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Philemon Vanderbeck Inner circle Seattle, WA 4694 Posts |
If your magic truly has meaning, then you're telling a 'story' (even if it doesn't begin with "Once upon a time...").
It's how you get that 'story' across to your audience that determines whether the 'event' or 'trick' you are doing is perceived as 'magical'.
Professor Philemon Vanderbeck
That Creepy Magician "I use my sixth sense to create the illusion of possessing the other five." |
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A l a i n B e ll o n Veteran user 302 Posts |
Hmmm again a debatable issue on what constitutes a story and what does not. But it's beside the point what we call it.
The issue at hand is the fact that some presentations of magic can create: 1)dissonance of premise between presentation and effect and 2)make the magical phenomenon subservient to a metaphor. And I think these factors lessen the actual magic. The route I am arguing in favor of is one that: 1)creates coherent premise of presentation and effect 2)creates a personal conection with the participants and 3)focuses on the magical event making it appear as real. Furthermore, my contention is that REAL MAGIC, not trickery, is intrinsically meaningful as it has bearing on the workings of the universe we live in. I do agree with you, it is how you get the "message" across to your audience that determines whether an event is perceived as magic or not. But the how is the complex part. -Alain Bellon |
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Greg Arce Inner circle 6732 Posts |
Alain, you are right about people coming away as if they had just experience a real psychic event. I did a study of this in the late seventies and saw an interesting thing happen. I would do a complete mentalism show in my psych classes and after devastating them I would then say, "I'm a magician and what you just saw was not psychic in anyway. " I would even pull out a Tannen's catalog and show them some of the same tricks in there and quote the prices. Now, here's the interesting thing: Do you think they came away thinking, "Oh, it's all a trick." No. Most came away thinking the opposite. They thought I was a psychic who was somehow trying to fool them by saying it was all a trick. I did this experiment for over a year in various classes and the results were always the same... people have blind faith when it comes to psychic phenomena. I got one teacher very upset with me because she was a full-blooded believer and hated the fact that I kept saying it was all a trick. Because of those years I've never had a problem mixing standard tricks with mentalism. Another point I made before is that I've noticed that some people start thinking that my card tricks are now easy to perform because I can read their minds and always know what card they picked. Believe me that I don't want to change anyone's opinion on how they perform their magic... as long as you do it well it doesn't matter on the style... people will be entertained one way or another.
There's room in this world for Copperfields, Blaines, Amazing Jonathans, Malones, Daryls, and me and you... watch that you have fun with your magic and your magic will be fun to watch. Greg
One of my favorite quotes: "A critic is a legless man who teaches running."
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Jonathan Inner circle Oklahoma 1223 Posts |
I agree with you Greg. Is the gimmick made by the people who do the loop the X for stopping the watches? If so can you PM me with more info about this?
Jonathan Grant |
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Marc Spelmann Special user London U.K. 666 Posts |
I couldn't agree more it is the experience that they remember and embellish that is important, I do also mix dark magic and mentalism but the way I handle cards during a trick (Illusion) is so far from the total apparent fairness of the mentalism that I perform.. The magic is seen as fun and an optical diversion and the mentalism very straight faced and serious.. This is something I do when I read a situation, if the mentalsim is their thing then I'll stick to it but to say that if you mix mentalism and magic they may assume its all tricks is offensive to the intelligence of you audience.. If you walk in and do nothing but mentalism in the hope they will not associate with magic your fooling yourself as everyone has seen a card trick or magic on television or live and if they want to make that association they will regardless of what you do or claim...
Just a thought M.S.
It's not goodbye, just see you later...
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