What Impresses You?

I was considering some of the things that happened at The Dragonslayers event I did this weekend, and I think I'm finally narrowing in on one particular incident that sort of unsettled me.

The Dragonslayers event was a Ren Fair kind of thing and I had a booth which I preformed magic and fortune telling out of.  It was fun and I had a good time.

However I knew that I wasn't going to be the only magician who attended the event.  One of the other local professionals was there as well.  I've known him for a number of years and typically when someone calls me for a kids show I direct them to this performer because he is very good with kids.

He showed up at the event and came in behind one of the audiences I had gathered while I was performing my three rope routine (yes, I know what it's called, but I'm trying to be general here for the lay people in my audience.) which actually works in a fashion most magicians aren't aware of.  In fact every magician I've shown it to claims they have never seen this variation, which is why I keep it this way.

After my show was over he approached me and we caught up with each other.  We hadn't seen each other in a number of years and the last time that he and I actually even worked a gig together was something like 8 or 10 years ago.

After a few minutes of catching up he pulled out one of the ubiquitous card wallets that magicians are plagued with and proceeded to show me a trick.  Now you have to understand that these little care wallets, or as they are often referred to: "packet tricks," are sometimes very problematic.  After all, when you pull one of these out, the first and automatic assumption on the part of the spectator is "these must be faked/gimmicked."  And very often they are correct.

Okay, admittedly I have one or two of these myself.  I stopped buying them years and years ago when I realized the problem with them I just mentioned.  But to be perfectly fair, there is one that I still use once in a while.  I choose to use it because I feel that the effect is strong enough to outweigh the obvious problems and suspicions.

However this particular effect presented to me was, well, kind of lame.  In my opinion anyway.  I'm sure that it is probably impressive to some people.  I'm certain that it must be impressive to the children who are his primary audience.

What struck me as strange in this case was that he seemed to think that I would be impressed as well!

Now I'm not saying that to somehow brag.  That isn't the case at all.  Rather what I'm getting at is that when magicians get together to talk shop we aren't usually going to try and impress one another with a "packet trick."  It just isn't going to happen.  We'll show them to each other to discuss the mechanics and see how clever the creations can be, but trying to impress one another with a "packet trick" is just plain foolishness.

This morning I realized why this bothered me so much.  When last he and I worked together, all those years ago, this was the same kind of thing he was doing then.  He was doing a number of other things as well, but this was indeed a substantial part of his work.  Over the years I have worked hard to expand my repitior and to move away from these kinds of things because they are so common and so "obvious" to me and therefore I assume to my audiences.

That was a long time ago and I'm sorry to see that this performer is still stuck in the world of "packet tricks."  I would have thought that he would have moved on from there by now.

Damn.

John Edward is at it again....

Holy crap. He's on TV again. A new series. "John Edward Cross Country." Now he's going every where to get the audiences.

TiVo caught it for me. I'll be letting TiVo know that was a bad thing. "Bad TiVo. Bad bad TiVo."

In the meantime I decided to watch. Definitely the same old tricks which anyone who picks up their first book of "mental magic" would know. Interestingly enough he has a few new tricks for how to pass the buck. At least they are new tricks to my experience.

Okay, I know I don't need to tell all of you this, but I feel a need to state this anyway.

John Edward is a fraud. He can not "speak with the dead." No one can. He is doing nothing more then a battery of well known linguistic tricks and basic salesmanship skills such as active listening. He is using techniques familiar to magicians all over the world.

Don't fall for this crap. Even when I do it as a magician to entertain you, don't fall for it.

Please.

David Blaine Drowned Alive???

Since I was asked about my opinion regarding the New York Underwater Bubble Guy, AKA David Blaine, I thought I'd go ahead and make a general post about him.

Personally, I have never liked him. My reasons are fairly straight forward.

When he first appeared on the air waves a few years ago, he was performing his "Street Magic." David is pretty much responsible for the current wave of popularity in this particular field of magic, and while I can't fault him for that, I do have a problem with the impression it has created.

In the same moment as creating the popular movement of "Street Magic" David also convinced a huge segment of America's youth that it would be cool to be a "Street Magician." The only problem is that for the most part they all STINK AT IT! More then any other popularity boom in the magic world that I have had the opportunity to witness, "Street Magic" has led to a higher percentage of "bad magic" then any other type.

Like most magicians, David spent the entire hour doing various small effects while hyping the one "grand illusion" that would be presented at the end of the show. He would levitate himself in the street.

Now, for what it's worth, I know the levitation that he used. I know how to perform it, though I haven't practiced it in the least. And I know that you can get a couple of inches off the ground when you do it. But more about that later.

So, the rest of the TV special David is doing a selection of card tricks, one coin trick and one 'body' trick (a kind of controtion). The entire time his presentation almost always involves him walking up to someone, looking down at his shoes and mumbling something that sounds a bit like "heyyawannaseeeatrick."

Poor presentation, poor presence and nothing at all to make me want to like him.

Now before I start sounding like a bag of sour grapes, let me just say that David's *technical* skills are really impressive. Some of those card manipulations he does are certainly beyond me. He is an extremely good technician. It's his persona that I have problems with.

Then it was time for the grand illusion. He is going to levitate himself on the street in front of people. And he does it! Except that what we all saw on TV and what they saw live WERE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS! That's right, David used a camera trick. The people who were there live saw David come off the ground a couple of inches. On TV we saw him come off the ground by 12 to 18 inches.

Since then every special David has done has followed the same basic format of about four tricks repeated over and over again for different street audiences spliced together with hype for whatever "grand illusion" he is currently doing.

Except that after the levitation he hasn't done another "grand illusion." Instead he has done various kinds of "endurance stunts." So far he is been put into a block of ice for how ever many hours it was (which was done by James Randi years ago when he was still performing regularly by the way), he has been suspended in a box over a river for several days, he has stood on top of a pole for several days and then jumped off into a pile of cardboard boxes and now it's spending time in a bubble of water. YAWN.

Did you know that when he was hanging from the bridge in a box he actually had an active internet connection? There was a big deal about it because a bunch of people kept sending him email telling him how lame the stunt was.

He also had a show in Vegas. A show that opened and closed in less then a week. Why? The audiences were bored. He simply couldn't sustain their interest.

But there is some sense of justice. The "kids" who all want to be "Street Magicians" are getting bored with him as well. At least as far as I can see in the various forums I watch. They are complaining that the stunts are stupid and boring and they want to see magic instead. Not only that, they are starting to realize that David isn't that interesting a person either.

So I have some hope. A tiny flicker of hope anyway. And maybe, just maybe, even David Blaine will start to realize that stunts are not magic and there are better things for him to be doing.

"Gothic at Midnight"

Yes, I have been gone for a bit. I've been busy. I am preparing to produce a show here in Santa Cruz. My good friend Joshua Kane is coming to do his one man show "Gothic at Midnight."

Want to know more? Of course you do!

Gothic at Midnight
A Tribute to the Masters of the Macabre!

The Demons of Darkness have come to Santa Cruz!

Join us as we cheer away an evening with tales of revenge, madness and despair. Classically trained actor Joshua Kane, inspired by the old-time radio dramas of Orson Welles and Vincent Price, populates the stage with unforgettable characters, bewitching audiences with a devilish sense of fun and whimsy. Audiences will experience a roller coaster ride of terror and laughter.

June 30th, July 1st
8:00 pm
Rio Theater
Downtown Santa Cruz

For more information and to buy your tickets visit:
http://www.wildbabu.com

An award-winning tribute to the Masters of the Macabre drawing from the works of Poe, Dickens, and Bierce, Kane “amuses you with his antics, frightens you with his intensity and charms you with his tales of the fantastic.”
—The Charleston City Paper, Spoleto Festival, SC

“If you have forgotten how good it can be to listen to a real storyteller and be swept up in a story, or if it’s been too long since you experienced the joy of listening to someone tell you a tale that makes your blood run cold, you need to listen to Joshua Kane, a man whose voice is an instrument of delightful terror.”
—Neil Gaiman
author of American Gods, Neverwhere, and Sandman

"Savvy, witty, and spell-binding....
-Peter Straub, bestselling author of Ghost Story

Embracing Masculine Magic

Recently I went on a rampage regarding the presentation of a card trick by a woman who decided that the best way to keep the attention of her audience was to be dressed like a hooker and to reveal the card by pulling down her top and showing her breast where a duplicate of the card had been stashed.

In the process of the ensuing discussion the point was once again raised that women in magic have a really tough time and that magic has a lot of very heavy handed masculine themes along with having appropriated very important feminine themes.

I'm not here to tell anyone that this isn't the case. Quite the contrary, but I'm also not going to give anyone a lecture about what it means to be a woman in magic. For starters I am not gender equipped to really know.

But a thought did get raised which I feel deserves some consideration.

With the trend towards recognizing the real differences between what women in magic are doing and what men are doing, there has been plenty of focus on women rediscovering the things that are decidedly feminine about magic.

Yet there seems to be no thought whatsoever regarding what is masculine in magic. The assumption is that magic has, all along, been masculine in nature but I think that assumption must be questioned.

Men doing magic have for sometime hijacked feminine themes such as production and restoration. It is clear, when looking at the entire repertoire of magic, that many effects are very feminine in nature and yet it is men who have been doing them.

This got me to thinking that the reason magic seems so unnatural is the fact that performers are crossing over gender lines in a particular way.

Now in the past I have argued that effects are not gender based, but rather routines are. I still stand by that. I do not believe that specific effects are either masculine or feminine, which may seem in contradiction to the premise of this essay, but bear with me and I think you will see that this isn't the case.

I am going to use one of the classic effects as my example and see what kinds of conclusions can be drawn from it. My choice for this is the "Sawing" illusion.

Now right off the bat we can already see that this might very well be a definitely masculine piece. After all, it is all about what a man is forcing his female assistant to endure. Or is it?

Historically the piece was originally performed by a man who was sawing another man in half. Admittedly this didn't last long, but it did start out that way. So from that alone we can safely assume that at least the conscious attempt was not intended to be one of masculine authority asserting itself over that which is feminine.

But then why the change? It happened almost immediately. So much so that almost no one ever remembers that it didn't start out that way!

Yet when the change did occur there was an immediate reaction which had to be significant enough to let this mode of presentation continue. The audience responded to it much more strongly. Why?

Could it be that on a certain level they understood that destroying this woman was somehow wrong? A violation of the natural order of things? Perhaps.

But let us look further into this effect.

It isn't complete until the victim is restored. Healed. If the premise holds true, then this effect holds a balance of both masculine and feminine themes as healing is very definitely associated with a feminine perspective in our culture.

It took Richiardi Jr. to bring this effect into a vastly unbalanced state by doing the illusion without restoring his victim; his own daughter. The audience sat horrified and left hanging in limbo waiting for what they knew should happen but never did! And without that healing restoration at the end, he produced real horror in his audience. Which was his goal!

So what does this really tell us?

I think it points to a true idea about magic. That truly good magic is balanced between destructive and creative perspectives. Or masculine and feminine ones.

There is almost a kind of Yin Yang approach to every effect. A card is lost and then found. A rope is cut and then restored. It may very well be possible to see every effect as having a destructive beginning and a restorative ending. Or at the very least a large balance of them.

In recent years women have been reclaiming their role in magic. For this I am grateful. I even do my small part by teaching a female student in the art. In this headlong rush of women re-entering this world there has been a lot to learn both for the female magician and the male.

I am a child of the era of Women's Lib to a certain extent. I was raised by my mother operating as a single parent for many years and there are many behaviors and standards that I hold to which I can directly attribute to being raised by a strong female figure. I am also very aware that I am not alone in this. I have observed many of the same standards among male peers who grew up in similar circumstances as mine. We know a little something about "feminism" from an honest male perspective.

But one thing that troubled me over the years is "radical feminism." Growing up I did have the opportunity to observe many women for whom the words "all men are scum" was a kind of constant mantra. So much so that even some of the girls I dated in my high school years would make the same comment and follow it up immediately with "but you're different" when they realized that I was still standing there.

As you might imagine this generated a certain amount of confusion on my part as well as a certain amount of discomfort and even out right dislike. I told off any number of them for being so short sighted that they would mouth such a slogan without spending any real time thinking about it's source or why they were saying it in the first place.

From points similar to this have grown "masculinism" movements similar to "feminism." Men celebrating their "masculinity." Now before you go off thinking I'm talking about various sorts of hunting and fire related events I want to point out that I'm thinking more of an intellectual appreciation of what it means to be a man in these times. Those "wilderness man" type retreats have their place I'm sure, but it's never been one I've felt a need to embrace.

So what does all this have to do with magic?

Well, I've begun to wonder if men have lost their way in magic as much as women have. Do men really embrace the seemingly destructive urges of magic? Do we really need to set things on fire or cut them up in order to appreciate the masculine side of the art?

Is it possible that we've somehow given up a noble aspect in favor of a more basic one?

There was a time when a true look at what it was to be a man meant something closer to what we think of as "gentleman." A real man, a gentleman, was someone who embodied nobility, dignity, grace, intelligence, chivalry, courtesy and honor.

Gentlemen engaged each other with dignity and grace. Their power was measured not by the things they could destroy but by the things they had control over, starting most importantly with themselves.

It is true that the things we can destroy we have control over, but at what price? We seem to have given up displaying our power over something in a different less obvious manner in favor of simply saying "see I control this thing because I destroy it *and* bring it back!"

So perhaps the question we masculine magicians need to ask ourselves is "what is it to be a real man?" Take magic out of the question for a while and consider just what a "real man" is.

Do we really think that a "real man" is one with destructive tendencies? One who thinks nothing of shoving a woman around and being rude to the people who are paying attention to him? Does a "real man" need to be pushing people around at all?

I might offer an answer of "no" to these questions. Generally we don't think of this as being a "real man." We think of this as being a jerk. Or worse.

Or perhaps a "real man" is someone who treats everyone with kindness and dignity? Is a "real man" someone who is secure enough in themselves as a person first and a man second that they need not always be the one in charge? Does a "real man" not only recognize his essential masculinity but also recognize and respect it in other men?

Consider the issue of magic again as part of the equation.

Would you really think that a female magician sawing a man in half would work? Would you consider it a "novelty?" If so, why? Answer that and then consider your answer and what it might actually mean.

I think it is entirely possible that we have lost our way. Women have certainly become over encumbered by images of beauty and restrictions of expected behavior over the years. They have needed to break out and I think that they are achieving that break out.

However, along the way I think we have over looked the possibility that men have become over encumbered by a set of expectations which can be just as debilitating. Men have to be strong and rational because that is what we are told to be by the same kinds of societal sources that women have been receiving their mixed messages from.

And whatever direction society goes, so to does art.

So now I encourage you to reconsider what you see as masculine and feminine, not just in your magic, but in your everyday surroundings. I think you will begin to see that many of the things expected of all of us are artificial at best.

Okay, does this mean that we should all give up our "Sawing" illusions, or our "Sword Through Neck" or whatever else which seems excessively violent, and therefore may be in danger of being excessively "masculine?" No, I don't think so.

But I do think that we need to reconsider our attitudes and expectations when it comes to these kinds of effects and what kind of impression they have on audiences.

Where this will take us, I do not know. What I do know is that by thinking about it we can not help but be taken somewhere.

This is merely a first step.