Mailbag #179
/In [Mailbag #177] you inferred the best way to learn magic is to grab some older books (Scarne and the Fulves books) and work your way through them. While I understand the point you were trying to make and that that feels like a good way to learn, I think you might be being blinded by the typical “in my day!” thinking.
If learning from books is such a great way to learn, why are young magicians now so much better than they’ve ever been before? —KS
Well, first, I didn’t say that’s the best way to learn. I said that’s how I would choose to learn if I was going to start over. And that’s because, for me, what I’ve gotten the most benefit from and what has produced the strongest impact with real people are the ideas that were borne out of taking a good trick and trying to come up with an intriguing premise for it. Not just learning the best/newest thing.
And I disagree with your premise: “young magicians now are so much better than they’ve ever been before.” I think that peaked around 15 years ago.
Around 10-20 years ago you had a lot of magicians in their later-teens to mid-20s creating stuff that felt like it was really coming from a fresh perspective. People like Danny Garcia, Calen Morelli, Blake Vogt, Marcus Eddie, Peter Turner.
I think that group came of age with the internet, so they had access to more information than preceding generations. But their formative years were pre-social media. I think social media has distracted and dulled the average young magician. Chasing views doesn’t lead to creating interesting new methods or approaches to performing.
But I’m happy to be proven wrong on this. Who’s in the 18–25 range who is creating a repertoire of strong material that I’m missing?
Looking at your Aug 11 Post, Dirtying the Bill Production, I wanted to share with you a little something I use that may fit the bill (heh) for spectator involvement. While not a bill production, per se, it does introduce the idea of money appearing.
So, here's what I do....it costs me a dollar whenever I do this, but I think it's worth it. Get some $2 bills from the bank. Prepare them ala Chad Long's Scratch effect. I typically print a stacker to go under neat the scratcher that says You WIN $1"
Now if you're in a situation where you can borrow a single, you explain this new promotion from the local state lottery. Pull out an unused scratcher sticker and place it on their folded dollar bill.
Do the necessary thing....then slide the bill over to them with a coin to scratch off the scratcher.
"You WIN $1" will be revealed. Have them unfold the bill, which is now a two dollar bill. They won one dollar.
Not sure if that actually fits your concept...but it does get the spectator involved more.—JS
I like that quite a bit. I mean, it’s not eye-poppingly magical. It doesn’t have the visual element of a bill production or bill change. But it feels almost like a mini-Carbonaro Effect moment.
I'm currently performing two of my solo shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. One is called Fake and is a show about art and forgery based on an old Orson Welles film. The other is called Heist and is pretty much directly inspired by your "live life like a heist movie" post from a few years ago. So thanks for that.
Anyway, in the evenings I've been guesting in a show called The Big Naked Variety Show where the gimmick is all the performers are entirely naked. There's a stand-up who hosts it, a circus girl who does a wicked hula hoop act, a contortionist who does a killer routine (that also involves producing a real banana from inside herself) then also me.
I mostly do stand up with a few silly tricks thrown in but something that I genuinely do is just a classic presentation of the invisible deck. You know, throw a pack of invisible cards out, they choose one, reverse it, box it and throw it back to you. When it lands in your hands it "becomes visible". Except I have no pockets or sleeves to produce it from so I genuinely use the "prison pocket" technique. I clench an invisible deck between my butt cheeks during the whole bit then in an opportune moment I retrieve it, hold it against my body, palm it, then produce it.
It honestly kills.
I sort of hint that the only way it could be done is if I had genuine magic powers or it was up my butt but stop short of fully revealing it as I think it's funnier that way.
Anyway, there's my rather unusual and possibly embarrassing admittance that I'm actually secretly quite proud of.
If you have any other suggestions for tricks or routines that you think would be impressive to perform completely naked, I'd love to hear them.—CC
Come out on stage blowing a big gum bubble. Let it pop, then clearly swallow it.
“They say it sits in your stomach for 7 years, but I don’t believe that. I swallow gum all the time.”
Then wriggle your ass a little like something is annoying you. Reach up into your butthole with a thumbtip loaded with a bubble gum mouth coil and start pulling it out, foot by foot. Scream like it hurts.
When you’re done say, “That’s it. No more gum for me. It’s back to cigarettes.”
Get a cigarette, light it, then push the lit cigarette into your asshole (in the thumbtip you left there when you pulled out the mouth coil). Then use a smoke from mouth gimmick to make it look like you’re smoking the cigarette through your butt.
Then collect your Best of the Festival award.