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