Article about reading magic books

Sep 10, 2008
915
3
QLD, AUS
"The page you requested cannot be displayed at the moment. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may have expired, or you may not have permission to view this page."
 
May 22, 2008
14
0
NYC
Hey Irving, awesome post. I've been doing magic for about eight and a half years and only recently have I been turning to mainly books. I think a lot of us younger guys grew up in magic with overpriced dvd's and single effects and missed the cornerstones of magic. Right now I'm building a library and foundations that I don't think I properly prepared beforehand. New effects are great, but if you understand the roots and foundations of truly great magic you can make your own effects, your own handlings.

You could buy a few single effect downloads, or you could delve into the mind of dozens of Vernon's effects, Giobbi's fundamentals, or Corinda's mind.

Books are awesome—especially used ones because there's such a cool feeling when you know someone else has learned from this. And, dvd's don't smell quite as good.
 
Aug 31, 2007
689
12
33
Lacey,Washington
I started buying books a tad over a year ago.

I wish I had started with books earlier, now I have a big library to myself full of information that I'm sure not a lot of people have because people skip over things and don't take the time to read and study. This generation is way too used to single trick DVDs.

Books and DVDs do have their place but books are essential.
 
DVD's have their place indeed. My personal opinion is that DVD's should only be for things that are incredibly difficult to put into print, or that are "must see" things. For example, I love being able to see Ray Kosby do his card magic. Although his material could be put into print, it is particularly great to see him do it. I would love to see Earnest Earick also put out a "By Forces Unseen" DVD just to see him do it (which he can from what I hear).

A DVD should have a great quantity of material, almost equal to a book impossible. John Bannon has released some of the best DVD's that I've seen in years. His Bullets After Dark and Bullet Party are fantastic, full of USEFUL information, and such a great time. One-trick DVD's shouldn't exist in my opinion, or should include way more thoughts, philosophy, and technique into them. A single DVD isn't really making you grow as a magician, instead only adds to your repertoire. The test of fire: Will it become a classic?

If the answer is "no", and the DVD is becoming something that will be buried under all the new products after it,then was it worth releasing? Personally, I wouldn't. I aim at releasing classics of magic, not one-hit wonders. Then again I don't plan on releasing any more magic anytime soon either, mainly because of this point :)

Books follow the same rules in my opinion, except that they have a higher criteria. If a book is full of junk, that's a lot of junk to write! Believe me, there have been some books published recently that are junk, but it's a safer bet that it won't be versus DVD's.

My beef with the markets today, and the way magicians learn, is that they take DVD's as their core source of learning. The occasional DVD candy is ok, but when it's your main source then you have a problem. I myself purchased Jack Carpenter's Super Session DVD's. They turned out to be a great watch as I felt like I was hanging out "with the guys", and it's a nice thing. However, rest assured that I purchased three books along with that DVD!
 
Irving, while your arguments are very well laid out, and echo of years of experience, as well as insight of some of the greats that have come before you; I can't share the same level of enthusiasm for book learning as you do.

While it is a fact that books do contain a gold mine of valuable information that DVD's simply can't compete with, the counter to your argument is at the fundamental core of why we buy books or dvds in the first place. To Learn Magic.

The major problem that I have with the blanket statement the echos with those older magicians who have been around the block more than once, that books are the way to learn, Is that not everyone learns the best by reading.

You have three ways people learn, and everyone will fall into one of these three categories. Kinaesthetic, or those who learn by doing/touching/feeling. Auditory, or those who learn by hearing instructions, or Visually, those who learn by reading, or watching something.

Someone who is a Visual learner will have a blast learning from books. It sounds like this may be you, however someone who is an Audio learner will take instruction better from a DVD than a book.

Don't get me wrong, books are wonderful tools, and valuable resources, but they aren't for everyone. I believe the DVD certainly has it's home in the educational process of young magicians minds.
 
I agree. Everyone has their way of learning and not everyone is wired the same way. They should learn the best way they can and works best for them. However,at the current time, the amount of information, quality of material, are found in books. This is simply because books have been around longer, and more discussions and evolution of card magic (in particularly) evolved in a period of time when publications were the main source of information distribution.

In the future, of course, DVD's (video/visual form) will grow into a greater quantity and allow for more information to be learned in that manner, with better quality and new advances/technology in magic. A key point of course it to transfer the wisdom laid out in books into these DVD's so that the new medium is well versed, which is something that is not really done that often today, but it is starting to happen slowly. Examples of this are the creation of DVD's of Giobbi's Card College, Royal Road to Card Magic, 13 steps to mentalism, Ackerman's Erdnase DVD's (and that other bad-quality one by another guy who will remain unnamed), etc. Again, it is starting to catch up to books, but just by sheer historical existence and some would argue price, books still offer the best source of knowledge.

The internet has opened the doors to a market where visual learning is easily accessible. The Magic Session was, in my original conception, the evolution of the visual learning concept of this. It is very important for students to have the one-on-one interaction in magic, especially at a young age where they are faced with a lack of curriculum. This lack of guidance leads to following popular behavior, which as we know "popular" isn't always good (rarely actually it is). I'm not at all surprised that in the future several online-broadcasting websites will emerge and evolve visual learning. However, I don't see it substituting the wisdom that was placed into books through decades of magic evolution any time soon. Maybe in 10-20 years it will, when the market evolves from some 20-something-year-old entrepreneurs leading the way, both financially and in the way the way magic culture is changing, into a student-focus and education-focus medium.

As I always dare to challenge things in magic, especially the market today, I ask one question: How many DVD's in the past 5 years will become classics of magic? (The type that future generations will almost have to study somewhere in their journey through magic) I can name a few, but I'd love to see the market grow the way books grew prior to DVD's. It's not far from now :)
 
Education of magic is a great passion of mine indeed, and I have spent more years thinking and working on thoughts about it than I can remember. This mainly came because I had to teach myself magic, so ideas from the past and current are some of the sources for my thoughts about education. One more thing I wanted to add to this conversation, and in favor or visual learning (and books in a way), is going back to the internet.

I think that the great reward for having had the chance to release a DVD, and get a bit of exposure in magic, was the people I've been able to meet. By that I mean that I've had the enormous pleasure of knowing magicians from all over the world, who tell me how magic is like in their countries, and who share the same love for it as we do in the US. The obvious disadvantage is that books are too expensive to ship. One of the great evolutions that magic will take, and we see it already in a way, is that magicians from across the seas will be able to learn better. That access to information is there through the internet. How great is that!

I see ebooks still being created, mostly because they don't need lighting and camera equipment to make, and magicians being able to make it from the comfort of their Microsoft Word program. But I see DVD's, especially downloads, taking the lead as they already are. Books will still be around, given their "it" that books have, but they will become more cherished I think than they are now. This is a larger discussion, one that I've had with others in regards to Tablets vs real books (Nook, Ipad,etc).

The question is: Will the people who dominate that market, those in charged, have the wisdom to be able to guide such a great evolution in the art? Will they impose their own criteria in the material versus having a variety of styles and method approach to magic? Will the market change from being a magic-junky fix behavior, where DVD's with cool tricks and demos are made to satisfy the crave for a new trick, or will it evolve into actually caring to make good magicians that can create and grow by themselves?

Don't ask me...I'm not an oracle :p
 
Searching...
{[{ searchResultsCount }]} Results