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daffydoug Eternal Order Look mom! I've got 14077 Posts |
Spectators don't, or at least shouldn't realize, but their are inherited illogicalities in just about all magic effects. Our job, our mission, is to help steer their thinking in another direction so that these things never occur to them.
For instance, if I could really make a coin vanish, I wouldn't have to do it in my closed hand. If I could really do it, I could hold the coin on my open palm, and you might see it slowly fade, bit by bit, becoming ever more transparent by the second, until it finally faded from view. Now that would be real magic! But of course, we have the illogicality of having to make it vanish in our closed hand, or perhaps instantly vanish as we toss it in the air, or some other ruse. But amazingly, the spectator never seems to realize this illogicality. That is of course, because we are good at out job. Or, if I could really restore that torn dollar bill, perhaps you would see the bill gradually mend, as the tear welds itself seamlessly together slowly from top to bottom, bit by bit, fiber upon fiber.. Any others you can think of?
The difficult must become easy, the easy beautiful and the beautiful magical.
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weepinwil Inner circle USA 3828 Posts |
People must suspend their disbelief to truly enjoy magic so they must overlook these illogical things. I never understood why someone would want to rip a perfectly good card or bill.
"Til Death us do part!" - Weepin Willie
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daffydoug Eternal Order Look mom! I've got 14077 Posts |
I suppose as magicians we all have some points to prove!
The difficult must become easy, the easy beautiful and the beautiful magical.
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
The notion of "accounting for the magic" is critical if you want to come across as a magician.
Some of us don't close our hands when we make coins disappear. There is no great reason for unmotivated illogical or awkward handling.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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evolve629 Inner circle A stack of 3838 Posts |
Of course, the challenge for the magician is to utterly and completely separate the effect from the method that the audience has no hope of reconstructing the method after the trick is over.
One hundred percent of the shots you don't take don't go in - Wayne Gretzky
My favorite part is putting the gaffs in the spectators hands...it gives you that warm fuzzy feeling inside! - Bob Kohler |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-08-01 22:21, evolve629 wrote: For the audience, there is only effect. Quit putting the method in their face or mind, they have no interest.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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daffydoug Eternal Order Look mom! I've got 14077 Posts |
Some of them, perhaps.
The difficult must become easy, the easy beautiful and the beautiful magical.
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George Ledo Magic Café Columnist SF Bay Area 3042 Posts |
Jonathan and daffydoug wrote:
"Quit putting the method in their face or mind, they have no interest." "Some of them, perhaps." Are we pretending to do magic, or are we showing puzzles? If we're showing a puzzle, then of course "they" are going to want to know how it's done. If we're doing magic, then the "how" is irrelevant. It's one or the other. You pick. IMHO, we have to stop thinking that a) lay audiences think like magicians, and b) that we're performing for people with a "magician" mentality. If we're performing for magicians, then we have to accept the fact that they'll want to know how it's done. Because they will. Period. If we're performing for lay audiences, then we gotta think in terms of "we're doing magic." Because even though some of them will of course want to know how it's done (and that's a fact of life!), our purpose is not to show a puzzle, but to pretend we're doing magic. And if we're doing magic, then there should be no "how" besides magic.
That's our departed buddy Burt, aka The Great Burtini, doing his famous Cups and Mice routine
www.georgefledo.net Latest column: "Sorry about the photos in my posts here" |
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KyletheGreat Special user Georgia 560 Posts |
This is why I try to examine my effects and remove as many illogicalities as possible...sometimes it is hard to do, but it makes the magic more realistic....
Illogicalities exist all throughout magic... daffydoug...you talked about making a coin disappear in your closed fist...would it not be illogical to make a coin vanish in the first place? Why do we put a card in the middle of the deck just to find it again? Torn and restored newspaper...tear up a paper just to put it back together again...but why? Most magic is totally illogical...but it has to be that way or nothing would be happening. Magicians are entertainers...we are just suppose to show people a good time...that is all...regardless of what is logical and what is not. |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-08-09 15:53, KyletheGreat wrote: Without character, motivation and setting, all is chaos. What do you suggest?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-08-09 15:53, KyletheGreat wrote: Magic is extremely logical. What you are pointing to is a lack of emotional hooks and motivations for the character. There is nothing illogical about any of those things you mentioned in and of themselves. The magician claims to be able to find a card that is unknown to him and lost in the shuffled deck using his magical powers. He then offers proof--he does it right in front of the spectators. The magician claims to be able to deconstruct something and restore it as good as new. He then offers proof--he does it right in front of the spectators. These claims and logical proofs are the nature of the game. That is what magic is all about. Proving the existence and possession of extraordinary, noteworthy, or magical powers and abilities which we do not, in fact, possess is the logical and perfectly understandable premise of the magician. That is what the audience expects, and is generally the presumed motivation for the performance--it is a demonstration (or proof) of magical effects. Why he is trying to prove he has these powers, why he wants to demonstrate them, and why the audience should care are all different issues of character and motivation. The importance of consistency and logic in procedure is necessary to avoid weakening the argument that we are trying to make. If one uses an illogical procedure--book test instead of having the spectator just think of a word--he must find what passes for a logical justification for the procedure in order to keep the spectators from questioning and rejecting the argument for the proof. Our procedures should be as logically consistent with our proof as possible, and when we must do something that might appear "suspicious" or inconsistent, it must somehow be justified or the attention of the audience directed away from it. |
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Beth Loyal user Missouri 277 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-08-08 23:45, georgefl38 wrote: I totally agree with this...George I think we must have been twins separated at birth or something lol...I think that we as magicians have sometimes gotten so caught up in technicality and the love of skill that we forget that the audience cares nothing about how it is done. Instead of presenting magic as a puzzle I think it should be presented as real magic. Think about your first experience with magic, perhaps as a young child. I'd guess you had no clue how difficult the technique was. If you were like most of us, you cared only about the beauty of the illusion.
"All creative art is magic, is evocation of the unseen in forms persuasive,enlightening, familar, and surprising."
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
I don't agree at all. Almost every magic trick is presented as a proof. It is the audience's job to analyze the proof and decide if magic was "proved." It is not about the audience figuring out a puzzle, it is about them deciding if you have proved what you claimed you could.
It is not a puzzle, because puzzles are supposed to have a solution. Magic tricks are supposed to be unsolvable. If done right, the audience should have the conviction that they have seen something magical that has no other logical explanation. To come to this conclusion, they have to consider the evidence of the argument and to consider alternate explanations. The degree to which spectators involve themselves in the argument depends on the degree of conviction that the magician is able to evince in his forceful presentation of the argument, and the spectators' resistance to accepting or acknowledging that something they know to be "impossible" is actually possible--the logical conflict created by this dilemma causes discomfort known as cognitive dissonance. |
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chrisrkline Special user Little Rock 965 Posts |
I am thinking about my earliest memory of magic. It was a cutting a women in half. I suppose there was a new version, a more amazing version, every year. I do remember that I "knew" how the trick was done, but every year they changed it just enough to make me scream in frustration (metaphorical here, folks) "how did they do that!?" I could not have been more than ten. Even then I was thinking about the method. I was not researching it in the library, or losing too much sleep over it, but I definitely thought about it. That is why magicians added new, more incredible, sets of convincers to the trick with every new version.
I suppose when I was younger, I might have only been impressed with the beauty of an effect (I still am, on one level,) but I am not sure it is magic for someone that young when they can say, "Yea, you changed all of the aces to kings; where is the rabbit out of a hat?"
Chris
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George Ledo Magic Café Columnist SF Bay Area 3042 Posts |
Okay, so we're having a healthy disagreement here...
I see your point, Whit, but I disagree on a couple of issues: First, your comment that "It is the audience's job to analyze the proof and decide if magic was "proved." In my experience, most audiences haven't read their job description and don't bother analyzing the proof. They either like the show or they don't. Second, "To come to this conclusion, they have to consider the evidence of the argument and to consider alternate explanations." Again, from my own experience, most lay audiences do not sit around exploring ways of doing the tricks. Sure, some do, which is what I said above, but most are too lazy to do so. As we say in theatre, "If the audience starts thinking about the scenery or the lights, there's something wrong with the show." I do agree with you that "If done right, the audience should have the conviction that they have seen something magical that has no other logical explanation." But I don't agree that we need to "prove" that we're doing magic. I don't believe we need to ask our audiences to work at exploring ways of doing the tricks, just so they can convince themselves that they can't figure them out. Because if we're doing magic, we don't need to prove anything.
That's our departed buddy Burt, aka The Great Burtini, doing his famous Cups and Mice routine
www.georgefledo.net Latest column: "Sorry about the photos in my posts here" |
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chrisrkline Special user Little Rock 965 Posts |
The thing is I am having trouble thinking of an effect that doesn't contain "proofs" that we have done magic. I don't know that it always requires an active analysis on the spectator's part, but at the end they can still feel convinced. If I bring a box on stage and pull some hankies out, that is not magic, no matter how beautiful it is. Why do magicians always show the box empty, if not as part of a proof? In any case, maybe it is enough in some cases to establish this proof just to be clear of what the starting conditions of a trick are compared to what the final conditions of the effect is--as long as it is also clear that no ordinary means could lead from the initial to the final conditions.
Take for example a strait matrix routine. The opening condition is established (four quarters and four covering cards are shown in separate positions on the table.) At the end, all coins are under the last card and yet at no time did the coins seem to travel from one card to another. That is established by the fact that the cards were in sight the whole time, the magician never touched the coins, and nothing obscured the spaces between the cards. This effect is only magical if these conditions (and others) are met. It would not be magical if a cloth covered the whole set-up. It may be true that the spectator never thinks about a specific method a magician might use to accomplish this effect. I don't think that is always required. But they will think about normal methods a person might use to move a coin from card A to card B (e.g. openly picking it up) and if those normal methods are not eliminated, then they will notice. And they will more often then we imagine think about the sneaky moves we do use (up the sleeve, palming, false transfers,) which is why we often roll up the sleeves, show hands empty, etc.
Chris
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George Ledo Magic Café Columnist SF Bay Area 3042 Posts |
I think my biggest issue is the idea that we need to "prove" that all possible explanations are incorrect... and maybe I'm reading too much into this.
Showing the box empty is certainly proof. It's empty. Just like in the first Harry Potter movie, when the broom starts out on the ground before he says "up!" and it rises. To me, showing the box empty is just a way of setting up the scene for the magic, just like starting out with the broom on the ground. If I were to do real magic, I wouldn't need to go overboard to prove it's magic; I'd just do it. Harry (or, in reality, the movie's director) certainly didn't need to pass a hoop over the broom. In that movie, we accepted it as magic. Here's where I absolutely agree with Whit. If the magician's conviction is strong and appropriate enough, the effect will read like magic.
That's our departed buddy Burt, aka The Great Burtini, doing his famous Cups and Mice routine
www.georgefledo.net Latest column: "Sorry about the photos in my posts here" |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-08-10 09:53, chrisrkline wrote: I can't think of a moment where I do any proving in any routine. It's supposed to be magic and when the action happens or the result is obtained... what is there to prove?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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chrisrkline Special user Little Rock 965 Posts |
Well, without giving secrets obviously, can you give an example? For example you do your three fly routine. I do not do this and have never seen you do the effect, but clearly at some point the three coins are in one hand and at some point later in time, they end up in the other. This is proof of magic in that there is no clear "ordinary" method you could have used to transfer the coins. In other words it is clear you did not just place the coins from one hand to the other.
In a cups routine, magic does not occur if I claim a ball vanished from what the spectators believe to be an empty hand. If they are not convinced that the ball was in the left hand first, waving the wand and showing the hand empty is not magic. I do not explicitly have to prove anything, but they must be convinced of the truth of certain assumptions for the magic to happen.
Chris
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-08-10 11:12, chrisrkline wrote: Okay, let's use that trick, and since the Kohler gaffed version is the most accessible version for most folks, let's use that in specific. When I found out about the trick, I sent him a note to address a dramatic issue as regards the "look at the coins" dead time. Here is what I suggested: Effect, three coins make an invisible trip from the fingertips of one hand to the fingertips of the other hand. Mechanics... pretty much what Bob offers with a couple of TINY additions to bring the MAGIC to the forefront. On your table or nearby is a glass of water. Nice to take a sip between routines. When the coin appears in your "catching" hand, you put down the ones in the "sending" hand and pretend the arrived coin is HOT. You bounce the coin from hand to hand and drop it into the glass of water, acting relieved. You fish it out after a moment and proceed to the next coin. It arrives, but is still hot to hold and so you dip it in the glass for few seconds too. The last coin transit would be what is shown in Bob's video except that the coin arrives HOT and (silver conducts heat very well) almost burns your hand... so all get dropped into the glass. You then take the glass with coins and offer to a volunteer who is probably happy to report that the glass is quite warm. The method on this part is simple, you get a glass of cold water from the venue staff at the start of your act and instead of having it refilled later, they bring you over a glass of boiling hot water on the tray with the pitcher. The idea is the hand to hand transfers are motivated by the supposed heat of the coin. All throughout there is no proving and all props are evident and in open display as far as the audience is aware. This also handles the gaff issue as most people are not going to fish around a a glass of hot water for some coins. Does this example help?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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