Hello John,

Welcome! So glad that "Cardzilla" has finally made it onto the Café floor .

I had the pleasure of spending some time chatting with you during the Convention in Minneapolis, St. Paul. A comment that you'd made really stuck with me. "We, hobbyist are the majority (emphasis mine) in the magic community...I do card tricks, I don't have a Magic Castle act."

What is your perspective on the influence of the "hobbyist" in the past/future of the magic community? How do you think the Art of magic has evolved and is perceived due to the large majority of "non-professionals" in its midst?

Glad to know that you're a fellow hobbyist John!

Bosco

Hi Bosco,

As Eugene says, "the house of Magic has many rooms." I'll limit my response to the close-up wing, card trick room." From a performance side, the main result of having mainly amateurs means that there is a lot more not-so-great magic out there, as well as a failure of self-criticism. But there is also a lot more experimentation and attempt, which is a crucible for progress. On the inventing/publishing side, with the internet and the ease on "putting stuff out there" all barriers to entry have been removed and, again due to a lack of criticism, a lot of not-so-great magic. The information explosion means two things (i) you can't keep up with it all and (ii) you really wouldn't want to. On the flip side, more magic means net-net more interesting and good magic and more progress. The best way to have a good idea is to start with lots of ideas. You just have to (i) be able to tell the difference and (ii) be able to filter the wheat from the chaff.

Not sure I answered the question you asked, but . . .

John

Hi John,

That's a great reply.

I suppose there's always a price to pay. The explosion of new and refinement of ideas among "amateurs" and underground magi have resulted in some nice advancement in the art. Though with the "Not-so-great magic" that is produced and performed price tag that often goes along with it.

Would you consider forums like the Magic Café a place that helps overcome the failure of "self-criticism" that you'd suggested?

Hobbyist are sometimes not looked upon as serious builders in this house of many rooms. I think with contributors like you, the tides of opinion are turning.

Bosco

Bosco,

Dangerous question. Let me just say that I see too much emphasis on "originality" as in "different" as opposed to as in "fresh" or "innovative." Or, even as in "reflective of an individual persona and world-view." There is not enough emphasis on developing a unified theoretical theory that considers the technique, method, persona and audience. Personally, I believe most performers talk too much, that is, with an elaborate "original" presentation, and that most, if not all, card tricks (again, "magic house, close-up wing, card room") should be presented as "magical." But that's just me . . . Reasonable persons may disagree.

John

I think what you've just written, John, applies to practically every art form as practiced today. And I couldn't agree with you more. I think it takes a strong intelligence combined with maturity of personality to present a 'piece' of art that is more than just 'different'. 'Different' often fails to deeply satisfy the human mind. But unfortunately most people seem to settle for 'different'. Perhaps we should be demanding more from the world's artists of today...

John,
Re your comment "The information explosion means two things (i) you can't keep up with it all and (ii) you really wouldn't want to. On the flip side, more magic means net-net more interesting and good magic and more progress. The best way to have a good idea is to start with lots of ideas. You just have to (i) be able to tell the difference and (ii) be able to filter the wheat from the chaff." I think in some of our past discussions we sometimes applied Sturgeon's Law to magic: "Ninety percent of everything is crud." In library science we have an axiom that 90% of the collection is only used 10% of the time. But then, somewhere among that 10% seldom used stuff is some real treasure. And we musn't forget the Wheaties Law: "One man's chaff is another man's Breakfast of Champions."
----- Sonny

Sonny,

Not familiar with the Wheaties law, but I am fairly certain that most of the time chaff is chaff.

Reminds me of Darwin's calculations: If magician follows 90% of the trick, but not the other 10%, you've fooled him. If a layman follows 10% of the trick, but not the other 90%, you have not fooled him.

John

John,

Lol! I wouldn't have imagined my question would be categorized as "dangerous" . Certainly, many new "Original" material is neither clever or entertaining.

The strong "hobbyists" I'm thinking of are folks like Vernon and Marlo.

Thanks for spending the week with us sharing your insights into your brand of clever card magic (specifically, some of our favorite "Bannon" classics). I'm really looking forward to seeing some of the material from Dear Mr. Fantasy fleshed out in B.A.D.

Best,

Bosco