And neither was the masked magician, eh ?

At what point do you draw the line? And when can I crash one of your performances? Oh wait, THAT'S DIFFERENT!

To quote another poster who also had enough of your lunacy: "That is not what I am talking about. [b]Please do not misunderstand me on purpose[/i].

Here, I'll give you a chance to fully defend your specious argument. Please explain exactly what magic principle you think Penn and Teller have exposed with their sawing routine, and please post some links to videos of professional (or amateur) magicians preforming illusions based on that exposed principle.

If you can find ANYONE within the last 3 decades performing an illusion that depends on the principles you claim they've exposed then maybe - that's a BIG maybe - you have a valid point.

I'll wait here.

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Magicwatcher2005. You are explaining this well but as you suggest lunatik seems to be intentionally misunderstanding and/or misrepresenting our position.

Lunatik - Do you really see things in only black and white? Do you not see any nuance at all? We are not condoning exposure for the sake of exposure (ie The Masked Magician and your offer of explaining secrets before a magic show).

Are you a performer? I'm not saying you have to be a performer to have an opinion but if you are a performer I wonder if you have really scoured all of your performances of the hint of any and everything that some tyro may consider his big secret?

You don't do any sucker tricks? You never lead the audience down the garden path only to fool them even worse? I doubt there is a single performing magician who doesn't use his judgement and use what the audience thinks they know to trip them up. Copperfield did it, Blaine, Paul Daniels. In each case their judgement may differ from yours and mine.

I'm not saying it's always a good thing. Some people go too far. Penn and Teller push the boundaries but in this case I don't think they stepped over it. You may but please don't act like it's black and white.

How many laypeople know what Penn meant when he referred to a wedge? That's really something he stuck in there to get a reaction out of magicians and it worked.

Magicwalker, why expose anything to begin with? Are you so shallow that you can't see what you're supporting? Some peoples children..

And mike, in this case, I do see black and white. There is no purpose in exposing methods, not one good example has been shown

Why "expose" anything? Clearly you know next to nothing about theatrical presentation, or for that matter not even much about magic as a performing art. Virtually ANY sort of "proving" that is done in performance could be proclaimed (by a guy with your mentality) to be "exposure".

For example, when a magician bangs his hand on a big sheet metal blade while performing Harbin's Zig Zag he's proving the blade is not faked with n secret door. However, some versions of Mismade Girl actually DO use such a gaffed blade - so by your rationale he's "exposing" gaffed blades with secret doors in them.

Or when a card man seems to cleanly insert a spectator's selection into the middle of the deck (claiming it is now lost) but then goes on to show that the card is not on (or near) the bottom or top of the deck, he's "exposing" that some magicians might secretly move the card to one of those locations (again, by your distorted thinking).

Embracing with your argument further, when any magician says, "Please examine this [whatever] to make sure there are no wires, mirrors, trapdoors, or hidden assistants - as HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of magicians have said, and will continue to say - he's "exposing" wires, mirrors, trapdoors, and hidden assistants. Oh, the horror!

In essence you're saying that anything a magician does to prove he is NOT using a particular method [the audience might otherwise suspect] is a form of "exposure". I can't imagine a more asinine position to take, but it seems pretty clear that's what you're saying. Otherwise you'd answer my very simple question: What viable magic principle do you think Penn and Teller have exposed with their sawing routine? And you would be able to post some links to videos of professional (or amateur) magicians preforming illusions based on that exposed principle.

But you can't answer that question, and you can't find those videos because in the final analysis Penn and Teller aren't really exposing ANYTHING. They're simply "proving" to the audience they aren't using methods that the audience might otherwise possibly suspect on their own. Virtually ALL magicians have been doing some form of this proving forever, and as I stated earlier this entire "outrage" directed toward P and T is much ado about nothing.

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All I'm hearing from you is a bunch of yip yap. P&T have been a big source of controversy over the years with their exposure vids. You're on the wrong side of history, plain and simple. Where does one draw the line? Where do YOU draw the line?

Lunatic, you may be only hearing yip yap but magicwatcher2005 is putting down some very cogent arguments. Clearly they aren't getting through. A few posts ago he SARCASTICALLY scolded Michael Ammar but you responded as if he was serious.

Mike - I'm done with this guy. He seems to love arguing, but is apparently incapable of grasping simple, clear logic. He's willing to attack the opinions of others, but when challenged will not defend his own. Not long ago I read someone else write that "you can educate ignorance, but you can't educate stupid." How true that turns out to be.

Watcher, it seems that you and Mike are the ones without clear logic. There is absolutely no reason for what P&T does on a normal basis, plenty others agree with me. I can only hope and pray to see either one of you performing, I'll be happy to do share some secrets with your audience, by y'all's logic, it'll REALLY enhance your performance and reactions will be over the top!!

As for Ammar, I didn't google him for any exposure videos, maybe they're there, maybe not. But please, the examples given have been pathetic, a 2 yr old could have given better ones.

Well here's a perfect opportunity for you to prove to all of us that your intellect is superior to "a 2 yr old".

You say that the Penn & Teller "Sawing in Half" routine constitutes exposure. I've asked before but I'll ask again: please explain in detail that even "a 2 r old" could understand what magic secrets or techniques they are exposing with that routine. You insist they are, so convince us.

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Out of curiosity, what have they done for magic?
I have never heard of a book by them, I have never met anyone saying to have learned from then, and they are virtually unknown where I am from. I discovered them by mistake when I stumbled upon Fool Us on youtube.

I now know they are famous (in some places), that they are rich, seen on TV, and probably very knowledgeable, but I honestly don't know what they have done for magic that others can dream doing in a lifetime of trying...

P!

Ok, let me break this down for you magicwatcher2005 (and anyone else who may be interested).

There are those among us, and I am one, who believe any real exposure is bad. If you put a woman in a box that is 2' high, 2' wide and 5' long and cut her in half and then show the audience how it's done, I don't care. If you do thin model cutting-in-half and show they audience how it done, I do care. The latter is 'real' exposure. Now you may know, what both of these illusion have in common is the methodology (I make this assumption because you are here, in this room of The Magic Café. And you did not get here without a lot of work and knowledge). So, why the concern? Because no one, I know of, is seriously presenting a cutting-in-half illusion using the 2' high, 2' wide and 5' long box of 200 years ago. ....Same illusion, same method, different equipment. One style is in use now, today and ONE IS NOT.

Real exposure diminishes the value of some other magician's performance, somewhere. And if you don't think the audience has that long a memory, remember, they can always find it on YouTube (that's the nature of the times in which we live).

Doing a rope routine? Why even mention rope with magnets or snaps? Just hand the *** thing out, either at the beginning or at the end; that, in itself, is the audiences' proof and all the proof they need require. Or just do the *** trick and allow your skills to speak for themselves. Those that get caught-up in the routine will still get caught-up in the routine and those looking to solve a puzzle will have still have their theories, but let's not eliminate three or four possibilities from the beginning so they can get closer to the real method.

Doing a card trick? What book on beginning card magic doesn't caution against saying, "This is an 'ordinary' deck of cards"? There's a reason. (Many magicians who should know better, still say this.) If you want the audience to believe the deck is ordinary, just hand out the cards and let the audience handle them, just once, at the very beginning (or several times, as you feel the need) and say nothing except, "Please shuffle these cards" or "Would you please cut the cards?". The audience will get it. If you need a gimmick or special set-up in the deck, learn a good deck switch (there are more that 101) or learn to a good way to ring-in the gimmick or learn how to do the set-up on the fly, between tricks (Harry Lorayne is a master of this).

Going back, magicwatcher2005, you asked “How come none of you are up in arms against Kevin James and Ed Alonzo?” That’s because I, for one, hadn’t seen it yet and I’m guessing that perhaps some others also hadn’t. (Thanks for bringing it to my attention).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vohu-jmyPqU

That exposure is even worse. Unlike P & T’s exposure, mentioned at the beginning of this post, which they did to at least enhance their presentation of that trick, the James-Alonzo exposure was just for a cheap sight-gag with a little cross-dressing thrown in. This is ironic, since, at the beginning of his ‘Floating Rose’ dvd, Kevin James makes an impassioned plea, directly to the camera, against disclosing the secret or pirating his dvd, because that takes money from his family (He even had his son standing next to him). In that context, he was exactly correct. In this Youtube video, he and Alonzo are exactly wrong!

P & T have done a lot for Magic as an entertainment, but less, as an art form. Do more people have a heightened awareness of the ‘coolness’ of magic because of their existence? Yes. Do more people know more of the ‘secrets of magic’ (many still in use today) because of them? Yes again. Have they developed some terrific routines (that they’d rather not have exposed)? Definitely yes!

So, why did P & T really expose the beveled/wedge base?... Why did K.J. & E.A. really expose the cutting-in-half method? Why did Valentino really ‘sell his soul to the Fox Network’? Because it served their purposes at the time to enhance them in the entertainment field and that means they have fatter wallets now then if they hadn’t. They all did it (and do it) with disregard to the poor, suffering magician who worked hard and saved-up to buy that used, $2000. wedge base to help take his material to the next level and maybe put him in a position of getting a little more money for HIS show. The prevalent attitude these days seems to be, ‘I got mine; you get yours’. ‘I’m up here, you’re not’ so whatever I do is OK. Long gone are the days when they had to spend hours to set-up and breakdown their own equipment, struggle with their own sound, lighting, staging and sightline concerns, change into their costume and then do a 15 minute-to-hour long show. Well, success does not make it OK. And money, at least as far as I'm concerned doesn't buy you real respect.

Any explanation someone gives for exposure of magic secrets, as a way to push magicians to better the art, is a rationalization to allow themselves to sleep better at night. They're disrespecting the art form that got them where they are and from which they make money. They're disregarding and minimizing the thousands who came before them, who worked heard, kept the secrets, and strove to improve the art of Magic, and made contributions toward that end without the need of exposure to drive them. Anyone who 'parrots' this 'exposure improves' dogma is naive and being duped. Magic will move forward, change and improve, not because of exposure, but in spite of it. It does so because magicians want to bring themselves into the magic; they want to put their stamp on it. They don't need P & T, Kevin James, Ed Alonzo, Valentino or anyone else, on stage, TV or Youtube, to light a fire under their asses.

So, let's not make it harder on the next magician. He/she may turn out to be the next Steinmeyer, Gaughan, Pendragon, Vernon, Sankey, or Harlan, anyway. They need encouragement and nurturing not to have their efforts undermined by exposure.

Wow. THAT'S exposure (the Kevin James clip). That I DO hate.

TSW Wrote:



And later:



How big would you say that box is?

In regards to your argument about exposure improving magic by pushing magicians to find new methods etc I completely agree with you. I think that is a bogus argument.

On top of that I have also stated that ANY exposure which is given just for the sake of exposure is a bad thing. The masked magician doesn't attempt to entertain he is only dishing out secrets.

We only disagree on examples (Like the Penn and Teller Sawing) where the magican makes a calculated decision to address methods that a good deal of the audience already suspects and then uses a different method to fool them. This generally has the effect of showing the audience that their original idea is in fact NOT how the trick is done.

I doubt there are any performing magician's who don't do this. (Keeping in mind that you have agreed that merely mentioning magnets or gimmicked decks qualifies). I just now watched a video of Bill Malone doing Sam the Bellhop and the first words out of this mouth are "Look at these cards they are perfectly ordinary". I know you said that some who should know better do this but but it is way beyond that. Nearly all performers do it and for good reason.

So what if the masked magician prefaced his show as one that will help people from being scammed out of their money? Would his show then be justified? Are you sayin that any effect can be exposed just as long as you have a good reason to do so? The points that you're trying to make do not make much sense when you think about it logically.

I don't need you to "break it down" for me, TSW - you've already shown you don't understand the simple difference between genuine exposure and the "sucker gag" that Penn and Teller are perpetrating in that video. But thank you for supporting my argument... and allow me to "break it down" for YOU: The Penn and Teller prop is AT LEAST as big as the numbers you say reach a level where you no longer care. So you shouldn't care.



They didn't. The "table" on that prop is so ridiculously thick it can only be seen as a parody by anyone with even the slightest bit of common sense. In fact, anyone in the audience stupid enough to think that prop is the real thing could be shown an actual thin-model sawing and the contrast alone would erase any thought of a "wedged table" from their minds.

In the Penn and Teller routine the two halves are initially separated and the audience thinks they see the assistant's body spanning the gap. Suddenly, that body is "accidentally" sliced in half and apparently her guts come spewing out. At that very moment there is a brief wave of shock, followed immediately by major laughter - because they realize Penn and Teller have been putting them on the entire time.

But in the whole routine there is no REAL "exposure" of any actual principle of magic - at least not one that's been used in the last century or so. The "wedge" reference Penn makes has nothing to do with a genuine sawing prop, and as soon as Teller removes the front section to "expose" the woman's slumping mid-section the table instantly loses 6 or 7 inches of it's thickness (bet you didn't notice THAT part).

Suddenly the prop is ready to fool everyone there (which it does) and there is no explanation offered to give them even a tiny clue as to the REAL thin-model secret (the "hip turn"). In the end the audience readily dismisses anything Penn has "exposed" in the beginning as just part of his elaborate sucker gag leading up to a real fooler.

You're all concerned about "exposure" of a "secret" that would NEVER be used by any magician who didn't want to laughed off stage - hopefully you meet that minimum qualification.

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Lunatic wrote:



Well this is a new justification for exposure. It has nothing to do with the Penn and Teller or any other thing in this discussion. But the answer is that yes that might be a justification ...if it is true. James Randi exposes tricks used by scammers even though these same methods might be used by magicians. I think he is sufficiently careful about it but you are welcome to disagree. It's a judgement call. Life is easy if you pretend things are black and white but they are not.

Lunatic also wrote:



Well you have to have a good reason and you also have to consider the cost. This is an area where there is bound to be disagreement. I just don't see harmful exposure in the examples on this thread. It would be simplistic and incorrect to say that because I am defending these cases I must be in favor of any exposure.

This will have to be something that we agree to disagree. I appreciate everyone's thoughts!

Agreed.