I got a kick out of a lay reviewer’s comment one time that David Blaine was the only magician he ever saw that didn't come across as a total dork. Reminds me of Penn & Teller’s comment that magicians are “greasy guys in tuxes with lots of birds.”

Now this is funny, because I thought David Copperfield had a “hip” persona, but maybe that was then, this is now. Seems odd that of all the millions of magicians out there, and dozens of well-known magicians, so few would be seen as “cool” or “hip” nowadays.

Why do you think this is, what does it say about magic, and is there anything that magicians can or should do about it?

Get on the streets and LISTEN to real people. Then open some magazines or look on TV for what people are wearing.

Houdin took magic from wizards costumes to evening dress.Blaine took it from Vegas costume hip to hip-hop.The more the magician seems "just like us", the more effective and deceptive his material seems to be.

Was in my boxers performing pk silverware! whatever your audience like! lol

Robert-Houdin and later on Charles Bertram moved magic from story to ordinary. Mark Wilson did the Pat Boone thing, Doug Henning, David Copperfield, David Blaine and now Cris Angel have brought contemporary sensibilities to magic. Angel is a very tame cross between Trent Reznor's (NIN) and Marilyn Manson's recent images.

One could take the theme as "wizard steps out of story book to visit our world in disguise as one of us", and go Randolph Carter (Lovecraft) from there.

I haven't been hip since 1968.

Media defines what's hip...and that's a shame in a way...u've got cosmopolitan, vanity fair, GQ, FHM, etc....and for our magic community we have David Blane, Criss angel and the likes...

Sorry guy, I don't read Red Book, Cosmo, Vanity Fair or GQ. But I bet the folks I ask about style do. Maxim? Stuff? ...

What happened to Copperfield? When did he stop being cool? Is he just too OLD? Or was he never cool?

Magicalartist : cool is something subjective....little minds (and I wont take it back) are TOLD what is cool...anyways, what's cool to you is lame for others and vice versa...so you cant really define cool!

and Mr, I just gave the magazines as an example just to pin point one way of how "robotized" and "hypnotized" most people are...we live in a world where you are told what to dream about and dictated what to say...some of us are aware of that fact and just don't play along...

you don't have to dress in a gothic way to be cool, you don't have to dress like david blain/p diddy or jiggy ma widdy to look cool... I saw peter marvey perform this winter, he didn't dress "cool" but his performance was cool....all that counts is your performance! (my opinion)

Bingo!

This morning, I had two different teenagers I performed for tell me I was "cool!"

It must have been the performance, because when I'm not performing, I'm invisible to them.

I rest my case! lol

Magicians of today can entomb themselves in a block of ice. That's pretty cool.

I agree with pkg.

Yes, he is.


Posted: Oct 13, 2005 10:40pm
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We need magicians who are relevenant, not just those striving to be fashionable and cool. Not all of us read People magazine and adore celebrities.

I work two different college bars these days, of and on, and have done the past fourteen years at Northwestern University's Dance Marathon (the longest running student-run charity event in the nation) and, at 53, I regularly get told that I am the coolest thing that they've seen.

But the act I do at Dance marathon is the hypnosis show, so of course they would say that...!

Magic, especially close up magic, if entertaining and interactive, is inherently cool to most people. It's reviewers who are clueless as to what's cool for the general public, in my experience.

Lee Darrow, C.H.

Correction to my post above: There are 2 cool magicians: David Blaine and Lee Darrow, C.H.

The very fact that the post asks; "Is Blaine the only cool magician?" Is uncool. I believe todays vernacular is hip or hipster.

He was never thought of as cool. He was always generally regarded as something of a dork. Actually, after his last TV special a couple of years back, someone told me "he doesn't look as dorky as he used to", so maybe he's on his way to becoming a "cool old guy".

But I don't know where people got the idea that he was ever considered "cool". People thought the illusions he did were "cool", but he himself was slouching toward geekdom. Does no one remember the gasps from the general populace when he married a supermodel?

Posted: Oct 14, 2005 4:13pm
P.S. No offence, David. I always thought you were cool.

Cool and hip or hep are two different things.

A.

If you have ever been to a Copperfield show you would know that he is the very definition of cool and this is coming from a teenager, of coarse it is all scripted and written by the best writers out their so its all an act, and from what I hear David is a very shy individual in person. Never the less Copperfields the man!!!!!!! at least when he performs