Don't you love when cowards create a new username so they can talk nonsense with no evidence to back it up?
oh!! I love more saturday night contests....a lot of members that I have never seen a post, magically appear!!
Don't you love when cowards create a new username so they can talk nonsense with no evidence to back it up?
Toby,
Intersting - I see where you're coming from, but recently I've begun to believe that you need to have a balance in a performance. It's very difficult to get spectators to really believe they are seeing magic right off the bat (i.e. from the first trick). Trying to over-dress the performance of your early effects trick will often turn a spectator off. I believe the best way is to draw them in with a couple of hard-hitting 'tricks' (with good performance obviosuly) before going into the 'real stuff' where you can really play with the performance and delivery and give more meaning to the effect. I think maybe it's best to really get the spectator in the right frame of mind before going with the stronger meaning. If you're succesful in delivering meaning remember that it'll all blur together for them afterwards anyway. In their mind they will recall the whole performance as being 'magical' and meaningful and will likely describe it as such to friends.
Granted - giving 'meaning' to the ACR is extremely difficult. Personally I use effects like that as a hook to get people responding the way I want them to. Alternatively you could always try and crowbar some rubbish story into your effect that noone really cares about. That seems to be the way a lot of magicians get by these days. Either that or come up with some mystical mumbo-jumbo. That'll probably work at a LARP-ing convention or a Wiccan seminar, but probably not with your everyday Mr/Mrs A. N. Other.
Don't you love when cowards create a new username so they can talk nonsense with no evidence to back it up?
I understand what you are trying to say. But, once again, I never said that I wan't my audience to believe in magic, I want them to suspend their disbelief and basically have NO explanation. If their explanation is "magic" I will not disagree, but if their explanation is that I have "fast hands" than I will see that as a personal magic failure.
I love the idea of building up the impossibility, which can actually give you time and a lot of opportunities to lead them the way that you want them to go.
I finally became sick of having to wade through Steerpike's self-absorbed nonsense just to read something interesting or valuable from some of the more positive members.
It's much less an issue with him as a magician, more of the way he conducts himself and treats other members.
I feel justified in making the comments and would be quite happy to discuss it further in private. Although I doubt I will be taken up on that offer.
Does his way get a rise out of people? Sure. Is it polarizing? Definitely. Want an example? You've joined since 2007 but yet you've never been moved to make a post except for when you've read his stuff. Funny.
His negativity and apparent total lack of humility seems to pop-up in 90% of the interesting threads. Steerpike seems happy to do the childlike thing of jump into a conversation, snipe at someone, and leave with "I dont care what you say" when he recieves a rebuke. It's much less an issue with him as a magician, more of the way he conducts himself and treats other members.
I believe with Steerpike is quite the opposite...maybe you do have a lot of knowledge or have a lot of experience, but it doesn´t show here, instead you insult other members by using these things ****, of course we know what does that mean...I wouldn´t mind the attitude if you were actually helping and giving advice...
Do you really think the staff here would have let me carry on as long as I have if I never helped anyone? You don't have to like me. But don't lie about me.
It all depends on how you approach the art of magic. If you're looking to replicate real magic, then yes, your work should look (or be, if possible) virtually move-less.
But there are other approaches... One off the top of my head is Gregory Wilson... All of his work revolves around challenging his audiences to "catch him cheating and doing sleight of hand"... With that approach, the fact that the spectators "miss all of the moves" is what makes the work so strong. To each his own I suppose.
Which then further makes audience feel stupid and slow, since they are not up to the challenge put by the magician.
You don't need to give advice to be on here. You are just a member of the forums like the rest of us.
I do agree with Luis in the fact that I haven't heard you give advice either, only attitude and insult others. Just chill out guys and go back to the topic at hand.
You missed the point. There's a reason I haven't been perma-banned yet. And it's not because I "don't need to give advice to be on here."
I think a lot more often you people are reading his posts looking for evidence to support your "Steerpike is just some A-hole troll" hypothesis instead of taking them as they are and trying to find the value in them. He will often challenge a point that another person has made, yes. He will be blunt about it, yes. Could he exercise a bit more discretion in how he words posts wherein he challenges someone's point? Yes. Should he? Debatable. At any rate, challenging a point does not, I repeat, NOT equate to personally attacking someone.
Let me reiterate: A PERSON CHALLENGING A POINT YOU HAVE MADE DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE ATTACKING WHO YOU ARE AS A PERSON Seriously.
^If there were some way to make that appear as a giant glowing neon sign with volcanoes erupting out the top I would do it. I can not emphasize this enough. I just can't. Notice the purple? Emphasis.
I see countless people taking challenged points personally and it doesn't get them anywhere. Lets talk like grown ups please. Derailing threads so we can call one another douche bags on the interwebs isn't going to make us any better at magic. Intellectual discussions, on the other hand, just might get us somewhere.
It all depends on how you approach the art of magic. If you're looking to replicate real magic, then yes, your work should look (or be, if possible) virtually move-less.
But there are other approaches... One off the top of my head is Gregory Wilson... All of his work revolves around challenging his audiences to "catch him cheating and doing sleight of hand"... With that approach, the fact that the spectators "miss all of the moves" is what makes the work so strong. To each his own I suppose.
I agree, but it really needs to be a special ocasion for something like that to go by. But if you base your whole performance and character on challenging others, then those special moments are going to be seldom. Not to mention if you are payed to perform magic, and all you can do is try to challenge audience to catch you. And if you do that, eventually they will, and that is not a pleasant moment.Not necessarily. An analogy would be blatantly calling someone stupid to their face. If you'd just randomly walked up to someone on the street, that would probably be offensive, but if it was a friend of yours and delivered in the right way it may be taken as a joke. In the same way, "challenge" magic, isn't necessarily going to make an audience feel stupid, any more than Derren Brown's or Guy Hollingworth's use of long words and upper-middle-class accents will make an audience feel educationally inadequate. It's all about personal delivery. If the audience feels warmth towards you, and you've built a rapport, you can dare to do things, which, on paper, may seem socially unacceptable (picking a pocket for example) or even downright rude.