Friday, October 3, 2014

On the guilty pleasures of a sleight of hand aficionado

“The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live”
George Carlin

Hello my lovely readers, as I sit around lovesick by the stupid idiosyncrasies of social media and other so called communicational devices of the present times I thought I would share a piece of my mind on a subject that spikes my interest due to its rather taboo nature

I am speaking about the degree of Organicity in the performance of magic and due to the rather philosophical nature of said topic this post will not pose any definite statement but instead I hope it leaves you questioning a few things we just simply take for granted

Once again I find myself quoting Darwin Ortiz for in his books one theory he states that when working for a lay audience we shall aim towards fooling the emotional rather than the intellectual reasoning of our spectators.

In other words, one must accept the fact that the spectator does not intellectually believe that us magic performers posses real magical powers for if we really did we would instead be producing food for the hungry or curing cancer or simply solving all of the world's problems, would we not?

This limitation also stems from the fact that right from the word go the spectators know that we are magicians, even more so when one is a professional working a paid event.

However I could not help but notice how the impact of my magic increases when performed under the most organic of situations. 

Stripped from every stereotype or clever verbiage, magic achieves its moment of true astonishment on the minds of the spectators. Something as simple as a well performed color change for a stranger is sufficient.

I do think this happens simply because it catches said individual off guard and it knocks him or her down to the canvas in the least violent of ways.

So next time you are on the bus, instead of not taking your eyes off your phone, scan the room, make eye contact and do something with the cards when you know they are looking, then quite simply put the cards away, smile at them and walk away knowing you have created the most memorable of performance experiences.

This is just one way of achieving it and I urge you to look at Michael Vincent, John Armstrong and many others for a way of getting the same result on a formal performance setting.

You must also check out Dan and Dave's organic lecture notes, its insightful nature will take you by surprise.

Cheerio lovely readers, Professor Moriarty's workout routine shall now continue 


“If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything”
Marilyn Monroe

No comments:

Post a Comment