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 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.