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daffydoug Eternal Order Look mom! I've got 14077 Posts |
So your new to magic?
Welcome! You'll find that the majority of experienced magicians are very friendly, helpful and accommodating. ESPECIALLY in this little restaurant that exists in cyberspace called  the Magic Café. This is the BEST place to talk magic, and I think you will find your search ends here. Of course, magicians, although we pretend to possess powers and abilities that we really don't, are still only human.  So, there are a few stinkers in every crowd, but that's life. Just let negativity roll off your back like water off a duck's back, and focus on the positive and you'll be fine. I want to talk to you a bit about where will your journey in this world of magic, new to you, may take you. Where will your journey into the magician's art take you? Where will your new interest in the venerable field of magic lead you?  Here is my answer: I don't know! Are you dissapointed? Well, after enjoying the art of magic for decades, I can honestly say I don't know where your journey will lead. Nobody does! There are countless factors that make your situation totally unique and different than any other person's. These factors include your personality, your aptitude, your age, your status, your desire and ambition, your financial situation, etc., etc.  Every individual is totally unique! But what I can do is give you some food for thought. Perhaps spark some ideas and give you a bit of inspiration. I can tell you this unequivocally: The field of magic and illusion is wide and as vast as the earth. There is enough in magicdom, to keep any mortal busy for ten lifetimes! There is so much that, if you ever get bored, you can easily find a new facet of the art to explore. Really, there is no excuse for getting bored with the world of magic! I envy you. For you are starting a new journey with a fresh vision. You can see magic through new eyes, and that, my friend, is your greatest asset. But let me caution you: You will probably save your self much wasted effort if you take the time (yes read it again: TAKE THE TIME) to read about and study the greats of magic;  the great magicians of magic's long and distinguished history as well as the classics of magic. When I say "classics" I'm talking about the many effects (it's preferred to call them effects rather than "tricks") that have endured the test of time. There is more to it than just pulling a rabbit out of a hat! (For the younger generation pulling a rabbit out of an empty top hat is a very old classic of magic that many still hold in their mind as a representation of what a magician does. ) In fact, yours truly here has done it himself many times, even creating my own unique methodology, but that is niether here nor there. There are so many great classic magic effects that it would take a good sized book to describe them all. What are they, you ask, Well, off the top of my head, there are the linking rings, the cups and balls, the torn and restored newspaper, dove productions, the classic sawing a lady in two and the broom suspension,  and the list goes on and on. There  are vanishes, productions, transpositions, suspensions, color changes and levitations. There are magic acts specializing in productions of silk handkerchiefs or thimbles, and some performers who produce doves and candles, or even billiard balls. Magicians can make objects seem to appear or vanish, ranging from a coin, to a bowling ball. You have no doubt heard of David Copperfield's vanish of the Statue of Liberty, and maybe you didn't know that even the Space Shuttle has been caused to "vanish." As a beginning magician, it's important for you to know that you do not need to compete with the grand illusionists! You can totally wow people by the simple vanish of a small borrowed object without expending  millions of dollars!  Pick a venue where you may fit. There is parlor magic, stage magic, close up magic, street magic nightclub magic, banquet magic and children's shows. Magic can and is performed in dozens of venues. These venues include, but are not limited to: birthday parties, scout meetings, weddings, corporate events,  schools libraries and restaurants. Magic is performed on the street and on the stage. It can be performed in the living room, in bars and at corporate events. Magicians can specialize in larger, grand illusions (such as David Copperfield or Lance Burton, or in street and TV magic like David Blaine or Criss Angel. And yes, even the field of escaping from various restraints such as the great Harry Houdini is a branch of magic, too. I reccomend study, because you must become knowledgable to succeed, and  it is a really good feeling to be among a group of magicians, and if one of them mentions "The Dekolta Chair", for instance,  you can immediately and intelligently join the conversation and not find yourself  left in the dark!  You need to find a magic hero to follow in their footsteps. Mine was Doug Henning, and although I still retain some of him in my presentations, I've grown to the point where I'm just myself and not an impersonation. I'm not telling you to impersonate the great magicians of the past, or even any modern magician, but until you discover exactly who you are, imitation is a way to begin. It's at least a start. The important thing is to evolve and eventually  just become "who you are."  And I'm also  not suggesting that you master every classic magic effect, (that would take decades) but if you study to make yourself knowledgable by reading about men like Houdini, Kellar, Thurston, and Duninger, you will be building an indispensable FOUNDATION in the art of magic, and for a possible career. I'm also here to tell you that becoming an accomplished magician is going to take some dedication and work! There is no easy path or shortcut! You may be a whiz kid and excell pretty quickly, but most likely, like many of us, you will need to explore and try different facets of the art, changing your face many times, trying on different magic "hats". until you finally discover where you "fit." Don't be discouraged! It is just a growing process, and you may have to endure it, bumping your head and taking a few lumps along the way. But you can do it! If you love magic, the path will make itself clear to you. I have to go, now, but maybe we can talk again later and maybe I can even give you a few good laughs with anecdotes of some of my early "comedy of errors" that were my first magic shows. Good luck and good magic, Daff
The difficult must become easy, the easy beautiful and the beautiful magical.
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Jesse K Regular user Finland 133 Posts |
This is just what I (as a beginner) needed! Encouragement!
I respect your words, Mr. DaffyDoug and thank you! |
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Good! You are still with us!
I hope you are wandering around this Café and getting acquainted.
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Jesse K Regular user Finland 133 Posts |
Of course! I like being here, it's like moving into another world for me!
And I'm glad that you remembered me, I hope I can call you my first magic friend Mr. Oslund. -Jesse K |
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daffydoug Eternal Order Look mom! I've got 14077 Posts |
Jesse
Encouragement is a gift. It's one I posess and freely share. Even I need it from others in magic. It's something you never outgrow the need for. I only wish there had been MORE to encourage me when I was new. There were a few, and for those I am forever grateful. Anyway, you can pm me any time you wish! (If you want to talk) I'm always around. Daff
The difficult must become easy, the easy beautiful and the beautiful magical.
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jarro_2783 New user Sydney, Australia 56 Posts |
Thanks for the encouragement. It helps to know that I don't have to master everything. The 10 lifetimes of effects is somewhat overwhelming, and knowing where to start is hard. I'll just pick something and see where it takes me.
Jarryd Beck, Sydney, Australia
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daffydoug Eternal Order Look mom! I've got 14077 Posts |
There ya' go! Spin the magic wheel and see where it lands. Hint: It would be nice if it landed within your budget range.
The difficult must become easy, the easy beautiful and the beautiful magical.
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
@ JESSE K>>>
TERVETULOA again! New friends are always welcome! Mary Mowder does some very nice card work, she wont steer you in the wrong direction. The Latin expression is FESTINA LENTE! -- it means MAKE HASTE SLOWLY! When you're beginning, it's a bit like being the mosquito seeing his first nudist camp (!) The mosquito thinks, "Wow!!! Where shall I begin??????" You, obviously have begun! Try to stay focussed. (It is not easy!) But, you appear to have adopted an intelligent approach. Learn the fundamentals first. My PM is always 'open' I try very hard to respond ASAP. Of course, I "still only do one card trick", but if I can help you in the broad area of performing magic, feel free to write to me. I can't guarantee that I'll have all the answers, but, I may know someone who can. Yours, 'til someone shuffles the deck! Dick
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
@JARRO_2783>>>Happy to see that you are still "with it"! I'm a bit behind on correspondence! I haven't forgotten you. I'll PM you some time next week.
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
@DAFFY DOUG~~~There are two people in the picture -- which one is youse? hee hee
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Wravyn Inner circle 3482 Posts |
Quote:
On 2013-03-01 21:38, Dick Oslund wrote: If this is the card trick you shared at Glass City Conclave back in the 80's... CARD TO POCKET... I still do it and the enjoyment is shared by both audience and myself. It is unlike others, it is FUN! |
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Hey! WRAYVN! I saw your post a few days ago in which you mentioned something about knowing me. So! That Toledo wk'end! I remember it well. It was a fun time. Artie Kidwell and I shared a motel room and neither of us got much sleep. The magic sessioning continued into the AM.
Yes, that "crazy" cards to pocket bit! You're in good company--Karrell Fox put it in his closeup repertoire, too. I started doing it as a teenager, growing up in Escanaba. There was no one to tip me the work on false counts, etc. but I could palm a few cards. I "invented" (ha!) the "Dick Oslund Cards to Pocket" all by myself! In 1959, Harris Solomon, a former International President of the IBM, wrote up HIS version of the same effect--and it was almost identical with what I had been doing since the middle '40s! He was contributing his version in his column in Linking Ring. Well, I belonged to IBM, so I read through it carefully and noted that he had several ideas on timing that were better than mine, so, I incorporated them into what I was doing. I never got to meet Harris, but I know that we would have become very good friends. We thought alike! I put it in the lecture to make the point that ENTERTAINMENT should be our primary focus. If the EFFECT IS SIMPLE,so that the audience can easily understand what's happening, and the EFFECT IS FUN, so they easily suspend disbelief and enjoy the nonsense that is magic,odds are good that they will be entertained. Definitely, audiences expect that the magician is going to deceive them, but too many magicians stress the deception, and don't seem to realize that MAGIC IS NOT I N H E R E N T L Y ENTERTAINING. I'm most pleased to hear that "youse aint one of them guys!" You have "made my day"! Thank you! Dick Oslund Sneaky, underhanded, devious and surreptitious itinerant mountebanc!
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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daffydoug Eternal Order Look mom! I've got 14077 Posts |
Quote: The intelligent, handsome looking one, of course! On 2013-03-01 21:43, Dick Oslund wrote:
The difficult must become easy, the easy beautiful and the beautiful magical.
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Stephon Johnson Special user Razorback Country 544 Posts |
Thank you DaffyDoug...GREAT SUBJECT!!! And some equally great advice!
One that I wish had been around when I was beginning! It was when I started (70s) and even MORE true today, that there is a MIND NUMBING selection of magic effects out there to choose from! You can literally suffer from "ANALYSIS PARALYSIS" by thinking that you have to find just the right effect before actually starting to work on anything. The opposite problem can happen to: The "TRY ALL, MASTER NONE" problem. You choose something, but ads, magazines and the latest Youtube video constantly screams "This is BETTER!"...so you're forever jumping from one effect to another...and never really perfecting ONE. My saving grace in the very beginning?: My exposure was limited! I had only ONE friend who was my mentor, Internet didn't exist, no magic shops in my town, Bookstores carried only a couple books on the subject (Bill Servern's Big Book of Magic, Learn Magic by Henry Hay, Houdini on Magic were about my first 3 books). That forced me to learn from what I had available. What Artists call a "Limited Palette". So don't fall into the trap of chasing after all the "latest and greatest" effects everyone is coming out with. Look for what has stood the test of time! Don't see them as "old stuff", but rather see that if someone invented it 10, 20, 50 or 100 years ago...and working guys are STILL using the effect or method? IT'S A KEEPER! Learn it, Perfect it, Keep it in your arsenal and make it your own. There will be plenty of time later, when you have a firm foundation of SOLID classic knowledge and skills, to sort out what is the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of all the "latest and greatest" stuff. Trust me, while practicing basics in Cards or Coins or whatever...you WILL discover the occasional thing that truly makes your heart leap for joy even to just "practice" it...THAT, my friend, is how you begin to find YOUR thing, niche, genre, branch - your PASSION in magic.
WHAT IF you wake up tomorrow with ONLY the things that you THANK GOD for today?
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daffydoug Eternal Order Look mom! I've got 14077 Posts |
Brother, you added some really great things that enhanced my original post. This is good SOLID advice for anyone starting out in magic.
Especially what we both touched on concerning FOUNDATION. That can't be overemphasized because it's a principal of life. Just as in building a house, you need to start out with a sound foundation, or eventually the whole structure will collapse, or succumb to the elements. I used to absolutely LOVE reading books or watching tapes about the great magicians of the past. I'd end up lost in another world. In essence, I traveled back in time to watch Houdini, Hermann, Blackstone, Thurston, Kellar,  Dunninger and a host of others as they enthralled audiences all over the world with their mastery of magic. It was the most wonderful, foundational experience I could have hoped for. I also read and learned how the great stage illusions of the past were accomplished. I was astounded at the ingenuity that these men displayed in creating these illusions. I think EVERY beginner needs to learn about "Pepper's Ghost" and the "Blue Room." Even though they will likely never present such a thing, it will give them an APPRECIATION for the art of magic. I think if more young learners had a true appreciation for magic's history and past, we wouldn't have all this ubiquitous, blatant exposure going on. Just my opinion. Part of my foundation was TV. The old Ed Sullivan show regularly featured magic acts, and they were good! They had only a couple minutes to get on stage and wow the audience with a stage or manipulative act or whatever. They had no choice but to be good! I learned a lot from those guys. Mark Wilson's Course In Magic was also foundational for me. I actually learned and used many of the routines from that book. The sponge ball routine is still with me. A lot of the routines may not be exciting by today's standards, but the book is FOUNDATIONAL. I know I use that word a lot, but only because it needs to be inculcated into the minds of beginning magicians. I don't like to see any body fail, but without foundation, any person eventually will. After we magicians are only human. So beginning magicians, listen up!  This is your drill sgt. here and we're in magic boot camp. Are you listening? It's FOUNDATION, FOUNDATION, FOUNDATION!!! Now drop down and give me 20 double lifts!!! :)
The difficult must become easy, the easy beautiful and the beautiful magical.
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Stephon Johnson Special user Razorback Country 544 Posts |
Doug,
One book I read my first year into magic was "The Master Magicians" by Walter B. Gibson. It dealt with all the greats: Robert Houdin, Baltier DeKolta, Hermann, Thurston, Dante, Chung Ling Zoo, Houdini etc...like mini-biographies. I was So SO affected by these stories! It connected me to a Legacy, a tradition. For the brief time I read, I traveled with these people, and was their close confidant & student. As with any endeavor, I believe it important to have a "romantic" love of an art form. It drives us through the discipline of practice and failure. It connects us in the journey.
WHAT IF you wake up tomorrow with ONLY the things that you THANK GOD for today?
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daffydoug Eternal Order Look mom! I've got 14077 Posts |
You said exactly what I wanted to say, but didn't know how. And what you said bears up under the test of time.
In fact, I couldn't add to what you said, because you hit the nail on the head. Sadly, many young magicians today have no INKLING of magic's history. It's MORE than when Ellusionist was formed!
The difficult must become easy, the easy beautiful and the beautiful magical.
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Hey~~~Stephon and one of those two guys in Daffy's avatar...
Good stuff! I hope at least some of these new guys read it. Yup, you can't build a house from the roof down. FUNDAMENTALS, FOUNDATIONS! (That's why they have "101" courses in college! DAffy::: do you know the complete story about the origination of the RABBIT FROM HAT? Hint: it is reliably reported to have started about 1725. --and a lady named Mary Toft trying to pull a "con" is the one who inadvertently started it. I met Doug H when he was about 17, at Abbotts. He was going to camp out (as most of the young guys did) and it was raining. My friend and I had a big motel room so we invited him to join us. A rollaway cot, was only $2.!I have a picture of him with SHORT HAIR! We were friends until his untimely death.
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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daffydoug Eternal Order Look mom! I've got 14077 Posts |
My gosh! That is absolutely entrancing! I would have given ANYTHING to have known Doug when he was young. This is before he became the Doug we know and love. What was he like back then? Was there any hint in his personality and such of what was to come in his future? Anything that presaged the very MAGICAL Doug he was destined to become?
I know these are weird questions, but I gotta know! I loved that guy. He was truly my hero.
The difficult must become easy, the easy beautiful and the beautiful magical.
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daffydoug Eternal Order Look mom! I've got 14077 Posts |
I will never, NEVER forget him performing Fickle Nickle as his first opening effect on his first special. I was SPELLBOUND and filled with wonder. From that moment forward, I was hooked for life.
The difficult must become easy, the easy beautiful and the beautiful magical.
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