My view, hate it or love it

I have a huge problem with the magic community at the moment...
And yea yea we've all heard the usual (The industry/Changing the art) stuff everyone says.
My issue is not that, my issue is that lately magicians associate themselves with a specific "group," and usually its only the most popular group. Especially among beginners.

It used to be Ellusionist, now its Theory11. Not that i dislike either, both are great. The issue is that people get hooked on these sites, especially beginners and feel they are that site. All there fav magicians are members of that site, not because they have the best magicians (they might), but because thats the only magicians they know. All there effects are from that site. They never picked up Art of Astonishment/Card College/Expert at card table/etc.

I know i know "Dont hate on the nubes"....
There is a huge difference between "Nubes" and "people who just dont try"
I was a nube, you were a nube... and to be honest, if your not a nube, most likely you were during the "ellusionist era" which then all the hype was REALLY surrounding E and it was "cool" to have card clips, and buy all there effects. But we did not just learn from E and devote ourselves to E...we sought other ways of learning...the proper ways.

I meet younger and some older magicians all the time and they say "We're theory11... or we're E....or whatever" And they say there artists... there not... these real artist went and studied other magicians, studied all the books, dvds, notes, lectures... took that, and made there style and there art. Always just getting the latest thing from 1 company, thats not art, thats hype.

I only mention this because i REALLY love what magic has done for me. Yea when i first started i was a product of the Ellusionist Era, but i realized that there came a point where E wasnt the answer and older magicians were making fun of me, and that was when i wanted to know more.
I love Theory11, i lvoe Ellusionist, i love Blacksmagic, i love Magic X, and another other group of magicians out there... but i am not an Ellusionist, i am not a Theory11, i am Steven Henriquez and thats my art. I really wish and hope that anyone new or anyone old who has bought products from Theory11 or Ellusionist or any other one out there and you dont have a copy of Astonishments, or you dont know who Paul Harris or John Ramsey is... you have a serious problem but you can fix it. Go and learn more, because this "underground" stuff thats cool now (and it is, when i do shows i say im an underground magician....cuz its cool lol)... it came from these older magicians and to understand what happens now and what will happen... we HAVE to understand what has happened.

This was not to hate on anyone, but to hopefully inspire someone
 
Nov 20, 2007
4,410
6
Sydney, Australia
The fact that knowledge of magic in the younger generation is largely limited to E and T11 - take the Gecko, a recent example - E sells it and suddenly everyone's interested. It's been around before E! - is very sad. This I feel is a very important point you make - that this is the only world of magic people know. The latest thing advertised by E and T11 and the magicians present.

Honestly, though, you make a distinction between a noob and someone who doesn't try. As far as the latter goes - I don't lose any sleep over it. If someone is happy being mediocre by limiting themselves in such ways, by wanting "the best tricks" or effects by "people i know pls" (i.e. E or T11 artists), or by refusing to study older magic, especially books... Well, I'm happy to declare them mediocre, and for people like that, I will happily go about my daily routine knowing that I am the better magician for exploring such things. Yes, it sounds arrogant, and perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't, but for people who don't care, I'm happy for them to stay mediocre, and I'm happy to be better and to know it. I'll help noobs, I won't bother with those who similarly don't bother.
 
Oct 25, 2008
158
0
Michigan
I'm glad you posted this. I started magic when I was rather young and found Royal Road in my brother's room. He did magic for a while and grew out of it. I worked on that but couldn't learn well from it so I started looking for 'better ways'

My real intrest in magic was a product of Ellusionist. All the preview viedos and hype, it gets old fast. All the magic sites and groups sell great magic, but if you want something actullay worth your money, do yourself a favor and buy a book like the ones suggrested above. Sure they seem more expencive than that DVD but you have so much more to gain from them.

I just wanted to add that I got some of my magic books from Ellusionist. They sell Card College, Art of Astonishment, J.B. Bobo's Modern Coin Magic and others if you're looking.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm glad you posted this. I started magic when I was rather young and found Royal Road in my brother's room. He did magic for a while and grew out of it. I worked on that but couldn't learn well from it so I started looking for 'better ways'

My real intrest in magic was a product of Ellusionist. All the preview viedos and hype, it gets old fast. All the magic sites and groups sell great magic, but if you want something actullay worth your money, do yourself a favor and buy a book like the ones suggrested above. Sure they seem more expencive than that DVD but you have so much more to gain from them.

Not only will you get history but if you do the math, the books comes with more tricks and moves for less money. I know some people arnt visual and need the dvd so i understand that but there some stuff every magician should have and if you just devote your life to Theory11 or something your never going to get the knowledge you should get you know
 
On a side note, i remember the day i started my real knowledge in magic.
I walked into Tannens one sunny afternoon with 2 buddies ready to pick up some stuff and do some STREET MAGIC, the 2 magicians there that day were somewhat older, and what pains me now is they never REALLY helped me.
I had a custom E deck handy, my friend had a custom E clip, um we knew E effects lol, never heard of a book lol, and i bought coin bite and other simple 1 trick stuff, but the guys behind the counter (at the time) said insulting but funny remarks about us that i look at afterwards and they were making fun of us you know. It upset me cuz they didnt say "hey look, those stuff are cool but "if your serious you should buy this...etc"... they just said stupid remarks.

And i remember leaving there and i was like "I wanna show those guys one day im better and they will feel bad for making fun of me" So i told myself i wouldnt buy from those guys at that moment but i went on E and ordered Card College and Art of Astonishment and now i dare those 2 punks years later come say remarks about me again.

Similar note, i walked into fantasma magic one day to pick up card college volume 3 right, and im there and the guy was trying to sell me easy gimmick tricks and everything i said he thought i was talking about E products....EVERYTHING. So i got annoyed and i was like "let me just get out of here" so i told him to give me card college 3...when i said that..Suddenly he was respectful and saying crap like "oh wow...your the real deal...wow your buying a book... your the real deal" It annoys me thinking about it because instead of helping the younger kids, these old timers are just feeding into the bad stuff thats going on. He could have said "these gimmicks are easy but these books are good and i would advise you to buy this... but no he just tried to sell me these easy tricks cuz no matter what i said, he thought i was just another E product trying to amaze my friends on the street.

I hate people who talk crap about the new kids but dont really try to help them.
 
Jul 2, 2008
100
0
singapore
I tend to think that its a learning process. U start at websites like E or T11 then slowly graduate to other material like books. Im sure majority of people on sites like t11 dont only buy material exclusively from these websites. U start off on these sites then u start to crave for better material aside from dvds. Not saying their bad or anything but i realised some gems are in books. The first book i read was expert at the card table i was like okay... Too much words not enough pictures but slowly i read the steps again and again trying to understand the sleights and all. So its easy to understand why beginners tend to lean towards dvds and hence websites like E or T11 since books tend to be harder to learn from at the start plus you cant really tell from books if you got the move right as easily compared to dvds.
 
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