Obviously some folk on this forum believe that if they don't like something or find a thing repulsive then we all should not like it or be equally repulsed by it.
Who made these folk arbitrators of decorum and good taste I have no idea, it certainly wasn't me.
There are performers I like and those I don't. People I respect and everybody else.
These feelings are my own and I have them for my own reasons, I never try to tell others that they shouldn't like someone or something just because I don't.
I hated the LOTR movies but I didn't tell people they shouldn't like them either. I don't care for David Copperfield but I can understand how others might.
I like Penn and Teller a lot and feel that they have done more for magic than many other magicians. But that is only my opinion, others may vary.
As for the exposure thing. I'll side with David Devant and many other enlightened magicians that I know on that issue so that I'll not appear hypocritical.

Is this your opinion or a proven fact? Not to argue further, but I think it appears quite opposite. P & T are very sneaky, and I wouldn't put it past them to employ other methods.

Peter, how do you know that the audience are using TT:s? There are several possible ways to perform this trick and there are no close-ups of the audience. Even after repeated viewings of the tape I can't tell with certainty how it's done.

I do not know how Peter knows, but I know how _I_ know: when the camera zooms on a quite old lady, she has a thumb as long as Pinocchio's nose

I for one agree with Peter Marucci.

It's not about liking P & T or not. I think that they're outstanding performers. I don't even target them as "bad people"..

However, when you expose a method in the way they have done, it's exposure. I'm not just talking about the TT here, as I've seen 'em expose methods for Illusions on one of their shows (I forget which one...)

Now, whether you think "EXPOSURE" in this case is right or wrong, justified or not, that's up to you... But it's still exposure.. Saying that it's NOT exposure would just be illogical imho...

I for one would rather leave the methods to the ones who REALLY would go outtta their way to find them (as most of us here did) and be put through the "motions", so to speak, of becoming an "entertaining" Magician... Lest they think that "the secrets" are all a person needs to become a Magician... But that's just me...

And awe and wonder can be created better without "exposing" the method imho...

That's how I feel about it...

Paka Ilusi is absolutely right.
What I say has nothing whatsoever to do with liking P and T or not; you can do either or neither.
And I'm not the "arbiter of decorum and good taste" (although, Lord knows, one is needed!), as one poster contends.
I'm simply passing along my opinion, based on more than half a century of performing for virtually all types and sizes of audiences.
Do whatever you want (you will, anyway).
And, by the way, don't confuse the singer with the song!

The only magic I have seen exposed by Penn and Teller is slum magic that a large majority of lay people know about anyway. This does not include their cups and balls that was just brilliant and gave nothing away. I do C&B's and it did not hurt me. As for Mac King I have seen him show kids stupid tricks on TV again nothing that is going to hurt the working magician. I saw his show in Vegas and there is a reason that this guy was voted magician of the year. I have never been so charmed and amused it is about the only show that I have seen that I did not care to know method the wonder he created was enough.

Speaking of the masked magician, most of what I saw him expose was old methods of doing the trick but I may have missed something. Also, performance magic was kind of dying in my area but seems like interest in magic increased in my area after the shows.

I remember seeing the Masked Magicians specials, Penn & Teller's C&B routine and the special on revealing the secrets of street magic. Honesty I don't recall much of the technique or the secrets at all.

While I despise exposure, I think it has to be put in perspective. Fox promoted the heck out of the exposure they were going to show, P&T use it as part of their act. The Masked Magician was thrust in our faces on the public airwaves, P&T shows are usually live performances or on pay channel cable.

Personally, I don't think this is a B&W issue. Minor exposures are forgotten by the public almost immediately. Major ones hurt the community as a whole for some time.

The attention span of an average TV watcher is seconds, not minutes. The only place I ever even hear about the Masked Magician is on magic boards. Most people are off complaining about the Sopranos new schedule, not how fake magic is.

Deerbourne

Blookyjack writes: " As for Mac King I have seen him show kids stupid tricks on TV again nothing that is going to hurt the working magician."

At least one working magician disagrees; so much so that he wrote a major magic magazine, pointing out that, in on WGM special, King exposed the feature bit of his (the complaining magician's) act.
(I regret that I can't remember the name of the performer or the magazine.)
To suggest that ANY exposure is okay, done to an unwilling and passive audience (i.e. television), is simply wrong.
And it doesn't matter if it's done by the worst performer on earth or the "magician of the century!"

Also tack on that there is a great difference between flashing a $1. TT and exposing a $5,000. Lady to Lion.

Steve

Dr. Stephen Midnight writes: ". . . there is a great difference between flashing a $1. TT and exposing a $5,000. Lady to Lion."

There is, indeed, a difference but it may not be the one that you mean.

Vastly more magicians have a TT than have a Lady to Lion.

And so the TT exposure affects vastly more people!

I am reluctant to wade into an exposure debate, but here goes:

Do you do "Silk to Egg" out of Tarbell with the fake exposure and the real egg ending?

A Svengali pitch relies on exposure to convince people of the claim "No Skill Required." Does anyone else here pitch Svengalis?

The venerable Two Card Monte is a very popular giveaway to kids. Does anyone else give these away or sell them?

I have done all of these, so I have engaged in exposure. It is slum magic, though.

On the other hand, when questioned by lay people on the workings of other people's magic acts, I defend the secrets through evasion and telling fantastical tales, even to the point of guardedly claiming that David Blaine, through meditation and practice, can float several inches into the air.

I have also, on occasion, hinted that there are even more powerful forces behind magic and that "exposure" of tricks is a ruse designed to throw people off the scent of darker secrets.

Yours,

Paul

But if I dump a TT for another gimmick or effect, I'm only out a buck.

Steve

I guess I have not seen what Mac King exposed does anybody know what it was that ruined a workers act?
I have seen him expose how to hold a knife in your hand with your finger and a few other silly tricks you can get from any lay person book shop, nothing that a real magician would use.

My current stand up act is me claiming to expose stuff. Yet I expose nothing I start with sucker egg claiming to show them how it works. Followed by telling them I am going to expose how fake psychics cheat the public. Useing the Mc,comical deck.

First of all I do not like Penn & Teller They bore me so I do not watch them. Same with Blaine. However I think exposing anything is not in the best interest on the community as a whole. It can be a financial increase for the ones that do.

If someone goes on TV and exposes how all the sponge ball routines are done is that ok? I would have the same problem now the next time I do it for someone they are going to say I know what you are doing and for that instance the show has been ruined for the audience. I guess what I am trying to say is that it did not hurt me as much as it hurt the show and the enjoyment of the audience.

Let me add we do deal with this all the time and some people handle it different when someone shouts out how it is done. Some magicians just end the routine and walk away, others think fast on their feet and still pull off something and others just try and belittle the know-it-all.

Sorry I am rambling.

I think that it does cause a larger problem then we think. I believe we need to as a community to put the wonderment and mystery back into the shows. That is not to say that a lot of the magicians as a whole do not already have that in the shows. I just see too many people learn the sleight and rush out and do it right away without thinking of the whole presentation.

See what I am trying to get at? It does not just affect that one routine it affects the shows as a whole.

Hope I made sense!

John

Bloodyjack writes: ". . . a few other silly tricks you can get from any lay person book shop, nothing that a real magician would use."

What utter nonsense!

As if the trick was where the magic was!

Working on that basis, the late Gene Poinc -- one of the truly respected bizarrists of all time -- would not be rated as a "real magician" since, on his web page on the Learned Pig site, he has many routines for the most basic of props and the simplest of tricks.

If any -- I repeat, ANY -- magician's act is injured by gratuitious exposure, then that exposure is WRONG! That is NOT opinion; that is a fact!

No, that again is simply your opinion. Exposure, no matter how much you want it to be otherwise is simply not a black or white, good or bad issue.

BTW the trick that is in question, the exposed effect that ruined the poor magicians repitoire was the venerable coin in dinner roll trick.

It isn't the effect exposed that is in question imho... An ordinary effect to some might be a masterpiece to others imo... If someone feels his show should end with an airplane vanish, fine... If it's the coin in the dinner roll, fine too... It's artistic expression in the end... (Or expertise level if a beginner...)

However, what is being questioned here is the nature by which the method was shown/revealed/exposed to the audience... It was "unsolicited" revelation... That's the problem...

But hey, so long as it's not stuff from OUR shows, right? (Please note SARCASM....)

But that's one man's opinion...

Payne writes: "BTW the trick that is in question, the exposed effect that ruined the poor magicians repitoire was the venerable coin in dinner roll trick."

Actually, it wasn't.

But I suppose that's just my opinion!