almanac of Card Knavery, a free card magic resource for beginners.
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Doc Dixon Special user Pennsylvania, USA 655 Posts |
But is it fair to say that with so much "overground" material (I'm not trying to coin a term, it just seems to fit) out there that the underground is over-romanticized by most?
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AsL Special user 680 Posts |
Quote:
On 2011-01-04 09:46, Doc Dixon wrote: LOL! That's officially the quote of the day! |
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maxamillian1 New user 59 Posts |
I think that in the 20s and 30s the underground consisted of people the average magician had never even heard of (e.g. Walter Scott)
I guess the point of Matt Field's post, in which he actually reveals some of the participants in his 'underground', is that it is just a part of the public network. Regards Max |
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The Burnaby Kid Inner circle St. John's, Canada 3158 Posts |
Quote:
On 2011-01-04 13:08, Doc Dixon wrote: I could go along with that, to a point. It's sometimes hard to over-romanticize secrecy because so long as there's a valuable secret, it's going to have inherent romantic value. Case in point: A friend of mine has a buddy who cheats at cards, for real, with his specialty being a specific variant of poker. During a session one night with my friend, he tipped some of his buddy's work. Great stuff in there. Now, here's the deal, not only am I not allowed to say my friend's buddy's name, not only am I not allowed to tip any of the work I learned second-hand, I'm not allowed to even say the name of the variant of poker that he plays. This is essentially true. If I do that, I violate my friend's trust because I risk the trust that my friend had with his buddy. Here's the thing, pretty much all of the factors involved in that story are out there... the name of the poker variant, the specific tactics that he uses, and the guy's name has even been published in a well-regarded book of card magic. So, it's not like the information isn't out there -- it is -- it's just hidden in plain sight. The way I phrase that story about my friend's buddy, though, comes across as cool as heck to people just because of the inherent interest (and possibly romance) in secrecy. The only way to truly destroy that is to come clean about the stuff that's being kept secret -- until that's done, the imagination is still engaged. Now, is it over-romanticized to the point that the idea of the underground is over-rated? I could agree with that. Tarbell and Royal Road are out there for cheap, and you could make a great living in magic just from those two sources alone. People have already done that. If you take that as a premise, not only is the underground over-rated, it's potentially irrelevant. It doesn't stop it from being really, really compelling, though... nor does it stop twits like me from repeating the previous story for my own amusement.
JACK, the Jolly Almanac of Card Knavery, a free card magic resource for beginners.
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slim23 Veteran user 309 Posts |
I think this "over-romance" of the underground magic world actually helps magicians. This makes for good strories for the average laymen who will get or continue being interested in this "magic" and card world. He will them have a desire to go see shows, watch tv shows about magic, etc.
Good stories with secrets = interest!! Slim |
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zaki_rafih99 Regular user 164 Posts |
Cats
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Philippe Noël New user Belgium 71 Posts |
Hi Panlives,
Who really cares? Either you are part of it and good for you or you are not part of it and the good new is that there is so much good material published that you can live without underground material. |
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Philippe Noël New user Belgium 71 Posts |
Talking of Underground material, what do you think of a man like Frederik Braue who received the confidence of Charlie Miller and broke this confidence to publish Expert Card Technique with Hugard.
Is he an angel for sharing with the magic community or a devil for having broken the confidence? |
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jimvines Regular user Brooklyn, NY 161 Posts |
The card workers underground is more something from the older generation, as the new young card guys all want to sell their stuff (as they should!).
Magic & Mentalism
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Darth_Prime Veteran user 322 Posts |
All the talk of "Magic Community" is quite false as there are 'Circles' that begin that shut out the 'Outsiders'
It's quite the 'Vicious Circle' at that because in order to be 'In' they have to 'know and trust' you... yet a lot make themselves 'Inaccessible' to anyone 'Outside' Their 'Circle' So it goes Round and Round But even if there is "Underground Material" how much would it differ from what has been released? how many ways can you 'Palm A Card' before it's all the same palm? |
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magicfish Inner circle 7004 Posts |
There most certainly is. But there's nothing happening there. See Ammar's essay entitled The Mens Hut .
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MortenN Veteran user Norway 338 Posts |
No, YouTube killed the "underground"! There are few or no secrets kept.
I know for sure an "underground secrets" that lay hidden in YouTube to learn tricks to a select few, until a mole began and spread the link. -M- |
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MaxfieldsMagic Inner circle Instead of practicing, I made 3009 Posts |
Yes, there is. And you can get it on DVD here: http://www.magic.org/store/product_info.php?products_id=4796
Now appearing nightly in my basement.
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zaki_rafih99 Regular user 164 Posts |
A friend of mine who is in one of these underground groups showed me some stuff for about 2 hours that's was all from this group. being familiar with a lot of card magic.. it baffled me completely. and I consider myself an advanced card guy. he really is one of the best in the world and up there with forte, turner and ortiz etc.. and it was cool and also frustrating to see.
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