On the practice vs performance conundrum

"...Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please..."

Mark Twain

Howdy readers of mine, Thomas Moriarty here to update this lovely platform of mine with a rather brief article in the hopes that it will reflect what can only be described as a personal epiphany I had the past New Year's Eve

I feel I should first of all justify my absence by telling you that college life is suiting me much better than I thought it would, so far my first semester has been incredibly nurturing and inspiring

On December the 31st, 2014 a close confident asked me to go and watch a performance he was giving at a local business establishment. 

Upon finishing his 30 minute set my friend was quite disappointed with the general outcome of the performance for everything that could have gone wrong did and he felt he had not been at his highest point that particular evening

Now do not get me wrong lovely readers, this man is an expert sleight of hand artist and a well rounded performer, it was simply not his day

We decided to go for coffee and do one of the most enjoyable activities one may do when it all goes wrong performance wise, sitting down and debriefing it all in one's head

Also, a sleight of hand artist's best friend when he is feeling blue, "The Expert at the Card Table" was opened and a dew pages consulted.

If you dare Doubt Erdnase's relevance, read on:

"Ability in card handling does not necessarily insure success. Proficiency in target practice is not the sole qualification of the trap shooter. Many experts with the gun who can nonchalantly ring up the bull’s eye in a shooting gallery could not hit the side of a barn in a duel. The greater the emergency, or the greater the stakes, the greater the nerve required.”

How Do we insure success and make certain that our practice level equals our technical ability in performance?

I personally believe that we may achieve the desired results by trying to equalize the time we spend performing with the time we spend practicing at the table. 

I will be the first to admit that the present conundrum is not an exact matter but creating a directly proportional relationship between practice and performance may be a viable solution

Perfect practice along with the proper understanding of tension, relaxation and performing dynamics will be the perfect companion in the voyage that is becoming a well rounded performer

I hope that you found the past couple if paragraphs insightful lovely readers, coming across the realization present herein made my friend and I grow substantially as performers of the craft we all know and love

Without much left to say I salute those who made it this far for I must now dash and continue with my dally workout

And who am I? That is one secret I will never tell... Xoxo

You know the drill

"...A very small man can cast a very large shadow..."

Tyrion Lannister

On the relevance of riffle stacking

“…I don't know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot...”

Marilyn Monroe

Howdy my lovely readers, Kanye West’s “Only One”  accompanies me as I begin my all night writing marathon for I have about 8 articles planned for this platform of mine and yet I have not been able to sit down and finish them.

For the last couple of months I’ve been recording possible topics for upcoming articles on magic using my phone’s notepad. They say if an idea is good enough you do not really need to write it down but I am not in the mood for taking a risk.

The first one of these is the one that follows:

Those who know me are aware of the next two things about my relationship with the artifice. I consider false deals my arch nemesis and riffle stacking my side kick.

While I’ve never been able to deal dishonestly in a manner in which the most critical observer would not suspect, let alone detect the action, it was riffle stacking the area which I found I had a touch for.

My first exposure to riffle stacking was in charge of the fantastic card man that goes by the name of Jason England. An authority on the subject, the man not only displayed his fantastic proficiency but he also introduced me to what many consider to be a sad truth:

There’s no secret to riffle stacking

However, that realization only made me want to master it even more…

Riffle Stacking, for those not aware of it, is the act of arranging cards during the apparently innocent act of shuffling the cards flat on the table and it is accomplished by training one’s thumbs to hold back a desired number of cards and dropping them in a coordinated sequence.

Much like the pinky count, Darwin Ortiz is probably the most important exponent of riffle stacking at present days. His contributions have been essential in demonstrating the relevance of this ruse both for gambling and magical purposes.

However, Darwin introduced a notion that is quite relevant to out discussion and that is the importance of stacking without actually looking down at the pack while you perform the action,

While many consider this to be an unnecessary effort (I myself subscribed to that group at an earlier point in my magical journey) I must now beg to differ for I must urge you to think of it as a practice exercise worthy of your consideration.

Much like a basketball player that trains with a very heavy ball, if you stack without looking when practicing at home you will find the difference to be abysmal for you will no longer rely on your gaze but on your touch. In performance, your actions will be much more relaxed and confident.

If you follow my instructions you will find that an interesting factor comes into play and that is intuition. Once you develop your touch, you will "know" if you are one card off. At first I thought it was just me but you will be amazed at how many times your gut is right on the money.

Also, while you ideally want to use the same grip for all your riffle shuffle work, it is best to practice the present subterfuge with all of the grips you know and may use. I find that stacking from an Erdnase bottom stock retention grip is not the same as doing it from a Marlo grip or a royal road type of grip.

Personally, I think the easiest of them all is Marlo’s for it allows the pack to bevel in a way that is very helpful when trying to stop at numbers beyond four cards.

It was during my recent time vacationing in Uruguay that I realized how important it is for one to keep a strict practice routine when it comes to certain areas of sleight of hand, riffle stacking probably being the one in which lack of consistence becomes evident really quickly.

Therefore, I try to squeeze an hour of Stacking drills everyday as I sit down on the computer. Follow my lead and you will be amazed. On the other hand, if you stop stacking for a few weeks you will be frustrated and probably consider collecting stamps instead.

Before I leave you I’d like to touch on a final aspect in hopes of demystifying the present topic. Riffle Stacking is not only useful for when one wants to stack a hand of four aces for a five handed game for it is also an economical device that affects your card magic as a whole.  Plus, it looks much better than an overhand shuffle!

I know that I have been rather short but I hope my cryptic approach will make you want to learn more about this fantastic area of sleight of hand I so deeply care about.

Bea Miller’s “Enemy Fire” delights my ears as I say goodbye to you lovely readers, I really do hope you have enjoyed reading through my thoughts on the stacking of cards and so on.

Professor Moriarty must now leave the building.

“…Millions of years ago, the first lizard crawled out of the water and hit the second lizard over the head with a rock. Thus, the first serial killer was born…”

Dexter Morgan

Heroes: On my time with Rene Lavand

Hello lovely readers. The following post was neither planned nor meditated, I just needed to get it all out of my chest

I believe writing, much like any other craft, to be a means of self expression and hear me when I say that for the last 12 hours I have felt a burning need to use the written word in order to find peace

As I set out to begin my summer vacation in Uruguay a piece of news saddened me to an extent which I find impossible to put into words, the maestro had passed away.

I had the opportunity to see Rene Lavand perform once and I also attended a rather odd interview he gave in my hometown of Buenos Aires. Both experiences met me at different points in my life yet they had one thing in common, they left me humbled to the bone

I was 14 when father insisted on my going with him to a Lavand show. Since the first contact I had with card magic was a video of the maestro performing "it cannot be done any slower" at le plus grand cabaret du mond and as you can imagine I then proceeded to watch and "study" his Meir Yedid videos I thought there was no point in seeing him live for I knew his act by heart.

Obviously, I knew less than Jon Snow.

The show was completely stellar and If I had to recall a particular highlight I would have to admit I was fascinated by how hypnotic of an experience it was. So much so that when Rene walked out he instantly got us all to stand up and give him a ten minute standing ovation

Even though I waited outside after the show, I was not even close to finding him and thank him for such a transformative performance

Fast forward a few years, my good friend Alan Muicey (one of this blog's upcoming guests writers) and I attended a rather bizarre interview Rene did in Buenos Aires and I say bizarre for the majority of attendees were laymen and many of them had never heard about the maestro.

Norberto Jansenson welcomed us and he said something as he introduced Rene that shall stick with me for as long as I live and breathe:

"We have the immense honor to be able to claim we are contemporaries of the greatest artist in the history of magic"

After pulling through questions like "excuse me, why do you do everything with only one hand?" We managed to snap a quick picture with Rene and right as we were about to leave I thought about you lovely readers. More specifically about something I had shared with you back in the early days. I am of course speaking about Haydin's lovely chronicle "fly on the wall" which narrates that time in which the maestro met the blind card shark Richard Turner.

I politely asked Rene's wife Nora if she thought it pertinent for me to talk to him for a few seconds

She called him and I spilled something along the lines of "Maestro, I wanted to ask you about your meeting with Richard turner earlier but I did not want to be speaking code in front of a laymen audience"

Rene looked at me with those eyes he had and then proceeded to glance at the other magicians that had gathered around and after joking about how it would take him another interview to really get into it he replied:

"Lennart green had once been asked by a reporter who he thought was the greatest magician in the world, to which he responded: Richard Turner and Rene Lavand, one is blind and the other one is missing a hand"

The maestro then waved forward with his hand and walked away.

Xoxo lovely readers, I hope you forgive me for this rather cathartic chronicle, I just needed to get it all out of my chest

On Sex Selling

 “…Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as far as meaningless experiences go it’s pretty damn good…”
Woody Allen

I must once again state how much I miss the taste of a sweeter life my lovely readers for through this relatively brief manifesto (?) I shall express my opinion on something that has been going on lately regarding magic and social dynamics.

In fact, it is the combination of the two that affects both the performance and the artifice of the craft  in quite a negative way, let us clarify:

I have observed that certain male Youtubers have been conducting a social experiment in which they go out into the streets of their hometowns armed with a camera and a clever preposition bet that they present to the ladies they encounter with one condition: if the girl looses, which she obviously does, they have to kiss the man.

At first glance I did not seem to have a problem with the whole thing for I must confess I find the study of social dynamics and the breakage of social boundaries and conventions to be a fascinating subject. It was when magic was brought into the equation that I did get upset.

I found the performance of the featured effects was extremely poor although I cannot say that I was at all surprised for it clearly evidenced a lack of dedication to perfecting the artifice resulting in a blatant lack of respect for magic

One may not consider method as an important factor of a social experiment but let me tell you that it did take its toll on the overall reaction. While on those videos in which magic was not featured the reaction was fantastic (The girls literally straddled the guy while making out in the middle of the street), on the couple of videos in which magic was the focal point they merely gave him a peck or a polite hug

However, observing the bigger picture one may say that the addition of the “sex appeal” factor is due to an initial belief that magic is not inherently interesting, let alone entertaining to modern audiences.

Who better to support my rather contrasting view on the subject than the one and only Darwin Ortiz? Let us read two quotes from his seminal text “Strong Magic”:

“… This sort of magic results from what I call “Fitzkee’s Fallacy”, the belief that magic has no inherent entertainment value. In Showmanship for Magicians, Dariel Fitzkee’s prescription for making magic entertaining is to introduce music, dance, comedy and sex appeal into the magic performance. In his view, magic is some sort of bitter pill that you have to sugar-coat in order to get the audience to swallow…”

“…If you don’t believe that magic itself can be entertaining, if you don’t believe that experiencing apparent impossibilities can be strong, unique and memorable entertainment for an audience, I won’t argue the point with you. I’ll only suggest that you give up magic. If you really think that magic is of no value except as a peg on which to hang music, dance, comedy and sex appeal, you should become a musician, dancer, comedian or a stripper and forget about magic…”

Although I cannot picture Dariel Fitzkee going out and filming a video in which he makes out with girls from the streets in exchange for magic entertainment nor do I want to imagine him as a stripper, you have to admire the relevance and correlation that is present in Ortiz’s argument and even though he does not discuss the deterioration of the method that I exposed earlier on you have to understand that this Is not a purist’s view on the subject but rather a clarification on the fact that music, comedy, dancing or stripping, if present, should be an accessory to your magic, its insertion being carefully planned out in order to aid in the strengthening of the effect and the overall magical experience.

Quite frankly, I think another one of the main reasons why magic is being sexualized stems from the evident fact that those who choose this style of performance, much like everyone else, want to get laid. They may however be employing the wrong methods.

Although I do not consider myself an expert on the subject, in my occasional studies of the techniques used by pick up artists I realized that in order to be attracted to you, people first have to be interested in you. If your magic is superficial and sexist you will never achieve attraction. It does not matter if you are a magician; musician, comedian, dancer or stripper, the thing that has to be interesting is you. If you convey passion for magic and let your personality come across the right way you have a better chance of getting into bed with the woman, man or whatever you may want to get into bed with.

I hope you have enjoyed this Manifesto (?) lovely readers, many more things are to come the following weeks for I have a lot of writing that I need to get off my chest and make room for the seemingly endless stream of ideas that fill my IPhone notes daily.

xoxo lovely readers, Professor Moriarty checks out.

“…I am God's vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live…”
Kanye West

On Something New

A little extension on the well know Hustler's trip strip I came up with borrowing ideas from Martin Nash, Jason England, Andrew Wimhurst and Darwin Ortiz.

The sequence gives us quite a pretty top stock retention

I performed it three times for the sake of clarity and I threw that old deck of cards in the trash right after I finished recording

You'll know it if you know it

On Something Old

A work in progress and that is if I am being extremely polite lovely readers... yours truly has been rather bussy lately but I have come up with a few interesting subjects that shall be exposed and dealt with in the upcoming series of articles.

Must dash now, Ricky Smith's dowload on the Diagonal Palm Shift awaits me.

On Hanky Moody and the ethics of a self working card effect

“…I probably won’t go down in history, but I will go down on your sister…”

Hank Moody, Californication

Professor Moriarty Here, your one and only source into the scandalous lives of magic’s elite. Who am I? That’s a secret I’ll never tell…

Ok, enough with the Gossip Girl Jokes and let us get down to business:

Oh how I miss the taste of a sweeter life my lovely readers for I cannot stand being geographically and intellectually surrounded by magicians who are constantly trying to find the easy way out when it comes to designing the internal logic of an effect.

As an initial clarification for the present article and its topic I would like to quote Mike Vincent when he said that there was no such thing as a self working effect.

Let us think about it for a second: If you have a folding half dollar and a bottle right in front of you, they will stay there unless you pick them up, the effect will not happen without the intervention of the performer, who, incidentally, has to be familiar with the elements in question and the proper way of handling them if he desires to present the effect in a decent manner.

The fact that the internal logic of the effect is somewhat automatic does not mean its performance will.

In the long lost blog “Double Facers”, Sleight of hand god Tony Chang wrote a lot about the invalidity of difficulty as a parameter when creating magic. In other words, you should not care about difficulty when working on a desired effect’s internal logic for the only thing that matters is its final strength and impact when ultimately one chooses to perform it live.

Automaticity, in conclusion, must not be a predisposition but a consequence. If the strongest outcome demands we practice the longitudinal swivel steal for 10.000 hours, we shall take it. On the other hand, if the effect benefits the most from a method that happens to be self-working, we must take it as well.

However, I’ll be the first to come out of the move monkey closet and admit that I love difficult sleight of hand and the in depth study of the different methodological paths one may take when creating an effect and I found myself totally reflected on the introductory words Derek Delgaudio wrote in “Only Notes” when speaking about his “Newton’s center deal”:

“…False deals are a wonderful barometer in assessing one’s proficiency and dedication to card technique. This is not to say that if one does not false deal, one is not proficient. Simply, perfection in any false deal takes a certain dedication. If someone claims they are a “Card Man”, the quality of his false deals can tell you a lot. I like that”

I certainly hope Derek does not get upset with me for quoting him but whatever the result may be, if it gets him to read this it will accomplish the primary motive of the author, as he needs the attention.

I should mention that the idea for the present article came to mind after I saw a Facebook picture advertising a lecture containing only self working effects by whom I consider to be one of the most intelligent magicians in the area. Although I have nothing against him in particular, the example may serve us well in explaining those more realistic variables that come in to play when one creates and shares magic.

The truth is I am writing this article with an amateur’s point of view, which I am extremely proud of but if one works magic for a living some other things may be more important when selecting and creating an effect. These things present themselves as variables such as the time it takes to re set the effect, the time it takes to perform it, pocket management and so many other things.

When it comes to a lecture, two variables that are not so pretty in pink stand the out like a sore thumb:

A lecture must be commercial; it must have variety both in effect and difficulty. Magicians like to press a button and see something happen, if they do not walk out of a lecture with something that they can go home with and perform for their Persian cat then it does not get the money.

Most magicians, sadly, are not very skillful when it comes to sleight of hand and they hide themselves behind the poorly constructed idea of hobbyists when in reality they do not want to embrace their despicable laziness.

I’d ask you to pardon my French, but that is the way it goes…

An example of what has been discussed herein will be provided in the following delivery of the much acclaimed “Crème de la crème” series

David Gilmour’s acoustic rendition of "Wish You Were Here" now accompanies me as I type the final words of this fantastic article/essay.

XOXO lovely readers, Professor Moriarty now checks out…

“...I think if I'm 40 and I don't have any kids and I'm not married, I would have a baby artificially inseminated. I would feel like Mary - like Jesus is my baby…”
Kim Kardashian