Gee Harry H ... How'd you get back on here?

Penn and teller are OPPORTUNISTS ... Not Magicians since they've broken the Magicians Code and don't deserve to be called Magicians.
Kind of like a Soviet Spy in the US selling our secrets to the Russians and then wanting to be called a good US citizen ... Just doesn't make sense

Scum School just gives away tricks so Go-Daddy will pay for the content and hit rates.

I hope that Psychic Samurai is joking? =D
Or he is an Geekician rather than magician..

Hi Harry !!!!!

I'm not Harry, I'm Jose from Taikuutta.com
Someone's being a bit paranoid...

Right
So you do nothing other than call people GEEKS ... WOW ... Look in the Mirror

An early holiday gift for you all! The current episode of This Week in Magic features both Banachek & Danny Garcia !

Link: http://bit.ly/7mQRzm

Banacheck responds to questions on Project Alpha, discusses exposure and tells us what's coming in the update to PS1.

Wow, there is allot to think about on here.

First, I would like to say that I have been enjoying the "This Week in Magic," Interviews. I am listening to them out of order, which I think is an enlightening way to hear them, because of some of these controversial issues. My favorite was the new years episode, that was a priceless piece of radio. WELL DONE!!

You (and by you I mean any member of the show panel) keep referring back to the issue of exposure, and I find it comical, because its the other conversations that make the show fantastic, its like great dialogue broken up by someone asking the question "what do you think of exposure." So The Interview Question I would like to propose, is what about another kind of exposure. So often people try and get a performer to work for a discounted rate, or for free, with the wonderful excuse, "It is great exposure for you." This happens in many art forms, not just variety arts. I would love to hear the panel's thoughts on this.

Personally I go by the comeback I first heard from my good friend Cardone: "Exposure is something people die from." I believe that artists should be compensated for there work. Although compensation is something interesting to define.


Now. I have to throw in my two cents on the other exposure stuff. I listened to the Brian Brushwood episode for the first time today. He was very intelligent and had great advice about booking shows and the business side of this world.

Yet,,I just got done watching a few episodes of his show. Started by watching the controversial one ahead episode, and that seemed a little of a sell out, then the book test episode, which was funny because it would never play that well anyway. But it began with the statement that he was teaching it because someone asked about another book test. I was surprised he exposed how to escape from thumb cuffs, and then I watched the other escape bits as well. Afterwords, I just feel a little sick about the whole thing. The uneasy feeling comes from my questioning his intent. My own ethical feelings towards what he is doing stem from the reflection that I would not do that. It seems as though he got offered a sweet deal and he took it. I imagine they compensate him well, otherwise I don't see any reason for what he does here.

There is the argument that only people who are interested in learning what he puts out there are going to go to the sight, and I see what people mean by this, but at the same time, if there was not a decent flow of traffic, netflix, the videogame rental company, and godaddy would not be spending money to support him. He has a good business reason to keep exposing things to the general public, and he will most likely keep doing it as much as possible. And I just don't like that. I teach children magic in after school programs, and the first thing I do is make them take an oath that they will never reveal the secrets, and explain that they should never try and call out what is going on when another performer is working. It is that second part they have a hard time getting. People just love to be the ones who know stuff. young and old. And they love being able to say, after the show, "I'll tell you what he did, he had this ..." as you leave the table or the group or the stage. And it doesn't matter if they rely know or not, they will believe whatever they believe, and their friends will believe them. I don't see this show dealing with that human desire. Why expose a strait jacket escape? (so people will get Netflix and rent the tape perhaps?) And why in the process talk about the Lethal Weapon 2 scene with the escape as misinformation as though you are enlightening the audience? He makes it sound like magicians should be more open with their secrets, and not use the fact that people believe different things to their advantage.

Which is more preferable, a group of people watch a straight jacket escape and then afterward one says, "what they do is they dislocate their shoulder, I read that somewhere," to which the friends will most likely wonder why someone would go through such a thing. OR
"its not as hard as he makes it look, I learned that on this online show, they had a clear jacket, you could see everything."

If you begin to perform something and someone knows the method, or thinks they know the method, part of them will shut off, just like what happens when someone starts telling a joke you know already. Secrets are precious. That is why when (and it has happened to everyone on this forum,) we have that experience where we open a deck of cards and just at that some boob says, "Ohh I know this one." we are forced to slightly change the gears or say something so that everyone understands that Bob does not "know this one." Unless he is psychic, And we need Bob the boob to understand that too, so he will be engaged in the experience and not just waiting for what he thinks is going to happen to play out.

(That is unless he is thinking that "this one" is the ambitious card, because if that is the case he will be correct at least 60% of the time.)

On the flip side am I worried that my business is going to be hurt by any of this.
No.

What I don't like hearing, which I seem to hear over and over again, is that all these things are good because they bring more people to magic.

Why o Why do we want to bring more people to magic. The only people who gain from that are those who sell effects and books, or have shows like the one we are talking about.

Actual performing magicians don't gain from there being more magicians.

Part of what makes magic magical is that you don't see it all the time.

If we all didn't have one of these computers, it would be magic.

To throw my thoughts in... I very much enjoy the podcasts.

P&T are very much magicians


And caps lock is pretty much the MO

Thanks Stuart! I agree. We never intended to spend as much time discussing exposure as we did. I'm glad that we've finished that cycle and have moved on to other things. Glad you're enjoying the podcasts and I appreciate any and all feedback from the listeners. After all, I am not doing them to hear myself talk.

Who would you like to hear from in future episodes of both the "Spirit of Magic" & "This Week in Magic?" I've asked this before in other places, but love to keep getting suggestions. If anyone tosses a name in the ring, please tell me why you'd like to hear from them and what topics or questions would you like to have them address. You can email me at magicnewswire@gmail.com or PM me here if you don't want to post to the forum.



I know that this wasn't directed at me and that PS isn't around anymore to read it anyway, but I am the first to confess to being a geek. Fortunately, "Geek is the new black." ;-)