Don't tell stupid people!

[Crimson Ace]

Hey guys hopefully you find this as amusing and concerning as I did. Not to long ago I was at a friends house for a party. I knew a few of the younger people there but most of them were family members of the owners of the house. There was however a guy slightly younger than me who came with one of my friends. Throughout the night I performed effects here and there and at one point I performed SMOKE. The guy who came with my friend only saw the ending and started talking to me about the effect after I finished. He started off by telling me how his friend was a magician like me and all of the "amazing" stuff that he has. At first I was enjoying the conversation. That was until he informed me that his friend performs an effect that has the same ending as mine. He then went on to reveal SMOKE to me like it was nothing. He even went into how to perform it and the complete method. Thankfully nobody cared enough to listen in on him as they were engaged in their own conversations. And even more so that he only saw the ending of the effect which allowed me to act shocked by his friends method. I found a way to end the conversation and walk away. Although i'm sure that if I kept talking to him I could have left that night knowing every effect that his friend does. So to my fellow magicians I have a favor to ask. If you for some crazy reason feel the need to reveal something to a friend or you will explode please make sure that they have some sense and wont go around blabbing to everyone who has a deck of cards. Or better yet just plain keep your mouth shut!

 

[RickEverhart]

Crimson,
I understand your feelings. Please keep in mind though, that many people in society are brothers, sisters, parents and friends of magicians. Many times these are the people who are their trusted friend who is "in the know" so to speak and they know the inner workings of how effects work. They are the practice dummies who see the effects in their developing stages. My wife, and children know how many of dad's effects work because they see everything daily and my props are stored on shelves downstairs. With this knowledge that they have, they feel special and want to share that knowledge whenever the see another magician perform. Perhaps this was a similar situation that occured or he was simply being a wise guy trying to get attention by telling you methods of effects. Is it correct for people "in the know" to reveal? Of course not.

 

[William Draven]

I can't say that I'm a fan of what you're saying. Not everyone is stupefied by magic. The world is filled with people who can just figure out how you do your stuff. My wife is like that. She can usually watch a magician's act and just reverse engineer it. I don't see something to be concerned about here. I see someone who was trying to connect with you on a deeper level by demonstrating that he was "in the know", and you just shut him down and walked off. I think he was just trying to make conversation on your level.

 

[RickEverhart]

I agree with Draven on this as well.

 

[tjf]

Do yourself a huge favor and read 'Designing Miracles' by Darwin Ortiz. It's a great read where he discusses, among other things, creating barriers and distortion to remove the effect from the method. It's amazing what you can do when you change the effect but retain the method.

 

[Crimson Ace]

It just felt really weird for me. Like if he's telling me this who else would he tell. I feel like even magicians need to have some secrets with each other. It keeps things interesting. For example one of my best friends likes to learn and perform basic card tricks. I used to teach him more advanced stuff until he went around telling 80% of the people who asked how it was done. It might be that he isn't as serious about this as I am and has less of an attachment to his effects. Either way I still teach him basic tricks when I see one that he would like. And William please dont get the wrong impression of me or the situation. I personally love talking to people and learning things about them. And I try to be as nice as possible until given a reason not to be. And I completely understand what you are saying. I actually manged to bond with him that night over cell phone technology, cars, and music. We ended up talking quite a bit that night. I also taught him and a small group of my friends a bit of MMA fighting as well. All of which took place after my performance of SMOKE. I even ended up giving him a ride home with another friend. I wasn't trying to shut him down at all. I just felt uncomfortable talking about the secrets of magic with him. Primarily due to the fact that he wasn't a magician. My thinking was that if he was convinced that I wasn't using his friends method that he would possibly wonder how I achieved the same affect. And by doing so give him a slight sense of wonder.

 

[ippaku]

I would have felt the same way. I have a few very nice coin tricks that I have to practice at home and while I try and keep my GF away from me while I practice she sometimes see what I'm doing and well this happens...

Last week "couples" night was at our house and I had of course a deck of cards on my computer desk that while they were setting up the board game of the night I took out and just started to shuffle and practice my Dancy Revelation and the Joel's Death to the double undercut. Well one of her friends asked if I did magic to which I said no I just like to shuffle cards. My GF then went on to add he does some great coin tricks with fake coins that have holes in them....Needless to say she slept on the couch.

Now we have had the "my magic tricks are not to be told please" I think next time I might do a few small tricks to get the night started.

 

[Ashburner]

DONT TELL ANYONE... EVER.
NO MOTHERS SISTERS GIRLFRIENDS WIVES...
I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU GUYS ARE HAVING THIS CONVERSATION!!!!!
Please, if you feel the need to expose stuff. GIVE UP MAGIC. You cant even obey the first rule. It's kids like you who are ruining magic.

 

[William Draven]

Oh please. Come now. You have an incredibly strong,allbeit narrow sighted point of view for someone with only eight posts to their name. Frankly sir if we can't trust our wives, families, or even mothers with our secrets then who CAN we trust? Another magician? HA! Magicians are as double crossing, back stabbing,lying,cheating,and stealing as any thief. What's worse is they are undeniably, as your proving now, prone to be drama magnets and queens as I've ever seen. How now brown cow?

DONT TELL ANYONE... EVER.
NO MOTHERS SISTERS GIRLFRIENDS WIVES...
I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU GUYS ARE HAVING THIS CONVERSATION!!!!!
Please, if you feel the need to expose stuff. GIVE UP MAGIC. You cant even obey the first rule. It's kids like you who are ruining magic.

 

[icannotmakeapassword]

Oh please. Come now. You have an incredibly strong,allbeit narrow sighted point of view for someone with only eight posts to their name. Frankly sir if we can't trust our wives, families, or even mothers with our secrets then who CAN we trust? Another magician? HA! Magicians are as double crossing, back stabbing,lying,cheating,and stealing as any thief. What's worse is they are undeniably, as your proving now, prone to be drama magnets and queens as I've ever seen. How now brown cow?

I completely agree with your views. Who the hell can we trust? And practice dummies are really very important. When your'e just learning something, never have performed the effect to anyone before, and then you go out on the streets, man you're gonna embarrass yourself. You need to know if the effect is workable.

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG IN HAVING A PRACTICE DUMMY.

And as Justin Kredible said (Highly respected magician , i feel ) If nobody reveals the secret, then who the hell is a magician? How can 1 be a magician? Ask yourself the question.

Who?