I looked around in the other forums and didn't see this topic so I'll start it.


Anyone know what they are going to show?

And if you saw it...

What did you think of it?

Whats next? Secrets of the Restaurant Magician?

I missed this! When did it come on? *** those Fox people. They are trying to make money tearing down all that we do.

But in lighter news, it should just push us harder to be better.

I have a friend who is a so much better magician than I, and even though I KNOW how he is doing the things he does, I can't even "catch" him at all. Now that's a kind of talent to work toward.

Priest

Just found this:

http://magic.about.com/library/weekly/aa022300a.htm

Its on tonight on Fox (Monday Sept 9th) @ 8:00. Check local listings for channel.

Unless your David Blaine this show is of little concern to you. They do have a pretty interesting reveal of banachek's psychokinetic time using, well I won't spoil the surprise for you but you havt to see it to believe it. This show was so underwhelming that when it first aired no one in the magic community even cared how the masked idiot really was. Does anyone know if anyone bothered to find out who he, or the other masked stage magician was?

Ouch! They are really trying to tear down Blaine.

Look what I just found:

Comes on tonight at 9:00pm. And so by tomorrow I'll know what NOT to do!

-Priest-

So there are back to back 'secrets revealed' episodes tonight? One for street magic and one for the ice block?

Here is from the about.magic article for the street magic:

A List of the Tricks Exposed: (Some I won't explain or go into detail, for obvious reasons.)

The Ashes Trick — A great effect, but this one is already in many magic books and even on this site, Magic & Illusion. You can read my version here.

The Vanishing Coin — This used a device used by some magicians. It's a shame this was exposed, but I don't think anything was lost. If you can perform this correctly, you shouldn't even worry about it.

The Riffle Card Glimpse — Used a method that is easy, but it can be done better with another method.

Shinkoh's Twisting Arm Illusion — I know that some magicians would really like to twist off his arm for showing this one. This, like the Balducci Levitation, is a very good impromptu effect that kills.

The Rising Cards — Another good commercial effect. Well, do it a different way, that's all! Unfortunately, the lay audiences will think of this method and think it's done that way anyway! (That's the real harm in these shows.)

The Psychological Number Force — Hmmm. It's too bad this was exposed. I use this a lot, as do many mentalists. Pity. [One note: I did think that showing the outtakes was a brilliant idea on the director's part. It still stinks, though.]

The Switch — Too convoluted a card trick for "street magic". I prefer Daley's Last Trick instead!

The Swami — d amn.

Ashes on the Arm — d amn, d amn.

Bringing a Dead Fly to Life — Yeah, it was exposed. So what? Who else does this one except geeks and Blaine?

The Time Machine — This is a great trick, but I ( and most others) do it a completely different way. The Masked Magician used this incredibly complex (but neat) gizmo with remote controls and such. Probably cost him a bundle. Trust me, the pros don't do it that way!

Psychokinetic Match — Chazpro might sell a lot of these things in the next few weeks. Just don't do this near anyone with a pacemaker — you may kill him.

Cigarette thru Quarter — Okay, that was a good one, but smoking is bad for you anyway. Do Cornelius's Pen Thru Anything instead!

Tearing the Head Off a Live Dove — Yeah, this is a real practical "street magic" effect. Doves in the open on the streets. Why don't we just pick up a pigeon and do it? Yuck.

The Balducci Levitation — Sorry to see this one go, too. Like the Twisting Arm, it's a great "do anytime, anywhere" trick. It was nice, however to see them expose Blaine's cheating using camera tricks. In my opinion, I don't think camera tricks have any business in a magic television show and this was a big, BIG topic of discussion from David Blaine's first television special.

Is this the end of magic? I am watching the show as I write and I'm in total horror! The entire tone of the show seems be that all magicians pass themselves off as a god or superhuman and you have to be able to expose them by knowing their tricks! Mark Thompson's narration is horrible!

My question is can't FOX be sued by exposing marketed effects?

This is absolutely disgusting! It seems like someone over at Fox has a personal grudge against D. Blaine! Just about every effect revealed has been shown on a D.B. special... the problem is some of these effects are currently in use by many of us in our own shows!! I personally use the "two card monte" card effect to open my card routine ...now I have to junk it because of some jack *ss network exec. that thought..."cool, we'll expose this David Blaine fellow and make a mint while we're at it..." not even caring that they are ruining the livelihoods of many magicians...not just because they may use one of those effects, but because of what was mentioned before about giving magicians a bad image.
Sorry for ranting, but this really stinks!

Peace

i wached this... i could go on for pages abought how upset i am, and how much of a disgrace ALL of the masked magi's are to the art, but i wont, if they need to go out and wreck magic for evryone because they couldent make it work for them, let it happen. it just pushes us to find new fresh magic to amaze people with.. some of those tricks were great.. im sad to see them go.


Peelz

The only thing I have to add is, I'm glad I had to work tonight, so, I missed it. It would have made me sick to have to sit through it!!

I was really looking forward to showing the twisting arm illusion this winter... grr

I'm a bit worried that since they've run out of the big stuff to reveal, that we might see episodes #2, #3, #4 etc... of the Street Magicians area. There are loads of stuff to reveal there... Cards through glass, rope through body, not to mention more devices like the TT and IT etc..

Oddly enough I generally don't mind the secrets revealed shows. I know you'll all hate me for this but I figured I'd post what I thought just so others know they aren't alone. First off, let's be honest: not that many people watch a bad fox special in the first place. The ones who did were GLUED to the screen. You were weren't you? and you knew how at least half of it was done! So what's really accomplised? Some people get some magic satisfaction (albeit not the kind we like them to have), BUT they also get more into magic. Those shows are partially responsible for MY interest in magic and I now pay my way through school doing shows. As one of my roommate failed miserabley at the levitation he asked me to do some of my stuff and LOVED it. He was still truely amazed and asked for more and more. I drew a crowd fro mthe entire floor b/c of the special. Granted none of the stuff I really use was revealed, but even if some of it does get revealed I have more then 1 trick. I have dozens and dozens of good ones and even fewer people are going to watch and remember multiple bad fox monday night specials. Every magician should also have some simple trticks that are just skill. I'll been palming and pulling quarters from MANY peoples ears and they're amazed b/c I fool them everytime. They, I'm pretty sure, realize the coin was just palmned, but I perform it well and by the time they think to glance at the correct hand, it already came out of thier ear. Oldie but a goodie. We as true students of the art have more of these tricks then you can ever think to perform. If someone asked you to do as long a magic show as you could, doing every trick you can, I HOPE you can go one for a few hours. You should be able to. THink of all the tricks you have stashed in the back of your mind. I'm sure no one else, wathcing the TV specials or not, has seen and remembered all of them.

Go out and learn more, invent more, and practicwe more and you'll all get past it. My heartfelt sorrow to the few whose entire act was shown, but think of the joy you'll get from putting together a new one...

~Spiff

PS I know you all disagree strongly with this. Feel free to attack my thoughts about this (not me), but do it in an intelligent constructive way. Remember, I too do this for a living.

Yea.. after all... why not reveal to all the crazy man handcuffs trick... after all there are so many other ways to do it.

Sorry... just can't see it that way. I don't think Houdini would have liked it either.

I forgot that this was on till it was to late. this morning however, the AM DJ on the radio was all over the show and how cool it was!
atention to magic is good, And this too will pass.
I was going to call the dj but that was 5 am and he has not talked about it since, so I think I'll let it die. it is now 6:30. I nead to get some sleep!

As someone else mentioned, can't FOX be sued for exposing marketed effects?

I would love to find out.

P.

I watched peices of it, and unless you are David Blaine, and want to protect your "Dead Fly resurrection" and some other of your "impromptus", I dont think you would have been too offended by this.

BroDavid

This show was a repeat I think. I didn't see it the first time and I didn't see it this time. I was too busy doing magic and making money.

Don't panic. If you were fooling people yesterday with two card monte and the twisting arm you'll be folling them with it tomorrow.

Exposure has been around forever and it hasn't changed anything.

In the cups and balls routine I do I expose the method and then fool them with it. I'm a magician, it's my job, that's what I do.

It would take more than some dipstick with a bad phantom of the opera mask to put a dent in my show. It didn't hurt Blaine too much either.

It is no big deal and nothing new.

Best,

Dan-

First of all, saying things like it "wasn't so bad" or "could have been worse" doesn't make it a good thing. I agree that in time the memory of an exposure show fades, and only so many people watch it in the first place, and so the exposed tricks are not really ruined forever, as some would have us believe. I also agree that these shows may attract some people into the craft.

Nonetheless, I can't see that such shows on the whole are anything but damaging to magic. You say they helped get you into magic. That in itself is certainly a good thing. But it seems to me that legitimate magical performances are a better avenue for attracting new people into magic. I did not see the entire FOX show last night, but I caught bits of it, and what I saw was very disrespectful of magic--almost like we are all con-men that need to be exposed for the public good. I would feel differently if it was actually meant to introduce people to magic with some educational examples of basic principles from some appropriate effects, and some other performances that were not exposed. That would show respect for what they were exposing, and the exposure would be minimal and for the purpose of attracting new people.

But this is not what I saw last night.



Believe it or not, but many of us have relatively limited repertoires. It takes me many months of hard work to master just one new effect. So while I may have thousands of potential effects stashed "in the back of my mind," that doesn't mean I can just add them to my act at any time.

If they need to expose someone, why not expose someone that claims that what they are doing is real and not a trick like John Edwards or Sylvia Browne?
Magicians never claim to perform miracles do they?

I do agree 100% the commentary was demeaning at best. Magicians are not hookers with VD. We aren't out there doing some great evil in the world and we didn't deserve to be talked about as such. And I think it would be really funny if FOX got sued and Blaine or someone got a big settlement.

That said I stand by what I said earlier. If it take you a really long time to master a trick (and of course it does) I understand that but you outta be working on mastering more then 1 trick at a time. I've been doing magic for only 2 years now and have a good numbr of tricks under my belt. I don't use or even like a good deal of them, but if I really get a great audeince and I feel like I want to keep amazing them and I run out of "A material" I have plenty of great "B material" to fall back on. Of course I never perform tricks that I'm only going to screw up and reveal the secret. That's bad for magic, and bad for what I'm try'n to do.

I forget what else I was going to rrespond to so I'll leave it at that.

~Spiff