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.

Episode VI: Spooning

Friday morning began with a lecture by Uri Geller.

Uri Geller: in the words of Vice President Biden, this was “a big fucking deal."

Despite his reluctance to associate with magicians, Geller has been an influence on magic for five decades.

When I was becoming interested in magic I knew only an handful of names and his was one of them. I would watch Doug Henning and Mark Wilson on American TV and “Magic Tom” Auburn on our local channels and I would read about Geller.

He came to North America in the early 1970's at precisely the right time. There was a boom in interest in all things paranormal and, as a result, his talents were eagerly received. Each deformed spoon or key, each restarted clock seemed to demonstrate that despite all of the upheaval of war and social and economic unrest, it was within our capacity to control our environment.

It should be noted that this was also the time of Rod Serling's “Night Gallery,” “Ghost Story” with Sebastian Cabot and a host of other TV shows with paranormal themes like “The Sixth Sense” and “The Night Stalker.”

I'm not sure that I ever fully bought into the notion of Geller's unique abilities. I had read enough about Houdini's campaign against fraudulent spiritualists to be convinced that Geller was doing sneaky business and was very good at it.

But while bunking down in Camp Skeptic, I was nonetheless impressed by his powers of self-promotion. Believe him or not, it was hard not to know about him and the abilities he claimed.

And two generations later, it was possible to still see his impact on the magicians gathered in Orlando for Genii's 75^th Anniversary Birthday Bash.

In a number of comments made from the stage it was clear that some performers were uncomfortable sharing the program with Geller. And in the lobby, there were conference attendees lined up two and three deep to have their picture taken with him.

Needless to say, there were very few empty seats at his morning lecture.

It is not overstating it to say that Geller played his audience masterfully. At least indirectly, through the power of his mind, he was able to transform the room from a group who had the previous day snickered at comments about spoon bending to one that gave him a standing ovation and he did it all without exposing his methods.

That in itself is a great trick.

Instead of lecturing about effects and methods, Geller told his life story with the same kind of optimism and good humor with which earnest and sincere people on television convince you that you can lose weight without exercise, or earn vast profits without risking any money.

After years of hearing magicians complain about his refusal to acknowledge that his effects are the product of skill and technique rather than paranormal abilities, Geller's response is that he doesn't have to respond. He demonstrated through a series of examples that the only thing that matters to him is, in essence, that they spell his name right. (It's pronounced “Ooo-ree” and not “U-ree.”) At one point he said that he didn't bother to read the articles written about him, he just measured the number of column-inches.

And so now he travels the world selling versions of a competition show the goal of which is to ostensibly name his rightful successor. He has reinvented himself as the Simon Cowell of “mystifiers.”

Despite all the too-clever remarks and the manufactured animus between him and magicians, it is too easy to dismiss him as a footnote. He did something significant in the history of magic. He built an original act and sold it to the world. He made his reputation on deforming flatware and the general public knows his name. These are all feats to which magicians of every stripe aspire.

Regardless of what magicians may think, there is much to learn from Geller about building a career and continuing to stay relevant in the eyes of the public. He's done it, is doing it and should be celebrated for that.

That's what I think..., or maybe that's just what he wants me to think. 

 

Genii Bash - Episode IV: A New Hope

The next lecturer at Genii's 75th Anniversary Birthday Bash was Charlie Frye.

As was the case with Mr. Long's presentation, there was a torrent of information broadcast with a similar nervous energy.  

Master Genii, Richard Kaufman, introduced Mr. Frye by saying that he had seen him lecture in Asia and had been very impressed.  I came away from the Orlando presentation wishing I had seen what Mr. Kaufman had seen. This is not a comment on Mr. Frye's skills as a performer--he put on a hell of a show at the closing night gala--but more about the structure of his lecture presentation.

Not being familiar with Mr. Frye's work prior to his lecture, I had no contect for the torrent of gags and stunts that he demonstrated.  That he performs a high energy cabaret act that clearly seems to have been informed by a lot of street performance experience helped to frame his presentation retrospectively.  Having just listened to Eugene Burger talk about scripting and the idea of tricks as pictures without a frame, Mr. Frye's presentation seemed a clear demonstration of this idea.

***

I largely kept my notebook holstered for the evening show.  It was exciting to see a performance of Thurston's Rising Cards by Jonathan Levit ably assisted by the lovely and talented Mr. David Regal.

The effect was recreated for the Los Angeles Conference on Magic History which is a tough ticket to get so seeing Thurston's signature piece brought back to life was a rare and genuine treat.

***

After the evening show was the lecture I was most excited to see.  Magician, writer and skeptic Jamy Ian Swiss was going to talk about mentalism.

This last sentence deserves a second look not because it is so artfully crafted, but because it conveys something of a conundrum.  How does a skeptic, an advisor to the James Randi Educational Foundation perform mentalism without irony?  As Mr. Swiss repeated near the beginning of his lecture, "Jamy Ian Swiss is not a mentalist, he's an asshole."

Listening to his presentation, it's hard to think of Mr. Swiss as anything other than a thoughtful and passionate advocate for his art.  As Rick Maue noted in reviewing Mr. Swiss's book Shattering Illusions, "Mr. Swiss doesn't hate mentalism, he hates bad mentalism."

Mr. Swiss went to some lengths to differentiate between mental magic and mentalism.  He referenced a conversation with Teller of Penn & Tell wherein Mr. Teller defined mental magic as being concerned with the revelation of proper nouns ("You're thinking of a_____.")  Mentalism, by comparison, Mr. Swiss defined as the revelation of thinking.

As a mentalist, Mr. Swiss claims no special powers which, he noted, was unlike another performer attending the convention.  Mr. Swiss accomplished his effects as a result of observation, experience and some specialized knowledge.  

It is perhaps because I have been listening to a lot of old radio dramas, but as I listened to Mr. Swiss, I was reminded of one of the old Sherlock Holmes programs.   Holmes would make pronouncements about visitors to 221B Baker St. that would, with different framing, rival those of Alexander or Kreskin.  As Holmes explains, his pronouncements are the result of a string of observations and deductions.

Holmes was a rationalist and Swiss is a skeptic so is it too much to describe Mr. Swiss as the Sherlock Holmes of Mentalists?

I am not a big fan of mentalism per se, but I am fascinated by the psychology of it.  Reading books on the subject, it has always seemed to me that there are so many different ways that an effect could fail and that uncertainty made it very unsettling as a form.

As I write this, it occurs to me that the critical factor in mentalism is the experience of the performer.  We audience members imagine ourselves to be wildly individual and capable of an infinite number of choices in response to any situation.  To the experienced performer, one closing in on Gladwell's 10,000 hours to mastery, the patterns of response become apparent and the selection of 37 as an uneven number between one and fifty less and less of a surprise.

It would also make sense that, after mastering magic's carefully structured classics that the more bi-directional quality of mentalism would have a strong attraction.

Somebody, and it may have been Mr. Swiss, likened mentalism to performing jazz and the comparison seems apt in that it requires a mastery of skill and technique and the ability to listen and adapt to the input from the spectator.

Mr. Swiss also spoke about the importance of "clarity of effect."  The audience should be able to describe what happened in a simple sentence.  Too many effects, both in mentalism and in traditional magic, have lots of process and that can undercut the magical moment.  As Mr. Swiss said, "Just because the audience is confused doesn't mean they've had a magical experience."

Too often the processes of a magical effect exist to disguise the method and the effect on the audience is not so much magical as confusing.  One thinks immediately of the 21-Card Trick and its endless counting and pointing.  When you contrast that with magician shows hat empty and pulls rabbit from hat, you quickly understand the difference.

The last thing I wrote down was "You have to talk away the box."

To be frank, I no longer recall the context in which the remark was made, but as I reflect on my impressions of Mr. Swiss's presentation the comment makes sense to me as integral to the creation of a piece of theatre.  Absent supernatural forces, every effect will have a method that creates boundaries and limitations on the performer.  It is therefore incumbent upon them, through their scripting and presentation to deemphasize those limitations for the audience.

More easily said than done, but foundational to the creation of magical experiences.

Dare I say, "elementary?"

P is for Part 3

The advent of Internet videos has unleashed a torrent of magic and powered many a hand-wringing column, blog post and conversation.  It has also created a slew of performers who can display their relative skills to the world with concern for audience response.

Approbation has been conflated with page views.

Real performance is a bi-directional process in real time, a conversation really between the magician and his audience.  And, like any conversation, it is made up of an unending series of adjustments and refinements in response to verbal and non-verbal cues passing back and forth over the footlights.

There is no virtual simulation for this, no matter how good your Internet connection.

To upgrade your skills as a performer, you have to perform in front of a living audience.

Preparing for those performance opportunities means doing what other performance artists have always done:  prepare, practice and rehearse.

I can recall my own early days in magic and how each time I would get a new trick, I would renew my commitment to being a better performer only to tear open the package, pour over the instructions and quickly become bored with the props.  And, like most game day prayers, my commitment to practicing would similarly evaporate.

It was only when challenged to "do a trick" that I would go back to my props and quickly try to put together a program based on my sketchy memory of the instructions I had read.  It's no surprise then that I never accomplished my goals in magic.

I bring all of this up by way of introduction to the lecture of Eugene Burger at the Genii 75th Anniversary Bash in Orlando.

By reputation, Burger is one of magic's revered philosopher kings.  He is as comfortable discussing theory and history as he is performing his torture-themed take on the Card Warp.

What is less clear until you see him in person is the mischievous twinkle in his eye.  He clearly enjoys confounding his audiences.  In my notebook I wrote "The Friar Tuck of Magic."

The premise of his lecture was "how can we make our shows better?"  Not how can we be better magicians, or how can we master a particular aspect of presentation, but how can we make our shows better.  How do magicians make better theatre?

In answer to his question, Mr. Burger went on to define what he felt were the four pillars of a good show.

Pillar I:  Practice
Burger is an advocate of regular and conscious practice.

While I can't pretend to speak for all, it seems that, for many, practice is too much like dieting:  they know they need to do it, but something more interesting always seems to get in the way.

It is for this reason that so many effects are sold as being "easy" and requiring little to no skill.

While I am certain it happens all the time, I am pretty sure Burger would maintain it was a mistake to confuse the skill requirement with the mandate to practice.  It may not take a lot of skill to operate a Svengali Deck, but it does take practice.

One of the key reasons for practicing is to empower the performer to not have to think about the procedure of the effect.  In Burger's words, "thinking kills magic."

Until the procedure of a given effect can be performed without thinking, in other words, until you can name the 16th letter of the alphabet without using your fingers or singing "The Alphabet Song" then you don't know the trick and need more practice.

Burger went on to say that practice should also be conscious.  This is to say that in practice the moves should be second nature to the performer but they should never be automatic.  The performer needs to pay attention to their practice so as not to learn bad habits.  The last thing one wants is to invest hours and hours perfecting a piece of "sneaky business" only to have it not be right for a particular effect.

Pillar II:  Rehearsal
Burger differentiated practice from rehearsal by saying that while practice can and should be done alone and in front of a mirror, rehearsal should be done in front of a camera and, as in the theatre, attempt to replicate as closely as possible actual show conditions.  And, Burger was careful to caution, it would serve the performer well to not always assume that the rehearsal audience is nice, or even interested in his magic.

The camera can be a useful tool for identifying procedural and presentational shortcomings but, like the Internet video performances of so many young magicians, it can blind the performer to angle issues that can crop up in the real world.  To receive maximum benefit from these rehearsals, the performer should move the camera to less-than-ideal angles.

Pillar III:  Scripting
Like practicing, magicians have heard about scripting their effects, but it too often falls off the preparation checklist.

Too many performers, especially beginners who specialize presenting other people's magic, believe that by repeating the presentation of the person who demonstrated the effect to them they will be "real magicians."  Worse, there are far too many who believe, mistakenly, that they have superior improvisational skills and they simply make up their presentation as they go along.

Burger's position is that a magic trick is a "picture without a frame" and it is through the scripting process that the performer provides a context for the effect.

It should be noted here that the script for a given effect has to also be consistent with the performer's onstage character.  This comes back to the magician as actor playing the part of a magician notion of Robert-Houdin.

Presuming I could master the Card Warp effect, it would no more make sense for me to repeat Burger's script than it would for David Copperfield to perform the endurance stunts of David Blaine.  Scripting is how the performer makes a particular effect part of their particular show.

And, from a purely technical perspective, the structure of a script provides the performer with a way of avoiding cluttering up the audience's experience of an effect with unnecessary verbiage--what Burger calls "verbal lint."  Improvisation can add energy to a performance, but the uncertainty can lead the performer--especially an inexperienced performer--to a dead end the only way out of which is more words and more audience confusion.

Pillar IV:  Critique
By investing in the first three pillars--practice, rehearsal and scripting--the performer should be more than ready to accept the feedback of a constructive critique.  Soliciting the comments of trusted fellow magicians and civilians, the performer can continue to adjust and correct aspects of their show so that they can be ready for an audience.

ByThe processes that Burger described are not static.  Much like then final performance, the process is bi-directional with each refinement impacting practice, scripting and rehearsal.  Each critique, like each, performance, informs the scripting, rehearsal and so on. 

Burger's Pillars are foundational to the creation of strong, individual performance and essential to beginning a real conversation with the audience.

Our Chief Weapon Is...

A recurring theme in the notes I took at the Genii 75th Anniversary Bash has to do with magic as a theatrical form.

Like theatre, magic is primarily a medium of storytelling and the magical moment--when the trick happens--is not so much the climax of the story, but the inevitable outcome of bringing a specific set of elements into conflict with one another.

What does that mean?

Stories take many forms, but all involve conflict and resolution.  Whether we are talking about the Joads, or Indiana Jones, or a playing card that wants nothing more than to rise to the top of the pack, the storyteller's job is to set the scene, establish the characters, introduce obstacles, raise the stakes and resolve the story.

Stories are about transformation and so is magic.  Melodrama is about the peaks and valleys of experience, but truly powerful stories affect the characters and, by extension, the audience.

While it may seem that I am advocating for Sam the Bellhop as the apotheosis of magic tricks, I am merely pointing out that which was stated explicitly, or conveyed implicitly, by the lecturers in Orlando:  witnessing raw technical skill may be engaging to technicians, but lay audiences want to invest their attention in a compelling story.  Put another way, while the patient has a vested interest in the outcome of the surgery, only other surgeons care about what instruments were used during its performance.

I find it remarkable that so many of the presenters and performers who lectured at the convention chose as their performing character one who was equally amazed as the audience that a particular trick worked.  This was less a reflection on specific technical skill as a choice of framing for the audience.  The magic was happening for them at the same time as for the audience.

Case in point was Chad Long.  From the outset, he projected a torrent of nervous energy that clearly masked a high level of technical skill.

The note I took away from his presentation reads as follows:  "Take a thing they know..., add something and it's a new thing."

That's all I wrote down.  I have been trying to work out why that stuck with me long enough to find my pen and I think finally it has to do with surprise and storytelling.

We humans are quick to recognize patterns.  It is a fundamental component of our decision-making process.  We observe and then make predictions based on those observations.  Anyone who has ever pulled out to pass a car on a two-lane road will know exactly what I am talking about.

Storytellers use this primal skill against us as a way of sustaining out investment in the outcome of their tales.  They establish the conventions of their story and then intentionally subvert or destroy those conventions.  And magicians do this all the time, for what is a "kicker" ending if not a demonstration that the assumption of the audience are mostly, if not completely, in error.

Mr. Long's notion of taking the familiar and adding new elements to create a new "thing" speaks directly to this.

Surprise, this subversion of convention, is closely tied to the magical moment.  The power of the magician comes, in part, from the ability to present the idea that whether through skill, or "strange and hypnotic powers," they can, if only in the context of their performance, live outside the conventions to which the rest of us are held hostage.  When you or I put the "ambitious" card in the middle of the deck, it stays in the middle of the deck.  But when the magician does it, there are no rules, no telling where that card will end up.

A big part of the discoveries I made at this convention was in recognizing a kind of universal coherence across the various silos of my life.

After four decades of following magic and bemoaning my complete lack of skill, or ability to perform, I find that my "safety" interests in theatre and storytelling are more closely related to magic than I had once thought.  My appreciation for a well-told joke and the associated comedy arts draws on similar skills as those used by the magician.

I wrote earlier about wanting to master The Pass as a way of connecting to the sleight of hand masters.  This is still a goal, but I now understand that technical skill without context--without a good story--is like being a comedian without timing:  you may know where the punchline is, but nobody else will.

So, I will end this installment of my report on the conference by illustrating a combination of elements that in combination create a magical moment for the audience.



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.