I had a realization today. One might say it was something I already knew and re-realized.
In short, I was eating lunch and was approached by a few girls who saw me playing with my cards. They asked to see some magic so I did a few quick tricks to get them to leave. They got pretty excited and were quite frankly astounded. However, at one point during my third and final trick, I flashed a pass and got called out on it. As a result, the reactions for the last trick were just plain bad. You've probably all heard this one: [disappointedly] "...oh, I saw how you did that..."
That flash has been really been bugging me all day, and I've figured out why. It's not as if it's the first time I've ever flashed, but it's one of the first times that it really killed my presentation.
What I realized is that I'm not into magic for me. It's not something that I necessarily do just for myself. These girls sought me out because they wanted to see something that would astonish them, and by flashing a move, I sort of anti-astonished them. I took the magic away.
This is a part of something larger that I've been thinking about lately. Why does magic work? There are numerous answers to this, but the most obvious one is tattooed onto Daniel Madison's arm. People want to be fooled.
So by messing up today, I squelched that desire. So that brings me to the larger point: why I work hard at magic. It's not for me. If nobody would notice, I'd probably do every move sloppily. But the fact is people do notice. Yes, they want to be fooled, but they aren't stupid. It's my job to preserve the feeling of astonishment in others and make it flourish, make it endure.
In short, I was eating lunch and was approached by a few girls who saw me playing with my cards. They asked to see some magic so I did a few quick tricks to get them to leave. They got pretty excited and were quite frankly astounded. However, at one point during my third and final trick, I flashed a pass and got called out on it. As a result, the reactions for the last trick were just plain bad. You've probably all heard this one: [disappointedly] "...oh, I saw how you did that..."
That flash has been really been bugging me all day, and I've figured out why. It's not as if it's the first time I've ever flashed, but it's one of the first times that it really killed my presentation.
What I realized is that I'm not into magic for me. It's not something that I necessarily do just for myself. These girls sought me out because they wanted to see something that would astonish them, and by flashing a move, I sort of anti-astonished them. I took the magic away.
This is a part of something larger that I've been thinking about lately. Why does magic work? There are numerous answers to this, but the most obvious one is tattooed onto Daniel Madison's arm. People want to be fooled.
So by messing up today, I squelched that desire. So that brings me to the larger point: why I work hard at magic. It's not for me. If nobody would notice, I'd probably do every move sloppily. But the fact is people do notice. Yes, they want to be fooled, but they aren't stupid. It's my job to preserve the feeling of astonishment in others and make it flourish, make it endure.
