Welcome to Magic 21

I've been doing magic for more years than I can remember and now with the advent of the easy access to blogging I felt the need for some clear-headed invite only magic opinions and reviews. This sounds kind of arrogant, but let me explain.

There are plenty of magic web sites on the internet. And there are some very successful magic magazines. But perhaps like me, you too have noticed the proliferation of what I call "crap" magic. I recently read an article in one magazine or on a web site that opined how silly it is of certain magicians to think that they are really fooling their audience. I can think of a couple of tricks, done by major illusionists that fall into this category.

For example, take a look at this David Copperfield video, "Pole Levitation." At 3:54 David starts the levitation presentation. DESPITE the fact that he has the poles demonstrated (and please note he doesn't tell them what he is going to do with them) does anyone really think that the last pole that he is touching has nothing to do with the illusion? I think the same can be said for several other illusions such as the recent crop of "saw through the spectator" genre.

This leads to what I call the 'back door' theory of magic. Henry Hay noted that if a spectator has an explanation for the trick in mind, it makes little difference whether or not it is the actual secret. It is plausible enough for them. In other words, there is a "back door" for them to mentally walk through. BUT...if you construct an effect in such a way that there is no possible answer then there is no mental back door. It is effectively shut and there is no possible explanation.

I'm often asked by my non-magic friends if I saw magician "so-and-so" recently. If so they ask me how in the world he did a particular trick. I can't count the number of times someone has been spot-on to the solution. For example, my wife recently commented about a particular dove magician- "Oh...I always enjoy watching X come out and unload his coat." Here's another example.

In the video below, watch it at 3 minutes into the video. This young Japanese magician is very effective in his manipulations until he hits this juncture. He tips his hand a few times before this because the misdirection is not that strong. But does he really think that holding his arms in this position that the audience doesn't know that he is getting the cards from under his vest, or that he is attempting to hide where they "come from" making them appear one by one?


To cure this, I think probably the best way to work through the problems is an approach that Daryl had. Some magicians don't want to be "tainted" by what has come before and want to try a fresh new method. But what we tend to do is to re-invent old methods, or worse, use methods that were discarded by others. Daryl, for example, researched the Ambitious Card routine(s) and ended up using only what he considered the best. The result was that he won at FISM. More later.