Heroes

Image copyright, Penguin Magic

When I was much, much younger, I wanted to be a magician.

As I have noted elsewhere, I came of age in the era of Mark Wilson and Doug Henning, or Reveen The Impossiblist, Kreskin, The Amazing and Bill Bixby as The Magician.

There are revered icons:  heroes in age of chaos.

To be a teenager is inherently chaotic, a time of natural transformation, but it also happened to be a time of national and international change.  In Canada, the Quiet Revolution, came to an explosive end, in America, a presidency came to an end and, internationally, old world orders seemed to be cancelled, or re-written with alarming frequency.  It was a good time to be a map maker as countries seemed to be changing their names on a regular basis and a bad time to buy a big car.

For a kid with no particular social skills, a more than healthy interest in dessert and a love how things worked, magic was an irresistible draw.  Unlike any other aspect of life, magic was full of surprises that were always pleasant and mysteries that were intriguing to unravel.   I could imagine a dove being produced from a handkerchief, because I had actually seen it happen, but I could never imagine any one of a seemingly endless series of Jennifers ever liking me, because that never happened.

One of the few friends I did have, Joe Lawson, lived in magical house at the end of my street and he shared my interest in magic.  What's more, he actually had some serious magic props including a bell that even though it was isolated under a glass, would mysteriously ring in answer to questions from the audience:  one ring for "yes", two rings for "no."

While still in elementary school, I read up on Houdini and how his fate was inextricably linked with my home town of Montreal.  I soaked up information about how all of the greats from the "Golden Age" of magic had played the cavernous theatres along St. Catherine Street.  And I was thrilled to learn that the legend of modern magic, Dai Vernon, had grown up in Ottawa--not that far away.

Magic seemed to be all around me.

I was also fascinated by language and the power of words.

I still remember the practical lesson on misplaced modifiers that was dispensed in elementary school:  "Wanted a piano by a woman with fat legs."

I knew from listening to The Goons on the radio and watching Monty Python on TV that words could make people laugh.  I knew from personal experience that words could also make people cry.  And, thanks to some gifted teachers, I knew that words could also inform and inspire.

Good writing, like good magic, can change the way you look at your world and, as Shakespeare put it, alert you to the possibilities of "more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 

Paradoxically, I was never a great reader.  To this day, I love to collect books that I have every intention of reading, but somehow never get around to.  They continue to accumulate in my "office" right next to the magic props and never-ending decks of cards that I keep meaning to study and perfect.

I did actually perform magic, for a time.  I did several birthday parties and an annual appearance at Christmas dinner, but I never progressed outside the friends and family circuit.  My passion for magic was tempered by my zero-tolerance policy for rejection.  There were and are enough things in my life that make me cry without my actively seeking more.

Perhaps it was an early exposure to "Harriet the Spy" that made me think of myself as a secret writer.  "Writer" because I enjoy the meditative practice of moving pen over paper--handwriting samples notwithstanding; "secret" because I would never show my stuff to anyone--see above.

For as long as I've had pen and paper, I have tried to model the styles of those writers that have made an impression on me.  I have notebooks and hard drives with poems inspired by Ferlinghetti, fiction by Chandler, plays by Mamet and comedy by everyone from Spike Milligan to Woody Allen.

But just like with my magic, I lack the discipline to pick a direction and stick with it.  I write, but I have no voice, no authentic vision.

It was maybe a decade ago that I discovered that one of the longest-running magic conventions in the country had been taking place about a half-hour from where I live. 

I discovered the fact quite by accident, and it must have come at just the right time because it re-ignited something within me.  In addition to first visiting their dealers room and purchasing some books on magic history--a gateway drug--I re-started my subscription to "Genii:  The Conjurors Magazine" a publication I hadn't read in perhaps forty years.

And it was in the pages of this magazine that I was introduced to the writing of Jamy Ian Swiss.

I had only known of him as a magician because of his work on a special for PBS and an incredible "Card Under Glass" performance.

His description of himself as an "honest liar" resonated with me, in part, because it echoed a sequence in one of my favorite films, "F for Fake" the last completed film by another magician-writer, Orson Welles.

In the pages of Genii, Swiss reviewed magic books the same way he performed his magic:  with a mastery of subject and a distinctive voice.  The subject of the book under review was almost secondary in that it provided a context for Swiss to frame his comments on the state of the art.  The reviews were always thoughtful considerations of the work at hand, but they were also editorials and advocacy pieces.  

I know this description makes him sound didactic, but that was not his effect on me.  His words fueled my curiosity and made me want to look for the works he was writing about, but also to re-examine books I had already bought but only thumbed through.

Up to this point, magic books had, almost without exception, disappointed me because everyone I had opened had contained what seemed to me like incomplete explanations, or were written in such a way that they kept me an arm's length from their subject.  Like this joke from Steve Martin, you had to know what was being talked about before you could know what was being talked about.  In his reviews, Swiss would routinely provide references to secondary sources that helped to fill in any gaps in the reader's knowledgebase.
 

Reading Swiss was transformational in that he took me from being a magic tourist to being more of a student.  I have many more magic books in my library.  I have gone from being a visitor at the Magi-Fest to a regular attendee.  

I also attend lectures produced at a Columbus-based venue for Penguin Magic where I have seen some of the best working professionals perform and discuss their work.

And it is thanks to Swiss that I now see all of this in a new way.  I see magic less as an expression of technical mastery and more of an artistic statement, a performance art where craft, character, artist and vision are all represented in the same person.  When I was a kid and torturing my audiences with bad magic, I used to think that if someone was silly enough to explain how to do a magic trick, I could learn that trick and become a magician.  After being exposed to Swiss and his work, I now understand that a book about magic, like any other book about art, is not a cookbook full of recipes but an insight into process.

Five years ago, Genii Magazine held a conference of their own in Orlando to mark their seventy-fifth year of publication.  The line-up of speakers and performers was impressive not the least of which was Jamy Ian Swiss.  At the time, it seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and one that fell squarely into the "oh well" category of this that it would be nice to do, but which could not be justified.  To my surprise, my wife surprised me with a pair of conference registrations and off we went.  

It was incredible to be under the same roof as not only Swiss but Eugene Burger, Jim Steinmeyer, Max Maven, Uri Geller, Juan Tamariz, Guy Hollingworth and a host of others whose work I knew, in part, because of Swiss.

I was grateful to my wife for insisting that we go and I was grateful to Swiss for helping me to see magic and my interest in a new way, an integrated way that brought together my interests in a way that had previously been invisible to me.

Swiss was to lecture on mentalism in one of the late-night sessions and I was looking forward to that because, in part, I wanted to thank him for his contribution to my new perspective.

I was never able to do that, to make that simple personal connection, because I am a shy person with limited social skills, and because at every potential opportunity it seemed as though Swiss was angry.  As I recall, I think it might have had something to do with the presence and/or reception of Uri Geller, although it might also have had to do with the end of his time as resident book reviewer for the magazine:  whatever the reason, he never seemed approachable.

About a year ago, our paths crossed once again when Swiss came to Columbus to present a lecture for Penguin Magic's online service.

I had to go.

All I wanted to do was watch him work and get a booster shot of his perspective sorely lacking since his departure from Genii.

As luck would have it, I was recruited from the sparse studio audience to participate in one of his effects.  He was presenting an effect wherein the spectator's thought-of card disappears from the deck and appears as the only card inside a supposedly empty card box.

There I sat, next to one of my favorite writers, as he did a magic trick for me that left me on common ground with the man in the first who learns that his card is now under the Swiss' cocktail glass.

There were no words.  

It was an object lesson in design, mastery and performance.

It was a master class. 

Again, I wanted to say "thank you," but here again, it seemed inappropriate.  All I could do was shake his hand and retire to my seat.

It's not enough, but I'll take it.

I Went to a Mahvellous Party! - Part 1

I was privileged to be in Orlando for the celebration of the 75th anniversary of Genii Magazine.

Genie-in-Chief, Richard Kaufman has clearly been paying close attention as he has travelled the world attending magic conventions and that education paid off in spades at the event.

Every detail appears to have been carefully considered.

The selection of the Florida Hotel and Conference Center proved to be inspired.  Not only was there ample room for the lectures and performances (the dealer room might have been a little larger) but as it is connected to the Florida Mall, there were lots of dining options beyond the hotel fare.  In my experience, the hotel staff was unfailingly courteous and helpful and seemed bent on creating a positive experience for their guests--even the magicians.

I can't really talk about the convention without discussing the generous "gift bag" that was provided to each of the registrants. 

The "bag" turned out to be a deluxe portfolio with a 1-1/2" three-ring binder, notepad, calculator and pen included.  The folio needed to be that large in order to include all of the swag provided by the magazine and its partners.  It came stuffed with DVDs and cards and gaffs and manuscripts for all manner of tricks.  I still haven't managed to get through the whole thing! 

Another important choice made in the planning stages of the conference was to keep all the participants on a single track for the majority of the event.  This meant that, by and large, the participants were having the same experiences at the same time and did not have to choose which presenters they got to see and which ones they had to forgo.

Magic lectures are a unique experience.  For a culture renowned for its devotion to safeguarding secrets, lecturers routinely both perform and explain their techniques and thought processes.  Want to know how a magician can routinely deal himself a winning poker hand?  Come to a lecture and he will freely tell you.  And, in case you miss any of the subtleties, there is a video camera standing by to provide a close-up view that even those at the back of the hall can follow.

Somebody asked me yesterday what was the best trick I learned at the event.  This was a tough one for me, because I am not a performer, but I am fascinated by the performance of magic.  As I have written about elsewhere, the technology used is not very sophisticated, but the thinking is and the understanding of human perception and psychology is something that the so-called "hard sciences" are only now beginning to understand.

Did I come away from the conference with new tricks?  Not really.  What I did take away was a clearer understanding of how to think about magic.


John Carney: The Invisible Coins from HMNS on Vimeo.

From John Carney, I learned about how the actor who is playing the part of a magician should prepare for his role.  Carney referenced the Erdnase/Vernon credo of the naturalness of motion--the audience should not be able to tell the difference between an innocent move and a move concealing the "sneaky business."  "Over-selling" that the hands are empty, for example, may have the effect of convincing the audience that the performer has something to hide. 

Carney also made reference--the first of many--to Scottish magician John Ramsay's statement that if you want the audience to look at something, look at it yourself.  He did this in the context of demonstrating a coin vanish routine.  His position was that the performer should not call attention to the vanishing moment, but rather that the performer and the audience should "discover" the vanish together.

This is oversimplifying somewhat, but, in essence, Carney's advise was that, long after the sneaky business has happened and the coin has vanished, the performer should continue to present the "coin" to the audience in exactly the same way as he would if the coin were still there.  "Show it as you would actually show it," was the note I took at this point in his presentation.  If the performer believes that the coin is still there, the audience will too.

This goes to a larger and more theatrical point about the importance of the performer being fully present in the moment.  This is a subtext through several of the other lectures at the conference and one that I will keep coming back to.  The performance of magic is a shared experience and it is the job of the performer to do all of the necessary preparations so that he can do the sneaky business without thinking and concentrate on sharing something magical with the spectators.  The performer should be experiencing the magical moment for the first time right along with the spectators. 

Doing something "to" the audience is threatening.  Sharing something "with" the audience is powerful.  In the October issue of Magic Magazine, Joshua Jay writes about the "atfor dilemma" which is a variation of the same discussion.  His position is that it is better for the performer to perform "for" the audience rather than "at" them.

There's lots more to say, but this should do for the moment.

When All is Said and Done

I have been away from this blog for too long.  It's not that I ran out of things to say, it was that I never have seemed to have the time to say them.

For my birthday, I got a copy of "Maestro" the 4-disc celebration of the work of Argentine poet Rene Levand.

You won't find his work in the poetry section of Barnes &Noble, but rather one the shelves and websites of your favorite magic suppliers.
 
Levand is a magician in the same way that a Lamborghini is a car:  while the props may be familiar, in his hand the cards, the crumbs, even the tea cup become something more. They become transparent. They are the means to convey an idea and each idea in turn becomes part of a larger philosophy.

I wrote elsewhere about the poetry of Steinmeyer's Origami illusion as performed by David Copperfield.  The right effect presented in the right way and under the right conditions becomes more than the sum of its parts and it transcends the "catch me if you can" performer-audience dynamic.  It is so secondary to the experience of watching the piece that thoughts of "how" are drowned out and washed away.  It is almost as though the surprise of discovering that, as an audience member, you are still capable of being amazed drowns out everything else.

Levand is able to do the same thing without the Peter Gabriel, without the atmospherics, without the beautiful assistants and without his right hand.

I make this association not to compare and contrast performers--each are masters of their media--but to suggest something of the impact that is possible when talent and creativity are brought to the service of a singular vision.

I don't remember how I first came across Levand and his work, but I recall seeing a performance of "It Can't Be Done Any Slower"--a six-card Oil and Water routine--and being completely captvated by this man who looked like a beloved family friend and, even though limited by working through a translator, was able to convey a casual charm that made the audience hang on his every word.




On the DVD, Levand talks about his inspirations.  He makes reference to great composers and other magicians, a poet and Mae West.

In translation, he says he remembered a quote of hers that informs his work:  "The thing is not what you say, but in how you say it.  The thing is not what you do, but in how you do it.  And, especially how it looks when it is said and done."

And while her selection as one of his influences may seem strange when placed next to Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, her philosophy is most especially relevant for magicians.
The props and techniques used by the close-up magician are relatively few in number and many performers tend to visit the same "classic" plots in their performances so what then is there to differentiate one performer from the other? What makes one an artist and the other a craftsman?

I once had a colleague who taught film theory and criticism.  He kept a sign in his office that said something to the effect of "And what is the audience doing during all of this?"

That is the question that all artists need to answer.  Whatever your medium, it is far too easy to become seduced by techniques.  Learning the latest knuckle-busting move is a challenge and, once mastered, can become the go-to tool for every situation irrespective of whether or not it's the right tool.

I heard one account of the famous encounter between Harry Houdini and the legendary Dai Vernon in which Vernon is said to have fooled Houdini with a card trick even after repeating it 7 times in a row.  In this account, the speaker says that Vernon, an expert in sleight of hand, performed an Ambitious Card effect using a gaff.  No sleights, but rather the genius of the printer's art in order to fool the one-time "King of Cards." 

I don't know if it's true and it really doesn't matter.  It illustrates the idea that effects are designed for an audience and technique, while important, is secondary to "how it looks when it is said and done."

In his mid-eighties, Levand continues to adapt his technique as he experiences greater and greater physical limitations.  That he has osteoarthritis in his hand has meant that he has changed how he performs and has become "more artistic."

The DVD set is aptly named "Maestro" because it not only documents a life's work, it also is full of many important lessons that can only be learned from a perceptive and gifted teacher.

More than a simple recipe book full of tricks, "Maestro" will guide the viewer toward being a better artist by providing them with a way to approach their magic in a more thoughtful manner.

I am grateful to Luis de Matos for producing this testament to the art of magic.

A Tourist in the House of Magic

One of the best writers working in magic is also a working magician.  His name is Jamy Ian Swiss.  Mr. Swiss periodically reviews books for Genii magazine and, in their most recent issue, he reviewed "Fooling Houdini" by Alex Stone.

To provide some context, let me first share a post about Mr. Stone's book, including a video promo, as it was presented on BoingBoing.net.

Now, let me share Mr. Swiss's review as posted on the Genii forum.  The review is posted as part of a discussion regarding the book, so you may have to scroll up to find it.  It was posted by Genii-in-Chief Richard Kaufman.

Finally, historian, magician, actor Ricky Jay wrote this review for the Wall Street Journal.

I started to write this blog in part because I was inspired by the work of Mr. Swiss and driven by the idea that I should write about something I know and which holds my interest.  I post this sequence about Mr. Stone's book because I wonder whether I am not guilty of the same kind of intellectual tourism.

There is no question but that it is fun to imagine oneself on the side of the angels when it comes to picking on a so-called outsider who imagines himself worthy of entry into one of magic's most prestigeous competitions and then publishes a book disclosing tricks and techniques.  It is, however, a form of looting, of saying "are too!" after the primary combatants have staked out their territory.

Truth to tell, I am not so sure where I stand when it comes to the disclosure of secrets.  I have made a point of not doing so in this blog because that was never the point.  I have also written elsewhere that being aware of techniques and methods makes watching the performances of true masters all the more impressive.  It is much the same as how having a visceral sense of what it takes to make a piece of wood do what you want can make you really appreciate the artistry of fine cabinetry.

Does that mean that all secrets to all magic tricks should be disclosed?

Absolutely not.

I don't think that disclosing trade secrets to inflate book sales or television ratings is by any means justified.  It would be like staging car accidents for the benefit of rubberneckers.  Having said that, I think that there was some merit in the rationalization used by Val Valentino in his role as the Masked Magician.  His position is that in disclosing techniques and methods he is hoping to push the art forward, to motivate magicians to create new effects and new methods.

 

Taken at face value, it would be tough to argue that any endeavor does not benefit from periodic self-examination and reinvention.

Magic will survive this dust-up just as it survived the publication  of earlier "exposes" such as "Great Magician's Tricks" in 1931 and "The Discoverie of Witchcraft" in 1584.

But there may be a bigger point missed in this conversation. 

As I have said before, in and of themselves, the technologies used by magicians to accomplish their effects are uninteresting.  Whereas one might imagine complex technologies employed to accomplish a particular effect, it is more often the case that it is unremarkable--more on the order of a bit of thread and a piece of wax than computers and lasers.  And this might explain why, once the secret is disclosed, the trick as a "trick" loses its appeal. 

While we may all be familiar with thread and wax and mirrors, we lack the skill and experience to combine these items in a way to create a magical effect.  Revealing the secret does not close the gap between magician and audience member, it makes it wider.  As Valentino says in the video, the "secret" of any magic trick is only one small part of the "magic."  In the same way, Mr. Jay writes in his review," that a performance is often the product of a collaboration between a variety of artists and technicians in addition to the performer, the "secret" is but one link in the supply chain that stretches from the conception to the performance of any effect.

Whether performed on a street corner or in a purpose-built venue, magic is a theatrical form where context, light, shadow, sound, choreography, form and textures combine to create the illusion. 

In the same issue of Genii wherein the Swiss review of Mr. Stone's book was published, there is an interview with Spanish magician Miguel Angel Gea.  Early on, he imagines a time when magic competitions such as the FISM contest that Mr. Stone entered will have only one category in which all performances will be judged:  theatricality.

"Fooling Houdini" is a title designed to attract the casual book buyer, but it is also a reference to an encounter between the renowned escapologist Houdini and the Canadian magician Dai Vernon.  Depending on the account, it is said that Houdini was boasting of his expertise with cards and how he began his career billing himself as "King of Cards."  Vernon, who made a lifelong study of card techniques, proceded to show Houdini an Ambitious Card effect that complete fooled the king seven times.

While the trick used to fool Houdini was not new, Vernon's approach, the unique way in which his skills as a performer meshed with his skills as a technician, made the effect into magic.  This is magic's biggest and only real secret.  You cannot pick up a pack of cards and go directly to magic's "Mount Olympus" expecting to be crowned King of Cards.  To expect otherwise is to truly engage in magical thinking.

The Rath of the Magi

Kodak filed for bankruptcy protection this week.

It may not seem like a big deal.  We all have cameras on our phones and tablets and computers and pens and clock radios.  It seems like you can't go anywhere without being observed and recorded, so the idea of capturing memories, the "times of your life" doesn't seem nearly as novel as it did when our parents put away their bulky, smelly Polaroid and brought out the Instamatic.  That was progress, we were suddenly living in the future where the family could pose around the fireplace at Christmas and, somewhere between two weeks and two years--depending on how quickly the roll of film was used up--the image would come back.

Instead of the black and white Polaroid pictures that you had to apply a fixative to and which always seemed to curl up, you got back square color prints that laid flat and seemed to multiply all by themselves. 

All through the business press there has been hand wringing about the death throes of a 131 year-old company that virtually invented the personal photography category.  Why didn't they recognize that the market was moving?  Why were they not more aggressive in embracing digital photography?  Why did they always seem to be following and never leading?  Since August there have been stories in the press about the possible sale of a portion of Kodak's vast patent portfolio as a way for them to return to profitability.  This is the corporate equivalent of the ancient WASP dictum to never spend principal and not unlike closing the barn door after the horses are gone.

All of this  brought to mind the continuing debate in the magic community about the effect of YouTube and other video sharing sites are having on the art.

The concern is that the ready availability of these sites has made it a simple matter for amateurs to traffic in the secrets of the craft.  No good trick goes unrevealed.  These are the secrets that are the bread and butter of their inventors and people should have to pay for access to them.

I understand the argument in so far as the livelihood of the invetors is concerned, but I also think that services like YouTube provide a valuable research tool for people who are serious about magic.

When I first became interested in magic, in the dark days before the Internet, I would read the magazines and come across references to performers and to moves that were presented in such a way as to assume that all the readers would know to whom, or what, was being referred.  Like the old line "if you have to ask about the price then you can't afford it" not following the references suggested that you were not sufficiently inside to be accessing this material.

Video sharing has brought the modern masters of the craft within reach of enthusiastic amateurs like me.  I can call up Dai Vernon and see his performance of the Cups and Balls.  I can see Cardini's famous act.  I can see Fred Kaps' famous salt pour.

And if I'm reading the description of a particular effect, I can often find a performance of it online or of some of its component moves.  I can only speak for myself, but this is a huge advantage in understanding.

There is no doubt that secrets are disclosed, but, finally, I don't think this is a bad thing. 

I don't say that as an open invitation for the rath of the magi, but because I think that secrets are only a small part of a magician's real power as a performer.  As noted elsewhere, it is one thing to know the secret of the Cups and Balls and quite another to be able to present them as artfully as Dai Vernon.  You can look up the secret of the Miser's Dream and never touch the presentation given by Penn and Teller.



I mention Kodak because I think the horses have left the barn with respect to protecting magic's secrets on the Internet.  The choice now becomes whether to engage in a draconian style market-following response such as SOPA and PIPA or to lead the conversation.

If inventors don't want to see poor quality web cam productions of their latest creations then they should put out material themselves.

I'm not suggesting that they don't post the $29.95 miracle deck and DVD with special bonus features, but to post a lesser trick with household items and use a tool like iTunes, or similar.  Imagine learning a new card trick for ninety-nine cents. 

Wouldn't the world be a slightly better place if beginners learned how to do the Twenty-One Card Trick from a pro?

There is magic available for download through a variety of sites but at price points around ten dollars and above, it limits access and promotes piracy.  I am suggesting a lower threshold for less revolutionary material so that would-be students can learn a simple bill switch or color change from a good teacher that is well-produced.  These were the gateway tricks for us when we started with magic and, judging from the number of posted videos, there is no reason to believe that this will not continue to be the case.  By feigning outrage and looking down their noses, Magic will force more bedroom productions and take a leadership role in its own debasement.

The public doesn't hate magic; they want to be amazed.  They have a low regard for bad performers.  Addressing that is where Magic should focus its ire.  Magic's body of knowledge is primarily focused on its secrets and its past while the future is at the gates and clamoring to get in.  They are talking among themselves and trading in secrets because that's what they see the insiders doing. 

Were Magic to open its doors a little wider it would not only grow the community it would also grow its marketplace for more and better secrets.

The learning model for magic is as outdated as chemical-based photography.  And until Magic accepts this, it will forever be playing defense and closing the doors on the empty barns. 

Do You Want to Know a Secret?

In 1992, I spent some time in the hospital--couple of them, actually. 

I don't much care for hospitals because they always seem to me to be hospital-focused rather than patient-focused.  I found it paradoxical that they would, on the one hand, encourage me to get some rest and then, just as I would be drifting off, the new shift would come in, turn on the lights and wake me up for some test, or measurement, or whatever.

At one point, I was sharing a room with a man who had worked his whole life in the coal mines in West Virgina.  He was proud of his work and, it seemed, equally proud of the illnesses and injuries he had collected because of it.  I am not certain I remember the whole list, but it seems to me that he was diabetic and had some sort of lung disease and heart trouble.

What I do remember was how happy he was.  He was thrilled to be in the hospital because he could get oxygen which, for some reason I didn't understand, was unavailable to him at home.  Everytime the staff would bring in a piece of monitoring equipment, he would proudly say that he had one of those at home but that he couldn't get the oxygen.  It was almost like he was declaring his afilliation with the doctors by virtue of his familiarity with their technology.  Like if I bought a golf club endorsed by Tiger Woods and went around telling people that my game was as good as his because we used the same stuff.  (Of course, lately the quality of our games is getting closer, and I don't even play.)

By comparison, I found being in the hospital to be very stressful.  Not only was it difficult to sleep, but, as a shy person, I found the constant probing and poking and touching and pricking to be very threatening.  I know they put on my chart that I didn't handle stress well which has always seemed to me to be a tacit admission that they were doing all these things to me on purpose.

The favorite part of my day was when I could watch an hour of Bob Ross on the local PBS afilliate.

From MTV.com

Bob Ross, the "Happy Painter," would spend a half-hour showing you how to paint landscapes, or seascapes, using a handful of colors, brushes and a pallet knife.  He was like McGuyver in that he could make something out of virtually nothing.

Whatever talents I might have do not, in any way, include drawing or painting, but it was nonetheless fascinating to watch him manipulate the tools of his trade and produce something that was recognizable as a representation of a place.

In addition to his undeniable craftsmanshhip, his pleasant chatter and relentlessly positive mantra that there were "no mistakes, only happy accidents," the mellow timbre of his voice would send me blissfully off to sleep providing a peaceful island in the middle of an otherwise stressful day.

Whether it is in painting, motorcycle fabrication or cake baking, I am fascinated by craft.    To my wife's increasing frustration, I will watch hours of "American Chopper" with the same fascination that I watch "Cake Boss" or "Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives." 

It is the same fascination that keeps me engaged by magic.  At this point in my life, I am as likely to perform magic as I am to decorate a cake or paint a motorcycle, but I appreciate the singular vision that drives people to master the skills needed in each of these areas.

One of the best books on magic that I have read in a long time was The Magician and the Cardsharp by Karl Johnson.  The book profiles the lives of Allen Kennedy (the "cardsharp") and Dai Vernon (the "magician") and their obsession with mastering their respective crafts.

Vernon, "The Professor," devoted his life to becoming the expert at the card table that he read about as a young boy.  He is said to have read the influential "The Expert at the Card Table" by the mysterious S.W. Erdnase which documented many of the skills used by card cheats to gain an edge and spent the rest of his life perfecting the techniques that were described therein. 

The white whale in card mechanics is to get the cards you need into play at the right time.  Holding out an ace and slipping it in at the right time can be for nought if another player cuts the cards and your ace winds up in the middle of the deck. 

Kennedy too was a nascent card expert and kicked around gambling houses all over the country.  He is reputed to have succeeded where others did not and figured out how to deal cards from the center of the deck in a way that looked perfectly normal.



The throughline of the story is Vernon's search for Kennedy and the opportunity to learn his technique.

At some level, it's inspiring to know that secrets have just as strong a hold over magicians as they do over civilians. Every student's master is just student to somebody else.

When I began to follow magic, I was constantly frustrated by descriptions of magic tricks that contained the phrase, "by the usual method" because it assumed knowledge that was not available to me.  It was as though in pursuit of trying to learn how to pull a rabbit out of a hat, it assumed that you knew how to make a rabbit and, if you did not, the author had no desire to waste their time trying to bring you up to speed.

In the beginning, when I was still thinking I was going to be a performer, it was all about acquiring material.  To do a show, you needed tricks so each trick was a unity unto itself.  Like colors in the crayon box:  there was a color for "flesh" and another for "sky" and there was a trick with cards and a seperate trick with silks and another different one for sponge balls. 

It is only over time that you begin to appreciate that the actual sky is not uniform in color and that the techniques used to vanish a coin, a card, or a sponge ball have more in common than not. 

The center deal story would be far less interesting if it had been just about an arcane technique.  What is compelling is the knowledge that Vernon used his collection of these techniques to inform his work as a magcian and, more importantly, to influence generations of those who have taken up the craft since.

I think finally that this is what Bob Ross meant when he talked of "happy accidents." 

At the time I took this bromide to be an excuse for beginners to hide behind when their paintings turned out nothing like they were seeing on TV.  Now, I am inclined to think that he was referring to the learning that comes when you pick a wrong color, or accidentally spill some thinner across the canvas.  Perhaps this will be what it takes to discover that you have more of an affinity for abstract art.

I continue to collect secrets because, like other art forms, they are an insight into the mindset of their creators.  The choices reflect their education and their experience and the hard-earned wisdom of performance and they also contain the footprints of their influences.  Trick by trick, magician by magician, I am slowly filling in my canvas one happy accident at a time.

The Book of Secrets

To become interested in magic is to become a traffiker of secrets.  When you know nothing, you become intent on learning everything.  It's not so much about building a show as it is about amassing the raw material that will, eventually become the show.

To do that means pouring over all kinds of material in order to find effects that may, or may not, be within your skill range until you find items that you think you can do justice to.

This process never ends.

After four decades I have a library of collected wisdom full of books and videos, but among my most valuable books is my copy of Dunninger's Complete Encyclopedia of Magic.

The Dunninger in the title is Joseph Dunninger.  "The Amazing Dunninger" was an magician and mentalist who pioneered the performance of mentalism on radio.

The book is a collection of columns that were prepared for the general public and which appeared in the popular "science" magazines published by pulp pioneer Hugo Gernsback. 

The articles claimed to give the inside secrets of magic although the practicality of some of the "solutions" provided is open to debate. 

Disclosing the secrets of magic is always good for selling magazines and TV shows.  A performer's life's work goes into collecting them and, when all is said and done, they are the only asset he may have left. 

In the early part of the last century, premier English magician David Devant earned the enmity of his fellow performers when illness forced him to publish a book wherein he disclosed many of his secrets.  In our own time, we can recall the "outrage" of magicians when The Masked Magician specials ran more than a decade ago. 

I love the Dunninger book because, whether or not the secrets are real, it coveys much of the romance of magic.  You get the idea that the magician is in complete control of his environment.  Every element might play a role in convincing the audience that the impossible has become possible.  Sure, it may be a perfectly ordinary deck of cards, but nothing else on the stage is.

Disclosure is bad for business and for that reason Penn & Teller are the "bad boys of magic."  They frequently tell the audience what they are going to do before they do it, or in the case of their beautiful cups & balls routine, as they are doing it and yet it is impossible to follow and ends up being just as surprising as the gold standard routine done by Dai Vernon.





Dunninger's book also holds a special place in by library because it was given to me by my Aunt Marjorie. At a time when I was serious about being a performer and taking my first steps toward doing birthday party shows, this book seemed like an affirmation. To my wide child eyes, this was the real deal: what magicians call the "real work". I imagined myself an insider in the world of magic soon to be rubbing elbows with the likes of Magic Tom.

It was a great gift and one for which I am eternally grateful.

Triumph

Triumph

-shaun s- | Myspace Video