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CarpetShark Special user 576 Posts |
Been thinking about this for some time now: at what point, if any, does a coin magician cross the line into cheating ? Allow me to clarify. Purists may believe the use of gaffs is in effect, cheating. Then, as we've seen recently here, there is the other extreme point-of-view where magnets may (or may not) be inserted under the skin to facilitate some moves (still can't believe anyone would actually do this!). What about those who use wax, rosin, etc., or a secret assistant ? Is any of this not kosher ?
My own thoughts are that there is no such thing as cheating, what matters is the illusion and its effectiveness, and not how you produced it. Comments ? |
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David Neighbors V.I.P. 4910 Posts |
It's ALL Cheating !!! You are not doing WHAT you said! I always go by " If it where really Magic How Would it Look! " And then try to get as close as I can! By any way possible! BUT You Have to WHEN To DO WHAT!!!
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inigmntoya Inner circle DC area native, now in Atlanta 2350 Posts |
Quote:
On Jun 30, 2014, CarpetShark wrote: Exactly, with only a couple specific exceptions: (1) Using alternate methods and attempting to pass off the results as pure SOH to impress people. (2) Employing alternate methods during some kind of pure SOH competition. On the other hand, most/all magic is based on some level of lying/cheating w/respect to what's really going on. |
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David Neighbors V.I.P. 4910 Posts |
Yea and on no.1. I would just do it And let the chips Fall where they may! I have found out in the last 40 years of doing Gaff/sight combo Stuff That most people Think You Are Doing Hard core SOH! And I am not going To tell them other wise!!!
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AaronSterling Veteran user 319 Posts |
Quote:
On Jun 30, 2014, CarpetShark wrote: First, some very strong performers have embedded magnets, and I am sure that will be more popular, going forward, among people at all skill levels. Second, regarding cheating, I think there is exactly one kind of cheating, which is: cheating your audience by cheating yourself. It's well known that a performer with great sleight of hand can present self-working tricks better than a performer with no sleight-of-hand. So cheating, to my mind, is giving the effect the minimum amout of work it requires in order to fool people, instead of giving the effect the maximum amount of work possible, and then working on it some more. |
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David Neighbors V.I.P. 4910 Posts |
Yea You Never stop Working On A trick! It's Never Finished ! It can all ways look more like Magic! And that does not meme You don't go out and do it! That's one way it gets Better! I have been some stuff I have been doing for 40 years And I an steal working On it!
And Yea I always say Learn your SOH 1 st. Then when you handle a gaff it will look right! |
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inigmntoya Inner circle DC area native, now in Atlanta 2350 Posts |
Quote:
On Jun 30, 2014, AaronSterling wrote: It is? Since when? Quite frankly I couldn't disagree more. Neither will be successful without presentation skills which must be present in either case for the audience to be entertained. I'll take an entertaining presentation of a self working effect any day over a dull presentation of the most flawlessly executed knucklebuster. The audience should never see/know the method, so all they're left with is the effect and presentation. The effect is the thing. Effect, effect, effect. Entertainment first. Quote:
So cheating, to my mind, is giving the effect the minimum amout of work it requires in order to fool people, instead of giving the effect the maximum amount of work possible, and then working on it some more. I don't disagree there, but that doesn't mean the _performance/execution_ must entail the maximum amount of work. Quite the contrary. The work should be in honing things down to be performed cleanly. I believe Vernon used to cite these quotes: “Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler” and “Details make for perfection, but perfection is no detail” |
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AaronSterling Veteran user 319 Posts |
Perhaps you are misreading me, or perhaps you are spoiling for a fight on the internet. Either way, you are not disagreeing with (just) me. The Presentation chapter in Expert Card Technique makes this point clearly. There is similar material in Magic and Showmanship, e.g., Chapter 9 where Nelms discusses the value of learning sleights; and in Tommy Wonder's essay on building confidence. I could go on, but I think that's probably enough. Not to say you're wrong; general consensus certainly isn't always correct. But your "Since when?" comment appears to reveal a lack of study of the classics.
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AaronSterling Veteran user 319 Posts |
Also, as an off-topic comment, Gabi Pareras published El Efecto explicitly to debunk the false understanding that "The effect is the thing," or that "effect = entertainment." It's a common error among magicians, as he admits, and he proceeds to describe why it's a mistake. His influence on Spanish magicians is a big part of why they are some of Europe's leading entertainers today. And, I believe, the fact that US-based magicians hold onto incorrect theoretical ideas is a big part of why no normal person knows the name of any close-up magician in the US.
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tomsk192 Inner circle 3894 Posts |
Actually, Aaron, what you said is "It's well known that a performer with great sleight of hand can present self-working tricks better than a performer with no sleight-of-hand.
What most of us accept is that combining sleight of hand with gimmickry and self workers creates very strong material. Furthermore, if you place self workers in amongst pure sleight work, the effect is usually stronger, and the procedure less suspect. I would wager that a fine actor with a good script could present a decent self worker to huge effect, however. Tom |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
The sense of cheat that works against us is "appreciation".
If they "know" while watching that it's done using SOH or gaffs... then it's not working as magic. Skill or product demo perhaps but it's missing basic deceptiveness. so while folks can appreciate clever or skillful that's not the same as an experience of magic.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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David Neighbors V.I.P. 4910 Posts |
Yea that's right!
But!!! if you can get them Pass that! And Put the 2 together just Right, And Find the WHEN I was talking about It can look RIGHT! |
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AaronSterling Veteran user 319 Posts |
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On Jun 30, 2014, Jonathan Townsend wrote: Agreed. And this was, very roughly, Pareras's point as well. The effect, i.e. WHAT happened, is the first thing the spectator remembers, so it's easy to understand why the magician would believe it's the most important thing. But magic creation is the creation of the WHY behind the effect, not the creation of the effect itself. So strong magic starts with a strong effect, but then you have to go deeper, to create, in the words of Pareras, the "magical fiction." |
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David Neighbors V.I.P. 4910 Posts |
Yea WHY Is great! But you have to do it at the RIGHT TIME! Sooo WHEN also comes into it!
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AaronSterling Veteran user 319 Posts |
Lol yes, I agree again.
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inigmntoya Inner circle DC area native, now in Atlanta 2350 Posts |
Quote:
On Jun 30, 2014, tomsk192 wrote: That is actually the main point of the section in Expert Card Technique that was referenced. The exact quote is below, speaking about an unnamed magician described as "One of America's finest sleight of hand artists": Quote:
"His experience, and that of many another of the great names of card magic, is that, paradoxically, even the simplest self-working trick is made more effective when the performer has mastered pure sleight of hand. There is a stamp of authority which comes when the conjurer is master of all the artifice of card conjuring and this transmits itself to the presentation of the self working feat" The rest of the section stresses giving even self-working effects the same amount of "work" in terms of preparation, presentation, etc. to perform them properly. It also speaks more about "the expert" vs the "dabbler". In short, it's saying Darwin Ortiz has a better chance of totally frying someone with a Svengali deck than your Uncle Bob. All that said, The chapter on presentation actually leads with: "Master of the techniques which makes his feats possible is an absolute essential to the card conjurer but it is not enough to make him a successful entertainer." And as for the original topic of "cheating", that unnamed expert was said to "use any expedient available to the magician if it will assure him an effective trick" |
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inigmntoya Inner circle DC area native, now in Atlanta 2350 Posts |
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On Jun 30, 2014, AaronSterling wrote: I originally read this as saying that it's "cheating" to use a self-working trick as it requires less "work" (no sleights). Given your reference to Expert Card Technique I now read it as it's "cheating" to perform any trick -- pure SOH, self-working, gaffed, etc. -- without properly preparing. On that I'm in full agreement. |
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Taterini Special user 604 Posts |
[quote]On Jun 30, 2014, CarpetShark wrote:
My own thoughts are that there is no such thing as cheating, what matters is the illusion and its effectiveness, and not how you produced it. I completely agree with this statement. |
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Tom the Enchanter New user Dallas, TX 34 Posts |
I think you can give a gaffed coin to a novice magician and with some practice they can do a trick that will fool people. But if you give the same gaffed coin to someone skilled in sleight of hand, they can do something that looks truly miraculous. And I think you should use whatever means are necessary to fool your audience. Michael Ammar told a story in one of his books about noticing that someone had a lemon tree in their back yard, and so he went there beforehand and gimmicked some lemons to do a bill in a lemon trick, and then later on picked a lemon off the tree and did his trick and of course people were blown away. And I think the same thing applies to using gaffed coins. Take whatever measures are necessary to amaze your audience.
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David Neighbors V.I.P. 4910 Posts |
Yea What I have said For Most Of My whole life in Magic! Around 45 years or so! And you can see that in any of my books! Hard or soft bound!
And The lemon tree Story is Great! |
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