Wow!! Wer'e really hearing from some of the street-magish-haters now! "Inflict magic"?? "Gutter"??? Oooh....take thy beak from out my heart!

To the esteenmed Bill Palmer: Whoever said that street-magic wasn't geared toward making people like you? Of course the street-mage wants his targets to like him......at least, I've yet to hear of one who wants his audience to HATE him. We don't just approach anyone & everyone who meanders by....we pick our marks VERY carefully. Especialy couples, foreigners, and people with children.(make no mistake, kids are the achillees-heel of even the stoniest audience) I might then follow along with them or their crowd a while, waiting for them to say something I can play off of. Once I dive in, I can usually tell within 2 scentences whether or not they're liking what I'm doing, and if they don't, I apologize, and excuse myself. Once theyre watching, I entertain them, and get them to SMILE (ultra-important!), which attracts others, I pull the routine as long as I think it can go, and thank everyone, with an indirect visual suggestion for tips, but more often than you might think, I don't even need to do THAT much....someone drops a buck at my feet mid-show, and that's all the encouragement the others need! Now, you might read that part about the tip, and claim "Well then it's busking!" But here is the difference--> as I stated earlier, busking (MAGIC busking remember) is done in a set area with some degree of set-up and costume/sound, and it's usually done in an area where it is ALLOWED, because with the folding-table & big-hat, the busker isn't exactly difficult for the boys-in-blue to spot & catch. Street-magic can be done absolutely ANYwhere, and anytime. On a ferry, riding the bus, waiting for the bus, in the park, outside a mall entrance....places where it's not allowed, but the street-magish can take-off & blend-in at a momment's notice.

To Michael Baker: My, such harsh words! As I said to Mr. Palmer, we ARE capable of entertaining with a show, it's just that our shows are quite a bit closer, quicker, and more manuverable. If what you're implying is that street-mages are unable to do what a busker does....then respectfully, you could not be more mistaken. If a magician has the guts & wherewithal to approach& entertain a complete stranger in a random setting, than he certainly has no qualms about facing expectant people in an area where performance is allowed and/or common. The question is, could a busker, who's used to having things set-up and relatively controlled, work up the nerve to do street-magic? I will happily walk onto your stage / pitch...would you be eager to prowl the streets?

That is the most annoying behavior I can imagine. I've had people do that to me before and I hate it. There used to be this loser at my pitch a couple years ago. He'd fall into step with couples and start singing to them--right up close--interrupting their privacy. The people wouldn't know how to act. It was really harrassing and annoying and embarrasing for everyone--except this bozo.

About your closing comment: you said that a busker is working in a "controlled enviornment" where everything is set up for him and wouldn't have the nerve to do "street magic." What controlled enviornment are you talking about? What's controlled about the street? Busker's work the street; it's not a fair or festival and it's not controlled.

BTW, I know a great busking magician who works very mobile without a table. He works from his pockets, does cards, rope, coins, silks and he does circle shows that way. But he doesn't chase people and he doesn't duck and hide.

Jim

Hey James, That guy you know who works from his pockets.....HE'S ME!!! (Kidding!)

You'll recall I said RELATIVELY controlled...'relative to what' you ask? To street-magic! And in my closing comments (I knew I was gonna catch it for those words...) I didn't say a busker COULDN'T, I said the question is whether or not he COULD....and I guess you've answered it.....or not. That guy you're talking about who works from his pockets, I suppose he could do street-magic, but according to your post, he doesn't.

BTW....that guy who you said went up to people & started singing....now THAT is WEIRD! But tell me...did anyone ever actually tip him?!?

To give one example of how street-magic can come in handy, there's a place in Frankfurt Germany ('Die geldstrasse') which is the Frankfurt equivalent of Fanueil Hall or Covent gardens. It's loaded with buskers of every description (mostly jugglers and 'statues') and similar to Covent Gardens, they have a system for dividing the avaliable pitches & time-slots among the 30-120 or so performers who show up on any given week. On the days when I didn't get a spot....it was off to the streets! I basicly roamed from one end of that wild town to the other...through parks, subways, markets, you name it, and by the end of this 4 hour oddessy, I'd make between $38-$77. I know that's peanuts compared to a busker's daily take, but it's better than nothing! And besides, it's fun & exciting! I'd see all the sights, talk to people, meet people,....sometimes RUN FROM people, etc.. The coolest was when I was resting outside a library, and this bunch of 6-8 year olds came out from a fieldtrip, waiting for their bus. I started playing with the ballerina hank...it got their attention...the show went on, and I ended up being asked to come perform at the school! It ah...didn't PAY anything....but it was still fun!

How can you, on the one hand, talk about the singer being weird when you say that you follow people around listening to their conversation and waiting for a moment to jump into their conversation? Sounds similar to me. Sounds weird.

I also wonder how much of this you really do. It sounds more like what you immagine this type of magic might be like.

In any case you do sound a little like what Bill described.

FIVE STARS FOR YOU JIM!!! I'm right in step with you on this.

However... let me pump up the volume here. A gnat in your eye is annoying. Guerrilla magic is closer to contemptuous.

To The Mighty Fool: If you would happily walk onto my stage, you might just as easily be able to set up your own. But, I don't want to make any assumptions. I do however, know what it is like to work in unevented locations, without the benefit of table, costume, etc. in order to make enough to keep food on my table. I've done this out of necessity, when a place I worked closed down overnight, and my situation went from having a job that paid me $50k a year, to zero income. I had a wife, and a new baby to provide for, and a life-style to somehow preserve. I was a full time magician, who had made the mistake of putting all his eggs into one basket.

While regrouping, and nailing down the regular, paying gigs, I "hustled" (a term I used then) to augment my income and often to have one. I learned to set up ruses to attract the eye, the interest, and the dollar by "prowling" in bars, and any number of other public places. Still, I managed to work this in a way that people asked me to do more... which is something you very well may have mastered. I never outright asked for tips, but I got them anyway. Why? Because I am very good at what I do. I knew I could make more, and reap later benefits if people tipped me because they wanted to. Understand, I had ways of setting up these situations without people feeling they had done this for any other reason than that it was their idea.

I never had to run from anyone, and was only asked once to leave, when a short-sighted cocktail waitress thought I was horning-in on her tips.

On the upside, in such an environment, I was hired to go to France to work at the Paris Air Show, which I did... for a very fat paycheck. I'm sure I, and most buskers could manage to book a free school show. Be sure you know who you are talking to.

Now, let's clarify the differences between a street magician, and a guerrilla magician. A street magician, at least by my definition, a magician who does a -show- on the street, where people are enticed to stop, to watch, to participate, to laugh, to be amazed, to enjoy, to be glad they did stop, and possibly to give back to by way of monetary compensation, that magician, is a showman.

He is presenting a product and a service combined. He advertises his product by allowing its essence to drift into the senses and the minds of those he hopes will become his audience (or if busking is the motive, his customers). The audience is compelled to stop because of their wants and desires. The bally is attracting to the eye and ear. The show, the performance is attractive to the eye and ear. The product is a magic show. The service is a few moments of entertainment from a magician.

If this magician is a busker, the audience is told that acquiring monetary tips, gratuities, donations, or whatever term is used here, is the performer's goal. Figurative or not, he intends to "pass the hat". A clever busker informs and reminds the audience of this at key points, during the show. The fatness of his hat, while subject to various factors, to great measure, boils down to his ability to hold an audience by way of skill, talent, and other entertaining qualities.

On the other hand... a guerrilla magician is a stalker, a lurker who seeks prey and ambushes them. He is on the prowl for marks. He carefully chooses his targets, because his only possible motivations are money or emotional superiority. He targets his quarry and pounces. His audience are unsuspecting victims, regardless of whether or not the magician can present an entertaining act.

Of course, many people will stop when approached. That's one natural reaction to being trapped. It is a defense mechanism in which the attacked makes a quick assessment of the situation before reacting. Undoubtedly, they immediately adopt a defensive posture. When those same people smile and laugh, I'm not so sure it is because of their incredible delight that a magician just walked into their lives. I'd rather think they may just be relieved that it was a deck of cards suddenly and unexpectedly shoved in their face, and not a gun.

If they "drop a buck" at the magician's feet in mid-show, it may well be to bring their involvement to an end, hopefully causing the hit & run guy to break stride long enough to allow them to escape. Being less easy to spot by the boys in blue is prime indication that this is likely unacceptable behavior; in an area where it may not be ALLOWED. Having to "sometimes RUN FROM people" is also good indication that this particular form of magishing is unwanted by some people, those who have chosen to fight back rather than submit and pave their escape path with tips.

The false glorification given to this type of magic by the TV renditions of it, and the catchy advertising of opportunistic dealers has caused the better part of a generation of young magic enthusiasts to be under-educated in the study of magic. The kid (or other) who hits the streets with a few cool tricks, decides to do this based upon advice given from those who only pretend to do it. Being surrounded by a filming/sound crew doing many takes to get the right stuff in the can is not the real world. The dealers who push this product packaging are not guerrilla magicians, they are business men. The most successful drug dealers don't use their own product, either.

Being a layman approached by such a magician on the street surrounded by a film crew is novel, to say the least... some will choose to hang, some will not. Being a layman approached by a total stranger is un-nerving. This is the society we live in.

This where the difference lies. Noticing a magician performing, or about to perform on the street, is sometimes like finding a hidden, unexpected treasure. If the treasure has value, it can make your day... if it doesn't, you're not likely to feel violated, having you time and personal space hijacked.

To Mr. Baker: That's a pretty inspiring story with a happy ending....too bad you wound up in France though! And thank you for the compliment! I've never really considered myself having 'mastered' anything, but I do have a lot of experience. So....each of us, it turns out, CAN "wear the others' hat" if conditions dictate, and according to that story, the 'street-hustling' method served you quite well in between gigs, which would lead me to wonder WHY you're so vehemently against guerilla magic, but your post goes on to explain. You hate it for the same reason I'll bet a lot of buskers hate it......that ingenuous, goofball-Max Maven-lookalike, David Blaine.

I agree with you 1000% regarding the real secret behind his sucsess on the streets being the fact that he has a FILM CREW with him. People want to be on TV, and they know that the bigger their reactions, the better chance that theyll BE on the video / commercial. (BTW, I put this theory to the test in Daytona not too long ago....check it out in street magic:"I CAN believe how well this worked") Basicly, Blaine takes what we (strett-mages) do, and makes it look as though it were easy, safe, and accepted. It is none of the above. What we do is the RAWEST, RUDEST, most in-your-face form of the magic art which there is. We have to learn to 'read' people, sense their reactions, and disarm their aprehensiveness, then turn it into wonder and glee. So you see, street-mages dislike Blaine because he presents a phony image of our art. The reason so many BUSKERS hate him is (I'm guessing) that even though he ISN'T a street-magish, he does APPREAR to be one, and....as anyone following this thread has probably gathered by now...."guerilla" (street) mages are considered the bottom of the 'magic-food-chain', and regarded with scorn by buskers, Parlor-workers, etc. So I imagine that the fact that some guy who appears to be a street-magish has achieved huge sucsess and become a household name dosen't sit very well with the busking community. But rest assured, WE don't appreciate him either.

And to KrisKline: Yes, I do perform this sort of magic, not as often as I like, but whenever I can, especialy while travelling. And I stand by my comment on the singer guy. Walking alongside someone non-chalantly, hearing them remark to their companion that they need change for a $5, then offering to make change, and using Sanders' 'Visibill' effect to do it...that's subtle & clever (if I may say so). However, just walking right up & bursting into 'Over the rainbow' for no apparent reason .....that guy has issues. What do you think we do...just step in front of someone and say "Watch this!"?? That's a good way to get punched in the face! We read people, listen to them, and insert ourselves in a crafty, and usually amusing manner.

Finally, regarding the "having been chased" comment, yes it HAS happened on one or two occasions...even I mis-read marks sometimes. Once it happened with this guy in Germany: He seemed to speak English, and I made a joke about us being like Punch&Judy....apparently the word 'Judy' is or sounds like a German slang term for 'Jew'. Wow was he ever mad!
The other time was in England: I had caught a mark which built into a nice little pack of about 8 or 10, and one of the girls' names was Elsa, and I made the comment "Oh, like 'Elsa from Chelsea?" I meant Chelsea NEW YORK, but apparently there's a Chelsea in the UK as well, and all these people in front of me were violent fans of Manchester United, which was playing the Chelsea team that week. As if on cue, all their faces turned into frightening scowls, and one of them, who had muscles where most men don't even have places, got in my face and said "Don't you daft Yanks never follow football??!?" And I replied "Uh....you mean SOCCER?"



.............Let us draw the curtain of charity over the remainder of this little scene.

I have been sitting back here quite amused by this whole conversation.

Blaine didn't do street magic. He did a show for people on the street in a show entitled, "Street Magic". That was a marketing device and not a definition of David Blaine's career.

Blaine was a professional strolling magician before he did that special. That is the reason he did the tricks he did. I am a busker and I would buy Blaine a beer on any day of the week. I don't dislike him, most buskers do not have a problem with him.

What most buskers have and have had a problem with in this forum is the guy who bought the elevator from eillusions.com and a couple of Ammar easy to master tapes and now thinks he is an expert. They would come here and tell us all what we were doing was hack, and old, and that they were the brave new way (Yawn).

That is what most of us had a problem with. Now they have their own little spot to worship at the alter of David Blaine and we are all a lot more happy.

As far as "Street Magic" goes as a profession, if you are on the street performing magic and working for tips you are a Street Magician.

I know guys who have done nothing but the coin in bottle for tips and I know guys who have dragged out broom suspensions.

It doesn't matter if you are using "the bat" or the cups and balls. If you are doing it for tips you are busking.

There are a lot of things I have read in this thread about following people around and pestering them that I find quite hack but that doesn't make you any less a busker than I am. It just means we have a difference of opinion on performance style.

I have worked in the subway, I have worked the outside lines in theaters, If there is no venue I will create one. That is my job, that is a busker. I pick the tricks to suit the venue.

Trust me, guys have been doing smaller out of pocket shows on the street long before Blaine and the term "Guerrilla magic" came along. What tricks I do have very little to do with the profession.

It has all been done, this is not anything new. If you are getting tips you are a busker/street magician.

Bottom line is who really cares? If it works for you who cares what anyone else thinks.

Best,

Dan-

Danny has it right. When I worked as a street magician in New York back in the 1960's, it often was too cold to do my show, or the cops were too on top of things for me to gather a crowd. I would do guerilla-like magic bits that involved only one or two people at a hit. These were designed to get a tip from these people, and worked very well.

One of these routines is fully described in my book "Street Magic," and is called the "ESP Survey." I would pretend to be taking a survey on ESP ("Do you believe in ESP?") and writing the answers on a stack of businesscard-sized cards. Whenever anyone stopped and asked what I was doing, I would reply, "Experiments in ESP" and write something down on a card and hold it up with its back to them.

"Name a three-digit number." When they said a number, I would hand them the card, and it had a note saying "You will think of the number 320 (The number they chose)."

I would hand them the card, and ask,"Got any change you can spare to help in my research?"

This bit worked really well, and made good money. Usually five or ten dollars a pop, and often got me taken out for lunch as well--especially by psych professors from NYU. I average $30 an hour on a busy street, and the cops never knew I was there.

Adam Grace and Aaron Fischer have both experimented with this routine on the streets of Hollywood, and found it still works and still gets the money.

So there are times when a circle show or street performance may not be viable, and a good busker will have alternative tricks up his sleeve to survive.

Guerrilla magic can be as annoying and as artless as a bad street mime, but it can also be very artistically done, etertaining, and even sometimes approach the level of a true scam. You can make people smile and get the money in a hit and run style of magic.

However, I would not advise anyone to mimic Blaine's approach. If you walk up to streetwise kids in any big city in America and ask, "Hey, you wanna see something?" you are likely to be shown something yourself.

I worked this with a very small clipboard that had a pencil on a string, and the 5 esp symbols on the back of the clipboard. I also ran some ESP buisness cards out of the printer that had a square under each symbol where the X would go. Cards were under the clip, and a fake tally sheet on the bottom under them. No numbers, just an x.

My clipboard was so small it slipped into the big inside pocket of my jacket and the string sold it. Compact, fits in pocket and can work anywhere you happen to be. No table, no cups, no rope, no edge.

I stopped after a couple of times because I didn't need the dough, but it worked Very Well last fall in the S.F. Bay area.

Get the book, its gold. (very funny in spots too)

To the esteemed Danny Hustle (my, what an honor!):

So ultimately I'm a busker no matter which way I try to slice it hmm? Well.....if you want to say that street-magic is a sort of 'sub-group' of busking, and that, taken in a more general sense, both a table-toting pitch-worker and a wandering hit-mage fall into the same magic 'species', I guess I can't really argue against it. Because after all, thinking even more generaly...we're both MAGICIANS. But you said it yourself..."...difference of opinion on performance style" So even if we are in the same general classification (buskers) no one, after seeing us each in action, would have any trouble determining which was a pitch-busker and which was a hit&run-busker. I'm just really glad to see that you and some others have a considreably more tolerant attitude than other buskers I've met out there. (OUT THERE...not in here, though judging by some of the posts, if I ever DID encounter one or two of the buskers in here, I doubt their reaction would be freindly!) You sir, are a class-act.

To Whit Haydn:

Always a pleasure to see a street-magish who made it big! I'll have to see about that book of yours, and the ESP idea sounds great....the one angle I've never yet used in any of my shticks is mentalism.

Well, in conclusion, yes allright, fine. Busking & street-magic are a bit closer to the same thing than I originaly stated. And even though my stereotype of busker's attitudes towards street-mages has been vindicated by some posts, it's been lessened by others. I guess ultimately, the relation / connection between these formats of magic, is very much like a magic effect itself, in that it's NEVER as simple or obvious as it may appear. Well....I guess I'd better be getting back over to the street-magic room before I'm missed. Can I just say, you have a REALLY nice room here! You should see ours....it's a MESS!!
Arividerci!

I was actually going to mention Whit's ESP routine that is found in his great book on Street Magic. One thing I like to do while busking is, if all the best spots are taken, as Might Fool said in one example, I can still work; I don't do hit and run, but I set up my table and do close up. I get pretty good crowds too. I also tend to get more fives doing close up.

Jim

Oh no.. There is no sub group. You and I are BOTH buskers. The exact same. A busker is anyone who puts on a performance in a public area for tips. <---period

This can be the street, a bar, a movie line, presidential inauguration, anywhere. It doesn't matter. If you are working for tips you are a busker-street magician. <---that period again.

It gets worse ( ) as far as our title "busker" goes we are also the same as jugglers, statue workers, mimes, musicians, song and dance acts, etc. etc. etc...

A busker is not a magic specific term. And here in the US for many, many, years a busker who performed magic was just called a street magician. Among actual working street magicians we still are. The term busker is one that is usually used by us here on the internet. The only reason we use it is because of the attitudes and vehemence of the two tape, no book, blainiacs, who own a folding coin and an invisible deck and decide to scream and stamp their little feet any time we describe what we do as street magic.

If a person has been doing magic for six months or a year they should really think long and hard before they tell someone who has been working in the field for 20 or 30 years that they don't know what they are talking about.

It isn't just street magic, it is all magic lately. With video and DVD it has made it VERY easy for anyone to order a few Ammar tapes on the internet and learn some "good" magic. This sense of immediate fulfillment makes a lot of these people feel as though they are the most talented, and smartest, magicians that have ever been.

The internet gives them a voice and they come to places where guys who have been doing the real work for most of their lives are insulted, put down, and generally given the business.

They look like idiots to everyone but the guy in the mirror.

If a person does not have 50 or 100 paid performances for real people under their belts they should not have an opinion. They should be listening, and asking questions. This is a great way to avoid looking stupid.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard some young "expert" holding class about Ammar's Triumph or Ammar's Ambitious card I would be a rich man.

Mike Ammar goes way the hell out of his way to give proper credit where credit is due on those tapes. Believe it or not the guy is trying to teach something about magic and not card tricks. When he says Dai Vernon and tells you about Ganson's book it is his hope that you will actually go out and buy that book and learn about magic and not card tricks.

If you can not do 10 or 15 minutes of mind blowing magic with out a deck of cards or a pocket full of crap you have no right calling yourself a magician in my opinion. Never mind a street magician. I can do my act from a garbage can if I have to and I have done it that way to prove a point.

Magic, all magic, is something you should have in your possession 24 x 7. If a burglar wakes you up in the middle of the night, holds a gun to your head, and says, "Do a trick." You should be able to do something right then and there. You should not be asking for a deck of cards (buglers HATE card tricks by the way).

In my opinion, that is magic, that is being a magician. Your "venue" could be anywhere, your venue is meaningless. Can you be magical, and can you be entertaining, right now.

This is not to say you shouldn't or can't use gimmickry in your shows but if you want to be a serious student of magic any kind of magic. You should know the history, the methods, and posses the ability to be "on" at a moments notice.

This is just my opinion and may not reflect the opinions of anyone else in the world and I apologize for going into a full blown rant. Please not that I am not talking about You (The Mighty Fool) none of this may apply to you personally. But, MANY if not most of these conversations are borne from a person who decides to teach when they should still be learning something.

I have been working in magic off and on for the better part of thirty years and I try to listen and take advice at least as much as I try to share my own thoughts.

Posted: Nov 4, 2004 9:36am

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Just one of the many reasons why Jim is the man. If you have Cellini's the art of street magic part three: Boston (How's that for a plug Koz?). You can hear me and some of the other guys say the same thing.

Where we have the advantage over other street workers is when the big pitch is full we can scale down and work a smaller pitch, when the smaller pitches are full we can do walk around, when it is raining we can go into a bar, the subway, or a mall.

Magic is completely scalable. If you have a table act, a walk around act, containing 6 or 12 tricks in total, and you posses an entertaining personality and character, you can always work. I can tell you from experience that there is no finer feeling than being able to make money when everybody else has to stay home.

Best,

Dan-

Very good points.

I, of course, am new to all this, and although I sometimes have my opinions, I hope that I at least try to listen to the pros on this issue. You have caught me with a few minor mistakes here and there, particularly over at Penguin (I sometimes think that it is a losing battle over there. I don't think I had even seen the term busker until I mentioned it after reading some of the books on Gazzo.)

But, I do try to spread the gospel. You and many others have been a great help to those of us who have been bitten by the bug.

(Popping back in)

I know Danny said that the comment wasn't aimed at me, but just for the record, I've been doing this (on & off) for 17 years, and across 13 countries. But I'll admit, I've been flummoxed at some of the ideas, gimmicks, and concepts which I've encountered in here since joining. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but the truth is, I'd never even heard of a 'topit' before coming here. Actually....I STILL don't really know what one is exactly.