http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/......kien.pdf

Good find. kudos

Magic be the poetry of madness.

:)

The good magic effect must not only seem impossible but should also evoke fairy thinking to satisfy the whole brain left right and centre. The nonsense answer we give our riddle which has no rational and empirical answer caters to the right brain. In current psychological jargon, we have two distinct "minds" which are located as mirror images on the left and right sides of our brains. The "left brain" is the mind of intellect, logic, sanity. The "right brain", contrariwise, is the mind of intuition, insight, myth, dreams, fantasy, the imagination. Certainly we should make the effects appear to be as impossible as we can but also as magical as we possibly can. From reading this essay it seems to me there are a lot simple things one can do to cater to right brain. Coming from a distance for example is interesting as one can dress as if one has come from the distant past or and from a distant land and so on and that is more illusive and mystical than from the present or from where you are.
“Think of how good this would look if I did it with a European accent” as Ricky Jay said.

Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot. that's how we walk.

Its not how we march.

One interesting point Tolkien makes is that a fairy story must be presented as "true," and he puts the word true in quotation marks, as if to show that all readers know what is presented is the art of fiction and not really true, but a literary convention.

Isn't this pretense to realism in fantasy writing interesting?

This convention of a truthful stance in fantasy parallels--but is not the same as--the convention of giving actual evidence and proof of the effect in magic. In the case of the fairy story, the convention of a truthful stance ("truth" in quotes, only an appearance of truth known by the reader to be fiction) includes verisimilitude, while in the case of magic real deception of the senses (while still presenting a fiction) is involved.

The context of Tolkien's point that the story must be presented as "true" is a passage in which he shows that tales which are framed as dreams are good art in a faulty frame, not worthy to be considered as fairy stories proper.

"There is one proviso : if there is any satire present in the tale, one thing must not be made fun of, the magic itself. That must in that story be taken seriously, neither laughed at nor explained away. Of this seriousness the medieval Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an admirable example."

Here in a passage on page 16, Tolkien discusses the relative merits of "fantasy" and "drama," two arts he does not believe to mix well. He makes alludes to "conjuring" as low class in the process:

"I once saw a so-called 'children's pantomime,' the straight story of Puss-in-Boots, with even the metamorphosis of the ogre into a mouse. Had this been mechanically successful it would either have terrified the spectators or else have been just a turn of high-class conjuring. As it was, though done with some ingenuity of lighting, disbelief had not so much to be suspended as hanged,drawn, and quartered."

But following is Tolkien's interesting stance on the dramtic depiction of magic (of which he strongly disapproves in case anyone cannot follow his drift):

"A reason, more important, I think, than the inadequacy of stage-effects, is this: Drama has, of its very nature, already attempted a kind of bogus, or shall I say at least substitute, magic: the visible and audible presentation of imaginary men in a story. That is in itself an attempt to counterfeit the magician's wand. To introduce, even with mechanical success, into this quasimagical secondary world a further fantasy or magic is to demand, as it were, an inner or tertiary world. It is a world too much. To make such a thing may not be impossible. I have never seen it done with success. But at least it cannot be claimed as the proper mode of
Drama, in which walking and talking people have been found to be the natural instruments of Art and illusion." (page 17)

Sorry Alan I am not sure I understand what you getting at.

As an aside may I ask does anyone here happen to know an effect which transforms a live caterpillar into a chrysalis into butterfly?

I think such an effect would be fairy like.

Well, I thought it was funny and exciting what Tolkien writes about fantasy/magic and drama--and how mutually exclusive he seems to view them. I especially like his model of drama being a "magic" unto itself--a "secondary" world--not needing to be stretched to a further third level with the fantastical effects of magic.

Wow.

What would he be thinking now, sitting up in heaven looking down here to see us making _Lord of the Rings_ movies?

He might be wondering why they were not made as musicals, as so much of the language and sound aspects are almost lost in the movies.

http://www.wildethics.org/

David Abram performing a fairy coin roll.