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kosmoshiva Loyal user Canada 255 Posts |
Yes, yes.
The point being that the primary motivation is mutual enjoyment of the illusion, with a secondary fooler thrown in to poo-poo the naysayers. And though a lot of thought goes into that secondary 'convincer' moment, it's not as if either of these two gentlemen you mention would perform without it. I mean, where do you stop? We are not privy to other people's minds; we can only guess at their logic circuits. There's the story of the guy who, when shown Card Warp was blown away - "But when did you rip the card?" Or Losander's story of the guy who was convinced he was using magnets for the dancing wand... Me, I'll always clang the swords together regardless of whether people may think they're collapsible or not (I like the sound) ... but I won't build an effect around the need to disprove the muggles.
Don't forget to breathe.
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The Burnaby Kid Inner circle St. John's, Canada 3158 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-07-31 00:23, kosmoshiva wrote: I don't think it's necessarily that cut and dry. For the first performance of any trick, or the first phase of a multiple phase trick, sure. But one of the things that is going to make any trick re-watchable is the mystery that can come from solid deception.
JACK, the Jolly Almanac of Card Knavery, a free card magic resource for beginners.
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kosmoshiva Loyal user Canada 255 Posts |
Andrew: With all due respect, if you keep focusing on the puzzle part of an effect as much as you have in this thread, then I fear the result will be that you'll train your audience to want an answer to the riddles you're posing, because everyone knows that the answers are in the back of the book somewhere ...
Good luck.
Don't forget to breathe.
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The Burnaby Kid Inner circle St. John's, Canada 3158 Posts |
Heh, I'm not quite sure how to respond to that...?
There isn't a whole heck of a lot of work devoted to this specific aspect of magic theory. Aside from Juan Tamariz, Darwin Ortiz, a bit of Al Schneider, and some things Whit has written about both here and in the SFS products (finish that book, Whit!), the concept of deception at the deeper levels doesn't seem broached all that much. We've got tons of tricks, a lot of great work on presentation, but deception, not so much. When it comes to magic, I want what everybody else wants, to entertain my audiences. I've got plenty of magic already that does that. The thing is, I also want to make sure that they don't know how I did it. That means re-evaluating what I've got that I know plays well, and to make sure that I can make it as deceptive as possible. It might mean as little as throwing in an extra Ramsay's Subtlety at the right time. It might mean as much as abandoning an effect altogether. Lately I've been getting a lot of repeat spectators, including some people who are asking for specific tricks that they saw before and liked. I had the jump on them the first time, but the second time and the third time, etc., it's not quite so simple. What's more, I busk, so sending people away disappointed because I won't repeat the coin flurry isn't an option. Well, I suppose it is an option, but I need to eat.
JACK, the Jolly Almanac of Card Knavery, a free card magic resource for beginners.
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-07-31 19:39, Andrew Musgrave wrote:... I disagree with the underlying frame of that assertion. Consider how it would sound if you were told by someone who walked into a novelty prank shop for fussy collectors and expected to learn about the methods and techniques of humor? And theory, too? Will wonders never cease! Magic is about creating momentary belief, some conviction about a situation and a little creative use of things which are not quite as they seem. If one sincerely wants to learn about belief, one can travel to places where beliefs are installed and perpetuated - the lands of rhetoric, politics and religion await. They can come back to the joke shop anytime after and will recognize familiar patterns - but also risk some disillusionment as "what one wishes to believe" is not the same as "what one finds convenient to believe," or "what one wishes others to believe that one believes," or "what is most efficient to believe," and those don't even live on the same floors of the Jacques Barzun's House of Intellect or Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. No surprise that sentiment most often trumps reason. No surprise that reason often serves to justify belief. Is it any surprise that how one looks at a picture is greatly affected by the frame around the picture? So in most plain language - there is a long history of exploration and codified discussion of how to elicit beliefs, appeal to the inner values and ideals of others, how to create beliefs and how to get others to want to propagate beliefs. Old news - and it was old when the Ancient Greeks started writing it after having it in oral tradition. It was old news when applied to mass media and very old news when it bothered Orwell to the point that he tried writing about it in ways folks could explore at their own pace. For the most part, the tricks of our craft are designed to encode some of the findings from the paragraph above and (IMHO, more importantly) offer amusing ways of letting folks laugh as inoculations of harmless surprises are offered as light entertainment. Nobody has to go home believing that a deck of cards is really an oracle trying to tell them what to do next. Nobody has to leave the show believing that the bottom of every cup is really a door kept locked to keep hungry imps from eating everything in sight... well, unless you want to take some responsibility for what happens when you do such a thing. If one wishes to learn about how character drives mannerisms and how mannerisms drive others perceptions of a person, off to the theater they go to get lots of help and experience creating characters and bringing them to life onstage for audiences. That's another traditional path toward learning about how what we believe we know about a person is connected to what we believe we know about the world they live in and how they seem to relate to that world. Or, one can wait for some who frequent the joke shop to find ways of teaching those things using whoopee cushions and Elmsley counts and nifty trick thingies which become expensive collectors items. Right, that sounds like self deception. But it's also a fun distraction that serves many, and even profits some.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Congrats on having repeat audiences, and of them some who make requests to see routines they've enjoyed. Attention to your audiences can lead you to keep the things which work and explore new things they tell you would work.
May your voyage of discovery lead you to new places.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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The Burnaby Kid Inner circle St. John's, Canada 3158 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-07-31 21:56, Jonathan Townsend wrote: This seems divorced from the topic at hand, Jonathan. We were (I thought) talking about hiding the secret, not the reasons why we hide the secret. That's a larger philosophical question. If somebody goes home believing in the truth of what they saw, in my mind that's as silly as somebody going home after Jurassic Park and believing in dinosaurs. It's not my goal in this discussion to examine how to establish the traits of my performing character as fact, it's my goal to figure out how make sure that they have no way of knowing that I know the card next to their card (for example). Sleights, methods, subtleties...these things are the vocabulary and grammar of our art. The intention of this discussion was to figure out how to get the best, most effective use out of them, to the point that they become truly invisible, leaving no hindrance in the conveyance of the performer's artistic message, to remove the last bit of scaffolding around the sculpture so that there is nothing left but the sculpture to admire. The intention wasn't to examine some sort of meta-art whereby these things come to the fore and dominate (the pure puzzle, the magician fooler, etc.). That's a natural by-product of any study of core principles, sure, but we don't have to toss the study of those core principles out the window just because we run the risk of giving more than safe amusements to our audience. In fact, that's when things start to become interesting, no?
JACK, the Jolly Almanac of Card Knavery, a free card magic resource for beginners.
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The Burnaby Kid Inner circle St. John's, Canada 3158 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-07-31 22:21, Jonathan Townsend wrote: Thanks. I blame the sponge balls.
JACK, the Jolly Almanac of Card Knavery, a free card magic resource for beginners.
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Andrew, you just missed the boat. Really. Go back and read that post about how to explore the roots of magic again.
Do you really expect to learn a deep theory of humor by looking at fake dog poo in a joke shop? Why deceive yourself? Anyway, that is pure self deception. Own it and enjoy it. Then if you wish to explore, try looking for other places where humor is used to great effect (hint - not in joke shops) to find out what has worked and how those who use it discuss it. Art is not about paintbrushes or brands of ink - those are just tools. And yes, that bit about some beliefs most folks do not hold was put there for a reason. A distraction for those who need it and a marker for those who want to explore the tools.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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The Burnaby Kid Inner circle St. John's, Canada 3158 Posts |
Well, then I'm lost, Jonathan. I had no idea that posing the question I did was the equivalent of looking for comedic theory through a study of rubber dog-poop from the joke shop.
Live and learn, I suppose.
JACK, the Jolly Almanac of Card Knavery, a free card magic resource for beginners.
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
For those who need things spelled out:
Quote:
On 2008-07-31 22:22, Andrew Musgrave wrote:... NO, NO and NO. Really. Those things have no existence for our audiences and so are irrelevant to their experience of magic. It's not like juggling, or even music, since it's how they feel about what they are seeing and what they are wondering about (belief in contrast to perception) that we use as our medium. As you pointed out, it's at a different level of cognition than music or the visual arts - and most other performing arts.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-07-31 22:41, Andrew Musgrave wrote: Learning can be a good thing. Finding oneself feeling lost can also be a good thing. I promise that any path I trace in these discussions leads from practical reality to practical reality by way of known and traditional stepping stones. If I wanted folks to be compliant or genuinely lost, I'd suggest they read between the lines in "Erdnase" for spells used to enchant decks of cards before use in card games and some numeric codes in the text that lead to self-empowering chants. Instead, you can read paths marked by things to explore and learn about and use as you see fit. Learning the easy way. All your choice. "But what about those funny examples you use sometimes, Jon?" you may well ask. They are there to serve as balance. For those who wish to be mystified, they are mysterious. For those who have followed the path as described, just an example to consider. My intent is simply to offer balance and ecology for the reader.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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The Burnaby Kid Inner circle St. John's, Canada 3158 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-07-31 22:44, Jonathan Townsend wrote: That's largely supposed to be the same way with writing, actually. When I was off wasting my university education studying fiction writing, we learned that there are different levels of audience appreciation for any given text. Take a novel. The least sophisticated level of understanding is of plot. The next one up is an understanding of character. The next one up is an understanding of theme. The final one is an understanding of style. It's that last one whereby there's an open appreciation for the specific word usage and all the minutiae that goes along with it. For the rest, those choices are meant to be invisible, serving no role other than to create what's necessary for the reader to appreciate (the plot, the characters, or the theme). I brought that approach to understanding audiences with me to magic. I see spectators out there who really want to dig into what they see. They don't want to accept that the coin is gone. They want to know where it went, how it could have gotten there, etc. These people essentially deny the effect that was given to them. That's fine and completely understandable given what we do. But just like the writer who carefully chooses his vocabulary and grammar so as to avoid using the wrong words or else dump out a mess of unfortunate alliteration or what-have-you, giving a presence to things best kept in the background, for me, in magic, I want to make sure that there's no bad choice of choreography or a bad thumb movement or what-have-you to distract them from the effect. I don't want evidence of sleights and methods to enter the mind of the spectator. I want them to appreciate what happened, how what happened makes us feel, the potential meaning behind it...and leave the appreciation for the sleight-work (or lack thereof) to any magicians who might be watching. As such, I absolutely believe that sleights and methods are to the magician what vocabulary and grammar are to the writer. That's where that analogy comes from. And now, we're very much off-topic.
JACK, the Jolly Almanac of Card Knavery, a free card magic resource for beginners.
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Quote:
The final one is an understanding of style. Um... what about the literary theory stuff, including analysis of the author, their context, the ideal reader and the presuppositions required for the text to have relevance, much less significance to a reader. Or...what about a text which changes the reader in a designed way (i.e., rhetoric) or one that uses 'underhanded' means to affect the way the reader will act in some predetermined and designed situations later on? What about Borges notion of the Tlonist writers whose works are designed to realize a fiction and whose novels include both the thesis and its antithesis? ( That was a balancing example. ) Misquoting from Lovecraft: The waters here are dark and deep, and I have miles to dive before I sleep.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-07-31 23:16, Andrew Musgrave wrote:... Agreed. IMHO, the question can also be phrased something like: "How can I learn more about what makes a situation or condition believable within the context of 'me performing magic for audiences'?" Is that closer to what you want to explore?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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The Burnaby Kid Inner circle St. John's, Canada 3158 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-07-31 23:25, Jonathan Townsend wrote: Theme for all three (although the second is iffy). Basically, it's an appreciation for the abstract forces at play in a text, although it's generally understood that these things are made manifest in the plot and character choices, as well as sometimes the stylistic choices. One need not confine themselves to a single mode of appreciation, though. I would so love to abandon this side-dialogue, though. We've gotten quite far off the topic of deception.
JACK, the Jolly Almanac of Card Knavery, a free card magic resource for beginners.
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The Burnaby Kid Inner circle St. John's, Canada 3158 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-07-31 23:32, Jonathan Townsend wrote: Not exactly. An exploration of those things, while of course valid, can be applied across any number of effects. Instead, I want to assume that if one has the ideal situation with the perfect synthesis of performer, audience, venue and effect...how can one make sure not to blow it through poor routine construction or method and let the audience know that the coin is probably just in the other hand. This requires deception.
JACK, the Jolly Almanac of Card Knavery, a free card magic resource for beginners.
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kosmoshiva Loyal user Canada 255 Posts |
(Hmmm... Borges...)
Back to the original post: I'm reminded of Douglas Adams' instructions on how to fly: throw yourself at the ground and don't hit it. Or, if you don't want the audience to think about pink elephants, don't mention them. Even grey ones. :)
Don't forget to breathe.
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Michael Kamen Inner circle Oakland, CA 1315 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-07-27 01:37, Andrew Musgrave wrote: Andrew, given that deception is a fundamental requirement of producing a magical effect (and ignoring any fiddle-faddle to the contrary), would you word your question differently now for clarity, or leave it as is?
Michael Kamen
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The Burnaby Kid Inner circle St. John's, Canada 3158 Posts |
I don't think I would change it. Obviously things get complicated when we broaden the context to magic effects, but from the standpoint of pure deception, I'm wondering if that's the Holy Grail.
JACK, the Jolly Almanac of Card Knavery, a free card magic resource for beginners.
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