Giving magic meaning vs Show off

Dec 3, 2017
3
4
Why do we do magic? We can all give our reasons and it's fine but what I don't agree with is, not to give your magic a meaning and just to do it to show off. That's the biggest mistake and killer of wonder in magic. When we started doing magic it may seem that way but magic is not about what we can do to impress people. It's about what we communicate with it. Magic is the instrument and wonder is the destination. Magic is about connecting someone to wondrous world. As Derren Brown points out in his book 'Absolute magic', we art not God who can click his finger and create amazing things. We shouldn't do magic just because we know the secrets but to communicate what is inside of us. Any thoughts?
 
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Oct 19, 2015
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Like any 'art form' magic is a way for someone to express themselves artistically!

Most magicians I know perform to entertain people! Showing off or impressing people is of no use in magic.....although I am sure that younger folks may see a performance that way. Those people would be wrong in most cases...
 
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Oct 19, 2015
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RO....you always say it better than I!

My Grandkids just think Poppy (that's me) really is magic. My 5 year old Grandson talked with me on the phone last week and asked what new magic I had, I told him I could take a pin and stick it in a balloon, without popping it! I will see him at Christmas. His Mother text us today, saying he snuck up behind her and tried to stick a pin in a balloon.....she did not initially react well! SMILE!
 
Aug 15, 2017
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Why do we do magic? We can all give our reasons and it's fine but what I don't agree with is, not to give your magic a meaning and just to do it to show off. That's the biggest mistake and killer of wonder in magic. When we started doing magic it may seem that way but magic is not about what we can do to impress people. It's about what we communicate with it. Magic is the instrument and wonder is the destination. Magic is about connecting someone to wondrous world. As Derren Brown points out in his book 'Absolute magic', we art not God who can click his finger and create amazing things. We shouldn't do magic just because we know the secrets but to communicate what is inside of us. Any thoughts?
Okay, to be HONEST...most magicians start out wanting to show off.
But to be FAIR...it is not exactly show-off. It is just a want for the limelight. It is just a small plea for attention and a wish to appear special. There is a thin line of difference between all this and showing off, and that line is what makes all the difference.
Those who do magic for showing off, don't last long. In fact, they don't last at all...they love magic for a week or two, then they switch to, I dunno, skateboarding?
But those who want a little bit of limelight and attention, they do last.
And I guess am one of those who started out like that.
I started magic thinking, "Whoa! My friends will be SO amazed if I do this!"
I feel there's nothing wrong to this approach. Why? Because it gradually dies out and something else takes its place. Let me try to explain a bit of this.
I started magic wanting attention. And I got it. A LOT of it. And that was when I realised that wait a sec, why am I getting so much reaction? I mean, all I did was use Magician's choice in its MOST BASIC AND NUDE form. And they look like they think am God or something. Then I realise, that it was not about me. Hard to admit, but it was not my ''cheerful face and charming persona and wits and smart jokes'' that people loved (I know that people must like you to like your performance, but I don't like Jibrizy at all, yet I unwillingly love his performance sometimes, so...). It was about THEM. THEY thought the coin vanished...THEIR dreams came true...THEIR minds were blown. THEY believed. THEY could have chosen not to, but THEY did bear with me.
And then I wondered if I could expand their reactions a bit, enlarge them. So I started buying books than just rely on About.com and googling "easy and killer magic tricks''.
Then I started to get more philosophical abt magic, thanx to the preface the authors add before the books on magic. And then without me knowing, somehow, somewhere, sometime, I have no idea when, my focus changed. I started paying more attention to the audience. I understood performance is more important than tricks. And all this happened gradually, NOT all at once.

So you see? I started out wanting to feel special. I ended up making others feel special. I started out wanting attention. I ended up giving others attention. I started out wanting the limelight. I ended up sharing it.
Therefore, I don't feel there's anything wrong with that kind of approach to magic in the beginning, it changes later. No idea when, maybe a year later, maybe years later, but it does inevitably...irrevocably. So nothing to worry abt:)
And I don't think anything abt the PURE show-off kind off people. I mean, they won't love magic for more than a few days, so I dunno what to think abt them:)

They prolly want attention too, but magic isn't for them Or they want attention for some silly purpose that doesn't mean much to them.
 

RealityOne

Elite Member
Nov 1, 2009
3,744
4,076
New Jersey
Let's start with a simple premise - magic without context is meaningless. If you don't understand that a coin seemingly vanishing is impossible there is no magic. If we were really able to what the audience sees as impossible, that would be truly astonishing.

But, the audience realizes that there is a method AND most magic is trivialized by the props. We can restore a torn card but we cannot heal a broken bone. We can make a ball appear under a cup but we can't make a sandwich appear to feed a hungry person.

Paul Harris talks about a moment of astonishment. That is the efffect of most magic - a moment. How do you get more than a moment? Go back to the beginning - context.

Developing a presentation that provides a context gives magic meaning.

The context for my needle swallowing routine is about washing away all of the things that happened during the day with a glass of wine. The audience understands the ritual of going over what happened in a day and understands the cathartic effect of enjoying a glass of wine. The symbolism of swallowing the needles is understood. The pun filled script juxtaposed with the macabre inevitability of swallowing needles is designed to make the audience uneasy. The audience feels something during the performance and remembers that feeling.

My egg bag routine is about a young girl and her mother in Nazi occupied France during World War 2. It is the story of their interaction with a German Sargent who demands they give him fresh eggs and it teaches the lesson of not judging people without knowing their motivations.

Every effect has context provided by the presentation. The spectators remember the effect with the context. More accurately, when I have talked to them, they remember the context and then the effect.

Not all magic can support a greater context. I've seen a lot of bad presentations of an Ambitious Card Routine that give personhood to the selected card and then use some trite cliche like "rising above adversity" or "friends always being there to you." Giving contest isn't simple.

Try to answer a simple question about your performance - "why should the audience care?"- Wu thout using words like amazing, astonishing, or impossible. The answer always comes down to presentation.
 
Apr 12, 2014
17
8
Thanks Lord Magic! Really reminds me of something C.S. Lewis said about first loves. He analogized the love in a marriage to the love a boy has for flying a plane. At first, the boy loves the idea of being in the sky and soaring, but then when he joins the air force, he has to learn a ton of technical skill before he gets into the plane, and when he does, then he has to train and use the plane for specific purposes. However, he can still have great enjoyment and love for flying; he just needs to let his initial love for flying die so that the new, more holistic and mature love for flying can flourish. Same with marriage. After "being in love" for several years (what we now term as "limerence"), one needs to let that old idolization die so that a healthier and more holistic love for the other can emerge, embracing the faults and trials one must face when committed to another for life.

I've found this about my own enjoyment of magic, even though I'm just an enthusiast. In high school, I saw it as a puzzle to be solved, so I pursed the answers. Then I saw it as a skill, then a performance, and now, I see it as a medium through which I can connect with others. And my view of magic and how I enjoy it is still changing as I perform more and read more thoughts about it from great magicians and their philosophies. If magic doesn't turn out the way people thought it was when they started, then the best thing, if they want to continue, is to let their old view die and make room for a new and more solid perspective. Or, even better, if they understood the "wonder" of magic from the beginning, then they can keep that feeling of "wonder", and as they gain more information, that "wonder" may change, but the feeling is still the same, maybe even greater and more far-reaching than before!

Okay, to be HONEST...most magicians start out wanting to show off.
But to be FAIR...it is not exactly show-off. It is just a want for the limelight. It is just a small plea for attention and a wish to appear special. There is a thin line of difference between all this and showing off, and that line is what makes all the difference.
Those who do magic for showing off, don't last long. In fact, they don't last at all...they love magic for a week or two, then they switch to, I dunno, skateboarding?
But those who want a little bit of limelight and attention, they do last.
And I guess am one of those who started out like that.
I started magic thinking, "Whoa! My friends will be SO amazed if I do this!"
I feel there's nothing wrong to this approach. Why? Because it gradually dies out and something else takes its place. Let me try to explain a bit of this.
I started magic wanting attention. And I got it. A LOT of it. And that was when I realised that wait a sec, why am I getting so much reaction? I mean, all I did was use Magician's choice in its MOST BASIC AND NUDE form. And they look like they think am God or something. Then I realise, that it was not about me. Hard to admit, but it was not my ''cheerful face and charming persona and wits and smart jokes'' that people loved (I know that people must like you to like your performance, but I don't like Jibrizy at all, yet I unwillingly love his performance sometimes, so...). It was about THEM. THEY thought the coin vanished...THEIR dreams came true...THEIR minds were blown. THEY believed. THEY could have chosen not to, but THEY did bear with me.
And then I wondered if I could expand their reactions a bit, enlarge them. So I started buying books than just rely on About.com and googling "easy and killer magic tricks''.
Then I started to get more philosophical abt magic, thanx to the preface the authors add before the books on magic. And then without me knowing, somehow, somewhere, sometime, I have no idea when, my focus changed. I started paying more attention to the audience. I understood performance is more important than tricks. And all this happened gradually, NOT all at once.

So you see? I started out wanting to feel special. I ended up making others feel special. I started out wanting attention. I ended up giving others attention. I started out wanting the limelight. I ended up sharing it.
Therefore, I don't feel there's anything wrong with that kind of approach to magic in the beginning, it changes later. No idea when, maybe a year later, maybe years later, but it does inevitably...irrevocably. So nothing to worry abt:)
And I don't think anything abt the PURE show-off kind off people. I mean, they won't love magic for more than a few days, so I dunno what to think abt them:)

They prolly want attention too, but magic isn't for them Or they want attention for some silly purpose that doesn't mean much to them.
 

Biz

Elite Member
Jun 13, 2013
30
37
Romania
bizandfriends.com
Let's start with a simple premise - magic without context is meaningless. If you don't understand that a coin seemingly vanishing is impossible there is no magic. If we were really able to what the audience sees as impossible, that would be truly astonishing.

But, the audience realizes that there is a method AND most magic is trivialized by the props. We can restore a torn card but we cannot heal a broken bone. We can make a ball appear under a cup but we can't make a sandwich appear to feed a hungry person.

Paul Harris talks about a moment of astonishment. That is the efffect of most magic - a moment. How do you get more than a moment? Go back to the beginning - context.

Developing a presentation that provides a context gives magic meaning.

The context for my needle swallowing routine is about washing away all of the things that happened during the day with a glass of wine. The audience understands the ritual of going over what happened in a day and understands the cathartic effect of enjoying a glass of wine. The symbolism of swallowing the needles is understood. The pun filled script juxtaposed with the macabre inevitability of swallowing needles is designed to make the audience uneasy. The audience feels something during the performance and remembers that feeling.

My egg bag routine is about a young girl and her mother in Nazi occupied France during World War 2. It is the story of their interaction with a German Sargent who demands they give him fresh eggs and it teaches the lesson of not judging people without knowing their motivations.

Every effect has context provided by the presentation. The spectators remember the effect with the context. More accurately, when I have talked to them, they remember the context and then the effect.

Not all magic can support a greater context. I've seen a lot of bad presentations of an Ambitious Card Routine that give personhood to the selected card and then use some trite cliche like "rising above adversity" or "friends always being there to you." Giving contest isn't simple.

Try to answer a simple question about your performance - "why should the audience care?"- Wu thout using words like amazing, astonishing, or impossible. The answer always comes down to presentation.

DAYUM BOY. Pretty much nailed it on the head. Sending you much love brotha for saying all this. Buy you a glass of cogniac when we meet.

Just a small thing I would add, for those of you who are able and want to improvise. Ask the spectator 3 things about him. Personal things. Not like age, or things like that. What style of clothes thy likes, a tick thy might have and their favorite color or a dream they can remember having. Use that information and in combination with the stories that you already have in stock, create a tailored experience for the spectator, so when thy leaves, the impression left on thy is more powerful for it is much more personal.

I've noticed a lot of magicians make the show about themselves, and it's TOTALLY okey to do that. But when it comes t more personal experiences, like party scenarios, close up performances (not talking about gigs, or restaurant moments, but performing for people when you haven't been payed to do so - cause if you been payed, then you better do your show) what's nice to happen is to change the spotlight onto the spectator and have him talk about an experience of his, a story he knows, have thy share an opinion (I use "thy" because the spectator can be a he or a she) - ultimately you will have to use this information in your performance, duh.

This my 5 cents.
 
Apr 12, 2014
17
8
Hi guys, I just found out about Derek DelGaudio's upcoming show, "In And Of Itself", and from the sound of it, it sounds like it's exactly what we're talking about: giving magic meaning:

Man, I really wish I could go see it! He seems to be much more interested in telling a story with magic and delving into the issues of identity, making the audience get lost in the story that the magic is a medium for.

I also love this video where he talks about his magic philosophy:

I highly recommend everyone see this! "Magic is a synonym for hope."
 
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