I’ve been terribly derilect in my duties in keeping my blogroll up to date.

Links make the blog – both incoming and outgoing. I do my best to pepper my posts with interesting links that are, on the surface, only tangentially related to the words from which they are linked. I hope some of you are as amused by where they take you as I am in choosing them in the first place.

Links to Escamoteurettes from other web sites are appreciated. Truly, they are. And links from the Escamoteurettes blogroll, while admittedly not as exciting as winning the lottery, are heartfelt.

So, here are a few additions:

Jim Sisti Magic – my friend.
Magic Mafia – my sinful pleasure
Magic, Mentalism, Mystery – The Secret Life Of A Magic Cat
The Magician – a weblog for the magical arts
The Indian Magicians’ Blog – Nakul Shenoy’s blog
The Magic Advocate

Like voting in Chicago, visit these links early and often.

How do you find a web site?

As a general rule, most people find a web site through another web site. It could be a site you already have visited. It could be a search engine’s results. One site links to another, you click the link, and like magic here you are. That’s how the web was designed, of course. That’s why it’s called “the web.”

Run a web server long enough and you will find yourself digging through your server logs to determine from where a visitor arrived. Logs can tell you what link someone clicked to get to your web site. It’s sort of like spelunking only without stepping into bat guano.

Of all the search engines that send people this way, Google amuses to me to no end with its endless bizarre and sometimes delusive ability to steer people to Casa Escamoteurettes. Welcome one and all.

Purely in the interest of digital prurience – added to the fact that you know I love lists and haven’t done one in so long – here are some search phrases that have led people to your humble servant’s blog. And, while it might normally concern me mightily that some of these searches returned Escamoteurettes toward the top of some of the search results, one should never look a gift horse in the mouth. To wit:

where did the phrase “they drank the Kool aid” come from
stewart james classical mechanics falling keys
John Grinder jail
how to do the asher twist sleight magic
Free Will Deddy Corbuzier explained
five-star prediction thompson
gibson lucille+users
leblanc’s natural products
t shirt penguin “find a new angle”
carl sagan l ron hubbard
“richard tell” dentist
pod xt live programming hints
magic rants
voyager spacecraft medallion
“13 steps to mentalism” + “pdf”
ulf moerling trick
Biography Beliefs of David Fitzkee
magic impossible * trick add the numbers mentalism mind reading NLP
“comedy magic show” + “magic cafe”
“Ed Mcmahan” model
card tricks shuffling instructions exposed
l&l publishing barefoot
the great slidini magic tricks
milton erickson purple shirt meaning
Neo-Magic Artistry review
finger technique ultra-mental
magic tits (JL: a search phrase I thought belonged to Magic Mafia)
magic “book test” dale carnegie
millard longman
sachs/old bicycle
“cups and balls” routine “this example”
“Sandra Sisti”
nailwriter mccambridge
nick ruggiero
corinda + “card tricks”
suspend others terror cultivate air unpredictability
stanyons magic review
“red hot cold reading
the Gunnsight
“magic makers” “ghost kings”
” 202 methods of forcing” annemann download

Of course, listing these search phrases runs the risk of throwing Google into a Mobius loop the next time someone searches one of these phrases, but you know, that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Those intimately familiar with Phil Goldstein’s Color Series know a couple of things. They know these booklets originally sold for a very small amount of money. They know the material, while not overflowing the covers, was thought provoking and practical for a working mentalist. They also know the prices these booklets fetched on the eBay market in later years made a 1982 investment in Microsoft look like a “marginal investment.”

The booklets come to mind because, as I reaquaint myself to things in Casa LeBlanc, I’ve come across the still-sealed package from my friends at H&R Magic Books which contained my new copy of “Prism” – the reprinted version of the Color Series. (A little advanced planning on my part would have allowed me to pick up the copy in person when it arrived in the upstairs hallowed hall of H&R, but the phrase “advanced planning” stands in opposition to “Surprise!” – which is tattooed to the skin beneath my wristwatch.)

While attending MAGIC Live! last year, Jim Sisti, Jim’s wife Sandie, and I happened to be the next folks in line in front of Max Maven and Stephen Minch – all of us waiting to be admitted to the theater for one of the two evening shows. Among the several topics of conversation was the Color Series and the question I’m sure neither of them were ever asked (at least, not in the ten seconds previous to our inquiry): were the Color Series of booklets going to be reprinted?

The answer was neither “yes” or “no.” In fact, there was no absolute, usable answer at all. At least no “no” gave hope there could be a reprinting, even if it took someone paying Tony Soprano himself to drive up to Washington and personally impress upon the fine folks at Hermetic Press how important it is to do this thing.

So it was with a great deal of happiness that the announcement in early January finally made its waves among the teaming masses that a new Max Maven book was to be released real soon now. (And this was not the long awaited book on the terrifying beauty that is the Gilbreath Principle.) It was the long awaited (for some, feared) reprint of the Color Series.

While there are any number of “name” performers who are feathering their 401K plans with issues, reissues, repackages, etc., (my sense of propriety doesn’t allow me to link to P*ngu*n Magic) it’s never a bad day when someone – like Max Maven – turns out something actually valuable and useful and original – especially if it’s a reissue of hard-to-find material.

As you are probably already aware, not every text on magic and mentalism from the 70s is worthy of obtaining and study. My magic library has the “hell shelf” near the floor and it extends from one end of the book case to the other filled with the magic book equivalent of 1970s Leif Garret posters; things published that probably seemed like a really good idea at the time, but viewed in the light of a 21st century sense of reality pale into adbsurdity. (No, I don’t actually have a Leif Garrett poster, so please don’t ask what I’d take for it. As for the albums, I’m keeping them. Don’t ask about them either.)

Back to the eBay revolution.

Over the years occasionally someone on a newsgroup or discussion board would ask about a trick, and someone may reference a booklet from the Color Series. So, the magic guy would call His Favorite Dealer and the conversation might go along these lines: “Got the Color Series? No? Okay. What’s new this week?”

But there came a point in time in the late 90s when, thanks to the lifeforce that is the Internet, interest in the series rallied into frenzy. And, thanks to to the lifeforce- and money-sucking entity known as eBay, those interests were satiated at prices that rose into the several hundreds of dollars. At those prices, it also became common knowledge that some of those sets sold through eBay auctions were manufactured by someone who was not Phil Goldstein or Max Maven. They were Deddied, if you will.

Prior to the re-release of the Series, a common question would pop up whenever the juxtaposed words “color” and “series” came up in idle conversation. And that’s “are they worth those prices?” Now that’s a topic to throw into the same column as politics and religion.

“Worth” is a concept, like most others, that is meaningless without some sort of context to go along with it. What are they worth in comparison to what? For what reason or purpose?

I buy magic and mentalism books for one of four primary reasons, or a combination of them. First, I purchase a book (booklet, manuscript, penciled-on sheets of toilet paper) because I wish to perform that trick and I believe if I perform something, I should own a legitimate copy of the text. Yes, I know, some people think that’s silly. I happen to think “Who makes the better captain: Kirk or Picard?” arguments silly, but different strokes for different folks, I always say. (And it’s Picard, by the way.)

Second, I buy books because they increase my knowledge of the subject matter. When one becomes seriously interested in a topic, doesn’t it make sense that he surround himself with written material that adds to his knowledge base on the subject?

On a related note, if more “magic inventors” purchased and actually read more books on their chosen craft, far fewer “accidental reinventions” would occur. (And if some “name” magicians would be mindful of what they’ve already released several dozen times already, using different titles, some online magic stores would find it necessary to reduce their inventory of that author by several magnitudes.)

Third, I buy a book because I collect books. I sometimes buy several editions of the same book. For instance, I have a hard cover version of Larry Becker’s “STUNNERS!” that I purchased from Tom Ladshaw. It was originally in Robert Weill’s library; now it’s in mine. (May Bob rest in peace.) When Larry released “STUNNERS! Plus!” I purchased a copy of that, too, even though Larry sent to me a PDF file of all the “Plus!” material. I wanted to own a copy of the new book anyway.

Hilliard’s “Greater Magic” is another of my favorites. I own seven hard cover versions of that book. My favorite copy, though, is another Tom Ladshaw buy: a pristine first edition that came from David Price’s personal library. The other copies are first and second editions in various grades of condition.

These are items that, because of their limited production and availability, tend to go up in monetary value.

Finally, I may buy something to support a writer. This is not to say I’m not interested in or don’t value the material or the quality of the material, but sometimes I feel compelled to purchase a copy of something because some authors should be given a reason or two to continue creating new stuff.

So, back to the worth of the Color Series. Were they worth several hundred dollars for the set?

Well, for me, that’s an easy “yes.” I actually perform a couple of tricks from those booklets, so Reason Number 1 above fits here. Yes, they are variations from the written word but not so much so that I can claim any ownership of the tricks. When a performer uses a trick to earn a living, several hundred dollars is not the issue. A working illusionist can easily justify fifteen thousand dollars for a Steinmeyer illusion built by John Gaughan or Bill Smith. The average weekend warrior – while a perfectly respectable aspect in the business end of magic – is not likely to find a rational reason in this or any alternate universe for spending that kind of jack on an illusion.

I’ll also say that I have collected lots of Phil Goldstein items over the years. I think he’s an interesting fellow and I enjoy reading what he wrote. And because I’m not the only Goldstein fan on the planet and there are only so many copies of Goldstein items in existence, the monetary value tends to go up on them over time. This is not a bad reason to purchase something. (It’s not a great reason, but it’s not a bad one either.) I think you’ll find that, even though Prism has been released, there’s still a collector’s market that wishes to obtain a legitimate set of the Color Series because that’s what collectors do: they collect.

So, given that, should you obtain either the original Color Series or a copy of Prism? Well, that depends on your reasons for obtaining the material.

At minimum, you should obtain a copy of the book for the material in it. If you have an interest in magic and mentalism – and I have to think you do, or you wouldn’t be reading this blog and, especially, this post – you should study the tricks and what makes them tick. This is one of the most important reasons for studying tricks by authors like Goldstein; it’s not so much to learn the trick, but to learn why the trick was constructed the way it was and why it plays the way it does to an audience.

By the way, you’ll note there is no mention of “limited edition” in connection with the release of Prism. There’s a scurge crawling across the landscape of magic and mentalism publishing that some publishers have embraced to the eternal irritation of others: the limited edition.

What exactly is the point of limited edition? If you think about it, most every book or trick published in our bizarre little world is, by definition, limited edition. To append the words “limited edition” to most of the releases you find today is just silly and/or egocentric.

Sure, there are exceptions to that rule: anything Todd Karr at The Miracle Factory puts out deserves limited edition status. Several limited edition versions of Kaufman’s books certainly deserve the label because they are special leather bound and cased versions of a released book.

But someone releasing an e-book as a ‘limited edition”? Oh, brother.

Steve Bryant has a great writeup on Prism in his February 2005 edition of Little Egypt Magic. Go there and read what he’s written and maybe that will tip you over the fence if you’re still wondering whether or not to buy the book. (You do read Little Egypt Magic faithfully, right? It’s always – always – interesting, and besides, where else can you go to see these words on a web page about magic: “It was only then that I learned how truly devastating Don Alan’s load was.”)

It should be fairly obvious that the posts on Escamoterettes lean more toward the essay side of the fence than they do current events. (My previous blogs were of the current events/what am I thinking at the moment type.) That was a decision I made early on and I think I’ve done a pretty good job of sticking to that.

On the other hand, I am also huge fan of the history of magic. My weakness for old books, pamphlets and photos dealing with magic is exceeded by few other things. So, when I received a nice note from Thomas Weynants about a web site he hosts that has a “new page on Prestidigitation, Conjuring & Magic in relation to photography and pre-cinema” naturally I made a beeline to it.

I think it’s worth a look if you have similar interests:

PRESTIDIGITATION CONJURING ARTS NECROMANCY ART HAUNTED GLASS – DECEPTION OF THE EYE & SENSES

I also found the rest of the site absolutely fascinating. Maybe you will, too.

There’s a common path trodden by many in the world of mystery entertainment. I’ve been down that path, watched others walk it, and pointed still others down it from time to time. It’s tried, true, and – for many – virtually unavoidable mostly because they don’t know there’s any other way. (Not that there’s anything terribly wrong with what I’m about to describe. It’s staying on the path that causes the problems.)

You buy a trick or two and hurry along through your first performance for someone who isn’t sleeping, dead, or your cat. And good, bad or indifferent that performance (really the response to that performance) whets your appetite in much the same way I’m told the first drag on the glass pipe affects people.

So you buy more tricks.

You perform more tricks.

You desire more, so you acquire more.

Eventually, though, a good magic dealer will grab you by the bits and pieces of metal you might have jutting from your nostrils, eyebrows, ears or…well, let’s not go there…and suggests you buy books. As Paul Diamond says, “books are your best investment.” (Actually, Paul growls it, but if you know Paul, you already knew that. In which case, you’re probably hearing in your head Paul shouting, “Hey you! Come here!”)

If you’re lucky, you have a good magic dealer. He’ll suggest Tarbell and Giobbi and Stars of Magic. If he’s a really good magic dealer, he’ll put a gun to your now-dog-eared deck of Bicycle cards and tell you that you’ll either read the Tarbells or he will kill your deck. If he’s a truly disturbed magic dealer, he’ll actually pull the trigger.

But enough about the Jeffs of the world.

If you read enough books on the performance of magic and mentalism, you’ll run across the suggestion that you should be ever mindful of the mental and emotional state of your audience as you perform. You realize, maybe slowly but surely, that there’s more to this stuff than not dropping the cards. Knowing fifty ways from Sunday how to force a card may be clever, but knowing how to successfully covertly do it every single time is more important. You learn that, as a performer, you are (or should be) in control of guiding your audience where you wish them to go.

At this fork in the mystical road to enlightenment, magic texts tend to take one of two paths. And for you, it’s a lot like Neo having to chose the red pill or the blue pill not fully knowing the consequences of your choice ahead of time. (Lots of us call this situation “real life.”) Except in this case if you swallow the wrong pill, you can always hack it up and try the other one and no one named “Smith” is chasing you. Unless the glass pipe from the second paragraph above isn’t just metaphor for you. In which case, who is that guy standing behind you? Ha, ha, just kidding. Not really.

One path suggests that, as Magician, you are in a position of power. Never abuse that power. Love, coddle your audience. Embrace them, protect them.

Take this creepy path and you’ll end up hugging your audience to sleep.

What’s worse is you’ll rob yourself of the fire and power and surprise and magic this stuff is capable of creating for audiences. It’s cutting vital organs from a living, breathing thing your audience desires to witness. The Point, for pity’s sake. (Unless you happen to be a large bosomed chick, in which case it’s your special magic most audiences wish to see. Hey, I’m just the reporter – don’t shoot the messenger.)

This emasculated path is not something you’ll find suggested by Juan Tamariz. Or Darwin Ortiz. Or Jamy Swiss. Or Michael Ammar. (Truth be known, the entire point of this post was simply a logical context in which to juxtapose Swiss and Ammar on a topic in which they are in accord. That’s magic, my friend.)

Months ago when I told my friend Jim Sisti that I’d ordered the book/DVD package from Jamy Swiss, he told me about a certain point Jamy made in his “Live in London” DVD about the effect he wished to have on his audience. I quoted it in an earlier Escamoteurettes post, but here it is again:

I want to destroy my audience! I want to induce inoperable brain tumors! I want them to remember me, not the magic, but me! And not for today, or tomorrow, or next week, but for the rest of their damn lives and tell their grandchildren about me!

Let’s file that under the category of “tough love.” Works for me.

In his excellent, must-have book, “The Magic of Michael Ammar” Michael reprints an essay titled “Have No Mercy.” In one part, he states:

If it is true we only get what we give, then we should HAVE NO MERCY when it comes to dishing out wonder and amazement. Grab the helm and wage all-out war on the spectator’s senses.

Know thy enemy. Systematically analyze their primary lines of defense: sight, sound, touch, taste and smell, and brutally attack the weaknesses of each. (That’s called ‘Know How.’) Thoroughly research their secondary lines of defense, the ’safety nets’ against deception: their experience, their logic, their assumptions, their common sense, and cunningly twist them against themselves. (That’s called ‘KNOW WHY.’)

That’s not even a hop, skip and a jump away from Brain Tumorville, wouldn’t you say?

There are two essays in that book I value more than the balance of the book collectively and that essay one of them. (The other is on how to make more money.)

So, how far is “too far”?

Ferris suggests you can never go too far. But I’m not so sure about that. Afterall, he wasn’t a magician.

Eugene Poinc, bless his dearly departed soul, suggests in the introduction to his book, “The Practitioner“ which is aimed at the bizarre magick performer (as opposed to the plain bizarre magic performer):

The implements used by the Practitioner (and they are never gaudy magic shop props) are carried in either an aged grey carpetbag, or a very old, weathered black leather medical bag. An attache case is anathema, a commercial close-up case even worse.

The Practitioner never uses a silly little birthday cake candle, only a fairly massive grey or brown beeswax candle in appropriate holder. A plaster or plastic human skull or devil’s head is absurd. A real skull, human or animal, or decaying fragment of a coffin lid is used. The candle is ignited preferably with small wax matches (Lucifers) or a very simple but handsome silver cigarette lighter – never book matches.

If something must be written, it is with a grey or silver fountain pen, never ballpoint; if with a pencil, it should look very old (sans yellow paint) and have no eraser set in a metal ferrule. Paper employed is always very high quality to look and touch, or parchment if to be of antiquity.

Now, just reading that puts me in a good frame of mind. (Not that I’m going to go Googling for Skulls-R-Us inventory. Again, I mean.)

I will end this – as I often do – by asking a question or two: are you going far enough, showing no mercy, and giving your audience the experience they deserve even if they don’t know exactly what that experience should look like? You should know; it’s your job to know. Or are you surgically removing the thing that can set you apart from most everyone else who calls themselves performers, and create for them a memorable experience your audience will be talking about for the rest of their lives?

As I get my bearings on what’s new in the world over the last two months and gear up to resume my usual unusual publishing schedule here at Casa Escamoteurettes, I want to mention Richard Osterlind’s new blog.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know how much I admire and respect Richard. So, it was with a great deal of happiness and all around joy for the world when my friend Jim Sisti mentioned to me in our phone chat today that Richard has a blog.

Please take a look at it.

Now, I have loads to catch up on.

There are certain non-spiritual, but closely held beliefs that sometimes take on great, life-and-death spiritual importance for some people. These beliefs tend to guide decisions and actions in a completely illogical, if comfortable manner.

When you hear words like “should” or “always” or “never” or “ever” always ask, “Why so?” Not asking perpetuates deeply held beliefs that, at the end of the day, many people can’t say why they are so closely held. And, “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it” is not what one would consider to be a “good answer.”

This doesn’t happen quickly, of course. (Heaven forbid Rome should be built in a day.) But once those beliefs take hold it makes GI Joe’s Kung Fu Grip seem like child’s play. Which it is not, but don’t get me started.

(My non-spiritual brethren should feel free to continue reading. This isn’t a religious screed, so come with me brothers for a walk on the wild side.)

Over the last two months, among the several exciting adventures in which I’ve found myself – none of which, by the way, involve incarceration, near-incarceration, or attempted-anything – involves the production of a musical project. To be more specific, the creation of a double-CD and DVD of a two hour live performance of an full orchestra and choir. (For the audio-geeked-out among you, 72 audio tracks and Auto-Tune was not allowed in the studio.)

As a result of that, I’ve (again) found obvious correlations between the world of music and that of mystery entertainment. (It would be a source of endless amusement if I had endless time on my hands.) In the world of music performing, there are certain cardinal rules that simply aren’t broken. Why? Well…because, that’s why. Now run along and play.

We find the same sort of thing in magic and mentalism, too. I suppose it’s human nature to go along with the hallucinations of others if only because there are often bigger fish to fry.

The electric guitar finds its direct roots in the Gibson guitar company and the 1937 release of the electric Spanish guitar, the ES-150, which sold for $150.00. (Actually, the roots probably go back to a couple of thousand years BC with the lute, but let’s go with Gibson for a moment.) The ES – Electric Spanish – line is still being made today. B.B. King’s Lucille is one of the more recognizable examples.

As the basic concept of an electric guitar caught on, other designs found their way into the market and certain styles have become “standards” in the world of guitar playing. And any time you have standards or classics, you’ll find mythical beliefs that may as well be etched on the cheek of The Monument.

A popular mythical belief: either a Gibson Les Paul or a Fender Stratocaster fed into either a tube Marshall or Fender amplifier is the sound of rock. That’s a safe start, anyway.

(Actually, “popular mythical belief” is a bit weak. Blood is often spilled over this point.)

Further granularizing involves questions like which tubes go into the amplifier; which instrument cord goes between the guitar and amplifier; which special effects pedal goes before – and after – which other special effects pedal; which knob should be turned to which number (or fractional number) to get the perfect sound, and which guitar pick to use. (Unless your name is Mark Knopfler in which case, that last question is moot.)

Rising above pedestrian rules is this activity, which deals you the Go Directly to Jail, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200 card: using anything but a tube amplifier. This is tantamount to blowing your nose on the curtains at the funeral parlor when the casket is opened: it’s just not done.

Another rule: hit records must be recorded in the most expensive studio and produced by the producer who has collected the most number of gold records for previous work. Another rabbit’s foot.

In our weird little corner of the world, we have our own cardinal rules. More on that later.

So, by way of showing what happens when you break all the rules, I give you Boston.

That’s Boston the band, not the town.

And even saying “Boston the band” is a bit of a misnomer. Boston was really Tom Scholz and company. And Tom Scholz had a vision he saw in all its Technicolor glory.

After graduating MIT, having attended on a full scholarship, Scholz took employment with Polaroid, they of film camera fame. Tom worked days being a brilliant engineer, and nights engineering demo recordings of his songs in his basement recording studio. After a few years of this, he shopped his four demo songs to all the record companies he could locate. There was interest, but not a final deal.

Cutting to the chase, a couple of extra songs were recorded which led directly to interest in a record deal with Epic Record company. All fine and good until someone noticed that the band needed to perform live performances, and currently “the band” consisted primarily of Scholz and singer Brad Delp. In short order, other members were brought in and Boston recorded an album.

Sort of.

Having already broken one rule (the band business) Tom proceeded to break a few more. Not interested in having a record company-selected producer lord over his creation and creativity, a studio was rented in California with producer John Boylan hovering over sessions with three of the band members that were actually the decoy for the real recording, which was going on in Scholz’s basement recording studio. With Scholz playing most everything himself and recording most everything himself.

I suppose, if you were to gauge the relative level of rule-breaking, that would have been at the top of the list. The very idea that a record recorded mostly by one man in his basement recording studio would end up being released in the big world of record labels is sort of preposterous. It’s just not done. Ever.

Let’s see. Another broken rule: killer acoustic guitar sound can only come from a Martin acoustic guitar which costs in the neigborhood of a set of dental veneers. However, the acoustic guitar heard on over 16 million copies of the Boston debut album is a cheap $100 Yamaha guitar.

The rest, as they say, is history. Boston’s eponymous debut album is the biggest selling debut album, and tenth best selling album in history. Not bad for breaking a few rules.

Lest one might come to the conclusion that breaking the rules has become embraced, given many examples of unbridled success, I give you: Line 6.

While guitar amplifier manufacturers were still falling over themselves to build and market “real guitar amplifiers” for “real guitarists” Marcus Ryle and Michel Doidic co-founded a little company of ten employees and named it Line 6.

The idea behind Line 6 was simple: use technology (digital sound processing) to “model” the aspects of classic guitar amplifiers. The runaway best selling product – POD – bat the ball out of the park. The maroon colored, kidney bean shaped metal box did a remarkable job of simulating sounds that would cost tens of thousands of dollars to create with the amplifier setups POD modeled.

But don’t mention POD in mixed company. And, really, in one way I can’t blame the purists in their disdain. Many POD users simply plug in a guitar, dial up a preset, and play away. It’s much like doing a trick exactly as it is written up. It’s just not…inspiring.

On the other hand, there are artists who use POD regularly who get fantastic results after spending the time to learn every aspect of the thing, and making changes and tweaks that fit their vision. Same happens when a magic performer learns every aspect of a trick and tweaks until the end result is unique and, well, magical.

Line 6 didn’t stop at modeling guitar amplifiers. A couple of years ago they released the Variax 500 – a modeled electric guitar. Using DSP technology, Line 6 engineers modeled a number of electric, acoustic and specialty guitars, stuffed the results into integrated circuits which were stuffed into an admittedly less-than-stellar guitar body and handed to guitar players emulations of nearly every guitar most of them could never hope to own.

The purists had a fit, pronounced the Variax a failure, and went back to their old standbys. Meanwhile, Line 6 had another smash hit on their hands. Go figure.

All of this was brought back front and center to me yesterday as I received my Line 6 PODxt Live. I was an early adopter of both POD, PODxt (the successor to POD), and the Variax 500, so the PODxt Live was not so much a choice as a natural progression in a disease many of you know well. (It’s okay, no need to stand up and be counted. Just know there are lots of us.)

PODxt Live takes the digital interface cable from the Variax and, essentially, controls it from the footboard. Between the two, a guitar player has at his hands (and feet) just about every desirable guitar amplifier, guitar special effects pedal, and electric and acoustic guitars in any combination he can imagine.

So this is what crack is like.

In a way, this combination is much like certain sets of books in my magic and mentalism library. If I pulled from the shelf the Tarbells, Stewart James books, the Jinx reprints, Mind, Myth & Magic, Complete Magick, and Compleat Invocation, it could be said that I’d have the magic and mentalism equivalent of the PODxt Live/Variax – that is, the raw material to create my own riffs.

Now, I could simply pull any trick from any book and do it precisely as written and I’d have essentially a trick someone else created done as they created it. It is original inasmuch as it was original with them. I’d simply be immitating a riff someone else created.

Not that there’s anything wrong with playing someone else’s riff, if it makes you feel good and you find it good practice. But it’s not creative, and I certainly think it’s dangerous to confuse practice with creativity.

Back to Line 6. There are the guitarist mystics who are not as enamoured with the PODxt/Variax combination, but – in my opinion – for the wrong reasons. Now, I’ve been a collector of BC Rich guitars since the early 80s. I am particularly fond of the Mockingbird and Bich models handcrafted by the late Bernie Rico. I happen to love the sound of one played through my tube amplifier at obnoxiously loud levels. But having spent considerable time tweaking my PODxt, I find I can get the same recorded result from it as I do putting a microphone in front of my Marshall amplifier and speakers.

Magic and mentalism have their own brand of mysticism regarding certain tricks. If I ask you to close you eyes and think of most of the kid shows you’ve seen – maybe even performed – certain tricks come immediately to mind as the canon of kid show performance. Surely the list will include the Magic Coloring Book, Hippity Hop Rabbits, Die Box. (As to Hippity Hop Rabbits, I’d like to mention that Stewart James – and I know you know who is Stewart James and, if not, I don’t want to know – considered HHR one of the greatest magic tricks.)

Why did these tricks end up comprising the Canon of Kid Show Magic?

If you’ve witnessed enough mentalism performances, you have undoubtedly encountered frightenly similar versions (which is a nice way of saying exact copies) of Q&A, Bank Night, Seven Keys to Bald Pate and Chronologue.

Why did these tricks find their way into the Canon of Mentalism Performances?

It’s not that I have anything in particular against the tricks I mentioned above. In fact, I consider them classics. And classics are classics for a reason. But to do the same version as the next guy just isn’t magical.

But that’s secondary to the main point.

Suggest to a performer that maybe they’d do better to replace one of his “standards” with a newer version and you may as well suggest his mother is in the service business (if you know what I mean, and I think you do.)

Why? Not everyone is willing to put in the time and effort naturally required to get satisfying results. Many people are personally perfectly happy with barely adequate. (Audience members are not numbered in that, despite what anyone may tell you.)

Do you put in the time required to be better than adequate? Do you spend the time required to be fully acquainted with the tools of your trade? Do you consider new methods for old tricks? Do you use the tools of our trade when they serve their purpose perfectly? (Ultra Mental comes immediately to mind for some reason.)

Bob Ezrin is a legend in the world of music and making records. He’s the guy behind the sound of Alice Cooper, Kiss, and Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” among numerous releases.

Bob Ezrin uses the Line 6 PODxt and a Variax. Go figure.

In 1977 – long before some of you were even born, I’m sad and/or frightened to say – NASA launched from a pad at Kennedy Space Center Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. The initial primary mission of the Voyager program was the exploration of Jupiter and Saturn. (I’m sure no one at mission control ever uttered the words, “We’re going to probe Uranus next.”) When the longer term capabilities of the spacecraft were examined, the program morphed into a interstellar journey just this side of Captain Kirkville.

Being a geek-in-training at the time, I was absolutely, completely fascinated by these projects. (There may even be some NASA employees who recall the regular letters I sent, which, remarkably, were each answered kindly.)

In what some deemed technological hubris and typical human egocentricity, to each spacecraft was attached a gold-coated copper phonograph record meant to convey a series of messages to any alien race that receives it. This was assuming, of course, they were advanced enough to break down the second most common element in the universe: hydrogen. (The most common element in the universe, apparently, being stupidity.)

NASA also, wisely, attached a cartridge, stylus, and a how-to diagram instructing how to play the album. Thus demonstrating, again, high hopes that the recipients would have already cleared the required level of scientific intelligence commonly known as the “How To Program a VCR” hurdle which so clearly delineates intelligent life from lower, insignificant lifeforms known as “normal people.”

As an aside, for those of us who have read L. Ron Hubbard’s book, “Battlefield Earth” or the story from the first Star Trek motion picture, you have to accept the possibility that this might not turn out all that well for the future generations who may be visited by beings less affable, if more attactive than Spielberg’s E.T. But, since Carl Sagan suggests it may be ten billion years before either Voyager spacecraft even enters a planetary system – and assuming the gold album isn’t first melted to create a grill for some gangsta alien – I’ll go out on a limb and state for the record:

Any unfriendly aliens determined to make earthlings their slaves will first have to fight mankind’s other three masters – roaches, McDonald’s Big Macs, and Microsoft.

On the record is found 118 images of earth and its civilizations and almost an hour and a half of music (for some bizarre reason no Led Zeppelin was included), and greetings in nearly sixty human languages and one whale language.

But how do a room full of adult human beings select ninety minutes of music meant to represent humanity when one has to sift through hundreds of years and a multitude of cultures from which to choose? Why, via fisticuffs of course. (Kidding.) Carl Sagan had the final red pen, but he surrounded himself with people more than capable of making valuable suggestions. And the end result is a lovely representation of planet earth’s music as of 1977.

But none of the discussions over which piece of music or image to use could eclipse the “discussions” ensuing over the plaques attached to Voyager’s previous stellar brethren, Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. To the antenna structure of each of those probes, fired in the general direction of the outer space of 1972 and 1973, was affixed a gold-covered plaque – an interstallar greeting card of sorts – meant to convey our humanness and location in the universe. More hubris in action.

But, as Sagan wrote of the plaque, the reaction to the contents were “both amusing and amazing” – surely one of my favorite phrases.

Among the things depicted on our gold greeting card were drawings of a man and a woman – nekkid as jaybirds. This presented a national crisis in the making since newspapers had to decide how to depict such nudity in print. And then there were the angry letters and phone calls asking why taxpayer money was being spent to send “smut” into space.

There were letters of protest from feminists who were outraged that the woman seemed to be depicted as subservient to the man – as if there was anything wrong with that. Sure she was barefoot, but she wasn’t placed in the kitchen, so I’m not sure I can see what the problem was.

There were the men who couldn’t be terribly happy with the way he was depicted. I’ll leave it at that.

There were those who complained that the depictions of the man and woman were created by only three people, rather than a planetary council which included all races and, therefore, did not actually represent all of mankind. Some even demanded that any future depiction sent into space be by such council so as to not leave anyone feeling left out.

So. Given the relative level of importance of this project, which can legitimately be measured by cosmic proportions, and the fact that so many uninvolved people can nitpick the details, can it come as any suprise that the details that make up any individual performance of magic or mentalism – surely a smaller world than that of the space program – might succumb to the same human tendencies?

While observing our own navel, and those of others, may be a fascinating past time – and even necessary from time to time – what it is we are looking for or hoping to accomplish is something of importance. When we pick apart our performance, or that of another, the intent makes a difference.

Is there much point in complaining that David Blaine used tricks found in a beginner’s magic set? Or that David Copperfield is performing the same illusions from years and years ago? (I could make a compelling argument for for asking why is he no longer featuring Joanie Spina, but I’ll have to save that for a later date.) I’d say, no there isn’t. But studying the effect of either performer on the audience is, I think, time well spent.

But let’s keep our perspective in check. Let’s remember where on the vast piece of cosmic fabric we sit. It might be time better spent to first nitpick our own routines and performances and compare them to the results we hope to obtain when we perform for others. Surely a good starting point may be to observe our relative importance in the world of magic and mentalism before trudging off in some direction of critiquing the performance of another.

One of my areas of deep interest (both personal and fiduciary) is music production. One of our Grand Zen Masters is George Massenburg who, in putting into perspective the relative importance of our work in the grand scheme of things, stated:

“Finally, get some perspective. Pro Audio is but one tiny cell of a fungus on a short hair of a flea on the pink part of a rather large elephant’s ass meandering aimlessly through a huge foetid marsh somewhere on the surface of a tiny, insignificant planet lost in an infinite universe. Don’t take yourself too seriously.”

Indeed.

A couple of years ago, Steve Martin, working with the twisted folks at CountingDown.com, created this short web film called Morto the Magician. Imagine, if you will, a stage magician for whom everything goes wrong. (This not for the squeamish.)

Since this has been “out there” for a couple of years, you’ve probably already seen it. But maybe, like me, it’s been long enough that you need a reminder: Morto the Magician.

(It’s only my irrational fear of karmic retribution that prevents me from drawing any parallels between this film and one of the acts I recently saw perform. )

One of the consistent and consistently troubling aspects of mystery entertainment is that so many performers don’t take the considerable time and effort required to create an act that is their own. There’s no denying that it sometimes takes years putting together a really good act, and more years on top of that to fine tune it. I realize it’s far easier to simply channel the personality of a performer who is already enjoying a relatively high level of attention and success – Blaine Clones come immediately to mind – but that does no good to anyone, really.

It’s not good for the original performer. He’s traded his blood, sweat and tears to craft an act that resonates in some meaningful way with his audiences. It’s not fair for someone else to pull the same stunt McDonald’s has often been accused of: staking out the competition’s territory after they’ve spent their time and money identifying a good location, then moving in next door. It looks awfully unprofessional, doesn’t it?

It’s not good for audiences, either. Here we hold in the palm of our hands the knowledge and the power to turn upside down the solid beliefs of our audience members, and some, instead, choose to take that opportunity and spurn it away by cloning an existing act. Audiences necessarily expect a special experience from practitioners of something as exquisitely special like magic and mentalism. I think it’s criminal to treat audiences so disrespectfully by giving them less than they are due.

It’s not good for the art of magic and mentalism for many of the same reasons it’s not good for audiences (which makes abundant sense as there would be no performing art of magic and mentalism were it not for audiences.) No other performing art is like mystery entertainment. No other performing art. Even outstanding part-time professionals know not to treat it like a part-time lover.

Also, it’s ultimately not good for the performer. For some silly reason, Deddy Corbuzier comes to mind yet again. (He’s our poster child for how not to behave.) In a recent thread on The Magic Cafe, Corbuzier claims he will turn in his Max Maven Clone act. (Maybe he’s trading it in for a kabuki theater style. Sorry, Jeff, I know that’s not funny. Well, not very funny, anyway.) But for some bizarre reason, he wants to make that change concurrent with getting married. It frightens me to consider the subconcious thought processes that put those two monumental events in accord with one another.

When he does change, though, he’s going to be nearly at square one building an act. Sure, he can continue to do essentially the same tricks and trade on his name, but audience expectations will be for one act that – we hope – will no longer exist. It’s like playing some cosmic game of Monopoly and he’s dealing himself the big “Go to Jail” card. “Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Go. To. Jail. Intellectual property misappropriating bastard.” (It may not actually say that; I just made that up.) He gets to start over and all the time and effort he spent building a name using someone else’s act – no doubt considerable on all accounts – evaporates into thin air.

What if he’d spent all that time building his own act instead of cloning Max’s act? Where would he be right now?

Here’s a better question (i.e. one not so rhetorical): What are you spending your time doing? Are you working at being like someone, or are you creating someone? There’s lots to ne said for dressing up your imaginary friend and sending him out to entertain the masses, you know.

Bob Cassidy is not Dr. Bob, although they may look alike. Dr. Crow may be related to both of them, but he sure doesn’t act like it. Dr. Bob can perform in a manner (and in venues) Bob Cassidy may not wish to. Dr. Crow, on the other hand…well, I’m not sure what to say about him. Never let it be said that split personalities have no place in this world.

Let’s play a game of “what if.”

What if you could create any character you wanted, and endow him – maybe I shouldn’t use the word “endow”, so let’s instead say imbue him –with whatever powers, history and abilities you wished. Some people may call that a convenient excuse for abberant behavior, but I suggest to you a better word might be context. Within context nearly any behavior is appropriate. (Why do you think pseudo-schizophrenics can have so much fun?)

Not that you actually have to follow through, but you may find it an interesting exercise to take out a blank piece of paper and a pen and design someone you are not now. Study him. Let him do things you’d never dream of doing. Wonder how he might dress if given the opportunity to pick out his own socks. (Not that he’d necessarily wear socks, of course.)

Let him choose tricks from the vast, almost endless canvass of magic trickdom. Let him choose those tricks that fit him. But most importantly, wonder how he might routine them in ways maybe you wouldn’t. (I mean in ways you wouldn’t in a million years routine them. After all, you have a reputation to uphold; he doesn’t.)

Once you’ve done that, close your eyes and picture what it might be like to watch him perform before an audience.

You might come to like someone like that.

This might come as a shock to some, but I am a quite the fan of language.

I believe the seeds for this were planted at a very early age. My two earliest, clearest memories are of watching the black and white television version of “Superman“ with my dad, and of my mom reading to me. I recall vividly that, when I was old enough to attend school, each and every morning, while waiting for the school bus (the longer variety, wise guy), she’d read to me. I’ve always had a natural love of books and reading. (Some magazines, too, but mostly for the articles.)

If you think about it for a moment, language really is magic. Words are simply shortcuts to memories of our personal experience.

If I say to you the phrase, “sweet, juicy, delicious red apple” it wouldn’t mean a whole lot until you allowed your brain to go back and pull out your memory of biting into a sweet, delicious red apple and having the juice run down your chin. When your brain does that, you substitute the words I used for the experience had. You didn’t really bite into an apple, but your brain experienced the sensation and substituted the memory for the words I used, so that you could understand what I meant. (Some people might call that hypnosis. Other people might suggest that hypnosis doesn’t exist.)

All of that happens in a split second. The words themselves don’t mean anything until you can match them up with your personal experience, which the brain is only happy to do for you without sending to it an engraved invitation.

Words are shortcuts to memories of personal experience.

Perhaps you’d not given that much thought until just now. It’s a profound concept. It’s also a very powerful tool in your performing toolkit.

In NLP-speak, the map (the words, invoking the memory) is not the territory (the apple.) It’s a representative of the territory. If you were looking at a map of New York City, you wouldn’t actually be looking at New York City, would you?

How we use language determines the level to which we can personally affect other people. One would think that, as mystery performers, we’d want to maximise our affect on our audiences. And I’m not denying that’s often the goal, either consciously or subconsciously; I hope that it is. But, in my experience in observing the performances of others in our trade and craft, I question whether enough people give it sufficient attention and, in the process, short-shrift our audiences.

Out of curiosity, allow me please to ask the question: Why use an impotent word, when it takes no more effort to utter another word which explodes meaning in the minds of our audience?

Every once in a while the subject of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) erupts on the discussion boards. Sometimes on more than one board at the same time. And each time the resulting threads of conversation eventually look like a book burning in progress. (Spirited discussion of any religion will do that, you know.)

There are the proponents, the opponents, the agnostics, and everything in between. I find it ironic that a field of study, the demonstrable results of which indicate a number of methods by which one person may more effectively communicate with another person, should create such conflicting reports of efficacy. It’s like watching two dozen blind men describe an elephant, with many of them grabbing at the wrong parts.

So, with that in mind, if you will, allow me to tell my tail.

The history of NLP – the real history – is available to anyone who can spell “Google” so I won’t go into the specifics or comment much on the folklore. Suffice it to say that as the 1970s were getting started, John Grinder, a professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz and student of linguistics and transformational grammar, met up with Richard Bandler, student of mathematics, psychology and computer programming. Their friendship formed the basis of future study, joined soon enough by others, including Leslie Cameron Bandler, Judith DeLozier, Robert Dilts, Stephen Gilligan, David Gordon, and Frank Pucelik. (And, if you believe what you’ll eventually read if you study NLP long enough, another three or four million co-founders – or so they believe they are.)

Bandler and Grinder found themselves living on a lovely wooded piece of property in the mountains behind Santa Cruz, near a man named Gregory Bateson. In 1955, Bateson and his colleagues attempted to create an “appropriate theoretical base” to describe human interaction. In other words, a way to break down human communication into identifiable components. It seemed simple in theory, but difficult to bring about.

Bateson challenged Bandler and Grinder. The result was found in the books, The Structure of Magic and The Structure of Magic II. (In fact, Bateson wrote the introduction to the book which formed the opening volley of NLP: The Structure of Magic. In it, he complimented Bandler and Grinder for succeeding in ways Bateson and his colleagues had not.)

There are some people who have the astounding ability to clearly communicate with others; to “connect” with people; to influence and persuade them; to get them to change. (And, while this group of people includes them, I am not specifically referring to televangelists.) Bandler and Grinder focused on a select group of therapists who inarguably achieved outstanding results with patients, most notably Dr. Milton H. Erickson, Dr. Virginia Satir and Dr. Fritz Perls.

By studying not only what they did, but how they did it, Bandler and Grinder described in exquisite detail how Erickson, Satir and Perls did their magic. The word used in NLP is modeling – an apt term if there ever was one. Think of it this way: if, somehow, you did what Erickson did, in the same manner in which he did it – if you created a model and acted that model out – you would achieve the same results he achieved. To the degree you managed to accurately model Erickson, you could more consistently achieve those results.

It’s a simple concept, but many people have a problem accepting it. “It can’t be that easy.” But, allow me to ask this question: what if it really is that easy?

Bandler and Grinder began modeling human excellence by studying therapists because the results were immediately observable. For instance, when a patient came to see Erickson, the change in that patient was often immediate, noticeable, and – if I may use the word – magical. They soon moved on to modeling other forms of excellence: sales people, managers, consultants, negotiators, educators, coaches, and performers (both atheletic and entertainers).

There was something awfully interesting in what they found through their study: they found that, when stripped of stylistic differences – that is, those personal fingerprints that make a person’s style what it is and different from others – and from the context in which they communicated, these people were doing essentially the same thing. They were following the same basic recipe for communicating with others; the same patterns of communication. And, as a result, they achieved a level of success that excelled.

One of the most important aspects was that each of these outstanding people had at their fingertips the ability to change their approach if what they were doing was not getting the results they wanted to achieve.

Kindly read that last paragraph again, because that’s a key component to your success as a performer.

If what you are doing isn’t getting you the results you want, do something else. Albert Einstein geniously observed, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Yet many people are in the habit of doing just that. (Read the story of researchers and their adult-sized mazes.)

As you structure your act, you can only imagine the response from your audience to what it is you say and do. That’s all you can do. It is only by actually performing your act before an audience and, most importantly, noticing the results as your audience responds (or doesn’t respond) that you can mold an act to achieve the results you wish. Unless you are performing a silent act – curiously avoided by those who would benefit most from the choice, I might add – I’d suggest that the choices you make as your structure what you will say is far more important than what it is you actually do.

As with other examples, this aspect applies in spades to the performance of mentalism.

There are untold numbers of anecdotes told by professional performers who found that just changing one, single word made an enormous difference in the response of the audience to a performance piece. One word. That’s magic.

Model successful entertainers. Study what makes them successful. This is the real secret to the value of DVDs. It’s not the performances; it’s the thinking behind the tricks. It’s what goes behind making certain choices about how to perform a certain piece that achieves a greater level of audience response than another choice. Strip away the stylistic fingerprints and the context within which the trick is done, and find the common traits outstanding performers share. It’s right out there in the open.

Want another secret? Fielding West’s L&L Publishing DVD “The Fielding West Comedy Magic Show.” While there are some clever and very funny routines, it would not do you anywhere near as much good to copy those routines as it would be for you to study and model what makes West’s magic go over so well with audiences.

Here’s another secret. Take three steps back and give some serious, considerable thought to those people you may already be modeling. Often this may be completely accidental in that we tend to take on the qualities of those people with whom we surround ourselves. And sometimes some of those qualities aren’t quality material.

[Audio Blog: Listen to this blog entry.]

I am anti-semantic.

There. I said it. Not only that, but I love saying it.

The funny thing is that phrase is, itself, a demonstration of what I am against. “Semantics“ actually relates to the meanings of words, yet you’ll often find people using the phrase, “That’s just semantics…” as an argument against obfuscation via word-games. If there’s something I am for it would be praising the meaning of words and, especially, their artful use in the performance of magic and mentalism.

Before I get into the real meat of this post, I’d like to take you aside for a moment to describe my world view of something.

I’ve occasionally mentioned my position that the words effect, method and trick are different concepts. I’m not suggesting that you must embrace my point of view, but I’ll present my thinking on it as it bears importance later.

This is wholly about semantics.

When discussing a new trick, you’ll often hear the question, “What’s the effect?” and the answer is a description of how the trick is performed. To my mind, that’s not the effect. If you want to know what is the effect, perform the trick then ask an audience member what it was they just saw. In their answer you’ll find the effect. (The quicker and more accurate and precise the answer, the more likely it is you were successful in your performance.)

We call it “the effect” in part because it’s how the performance of that trick affects the perception of your audience.

I’ve used this example before and, in the spirit of good ecology I’ll recycle it here: a spectator’s selected card turns face down in a face up deck. That’s the effect from the perspective of the audience. How the card is selected is window dressing. How the card is revealed is also window dressing. What happens – that is, the effect – is that a selected card turns face down in an otherwise face up deck of cards.

A half-pass and an Ultra Mental can be considered methods. Methods are, simply, means to an end. They are not important to anyone other than performers. (Although, in a fine and perfect example of a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder evident in the world of magic and mentalism, many of us spend entirely too much time dissecting methods without connecting the dots with the effect on the audience.)

Frankly and generally speaking, the audience doesn’t care how that card turned around, just that it did so in a mysterious manner. In fact, my version of a Perfect Universe would be one where you can have at hand ten different methods by which to bring about the effect, each interchangable, each resulting in precisely the same effect from an audience perspective.

(The good thing is, that Perfect Universe is right there along side the one in which you may currently be residing. And you don’t even have to don a tinfoil hat in order to to enjoy it.)

Tricks are presentations that utilize a particular method to bring about an effect. In the example above, the “Invisible Deck” is an example of a specific trick that brings about the effect of a card turning face down in a face up deck.

I bring this up so that the following is in proper context.

The concept of “misdirection” is as firmly attached to the performance of magic as the name Houdini. It’s just a given that misdirection is used to accomplish much of what we do in the course of performing magic. And many have written on the subject.

By way of example, from the book, “The Magic of Slidini” by Lewis Ganson, Slidini states:

However, as has been pointed out by Jean Hugard, Dariel Fitzkee and others; Magic without misdirection is simply not Magic.

When a professional magician gets ready to perform, he knows that he must fool even the smartest people. I have found that proper misdirection makes this possible.

Of course, many of us already know from personal experience that the smartest people are often the easiest to fool. (At least that’s what we tell ourselves when we’ve purchased yet another piece of coprolite from a magic dealer after reading and – amazingly enough – believing the description of the trick as it was printed.)

Sam Sharpe, in his wonderful book, “Neo-Magic Artistry” has this to say about misdirection:

This important subject is of the utmost importance, in my opinion. A performer who selects effects calling for little ability in misdirection admits himself to be in the novice class of conjurers.

Magic pretends to one cause for its effects while relying on another, and it is in disguising the real method and making fictitious causes seem feasible that misdirection is brought into play. Conjuring is only bewildering when it seems unnatural; but without carefully planned misdirection, tricks cannot mystify, though they may surprise.

I’ll only note that the distinction between mystifying and surprising your audience deserves more discussion. But that’s another post for another day.

From one of the absolute must have books in a magician’s library – “Sleight of Hand” – Edwin Sachs writes:

Articles are, indeed, transmitted from one place to another before the eyes of the audience, but it is always, as it were, sub rosa. This is why conjurers say so much about the hand being quicker than the eye. The audience is continually trying to detect movements which are never even attempted, the result being that other movements are conducted with impunity. The conjurer must start with the one principle firmly fixed in his mind that he is to deceive his audience in every way possible. At no time is he actually to do that which he says he is doing.

…

Misdirection is the grand basis of the conjurer’s actions; and the more natural the performer’s movements in this particular, the more complete will be his success. With each trick that requires it, I shall give hints for misdirecting the spectator’s attention, although I am of the opinion that every conjurer can best suit himself if he is only firmly impressed with the necessity for misdirection.

Lest you may be lulled into a false sense that mentalism is somehow given a pass when it comes to misdirection, I give you Corinda from his “13 Steps to Mentalism”:

I cannot stress too strongly that Misdirection is one of the most important things for you to study. It will make your work perfect and it will make your work easy.

How good or powerful can misdirection be? It can be so good that if you were seated alone in a room with one man, and through the door came an elephant which had been especially prepared with black and white stripes, on its back a Scotsman playing very loudly Highland Lassie on a set of bagpipes (out of tune)—and the elephant complete with escort thumped through the room, in theory your spectator wouldn’t know it had happened.

And why not? Because you misdirected his attention!

(“Out of tune bagpipes” – doesn’t that sound awfully redundant?)

I’ll also mention Bob Cassidy has spent considerable time and effort in pointing out that the tools of the magician’s trade – including misdirection – are invaluable to the mentalist. In fact, Cassidy has made the point that a mentalist who doesn’t bother to learn the mechanics taken for granted by magicians is limiting his choices in performing.

Dr. Harlan Tarbell, in Volume 1 of his “Tarbell Course in Magic” discusses the subject of misdirection. He states:

Almost every trick has some element of misdirection in it. So remember, in performing your trick—never look at the opposite end of your effect. By the opposite end, I mean the thing you are really doing—that is, looking at your hand which is holding the coin, rather than looking upward for the effect. If you look at your hand, the audience will look at your hand—that is the opposite end. If you look upward, the audience will look upward—that is the effect-That is the basis of misdirection. Wherever you direct their attention, the audience will look there.

…

One thing you must keep in mind is that it is a psychological fact that a person does not hold his attention on any one thing for more than a few seconds. Your job is to keep redirecting his attention by the things you say or by varying the thing this person is to attend to—until you get your work out of the way.

Now, while the concept is commonly called “misdirection” a better word to use is “direction” because that word fulfills the true meaning of the effect we are attempting.

Here’s how Tommy Wonder describes it in a quote from one of my favorite sets of books in my library, “The Books of Wonder” :

MISDIRECTION. So much is written about it, so much is said about it. Often, when spectators talk with magicians, you hear, “I’ll bet you misdirected me, didn’t you?”

…

It’s truly unfortunate that in magic we have many terms and expressions that don’t accurately reflect what they are intended to. This is a pity because the use of correct terminology helps to keep one’s thinking straight, and greatly simplifies matters when magicians communicate with each other. One of our more serious misnomers is the word misdirection.

Misdirection implies “wrong” direction. It suggests that attention is directed away from something. By constantly using this term, it eventually becomes so ingrained in our minds that we might start to perceive misdirection as directing attention away from rather than toward something. Newcomers to magic will almost certainly think along such incorrect lines, because we have chosen a word that promotes this misconception.

How’s that for turning a popular notion on its head? And Tommy did this by removing three letters from before the second best known word in magic. That’s the power of language in action.

Do you see how the artful use of precise language – and that includes deliberately being imprecise – is one of the strongest devices at our disposal in the art of communicating something and, more specifically, directing the audience?

As to the artful use of language, a great example of that is found in Al Koran’s “Magic Medallion.” Of course I won’t go into the workings of it; you can read it in all its glory in Hugh Millers’ incredible book, “Al Koran’s Legacy” – or see the thing performed and explained by Johnny Thompson in his set of DVDs, “Johnny Thompson – Commercial Classics of Magic” or, the recently released set of DVDs by Richard Osterlind, “Easy to Master Mental Miracles.” It’s in that trick where I’ve seen so often the most important detail – the precise use of language – used imprecisely and, as a direct result, render less potent an otherwise blockbuster of a trick.

At the end the trick, you ask the spectator to read what is inscribed on the back of the medallion. There are any number of words you could use in the place of the word inscribed but I suggest to you – and I’m far from the first or the last to point this out – the word inscribed has no equal in this particular case. The seemingly incidental use of that word powerfully directs the audience to perceive things in a certain manner. It’s the difference between performing a miracle and demonstrating an interesting coincidence.

Do these details really matter?

I think they do. I want to remove as many variables from a presentation as I can. Precision of language is one of the more valuable tools in our arsenal. Why leave to chance an errant and inadvertent or unintentional interpretation of our meaning when we can, with just a little bit of effort, precisely guide an audience to the meaning we intend? (Even if that meaning is meant to be interpreted one way on stage with a spectator, and another by the audience.)

Great magic is not just about fooling and surprising people. Great magic happens between the ears of your audience and this is even more accurate in the world of mentalism. Great magic is about deftly and elegantly and artfully manipulating the perceptions of your audience. And, while we can continue to spend an inordinant amount of time examining our navels in search of the perfect trick, we may all be better off spending that effort taking those tricks we already do and turning them stunners through the precise and artful use of language skills.

Do you get my meaning?

If you take the time to read some of the older entries on the blog, you’ll notice I’ve written quite a bit about Richard Osterlind’s L&L Publishing release, “Easy to Master Mental Miracles.” Until recently, I’ve written about the response by others to a set of DVDs that weren’t even released. Frankly, I’m still awfully amused by the hue and cry. But having viewed all four discs, start to finish, I have a new perspective to cover. (More on that later.)

Without covering the same territory again, Richard Osterlind has earned my deep respect as a direct result of primarily two things: the quality of the work he’s made available to this relatively small world of magic and mentalism, and my personal dealings with him. I’ve found the books, videos and tricks he’s made available – especially since partnering with Jim Sisti – are carefully crafted, demonstrating a high level of attention to detail, useful content, and overall quality. My personal dealings with him convince me Richard is a good and decent man of integrity. To my mind, integrity is the cornerstone of every good quality a man possesses.

These two things shape my expectations of anything with his name affixed to it, these DVDs being no exception.

As I’ve mentioned before, as much as I value and work at the art of mentalism, my introduction to it followed in the well-trodden footsteps of my introduction to many other deeply interesting and loved interests in my life. Which is to say, kicking and screaming. (Not an attractive way to go through life, I’ll tell you.)

In the introduction to the DVDs, host Jim Sisti notes:

Mentalism has been called “magic’s last frontier.” It’s really the only form of the art left where the audience can think that what they’ve just seen is, perhaps, real.

Ah, yes: leaving the audience thinking that what they’ve just seen just might be the real thing. It would be understatement to say I “had a problem with that concept” in the same way it might be considered understatement to say Beethoven was a little hard of hearing, or Donald Trump is a bit egocentric, or that hip-hop is just mildly annoying.

It was in the early to mid-90s, thanks to the miracle of computers and BBSs (bulletin board systems, like MAGIC! and GeMiNi) that I was able to interact with people likewise afflicted with the bite from the magic bug. One of those people was T.A. Waters, surely not an unknown name in the world of mentalism.

The Reader’s Digest version of the story is I found myself in a “spirited debate” with Waters over the very concept that some performers did not provide a clearly stated, cut-and-dried disclaimer before performing a mentalism show. It’s not that I thought there were custom designed bucket seats already being warmed in the pits of hell for mentalism performers who refused to overtly state that what they were doing was just a bunch of tricks, but I may have harbored the secret desire that, at minimum, measurements were quietly being taken.

T.A. was kind and generous with his time and infinite patience and, without drawing a single drop of blood, brought me over to The Dark Side. Waters, Bob Cassidy, Banachek, Paul Alberstat, Max Maven, and Ted Lesley have all, over the years, been kind with their time and help and guidance as I worked my way into the world of the performance of mentalism. Over the last two years, I’ve added Richard Osterlind’s name to that list.

Like most people who truly jump in with both feet to seriously wade through the waters of those things that make up the foundation of mentalism, I became a student of Theo Annemann, obtaining a set of The Jinx reprints. Truth be told, I still grab those reprints, sit back in a comfortable chair, and start on page one and just read for hours.

I obtained a copy of Corinda’s “13 Steps to Mentalism” and actually read it cover to cover, which is not an insignificant thing to do, I assure you. I’ve since read it many, many times and in each reading I find a new angle to something I had never before considered. It’s like magic when those things leap off the page.

To those I added manuscripts by Phil Goldstein, books by George Anderson, and a trip back to my Tarbell Course in Magic.

Over the years since I started that serious study curriculum, I’ve added an embarrassing number of titles to the mentalism section of my library. T.A. Waters’ “Mind, Myth & Magic” still holds a special place, for several reasons; Bascom Jones’ “Compleat Magick"; Larry Becker’s “Stunners!” – as well as a copy of the updated “Stunners! Plus"; Ted Lesley’s “Paramiracles"; Banachek’s “Psychological Subtleties"; Al Koran’s books; more Phil Goldstein; the list goes on and on and on.

But I return most often to Annemann and Corinda. “There’s gold in them thar hills.” And you don’t have to dig too far to find it. But you do have to do something I suspect many today haven’t: you have to open the books and read them.

So. Considering my deep love for these books, why would a set of DVDs containing classic pieces of mentalism – fourteen of which are attributed directly to Annemann and Corinda – be something about which I can get excited?

The first instance of the public being put on notice that these discs were on the way was by a post to The Magic Cafe from Tim Trono. It didn’t take long to witness the first shots across the bow; some people were getting their panties in a knot over the very idea that Osterlind would gather together in one place such a mother lode of mentalism.

You know, it’s not so much getting beginners to mentalism to acknowledge the importance of Annemann and Corinda; it’s getting them to embrace the relevance.

On his web site in the “mentalists only” section, Bob Cassidy posted an essay that deals with a list of books that would make up a well-stocked mentalist’s library. At the beginning, he wrote:

It saddens me when I hear newcomers to the art advising neophytes that classic texts on the art are “outdated” – these are usually the same guys who are surprised when they learn that the latest “miracle” on the market was actually introduced in a 1939 issue of Annemann’s “Jinx,” or that the actual inventor of the “missing puzzle piece “effect – a current controversy among those unfamiliar with “outdated” material - has been dead for several years now. He introduced the effect almost forty years ago.

So, why did Osterlind put together this set of DVDs to release to the world of magicians and mentalists?

Some people have actually suggested he did it for the money. Of those people suggesting such a thing and who do not smoke crack on a regular basis, I assume the reason they suggested such a thing is simply because they have no clue how much money exchanges hands on DVD projects for our weird little world. (For the remaining two of you still wondering: not much.)

Gee, I don’t know – how about we let Richard tell us, in part, his reasoning. In a post on The Magic Cafe, Osterlind states:

When I was approached with the idea of doing them, my reaction was “GREAT!” There are so wonderful great effects in the literature that people pass by and now I had the chance to demonstrate them. My approach was to not try to change much and to not try to inject too much of my own personality into them. I did add a few working points that I have learned over the years and it is impossible, of course, not to be yourself when performing. The main purpose was to show how direct and powerful these effects can be.

So why do you suppose it took all of five seconds between the announcement of these videos, and the commencement of some people ripping Richard to shreds over them? Well, take a look at this post to alt.magic. It’s a rare (and embarrassing for some) look inside the world of a private organization of psychic entertainers, many of whom are professional performers and, ostensibly, peers of Richard’s.

When you read through that post you can’t help but get the feeling that the secrets of mentalism discovered and invented and presented by Annemann, Corinda, Koran, Hoy and others are somehow now the property of the members of a private organization rather than the entire width and breadth of the world of mentalism – or at least those who take the time to learn them. I find that a troubling point of view.

Another theme seems to be that these secrets are being “exposed” to the world. Really, now.

Last I checked, L&L Publishing’s instructional DVDs are aimed primarily at the world of magicians, which – I could be wrong – would not be classified as “the whole world.” You aren’t likely to walk into your local bookstore and find “Easy to Master Mental Miracles” on the shelf.

On the other hand, you can walk into your local bookstore and likely find Annemann’s “Practical Mental Magic” on the shelf right next to copies of “Art of Magic“, Mark Wilson’s condensed version of his “Course in Magic” – among other titles aimed at magicians.

Those myopic sentiments probably explain away much of the rancor, hysterics and disgraceful ad hominem attacks on Osterlind over these DVDs. Once these members were introduced to the texts of Annemann, Corinda and others and learned of their value, now the door should be shut on the Great Unwashed Masses that are magicians? I wonder how many of those people remember their own humble beginnings as “lowly magicians.”

Disgraceful.

But the tenor and pitch of the wailing and gnashing of teeth should bring something to your attention: the contents of these DVDs represent the core of what makes up the foundational aspects of great mentalism. That is powerful stuff and, the prospect of such information falling into your hands bothers some people. Consider that for a moment.

So, do the DVDs live up to the excitement kicked up over their impending release? In a word: yes. In another word: absolutely.

I won’t go into a detailed the list of tricks covered in the DVDs, you can see those on L&L’s web site, or in the full color ads in either MAGIC Magazine or Genii Magazine. (You do subscribe to both publications, right?) Suffice it to say, though, that these four discs make up almost seven hours of truly mind-bending, exciting pieces of mentalism.

As I sit here I find it very difficult to single out some of the tricks for special mention. In a way, and perfectly fitting given the title of the series, it’s a lot like asking me to mention my favorite tricks from Ammar’s “Easy to Master Card Miracles” discs. How do you single out items from a list of tricks that itself represents singled out items?

That said, I have a special place in my heart for Al Koran’s “Five Star Prediction” – one of the greatest card tricks I have ever performed. “El Numero” by Syd Bergson is, literally, a no miss hit. “The Trick That Fooled Einstein” and “Headline Prediction", both by Al Koran; Annemann’s “Par-Optic Vision” and “Magazine Test” are particular favorites of mine. Also, if you learn Corinda’s “Impromptu Book Test” and David Hoy’s “Hoy Book Test” you can save yourself literally thousands of dollars in commercially available book tests without trading away an ounce of mystery entertainment.

One more special mention: Richard’s performance of the original version of Ted Annemann’s “Seven Keys to Baldpate” proves that it’s awfully hard to improve some tricks as so many have tried over the years. (By the way, if you chose to do this version, you can get made for you the same style bag Richard uses in the video. Order it from Sandra Sisti. I know how much work and detail goes into making these things. The asking price is a steal.)

I think the selection process must have been tortuous – and probably torturous – to whittle down. Having watched every minute of the discs I can say I didn’t see a single piece of puffery or filler; these are all solid, classic performance pieces that should serve as a basis of your own routining. They should also serve to cause the viewer to blow the dust off of their copies of Annemann and Corinda, seek out Koran and Hoy and Becker and others, and learn some new old stuff. These DVDs prove Richard’s point that the classics – even done as they were written – play as strongly to today’s audiences and they ever did in the past.

And these pieces play as well to a room of a few people as they do to a room of a few hundred or a few thousand people. That’s one of the wonderful aspects of mentalism: the real magic happens between the ears. (Half-nekkid wimmin jiggling on stage next to you is optional, but not prohibited.) So long as the mentalist clearly communicates effectively great tricks, there’s not a bad seat in the house. Compare that to much of magic performance and you can see the draw towards mentalism.

One almost legitimate complaint is the title of the series: Easy to Master Mental Miracles. I say almost because, in reality, anyone who thinks any legitimate performance of magic or mentalism is easy to master clearly hasn’t bothered to notice the caveats found in most magic texts that demand the reader put in the time to learn how to perform. The performance aspect of what we do is the larger part; the actual mechanics of tricks themselves is not. And, in fact, there is very little that is truly difficult to master.

What you are spared is the selection process of great, professional quality pieces of mentalism you can perform – the rest is up to you.

Together with Richard’s first set of DVDs – Richard Osterlind’s Mind Mysteries – you have a wonderful introduction to, as Jim Sisti put it, one of magic’s last frontiers: the world of mentalism. And you are taken by the hand by one of mentalism’s great teachers and true gentlemen.

I don’t recommend many products but I have no hesitation in suggesting you buy a set of these DVDs.

[Audio Blog: Listen to this blog entry.]

Mimmicking. Cloning. Channeling. All words we occasionally use to describe the process of studying a particular performer’s technique and presentation, and proceeding to repeat it. Word for word, move for move. And in the case of Deddy Corbuzier, even eyebrow for eyebrow. (Although, sadly, it seems there are lots of people who, unlike me, see nothing particularly wrong with that egregious behavior.)

No one I know was born a magician or mentalist. Like riding a bike, hitting a baseball, or running over a squirrel in the road, it’s a learned behavior. How we learn is a facinating subject. While many have attempted to distill into neat little boxes the primary methods human beings learn, for the purposes of this piece I’ll focus on four of them.

The first is Reflex or Classical Conditioning. Basically, it’s stimulous-response. This is typified in the story of Ivan Pavlov and his experiments with dogs. When Ivan fed his dogs, he’d ring a bell. The dogs associated the ringing bell with being fed. Soon enough, Pavlov could ring a bell and the dogs began salivating. (The parallel between “bell ringing and dogs salivating” can also be drawn by observing the behavior of some men when certain women enter a room.)

Classical Conditioning is evident in my own life. For instance, when I hear news of a new book from Hermetic Press or The Miracle Factory, or a new CD from Loreena McKennitt, my eyes glaze over and I immediately reach for my credit card.

Another method of learning is Instrumental or Operant Conditioning, or goal-oriented conditioning. We learn to do certain actions because it occasionally returns a desireable result. Initially, that action may have been discovered purely by accident. At the turn of the last century, Edward Thorndike’s work explored this, as did B. F. Skinner’s work with what has become known as the Skinner Box. In it, a rat learns that pressing a bar dispenses a pellet of food.

In our own world of magic and mentalism, it’s like ordering a magic trick from a dealer without reading an accurate review by Mike Close, and – miracle of miracles – what you receive somehow resembles the ad to which you responded. Despite that result happening only once in a blue moon, we still tend to continue ordering tricks based on ads we read.

Another method of learning is Multiple-Response Learning. This is a bit more involved. In Multiple-Response Learning we successfully string together a series of simple actions which result in a desireable outcome.

In a way, this a lot like the experients with the Skinner Box; rats had to learn a series of turns in a maze in order to locate the cheese. Richard Bandler and John Grinder mention this in their book, “Frogs Into Princes”:

B. F. Skinner had a group of students who had done a lot of research with rats and mazes. And somebody asked them one day “What is the real difference between a rat and a human being?” Now, behaviorists not being terribly observant, decided that they needed to experiment to find out. They built a huge maze that was scaled up for a human. They took a control group of rats and taught them to run a small maze for cheese. And they took the humans and taught them to run the large maze for five-dollar bills. They didn’t notice any really significant difference. There were small variations in the data and at the 95% probability level they discovered some significant difference in the number of trials to criterion or something. The humans were able to learn to run the maze somewhat better, a little bit quicker, than the rats.

The really interesting statistics came up when they did the extinguishing part. They removed the five-dollar bills and the cheese and after a certain number of trials the rats stopped running the maze…. However, the humans never stopped!… They are still there!… They break into the labs at night.

College-age males are also frequently seen to demonstrate this behavior in bars. They perform a series of simple actions – approach a female, utter a banal come-on line, purchase the female a strong drink, utter another banal come-on line, purchase more strong drinks – all in an effort to “obtain the cheese,” as it were. (Evidently this method remains successful, even after all these years, proving once again that human nature doesn’t change; only the price of the drinks does.)

Then there’s Insight Learning, or The Lightbulb Going Off method. With this method, a person considers a problem by noticing the relationships between the intrinsic parts and, like a bolt of lightning out of the clear blue sky, or Ed McMahan knocking on your front door with the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes winning check, a solution is dropped into his lap.

Of course it’s not just happenstance; it’s a now-rare process called “thinking.” In the world of magic and mentalism, a perfect example is embodied in the human being known as Stewart James.

When you consider how we, as magicians and mentalists, learn our craft you can easily see examples of all four types of learning, as well as combinations of the four. Each of the methods I listed above require more effort than the one preceeding it.

But there is one more method to mention. This is the one we see most often because it requires the least amount of effort. And, rightfully so, it’s the most troubling.

This method of learning is pointed to as a primary reason to call a Catholic priest to perform an Exorcism of most all instructional DVDs from the world of magic. It’s mimmicking. Cloning. Channeling. The “Chimp Off the Old Block” method of learning and subsequently performing magic. It’s someone watching a DVD of a magician and learning the moves, speech patterns and mannerisms of the performer, and going out an “doing” that magician.

Eugene Burger has mentioned many times how, as a very young person and student of magic, he idolized Don Alan to the point of channeling Don’s performance. Soon enough, Burger realized the path to enlightenment was not by cloning someone else, but by developing his own character. (As an aside, I find it interesting – if not amusing – to see people today channeling Burger.)

Aside from the obvious ethical reasons for not cloning an existing performer, there’s the broader issue of how audiences respond to seeing essentially the same tricks performed in the same manner by different people. The unspoken, rhetorical question is, “What’s so special about magic?”

The fact is, we all have to start somewhere. Absent a Dai Vernon-styled mentor to whack you over the head with a magic wand as you work your way through learning how to be yourself – whatever that’s supposed to mean – it’s natural to seek out and learn a performance style in whatever manner we can. In the beginning that was done via in-person live performances. Then came watching television performances. Now, we have video tapes and DVDs to play, rewind, play, rewind. Rinse and repeat.

Has this caused great numbers of neophyte magicians to duplicate the spirit and image of another performer? Well, how often these days do we see a young magician wearing a black t-shirt and jeans walking up to someone saying, “Look. Look. Watch.”

But the speed with which those performers move from cloned status to genuine original style is in direct proportion to the burning desire to be special – which is what magic and mentalism is supposed to be. That process necessarily involves a great deal of thought and effort, fed by an equally large amount of raw material on which to base path decisions.

Lazy dilettantes aren’t likely to put in the effort required to be special. If we could somehow send them to their rooms and keep them out of the eyes and ears of lay audiences this wouldn’t be such a big deal.

When Michael Ammar released via L&L Publishing his “Easy to Master Card Miracles” videos, you’d have thought the world was coming to an end. Many of the Card Godz were absolutely horrified that Ammar would assemble in one, easy to obtain place, such a large number of astounding, audience tested card magic tricks. The argument heard most often was that we (the world of magic) would end up with hundreds of Ammar clones roaming the planet, foisting upon audiences Ammar-cloned performances of card magic.

But the interesting thing is, that didn’t happen to any alarming extent. What did happen, though, was that a large number of new magicians – and not a few old hands – were directly introduced to quality, entertaining card magic that make up the foundation of great close-up magic. But they were also instructed that they had to learn the routines and perform them in a manner that fit their individual style.

The latest chapter in the “Easy to Master…” world is Richard Osterlind’s recently released set of four DVDs, “Easy to Master Mental Miracles.” I received my set on Wednesday of this past week and I’m nearly done viewing them. (A full review will probably be posted tomorrow.) What I can say of them now is this: these DVDs follow in the successful footsteps of the Ammar videos in that they present rock-solid, classic tricks in a manner befitting their classic status.

Osterlind reached across nearly a century of published mentalism and assembled a collection of tricks that embody the foundation of what makes great mentalism great.

Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?

To hear some people put it, this will put an end to mentalism – magic’s last great frontier – because budding mentalists will no longer have to wade through tons of books to find the real gems. It’s as if being forced to digest tons of books and manuscripts – some of which are far out of reach physically and intellectually of beginners – is, somehow, the only honorable way to learn.

Worse, they won’t be inclined to purchase “new” versions of classic effects because – horror of horrors – they’ll actually have learned the original, classic version first and may find nothing particularly interesting in the new versions that they couldn’t create on their own. (Fundamental, foundational knowledge can do that sometimes, you know.)

Actually, I believe the release of these videos is a good thing, and for several reasons. I’m a loud and vocal proponent of learning the fundamentals of magic and mentalism. It’s on these foundations we build great performance pieces. Richard teaches viewers where to find these fundamentals – primarily in Annemann and Corinda’s work – and proves by demonstration that those “dusty, old tricks” play as strongly today as they ever did. It invites exploration into what makes them strong audience pieces and, as a result, invites experimentation and innovation.

We learn by a number of different methods. We learn by example. We learn by exploration. Given the proper tools and pointed in the right direction, we’re far more likely to see created new stars of mentalism, rather than yet another clone of one of our current stars. I find that an exciting possibility.

You might have noticed that, on occasion, I mention the plague in magic called “knock-offs” – where one manufacturer takes another manufacturer’s item and duplicates it. I won’t spill precious digital ink going over the same territory; you can read some of my older blog entries for those sermons. Suffice it to say that I condemn knock-offs as unethical behavior and particularly egregious in this tiny world of magic and mentalism. It is not innovation to take someone else’s trick and duplicate it.

One of the apparent knock-offs I’ve mentioned is Magic Makers’ The Time Machine, which to my eye is a duplicate of Bazar de Magia’s Watch & Wear trick. Visually, they are nearly identical in both size, styling and coloring. But the real test for it being a duplicate required comparisons between the watches’ insides.

The purpose of this post is to lay out some observations I’ve made between both watches. Please read them over. Study the pictures. Then draw your own conclusions.

I already had The Time Machine, having purchased it at a favorable price a couple of years ago via an eBay auction before I’d become aware that it and Bazar de Magia’s Watch & Wear were being compared as identical twins. Since I didn’t have Watch & Wear, I contacted Martin at Bazar de Magia and asked if he’d be willing to send to me a piece for the purposes of comparison. He quickly agreed and a safely packaged Watch & Wear was on its way from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Casa LeBlanc.

My package from Bazar de Magia arrived late last week. I immediately walked it to my watch bench for a look.

Here is a picture of Bazar de Magia’s Watch & Wear as you receive it. It is packaged in a spring-closed watch box. It is accompanied by a nicely printed owners manual containing information on the watch itself, basic operation, and routines contributed by Ernesto Canki and Trever Lewis. There’s also a note to watch shops with instructions on replacing the watch battery without causing harm to the gimmick. Finally, there’s a numbered certificate spelling out the details of your one year warranty.

In comparison, Magic Makers’ The Time Machine arrives in a felt covered plastic sleeve. The instructions are printed on three separate 8-1/2 x 11 sheets of paper loosely folded together around the plastic watch sleeve. The instructions state, “Unlike its nearest competitor it was engineered from the ground up and manufactured using some of the finest components available.” You are warned about damaging the watch stem when replacing the battery, and given details of your 30 day warranty.

Watch & Wear sells on the street for about $160; The Time Machine can be picked up for around $80.

Let’s deal with the “engineered from the ground up” claim. Watch & Wear hit the market almost seven years ago. A couple of years later, The Time Machine was released. Here are both watch faces side by side:

To my mind, the remarkable similarity between these watches immediately called into question what Magic Makers means by “engineered from the ground up.”

The next step in comparison involved removing the watch case backs and viewing the watch movements.

There are hundreds of different quartz movements used in thousands of styles of watches manufactured each year. Quartz movements basically consist of circuitry that uses a crystal to establish a computer clock signal that’s fed to a tiny stepper motor, all powered by a small battery. Tuned properly, the stepper motor advances the watch gears in proper time.

Over the years quartz movements have gotten smaller to the point where an incredibly accurate watch movement would fit on the fingernail of your smallest finger.

In viewing the movements nestled in the watch cases of both watches, it became apparent they were identical. By that, I mean they were the same model movement manufactured by the same Asian factory: Precision Time Co., LTD in Shenzhen, a city in the Guangdong Province of China. The next two pictures bare that out. They are photos taken of the watch movements under a microscope at 10X:

These are pictures of the center of the movement, but at 60X:

So. What does “engineered from the ground up” actually mean? Certainly not the look of the watch. Certainly not the watch movement.

But the bigger question is this: does it matter to you?

Does it matter to you that one manufacturer produces prop that’s virtually identical to that of one that’s been on the market for years, while claiming to have designed it “from the ground up”?

As I’ve written before, there are effects, methods and tricks. They are not the same thing, although you will see many people refer to a trick as an effect. A card turning face up in a face down deck is an effect. A half-pass or Ultra Mental are methods. Invisible Deck is a trick.

The concept of predicting the hour and minute chosen by a spectator is an effect. Leslie Anderson’s watch trick (Magick #246) – which was the foundation for Danny Korem’s “Stull-ess Watch Stunner” (from The Lost Pages of Kabbala) among others – is just one way of many to create the effect you can with a Stull Watch, Perfect Time, Watch & Wear, and The Time Machine.

But this is not about duplicating an effect. It’s not about duplicating the method. It’s about blatantly duplicating a particular version of a trick used to create the effect, down to the same watch style, size and color.

I find such behavior detrimental to the world of magic, and I believe it’s unethical behavior. Production of such props is bad enough, but customers purchasing knock-offs says three things: first, you aren’t interested in recognizing and supporting the intellectual rights of magic inventors; second, you tell inventors their ideas aren’t worth respecting or protecting; and third – and this is the worst part – you reward knock-off manufacturers, which tells them they have a legitimate place in our little world of magic.

Is that what you believe?

[Audio Blog: Listen to this blog entry.]

In his 1985 booklet, Fynys, T.A. Waters writes:

I have a vivid memory of seeing Torchy Towner perform at the Magic Castle. He did, among other things, a classical levitation performed as ritual magic. There was no hoop pass ("If I were really doing it I wouldn’t have to prove it, would I?” he said to me) and there was no obvious playing to the audience as see-how-great-I-am. Quite the contrary: in doing the preliminary trance induction of the assistant, usually done as a throwaway, he took several minutes; in fact the routine itself took about eight minutes. What was the audience reaction?

They loved it. They loved it because they believed it; for those moments they were experiencing wonder, and they sat open-mouthed at the edges of their chairs. When the act was over many of them seemed to awaken as from a dream.

While Waters was actually in the process of making a larger point about magic and mentalism being more than just entertainment, I love this quote because it dovetails nicely into a discussion about an infraction of magical law that is, when one considers it, the antithesis of what great magic attempts to accomplish.

In short, what do you have to prove?

A magician takes his stage – whether that’s really the boards or the smaller stage of a close-up table – and should command his surroundings (generally speaking, at least) simply by being. He’s the magician, he’s supposed to be special, on a plane separate from normal people. Proving, and it’s bastard twin brother, Overproving, do nothing to support what should be implicit. In fact, proving and overproving can get in the way of the real magic.

One of my favorite motion pictures of all time is “Smokey and the Bandit” (Okay, just wondering if you’re actually paying attention. Although I can nearly recite the dialog from beginning to end.) Actually, “Somewhere in Time“ is what I’m referring to. In that film, Christopher Reeve plays the part of Richard Collier, a playwright who falls for a woman he sees in an old portrait hanging on the wall of the hotel in which he’s staying to overcome a frustrating bout of writer’s block.

His obsession over the woman leads him to learn the woman in the portrait is an actress named Elise McKenna (played beautifully by Jane Seymour) who stayed and performed at the hotel many, many years before, and has since passed away. Collier uses self-hypnosis in an effort to travel back in time to be with her.

In his ostensibly successful attempt at time travel, he arranges his hotel room to the period to which he wishes to travel. He wears period clothing. He disassociates himself from his contemporary environment and convinces himself he is back in time.

In the film, it all goes remarkably well for Richard. He travels back in time to the year 1912, meets Elise, and they fall in love. Everything is just lovely. Elise offers to buy Richard a new suit to replace the outdated one he wears. In an effort to prove his is just fine, he demonstrates the many pockets of his suit and, in the process, pulls a handful of change from one of them. Looking down he sees a 1979 penny staring back at him.

This penny, clearly out of place in his magical 1912 suroundings, is an instant and obscene reminder that breaks the spell, and he’s propelled back to his own time.

It’s a heartbreaking and capriciously evil moment brought about by an otherwise needless action.

Are you creating the same sort of evil moment for your audiences by attempting to prove something that your audience is otherwise perfectly willing to accept as a given within the safe framework provided by a theatrical production?

As an aside, “Somewhere in Time” was filmed on Mackinac Island, where cars were not permitted. Travel was on foot, bicycle or horsedrawn carriage. Reeve noted in his 1998 biography, “Still Me,” that “the location quickly cast a spell on our entire company. The real world fell away as the story and the setting took hold of us.”

When your audience is before you, it’s probably not a blind date. They know you’re there to perform magic or mentalism (or – horrors! – both in the same performance.) The expectation is implicit that you are going to do some things that happily fly in the face of good and decent rules and laws of nature. If we do our job correctly, we take our audience by the hand and surround them with words and objects that work together to cast a spell they accept willingly. Something – anything – out of place breaks that spell.

Here’s another point of view, this by Juan Tamariz in the introduction to his book, “The Magic Way":

When a trick or a routine is well worked out, well studied, well presented, and really surprises the audience, is it already perfect? Can we honestly feel that our job is done? Are we already doing Magic?

My answer is: I don’t think so. Something is missing: knowing what the spectators are thinking during and after the trick is finished, finding out what impression we have made in their minds, finding out if they suspect any method that might have been used to do the trick (even if it wasn’t). We have to reach the point where they not only don’t know how the trick was done, they can’t even analyze it, or imagine how it might have been done.

What is more, we must make them feel totally incapable of discovering the real method, or any other possible method.

And going a step further, we must make the spectator suspend his disbelief during and after the trick: He shouldn’t even want to analyze it. He shouldn’t only feel fooled, he should feel bewitched, bewildered, and fascinated by the MYSTERY he has just witnessed. We must try and make the IMPACT of the MYSTERY they have seen so strong that the audience feels incapable of unveiling it. They should be so surprised that they don’t even want to try.

Carefully crafted, our presentation subtly erases any path to a solution. It becomes implicit, without overtly provoking any thought towards somehow reconciling the laws of nature with what the brain thinks it just witnessed. This is in contrast to proving and overproving, which serves to tell the audience at least two things: you’re lying to them and you don’t think they’re smart enough to know this. I’m not sure those concepts are explicitly covered in Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” but I assure you, the sentiment is in there.

Harlan Tarbell in his required Tarbell Course in Magic writes in Volume 1:

In line with the power of suggestion is the credulity of people, their willingness to believe.

Always remember that the first impulse of people is to believe. Doubting is secondary.

…

So it is in magic. People want to believe that you make that coin disappear, that you vanish that burning cigarette.

So remember, you are betting on the safe side when you play your stakes on this impulse of people to believe.

No magical discussion about the pathological condition that forces some performers to prove things are “perfectly ordinary” would be complete without mentioning Al Baker. Baker is credited with the line which says essentially:

Don’t run if you aren’t being chased.

From his 1941 book,“Magical Ways and Means” here’s what Al Baker has to say on the subject:

Another thing: some magicians always want to prove something that the audience doesn’t question. They tell the story about the little repertory company with a special between acts, a magician with no appeal, not much experience. They tell him he has to play a bit in the show, put this cloak on, this hat on and use this rubber dagger. He comes out at the proper cue and stabs the villain. The poor villain comes back at him, “Gad, what the hell did you use?” “I used my own dagger.” “Why didn’t you use the rubber dagger that I gave you?” “You cant pass that out for examination,” the magician replied.

Finally, Sam Sharpe, in his book, “Conjurers’ Psychological Secrets,” states:

Assertion is the most ingenious method of convincing anyone that something is other than it actually is. The conjurer who boldly states: “I have here an ordinary pack of cards,” knowing that they are really anything but ordinary, may succeed in convincing the uncritical, but more subtle methods, such as casually shuffling, fanning, and otherwise naturally handling them, which leave the spectators to draw their own conclusions, are called for when entertaining less naive audiences, or in support of definite assertions.

It’s one thing to jump through hoops to create the perfect illusion, and quite another to use one and destroy the illusion completely.

[Audio Blog: Listen to this blog entry.]

As anyone either raised on, or by assimilation, had to watch Sesame Street (and, with a granddaughter, I’m on yet another round of Big Bird, Count, and those other inhabitants of – as Chevy Chase pronounced it in the film, “Follow That Bird“ – “Sess-Same Street") one of the educational bits was a game, the lyrics to which song went something like:

One of these things is not like the other. One of these things doesn’t belong.
Can you guess which thing is not like the other before we finish our song?

Mentalism is generally regarded as magic without the props, although that’s not entirely accurate. It’s just that the props are generally not “magic-y” looking. (For the most part, anyway.) When a prop is used in great mentalism, even when it is the focus, its place is relegated to a necessity to the degree that its use is functional. Typical magic props, however, find themselves the focus of a routine, which naturally leads to the logical remark by spectators, “If I had that thing, I could do that magic, too.”

Ah, from the mouths of babes. (Redheads, in particular.)

In a post I made a couple of days ago, I mentioned the subject of watches. Specifically the remarkable similarity between Bazar de Magia’s Watch & Wear and Magic Makers The Time Machine. I use neither of those watches, opting instead for Collector’s Workshop’s Perfect Time. Why? Well, let’s play the Sesame Street game:

One of these things is not like the other. One of these things doesn’t belong. Can you guess which thing is not like the other? (hint: second from the left is a Collector’s Workshop Perfect Time. The watch on the right is Magic Maker’s The Time Machine.)

I’m working on an article about these types of watches in magic, and part of that research led to a great chat I had a couple of days ago with George Robinson of Viking Magic/Collector’s Workshop in McAllen in the Great State of Texas. In 2000, George bought outright and moved to McAllen the assets of Collector’s Workshop, a going concern built to honorable and mythic proportions in the world of magic by Nick Ruggiero and Rich Bloch. If there is someone else in this world more appropriate than George and Carol to take the reigns of Collector’s Workshop, I can’t imagine who it might be.

Among the many beautiful, functional, professional-quality pieces of magic built and offered by Collector’s Workshop you’ll find Perfect Time. From the instructions included with the trick:

Performer removes wristwatch, sets time and places watch down on table in front of him. Spectator announces freely chosen time. Spectator then picks up performer’s watch, which matches perfectly the selected time.

The watch is a simple, elegant man’s watch. It’s not a bling-bling. If you know what I mean. (And I’ll bet you do.)

It’s also not been available since George took the reins of Collector’s Workshop. The fact is, until recently, George couldn’t locate a suitable movement for the watch. Being somewhat of dangerous watch afficionada (which is to say, I not only collect them, but subsequently open them up to see what makes them tick) I understand the dilemma George faced. You can hotwire many quartz movements to do what needs to be done, but they won’t take licking and keep on ticking. The motors will burn out, plain and simple. They aren’t made for the sort of abuse magicians dish out – and I’m not talking about the verbal kind.

Imagine, if you will, the following scenario: you begin your presentation with a cheaper quality watch. As you talk with your spectator, you are also watching the watch. Then you begin staring at the watch. Apparently, it’s stopped. I mean, it’s really stopped. For good, swim-with-the-fishes stopped. What’s your backup plan, Sparky?

Granted, when you use mechanical props, things occasionally go south. But generally the difference between a professional and others is the professional will mitigate those possibilities as best he can. In this case, you want a quality watch.

Durability and, naturally, reliability may not be real high on the list of features clung to in dear life by buyers reluctant to spend anywhere near even one, solitary Benji on a watch. But I assure you, those of us who turn a few coins using a prop like this are perfectly happy to spend what is necessary to get something on which we can rely.

In part, it’s this fact – reliability – that propelled Collector’s Workshop to the stratosphere of pro-quality magic manufacturers. Nick and Rich, and now George and Carol, actually care about the reliability of the props they sell. That’s one primary reason you haven’t seen a Perfect Time being sold new in almost five years. There’s a substantial warranty that accompanies a prop you buy from Collector’s Workshop, so you’re not going to buy something that requires regular round trips to and from McAllen. (In the Great State of Texas.)

Back to my chat with George the other day.

He told me he finally located a movement that he’s happy with. Not only that, but he’s been working on prototypes of the next generation Perfect Time. Two models, actually. And would I like to play with one?

Excuse me?

Isn’t that like asking a kid if he wants another piece of candy? Asking a dog if he’d like another bone? Asking Gerry McCambridge if he’d like to create another pseudo-anonymous Internet handle with which he can prowl the web boards pimping an NBC network show that finished in the 71st position in the ratings? (Who could have predicted that?)

Do I want to test the new Perfect Time prototype? Uh, I think that would be, “Affirmative, Ghostrider.”

One day later Mr. UPS Man delivers a red-label, next-day-air package from McAllen in the Great State of Texas. Once I finished a brief bout of hyperventilating, I gazed at the package like Ralphie on Christmas morning, fondling his new official Red Ryder carbine action two-hundred shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time. ("You’ll shoot your eye out.")

In short: Hoe. Lee. Cow.

George warned me that the strap attached to the prototye wouldn’t be the final selection – which is okay by me – but in prototype-ville, this is not about appearance as much as it is about performance. And, while I’ve only had the watch a couple of days to play with this version of Perfect Time, I can say I am already excited.

In use, you hold the watch dangling from it’s buckle between your thumb and forefinger. That’s a very natural position to insinuate the thing is as far from manipulation as possible – and it is, you know, more or less. When you’re ready to show the face to the spectator, you simple twirl the buckle around. There’s no tilting, no funny business. Very clean, very fair, very nice.

One of the complaints of these types of watches has been the hit-and-miss issue with getting the exact time, every time. Often you overshoot or undershoot which, really, is not much of an issue. Let’s face it: if a spectator calls out 3:29 and you hit 3:25, that’s impressive. But, as most of us already know, there are times when it’s not that close. If you overshoot by quite a bit because you’re not paying attention…well, you’d better start telling your story. If you undershoot, there’s a tendency to compensate and that sometimes leads to overshooting because of the way things work.

This new version of Perfect Time, without going any deeper into things than I already have, allows you to adjust things by the minute. Now, in my opinion, this precision is less about hitting the nail on the head than it is knowing you have absolute control no matter what you want the outcome to be. From a performance standpoint, that’s one less variable to worry about.

I’ll be playing with it for the rest of the week and I may update this later. But I can tell you this much: if you are currently in the market for a watch like this, hold tight to your money for just a little while longer; I assure you it will be well worth your wait.

UPDATE (11/15/2004): There’s an interesting thread about these types of watches over on The Magic Cafe. Mike Giusti was kind enough to put a link back to this blog – thanks Mike! (The thread is here.)

UPDATE (11/18/2004): George Robinson’s latest newsletter for Viking Magic/Collector’s Workshop mentions the updated Perfect Time. Before anyone asks, George gave me permission to break the news here. Take a look at George’s newsletter here.

This weekend, I’m kicking off a new feature here in Escamoteurettes-land: audio blog entries.

The first time I played with streaming audio was back in late 1994 or so using a product called Voxware. (There were beta products prior to that, but I don’t remember the names.) It was amazing what could be done over a dialup modem back then – and remember, we’re talking 14.4k.

Over the years I’ve toyed with other formats, including Macromedia, Real Audio, Windows Media, various incarnations of MP3 – but they all suffered from the requirement that the web site visitor had to have installed the software to listen to the audio. Even these days, a whole lot of people simply have none of the “default” players already installed and ready to go.

This time around is a little different. You don’t have to install any special player and, if you’re one of the luck 95% of visitors, you should be able to listen without a problem.

As I have time, I’ll record my blog entries and link to the audio version. The first audio blog entry is directly below. Have a listen.

[Audio Blog: Listen to this blog entry.]

If I actually had any hair on the top of my head, it would hurt right now.

I realize the topic of the lack of ethics in magic and magic manufacturing is an old one. I’m certain it pre-dates the oldest issue of Sphynx. And actually, now that I think about it, it probably goes back to the first time some Egyptian designed a set of cups for the famous Cups and Balls trick – and maybe named them the Syrian Fox Cups – which were later appropriated in questionable manner and sold by someone else – maybe named Buzz-B the Pharisee.

(I’d be willing to bet that if you even tried to sell a Buzz-B the Pharisee set of cups on eBay today your auction would be shut down – that’s how contentious that dirty B is.)

What troubles me is that here we are in the tail end of the year 2004 – well into the 21st Century, the century of enlightenment and quality footwear – and there’s still equivocation being sputtered in discussions about the unethical behavior of some magic manufacturers in knocking off someone else’s trick. For the love of Pete. Even my goldfish understands this issue.

In a recent exchange on the Ring 2100 email list, I was faced with the following argument:

Has anyone ever heard someone saying the following? “The new Kia station wagon is selling for $10,000, but I am going to buy the $40,000 Mercedes instead because Kia is making cheap knockoffs, and it should be banned.”

I read that and actually heard Rod Serling whisper into my ear, “This is not a dream. You have just entered The Magic Ethics Hell Zone.”

First, and not specific to the point I’m going to attempt to make in a moment, someone who is seriously in the market for a Mercedes is not very likely to look at Kia. Let’s be reasonable for a moment. There are some things more important than price: quality, reliability, and safety come immediately to mind. I don’t own a Mercedes, but I do own a car made by their Bavarian neighbors. Yes, I paid more than I would have for a Kia, but I also obtained a car that is of higher, consistent quality; runs and runs fast when I want or need it to; and positively saved my life a few months ago when another car slammed into me on the driver side. Granted, I had to crawl out of the car, but I walked away. Had I been in a Kia, I wouldn’t be writing this post; my goldfish would be. (And if you think I use obscure references, you should read some of the things he writes.)

The world of stage illusions is analogous to this Kia-Mercedes comparison. Someone willing to risk their life in a Kia-quality illusion rather than a Mercedes-quality illusion has a higher risk of finding himself in the position of never having to make that buying decision again. And while the newspaper headline – remember, “if it bleeds, it leads” – may be spectacular, Drudge Report material, dying in a poorly built illusion is not a terribly bright way of following the advice: don’t read your own press.

Back to point-making:

Kia does not make “cheap knock-offs” of Mercedes or any other car manufacturer’s automobiles. Kia manufactures low priced cars of their own design. Now, if Kia took a Mercedes and duplicated the design and began selling them, they’d have a problem.

On the other hand, let’s say a magic manufacturer like Collectors Workshop sells a trick called Badlands Bob – a trick, the rights to which were purchased from the inventor. Now, let’s say another manufacturer takes Collectors Workshop’s trick and duplicates it and sells it for a much reduced price.

Rhetorical question time: is there anything wrong with that?

Here’s another case in point. Almost seven years ago Bazar de Magia produced and sold a watch called Watch & Wear. It was a version of the prediction watch effect whereby a magician ostinsibly predicts ahead of time the hour and minute a spectator will choose. This trick is one of many versions of the effect. (Note the distinction between trick and effect – they are not the same thing.)

A couple of years later, Magic Makers offered for sale a watch that looked and worked substantially like Bazar’s Watch & Wear. It was not only the same type of trick, the watch appears to be a direct duplicate. Take a look here and draw your own conclusions.

While sharing a number of common aspects, the world of magic and music deal with these duplicated versions in a different manner. In the world of music, one artist – like George Winston – can do a tribute of another artist – like Vince Guaraldi. In this case, the resulting “Linus and Lucy: The Music of Vince Guaraldi“ CD paid not only tribute to the genius of Guaraldi, but also royaties. That’s the way the music industry works because of copyright laws. (It’s also a fantastic CD – and that’s coming from a Vince Guiraldi fanatic who is also a George Winston fanatic.)

In magic, however, since neither copyright nor patent laws typically may be reasonably applied to inventions, laws cannot be pressed into service to protect the inappropriate acquisition of someone’s idea when it comes to a particular trick. The sad fact of things is this: absent laws defining this behavior as illegal, we fall into the category of ethics and morals. And that’s when the fur starts flying because now, instead of a canon of law to which we can point as the center of discussion, we are left with as many different interpretations of right and wrong as there are people joining the conversation – and nearly everyone convinced that their point of view should be the universal point of view and everyone else must be smoking crack.

Too many cooks in the kitchen who don’t know a spoon from a pot.

The person with whom I had this exchange went on to write:

Disclaimer: I am not against banning cheap knockoffs by those who steal others’ ideas. On the contrary, I encourage people to buy original props. They will save money in the long run. In my early days I had purchased (for not knowing any better) cheap knockoffs only to end up needing to buy the high quality originals at a later time. However, I can’t help but ponder the above, since after all, we are living in a free market society. This means that McDonald’s must contend with Wendy’s, Roy Roger’s, and the likes; AT&T has to contend with MCI, Verizon, and the likes. Ford with GM, etc. If the big industry is not immune to competition, how in the world can our small industry hopes to avoid it?

But this is not about legitimate competition. This is about duplication – knock-offs. There is a big difference.

You cannot go into Wendy’s and order an identical version of McDonald’s Big Mac. Or vice versa. You cannot go to a Ford dealership and buy a duplicate of a General Motors’ Yukon (not that I can find any good reason to do business with any entity named “Ford” to begin with.) You can go to Wendy’s and buy a hamburger which is made only the way Wendy’s makes it; you can go to Ford and buy a truck only the way Ford makes it. There is no way a reasonable human being would confuse a Big Mac with a Wendy’s Double. (Unless it’s 3:00 in the morning after a long night of bar hopping, and even then, I doubt the difference would be mistakable. Even drunks know the difference between a great hamburger and a Big Mac.)

Chazpro Magic sells a trick called, “Die Cypher II“ made of brass. Would it be considered legitimate competition for another magic manufacturer to create an identical version of Chazpro’s trick – down to the precise measurements of the die? Why do I even have to ask the question?

Also, the phrase “free market society” does not mean “anything goes, free-for-all market” in the same way that “free speech” does not mean “anything goes, free-for-all speech.” There are reasonable limits put on a free market and free speech – and for good reason.

Society’s system of laws become more detailed and granular in direct proportion to the numbers of unreasonable people pressing the issue – a number that is, apparently, growing geometrically with the passage of each hour.

It’s like the old saying: just when you think you’ve won the rat race, along come faster rats. Magic has its unfair share of big, fat, hairy rats.

More than once someone has asked how the knock-off manufacturer would react if someone knocked-off one of their tricks. But, in the sort of wicked irony only saved for Last Straw occasions, knock-off manufacturers don’t have any original ideas. That’s why they take ideas from others.

I finished off my response this way:

This is not and probably never will be a legal issue. This is an ethical and moral issue. You cannot cram ethics and morals down the throats of people who do not believe in them. But you can sure exclude them from your circle. I’m not so naive to believe most – or even many – will do that. I don’t believe most people in magic give this particular ethics issue a second thought. But this issue matters to me and if I’m one of three people left shouting from the rooftops, fine.

Fortunately, I don’t harbor the dreaded thought that I’ll be one of three people left. Far from it. There are many, many people who share my opinion to a greater degree than not.

Since I’m a fan of quotations, I’ll close this with one, which I think is appropriate:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

And unlike the case of Badlands Bob, or Ghost Kings, we don’t know who is the author of that.

I love quotations. Given enough time and enough effort and enough research, one can tell a story or make a point through quotations.

So, let us begin with a quote:

It was back in June 1935 when Theo. Annemann first unveiled the effect known as “PSEUODO-PSYCHOMETRY” in issue #9 of The Jinx. Since then the principle has been used in many ways by both working mentalists and magicians. When properly handled this can be one of the greatest mind-blowers to the laymen….when improperly handled it can become a ‘bomb’.

By the way, the use of the word bomb at the end of that quote denotes a state of stinkiness in the noses of spectators; in effect casting a pall over the room in much the same way, say, Paris Hilton lecturing a nunnery. Or Madonna walking into a temple.

That quote was pulled from the 1980 booklet, “Raven on Psychometry” which was actually a nicely bound set of lecture notes by Frater Anthony Raven. It speaks to effect.

Another quote:

It’s all right to lie when doing magic. We are in the only business in the world where lying is accepted. Everything is a lie. We don’t do real magic; we lie about it. When we tell the lie well out magic will look real.

That’s my dearly departed friend Mike Rogers from his lecture notes, “Opinions: A Lecture on the Art of Magic.”

Surprise: this, not from lecture notes, but from the Summer 1997 Stevens Magic Magalog. It was an interview with T.A. Waters and, while not a lecture per se…well read for yourself, as he answers a question about how being an actor has altered his magic:

It has made me look at performance material from a theatrical standpoint – in other words, is there something to play here? Is there some reason for doing this? Is this going to reach the audience, touch or affect them in some way? Novelty and surprise are fine, but they won’t alone sustain a theatrical piece. Unfortunately, a lot of magic has little going for it except novelty and surprise.

This next quote is by Bascom Jones from the introduction to the book, “MindFields” – a book published by the Psychic Entertainers Association in 1991:

Some eighteen years ago, shortly after I began publishing MAGICK, as a twice-a-month publication for the world’s mentalists, someone asked me to define the difference between mentalism and mental magic. The answer, I pointed out, was simple. The difference existed in the mind of the spectator.

If the spectator is left with the impression that he has witnessed a trick, no matter how clever the trick, no matter how entertaining, then that is mental magic.

Mentalism, on the other hand, leads the spectator to willingly suspend his disbelief, or, at the very least, argue that what he has witnessed might be the result of little-known or little-understood powers.

Contrary to what many contend, it is not the type of trick that separates the two categories; it is the nature of the presentation, the spin imparted to the effect by the performer, that causes the line to be drawn in the minds of audiences. Wishful thinking doesn’t count. Be honest with yourself, and you will know which of your effects, and presentations, fall into which category.

This is from the introduction to the incredible book, “Red Hot Cold Reading” by Thomas Saville and Herb Dewey:

Few people realize the impact that a casual remark may have on the life of a person with whom we are dealing! Research has demonstrated that even when prefaced with a very direct disclaimer, the need or tendency to believe may be over-riding. College students have indicated a greater belief in a description based on their birth data than when that same description is based on a personality test. Other college students have seen presentations given by a magician, who was introduced as such, and who explicitly stated that what he was going to do was all based on deception, and at the end of the performance many students still believed that he was doing psychic miracles.

Here are words written by Ted Annemann over half a century ago:

Audiences today ‘go for’ the mental type of trickery more than ever. It is more of a ‘grown up’ phase of magic and mystery, and there seems to be a greater element of wonder when the performer can reveal unknown knowledge or something personal about the members of his audience.

I’m not in any way slighting magic as a whole when I say this, but I’ve found it to be true so far as my own work is concerned.

While his set of books is considered requisite canon for study in the world of magic, it’s been my experience that the opening chapter of Harlan Tarbell’s Course in Magic is often glossed over. And that’s a terrible thing because it provides a basis and history for magic, and several admonishments that, although over 75 years old, make perfect sense today:

As entertainers we use the illusionary side of magic to entertain audiences — but we do so with the right spirit. Down the ages the man with a sense of humor has made entertainment from both truth and illusion, from comedy and from tragedy.

But our background has been fine — and that is why I wanted to stress at this time the importance of the Magi as well as a rough sketch of their teachings.

Audiences automatically look at the magician as being possessed of some unusual power and being on just a plane ahead. To lower an audience’s opinion of us is to court disaster.

Pat Marquis gained fame as a result of a Life magazine article which was published in 1937. Marquis was a thirteen year old boy from California who convinced his doctor that he could see, though his eyes were tapes shut. In the chapter dealing with the exhibitions of Pat Marquis in the book, “The Mental Mysteries and Other Writings of William W. Larsen, Sr.” Larsen makes note of the following – which I doubt has changed much since these words were written:

In preparing my illustrated talk I took great caution. I kept the following points in mind at all times: 1. I wanted neither to admit nor deny any psychic, or extra sensory, powers claimed by, or ascribed to, Pat. After all, this was a commercial proposition to me and it is well known that out of every ten people, nine would like to believe that there may be something in “the supernatural". For every person who will pay a dollar to see a medium exposed, there are nine people who would prefer to pay that same medium a dollar for a reading. It is the sum and total of the natural human desire to have something happen.

Edwin Sachs’ classic text, “Sleight of Hand” was described as “the standard textbook on how to become a magician.” In it we find the following:

It is as pleasant to be cheated as to cheat” is a maxim that must have been framed expressly for conjuring, for the more completely one is deceived by its medium (and, it may be added, by its medium alone) the better one is pleased.

This final quotation stands in contrast from those above for two primary reasons. First, it is not from a book or other written source; it’s from the final section of Jamy Ian Swiss‘ lecture DVD “Live in London“. It was brought to my attention prior to my obtaining the DVD because of the manner in which Jamy makes his point. This section is called, “Goals” and discusses Jamy’s goals, previously as an amateur and – at the time of the taping of this lecture – his goal as a professional performer:

But let me talk to you about a second goal. And I don’t presume to press this goal on you; this one is more idiosyncratic, more personal to me. I share it with you in hopes you might find it of interest.

What is my goal as a professional performer, a professional entertainer, who uses close-up magic? Well, I’ll tell you what I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be an amusing diversion – a light amusement.

After giving a vignette in which he illustrates that point, he states (rather emphatically):

I want to destroy my audience! I want to induce inoperable brain tumors! I want them to remember me, not the magic, but me! And not for today, or tomorrow, or next week, but for the rest of their damn lives and tell their grandchildren about me!

Navel-gazing is a valid, useful endeavor. Where do you suppose the above compares with your own goals as a mystery entertainer?

It’s always a nice thing when someone mentions this blog. (Even the creative ways it’s been described are deeply appreciated.)

Steve Pellegrino’s Magic Rants was first to point people here. Tommy Gunn’s Gunnsight recently said kind things about this blog. I also got a very kind plug from Andrew W. in a post he made over at Conjure Nation.

And this week the latest Talk About Magic by Jim Sisti, over at Richard Robinson’s mega-magic Magic Show site featured Escamoteurettes, and specifically my post regarding context in magic. I have enjoyed Jim’s weekly installments for a very long time, but I will admit I enjoyed this week’s just a bit more than usual. Thanks Jim.

And thanks Steve, Tommy and Andrew.

This is about Essays. (No, not mine.)

If you’ve read through everything I’ve written in the relatively short period of time this blog has been up – and you really should, if only to keep in context these occasional, later outbursts – you’ll note I have a great deal of regard for Richard Osterlind. A little background might be helpful.

My first elbow brush with Richard was via his book, “Surrounded Slow-Motion Center Tear” (which was, unfortunately, published by an individual now believed far and wide to be deranged and frothing-at-the-mouth in a way that would even frighten Cujo.) I will admit this goes back to the beginning of the 90s and I was not mentally prepared for what was in that book. I learned it, worked with it, and used it a bit. The response frightened me in much the same way I was frightened the first time I floored the accellerator on a ‘67 Chevy SS Camaro. (If you’ve never had the privilege, it’s nearly impossible to explain.) But, unlike the Camaro, I left it alone.

I left it alone, mostly because I wasn’t comfortable with mentalism as a whole. Either I’d take Jamy Ian Swiss’s advice and thought I should overtly state “It’s a trick!” – which I wasn’t prepared to do – or I had to deal with audiences who were pushed into the corner labeled, “True Believers Only.” I just didn’t feel comfortable at either end of that rainbow, and I wasn’t wise enough at the time to know there was an alternate route.

(As an aside, I’ll again thank the very generous and kind TA Waters for taking time out of his life to spar with me and bring me over to the Dark Side of mentalism, which has really turned out for me to be the Bright Side of mystery entertainment.)

Six or seven years later, I happened upon a set of lecture notes by Osterlind. They contained the sorts of things that would ordinarily make up a really great book on magic and mentalism. I was reminded about the book I’d already read, so off the shelf it came.

Fast-forward to about a year ago and the release by L&L Publishing of Osterlind’s, “Mind Mysteries“ DVD set. Whoa. Among the many things in that set, Richard taught the act he performed for corporate, paying audiences.

It would be good to spend a few moments pondering what that actually means.

One of the earliest lessons we learned in magic is not to just do a string of tricks. (I’d say most everyone in magic has read that at one point in their lives, all evidence to the contrary.) We learn to build a show, a cohesive presentation much as you build a play – an act.

As Al Goshman observed:

A professional does the same tricks for different audiences. An amateur does different tricks for the same audiences.

A professional’s stock in trade is his act; it is the “merchandise” he offers to buyers. In the world of entertainment, unique merchandise commands higher prices on the market than the common stuff.

Richard’s act was unique and served him exceptionally well. And he performed it and then explained it in the DVD set. He not only explained the tricks, but went on to explain the thinking that went into the tricks. Richard gave to purchasers his act and, thereby, the benefit one can usually only gain from doing the thing for twenty-five years.

Of course, there are four DVDs in the set and his act was just one of the DVDs. The entire set is worthy of purchase and study.

But even before the DVDs were released – in late 2002, as a matter of fact – Richard teamed up with long-time friend Jim Sisti to produce and/or bring back to life some of Richard’s work. The first book, “The Very Modern Mindreader“, in Sisti’s words:

…takes Annemann and Hewitt’s classic routine into the 21st Century. With practical touches developed over thirty years and never before released, Osterlind gives you the power to divine information sealed in envelopes by audience members with no gimmicks whatsoever - in fact, all of the elements may be left with the audience. “The Very Modern Mindreader” is reputation-making material suitable for all audiences from close-up to platform.

It remains one of my favorite books on mentalism. It’s still available, too.

In the middle of 2003, Osterlind released the first of his Trilogy of ebooks. This was titled, “Making Magic Real.” At the beginning of 2004, the second ebook in the series, “Making Real Magic“ hit the digital streets. These two books covered an amazing amount of territory which spoke directly to what it means to be a magician and to do magic.

Of “Making Real Magic” I wrote:

“Making Real Magic” helps you define (or redefine) what it is you are doing in your act to make it – and you – relevant to your audience. It helps you focus on audience expectations and how to meet or exceed them in a magical way. To me, that’s where real magic lies. Practicing “The Golden Rule” when performing magic is a sure-fire way to fail with an audience. Focusing on what they want from our performances seems obvious, but evidently most performers don’t give it consideration.

So, as you can imagine, it was a very fine day a couple of weeks ago when I got a note from my friend Jim Sisti that the third of the Trilogy was ready. It’s titled, “Essays“ and I can find only one fault with it (which I’ll explain later.)

In the preface of Essays, Richard states:

These essays will conclude the work begun in Making Magic Real and continued in Making Real Magic. Like those, the material here is accumulated from notes and ideas developed over the last 20 years. My opinions were often changed and refined over that time and I humbly offer to the magic fratermity what I consider to be my current thoughts on the subjects expressed.

What subjects were those?

Love and Magic
Appearance
What Are You Trying to Accomplish as a Mentalist?
What Are You Trying to Accomplish as a Magician?
The Right Magic
Wheat the Goose
Magic and Music
Magic and Comedy
Audience Management
Osterlind Design Duplication System (ODDS)

These chapters are both thought provoking and informative. From the opening chapter dealing with the love of magic, through the importance of your appearance before an audience, through choosing magic and applying established theatrical rules and audience management to it you are handed the benefit of decades of real experience before real audiences. In a way, it’s like Richard handing over the more important aspect of his paying act.

As Tony Robbins has repeated: If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results. (The more astute among you will note the irony.)

Now, if your goal in life is to just be on the periphery of the world of performing mystery entertainment for real, paying audiences; maintaining and having supported by others a false sense of security about your own abilities as a performer; and being part of a “mob mentality” that denigrates and ridicules the truly successful performers (like Richard Osterlind), then please, by all means, join one of the Raccoon Hatters Societies. Pay your fees, subscribe yourself to one of their organizations, go through the hazing process, and you, too, can learn how to act like a jealous, anti-social misfit from some of the very best duffers in the world of mentalism.

On the other hand, if it’s your goal to achieve the admirable and high level of success that Osterlind has; to participate in and and give back to the art you love, a good place to start would be to read and listen to what Richard has to say about the performance of magic and mentalism. Essays is certainly a part of that – and an absolute bargain of an ebook.

Oh, about that one fault I found: since a trilogy is defined as “a group of three dramatic or literary works related in subject or theme” and Essays is number three in a group, my only complaint is that this is the end of the Trilogy.

Teaching. Lovely word, that. The definition includes, “to impart knowledge or skill; to cause to learn by example or experience.” It invokes the admired and cherished two-way teacher/student relationship. The student seeks a teacher, who…well, teaches.

Exposure. Dastardly word. Clearly The Dark Side material. The definition includes, “an act of subjecting or an instance of being subjected to an action or an influence.” Subjecting. SUBJECTING I said! It invokes shoving unwanted, unsought after knowledge into the eyeballs and between the innocent synapses of those otherwise unwilling, unexpecting, and inculpable. I’d put this in the same category as the first plate of cooked cauliflower my mother put before me. (For all I know, that plate of…stuff…is still molding away somewhere because I know I didn’t eat it.)

So. When a teacher creates a lesson and students quite literally stand in line to learn – all of voluntary accord, mind you – you’d think some serious teaching is going on.

Well, that would be correct if you are dealing with reasonable, rational adult human beings. (Actually, I think even third graders would get this concept any odd Monday morning long before the lunchbell rings.) In the normal world – which is that outside the tiny, bizarre world of magic and mentalism – that is, indeed, so.

On the other hand, unreasonable, irrational human beings would call that exposure. Holy cow, Katy bar the door. Shocking, I know, but when you think about it, that definition fits when you consider these “adults” are acting like second graders anyway.

While reasonable people say “teaching” why do some others call it “exposure"? Good question.

Agenda? Jealousy? Elitism? All three?

Well, consider one definition proposed: sacrificing the secrets of our art for personal publicity and remuneration. So, selling books and videos to fellow performers who wish to learn is teaching, I suppose, if it is done without a desire for publicity and remuneration. (Note, the definition doesn’t actually preclude publicity and remuneration, just if the intent is to gain it.)

I recall the story of the alchemist who sold bars of lead to be placed under the bed of the mark. The mark was instructed that, should they think about the gold, they would wake up the next morning still possessing a bar of lead. So, you should desire the reward enough to pursue it – but if you actually do pursue it, you’re an exposer.

Well, the alchemist couldn’t turn lead into gold, and those poor souls can’t turn teaching into exposure, either.

Yet, the same oaf who presented the above definition, in the same breath, goes on to state that exposure is telling lay audiences how things are done.

I don’t know. Convenient definitions applied to inconvenient situations gives me a headache to think about it. So, allow me, please, to put on my Zen glasses. Please, pull up a grass mat, Grasshopper. I have a story to tell you.

Do you know the story of the Fox and the Scorpion?

Ahhhhhhh.

One day, a scorpion came to a wide river he wanted to cross. But scorpions cannot swim. So the scorpion asked the fox if he would carry him across the river because the fox can swim.

The fox said, “No! If I carry you, when we’re in the middle of the river you’ll sting me and I’ll die!”

The scorpion laughed and said, “Of course I would not sting you! If I did so, we’d both drown!”

So the fox agreed. The scorpion climbed on the back of the fox, and they both started across the river.

When they got halfway across, the scorpion stung the fox.

As they both began to sink into the river, the fox cried out, “Why did you sting me! Now we’ll both drown!”

The scorpion replied, “I know. But I’m a scorpion. It’s my nature.”

The dust storm currently being held aloft by all the hot air issued from the mouths of some of the stuffed (golf) shirts over Richard Osterlind’s impending release of his Easy to Master Mental Miracles is an interesting and deeply amusing thing to behold. I have this mental image of a room full of aged men rending their lapels and throwing soot and ashes on their balding heads, all the while shouting suspected Pig Latin epithets containing the name (or names) of the diety (or dieties) of their choosing.

All that’s left to complete the image is fitting themselves with topits and changebags made of sackcloth.

You know, it occurs to me that, as a potential purchaser of these DVDs, you have to ask yourself just how valuable these things are if so many of these self-appointed Grand Poobahs of Mentalism are willing to pop a blood vessel in or about the temporal lobe and risk a life of adult diapers and constant drooling (which, I know, may be hard to discern from their present condition) over the release date of the Osterlind DVDs.

I mean, you’d think this was The Big One, ‘Lizabeth.

While the Raccoon Hatters are foaming at the mouth as a direct result of drinking the exposure-flavored Kool-Aid served up by their leaders, they may want to turn their collective attention towards their own. I’d put forth the very real possibility that the “performances” of the many duffers, John Edwards-wannabes, and pudgy huffing weekend warriors in their midst results in far more exposure than a reincarnated Marilyn Monroe standing on the wrong end of a revving jet engine.

I mean, how many gray elephants can there be in Denmark, for pity’s sake? ("That’s funny… this can’t be right… there ARE no gray elephants in Denmark!")

So why do they continue to engage in grade-school polemics?

Well, it’s their nature.

Yesterday Steve Pellegrino wrote in his blog about a folder full of stuff he found, which prompted him to start a new category at Magic Rants about the history of magic. To get things rolling, he’s scanned a tent card for “An Evening of Magic” with Harry Blackstone and Lance Burton. He’s posted the scan as a PDF; please go have a look.

His post reminded me of a black and white 8x10 publicity photo I’ve been holding onto for many, many years. This photo ties in nicely with Steve’s post as it is a photo of Blackstone’s dad, Harry Blackstone, Sr. applying his makeup before a mirror. I love this picture and though you might like to take a peek at it.

There’s no question the Blackstone name is indelibly marked in the history books of magic. Here’s a nice site where you can learn more about father and son from someone who should know; Gay Blackstone.

It’s not enough that the world of mentalism is so much smaller than that of magic. No, some of those who are ostensibly in the higher echelons of its practitioners – to hear them describe themselves, anyway – are of smaller minds, too.

I’ve already mentioned the upcoming, highly anticipated set of DVDs by Richard Osterlind. “Easy to Master Mental Miracles” – which you can pre-order here – has managed to cause fits of purple apoplexy in the secret dins of the Super-Secret Raccoon Hat Fraternity of the World’s Self-Appointed Greatest Mentalists Organization of Dentists, Doctors, Lawyers, and At Least One Several-Times-Arrested-But-Subsequently-Acquitted Assaulter. (Numerous duffers, too, but they won’t admit it.)

In a word, these poor darlings are just not happy.

Richard Osterlind, himself, has finally had enough of answering the same – as he calls it – red herring questions over and over again presented by members of these Raccoon Hatters. (In this thread on The Magic Cafe you can read the latest sad stanzas, along with Richard’s coda.)

At the heart of this tempest in a teapot is the fact that some, not all, members of certain Psychic Entertainers organizations – some who claim boldly, “Protecting our Trade Secrets is our TOP PRIORITY” and then proceed to name their web site domains things like www.nailwriter.com – are in a huff. It seems that now that they’ve acquired the cherished secrets of mentalism, they are the Special Ones and should guard their secrets from the Great Unwashed Ones who wish to enter by the gate. (Or something equally idiotic.)

This might be mildly amusing were it not true. Instead, it is very true and, therefore, hilarious.

Given that these folks lay claim to being the Insidest of the Inner Circle of Head Mucky-Mucks in Mentalism, it should make you realize how valuable are these new Osterlind DVDs and why you should obtain them yourself. Yes, apparently, they are that good.

Since the topic of this post is juvenile behavior, it seems only fitting that I provide a quote from a juvenile book. Ted Geisel is the perfect author of the perfect book for this admittedly imperfect post. As the beloved Dr. Seuss, he wrote, among many, the classic “The Sneeches and Other Stories.”

Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches
Had bellies with stars.
The Plain-Belly Sneetches
Had none upon thars.

Those stars weren’t so big. They were really so small
You might think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all.

But because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches
Would brag, “We’re the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches.”
With their snoots in the air they would sniff and they’d snort
“We’ll have nothing to do with the Plain-Belly sort!”
And whenever they met some when they were out walking
They’d hike right on past them without even talking.

Those of you familiar with the story know one classic line is, “No. You can’t teach a Sneech.”

That Dr. Seuss. What a mindreader he turned out to be.

Shameful. Just shameful.

In a conversation with a close friend not so long ago, I found out he isn’t a James Bond fan. (For the more reasonable among you, I’ll give you a moment to settle down and recover from the expected, and perfectly understandable hyperventilating.)

Now, to be clear, it’s not that he’s specifically not a fan of the prissy Roger Moore James Bond; the regrettably forgettable George Lazenby James Bond; the wildly popular – if not un-Flemingesque – Sean Connery James Bond; the dead-on, this-is-who-I-believe-God-Himself-would-have-picked-to-play-James Bond Timothy Dalton James Bond; or the Roger Moore-extra Pierce Brosnan James Bond. I could even overlook the overlooked reference to the Barry Nelson James Bond.

But he doesn’t like James Bond in toto. (Not that I have any strong opinions on the movies and the individual actors, you understand.)

Naturally, I still consider him a friend. I believe there’s still time to save his soul.

To my point: while several actors and producers have contributed, collectively we have a character, created by Ian Fleming, named James Bond. That character is clearly identifiable and, in the world of entertainment, carries a great degree of stature, substance and marketability.

This is not to say there haven’t been spoofs of the character. The second treatment of Casino Royale – the comedy film version – featured a performance by the brilliant Peter Sellers. The Austin Powers series is another example, though clearly aimed at the Dumb and Dumber crowd. But these can be considered legitimate entities.

I won’t go into naming them, but there have been versions of the James Bond character – overt copies – that are just shameful to watch. Relatively speaking, there aren’t many Ian Flemings – or Tom Clanceys or Patricia Cornwells or Sue Graftons or Jonathan Kellermans and other fiction writers – in this world to create the James Bonds or Kay Scarpettas or Kinsey Millhones or Alex Delawares and other memorable, engaging fictional characters. So, those who cannot create, appropriate and, as a result, can – at best – only present a shell of a character without the substance.

In a recent thread on The Magic Cafe, there was discussion of one of Ted Lesley’s offerings. The primary issue got sidetracked as a direct result of a Cafe member posting a link to his personal web site. I clicked the link and the word “shameful” tumbled out of my mouth. The more I clicked, the more I shook my head in amazement – and not the kind we, as mystery performers, hope to engender in our audiences. (At least, not deliberately. I hope.)

To take you along with me, let us first visit the web site of well-known Max Maven:

http://www.maxmaven.com

That is a distinct, unique look – a character – deliberately created and built over many, many years and thousands of performances. Both in and out of our little world of magic and mentalism, it carries a great degree of stature, substance and marketability.

Now, let us visit the web site of lesser known Deddy Corbuzier:

http://www.deddy-corbuzier.com/

This isn’t Peter Sellers territory. This isn’t even Austin Powers territory. This is in a category all to itself, although – sadly – not a small, sparsely inhabited one. This falls into the category of intellectual property theft and gross disrespect.

And it’s not, as young Corbuzier suggests, coincidence. When I viewed the video of his “Jakarta Blindfold Drive 2004” I see a person who not only appropriated a look clearly identified with Max Maven (the widow’s peak and eye makeup, to start with) but I see attempts at the same clothing, the same gestures, the same overall performing persona. Corbuzier even sports a long, braided ponytail, for pity’s sake. It’s embarrasingly shameful behavior.

His reason for stealing Max’s image? Does it really matter?

Corbuzier considers himself a professional, a self-given appellation he’s only too quick to remind you of. But would a true professional behave in such a manner?

The only thing that might be more appropriate than Corbuzier ceasing to use the word professional would be for him to stop using Max Maven’s look and channeling Max’s performing persona. That would be a good start.

With quite a bit of hard work and effort, there might even be something left worth watching.

EDITED 11/1/2004: I changed “Roger Moore-lite” to “Roger Moore-extra” because of something Andrew W. mentioned in his comment. I think he’s right, I was a bit harsh. Brosnan is, well, manlier than Moore, but still not Dalton. Noted and corrected.

I love obvious contrasts. The greater the difference between two things, the easier it becomes to embrace one over another. Given the choice between two items that are nearly identical, wouldn’t you choose the less expensive one? Given the choice between two methods of completing two tasks, isn’t it human nature to choose the easier method?

These concepts can be found in the world of magic design, manufacturing and sales, too. For some people, creating a new trick is a long, laborious process. A lot of work can go into a simple trick that truly entertains and amazes a lay audience. It’s hard work, the evidence of which is how long it is between truly original new magic tricks.

On the other hand, some people don’t put in the hard work it takes to develop a new trick. They, instead, acquire the work someone else has already created, change the name, and manufacture a duplicate. (Sometimes they don’t bother to even change the name.)

And then there are the retailers. For some, given the choice between a version authorized by an inventor, or a cheaper knock off version, they choose the cheaper knock off. Not all do this, but many do.

Years ago, my friend Tom Ladshaw of New Orleans released a new trick called “The Sleeping Pill.” Imagine a huge, two inch long capsule that stood up and laid down in your hand – as if by magic. At the end of the trick, you could hand the pill out to be examined. The routine was clever, very funny and filled with the sort of puns Tom is well known for.

He brought several dozens of this new trick with him to a magic convention hoping to sell some. It was a brand new trick, unknown, and garnered a modest amount of interest. That is, until Karrell Fox bought one and showed it to anyone who’d stand still long enough to see it. Tom sold out. He went on to sell thousands of these things. It was, and still is, a great close-up trick.

Tom has been on the hunt for a replacement supplier of the capsule, hoping to bring his delightful trick back on the market. A few months ago, a “new” trick hit the market. Imagine a huge, two inch long capsule…

Well, you get the idea.

This version is called “Vitamin M” and the packing suspiciously masks the manufacturer who supplies the retail stores. Tom isn’t dead, and he’s easy to find, so it’s curious why whoever it is who is manufacturing these things didn’t bother to contact Tom about this. It was easier to just knock off Tom’s great trick.

I’ve dealt with this theme already. I bring it up because of the contrast between “the hard way” and “the easy way”.

Here’s another example of contrasts. These are the 48 laws presented in the book, “The 48 Laws of Power”, an attractively designed and wildly successful bestseller:

1 Never outshine the master
2 Never put too much trust in friends, learn how to use enemies
3 Conceal your intentions
4 Always say less than necessary
5 So much depends on reputation — guard it with your life
6 Court attention at all cost
7 Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit
8 Make other people come to you—use bait if necessary
9 Win through your actions, never through argument
10 Infection: Avoid the unhappy and unlucky
11 Learn to keep people dependent on you
12 Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim
13 When asking for help, appeal to people’s self-interest, never to their mercy or gratitude
14 Pose as a friend, work as a spy
15 Crush your enemy totally
16 Use absence to increase respect and honor
17 Keep others in suspended terror: Cultivate an air of unpredictability
18 Do not build fortresses to protect yourself—isolation is dangerous
19 Know who you’re dealing with — do not offend the wrong person
20 Do not commit to anyone
21 Play a sucker to catch a sucker - seem dumber than your mark
22 Use the surrender tactic: Transform weakness into power
23 Concentrate your forces
24 Play the perfect courtier
25 Re-create yourself
26 Keep your hands clean
27 Play on people’s need to believe to create a cultlike following
28 Enter action with boldness
29 Plan all the way to the end
30 Make your accomplishments seem effortless
31 Control the options: Get others to play with the cards you deal
32 Play to people’s fantasies
33 Discover each man’s thumbscrew
34 Be royal in your own fashion: Act like a king to be treated like one
35 Master the art of timing
36 Disdain things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best revenge
37 Create compelling spectacles
38 Think as you like but behave like others
39 Stir up waters to catch fish
40 Despise the free lunch
41 Avoid stepping into a great man’s shoes
42 Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter
43 Work on the hearts and minds of others
44 Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect
45 Preach the need for change, but never reform too much at once
46 Never appear too perfect
47 Do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory, learn when to stop
48 Assume formlessness

Now, here’s my list. It’s shorter, which makes it easier to share. It’s easier to remember which also makes it easier to know when I’m breaking one of the rules:

1. Live a life of integrity.
2. Treat others as you would have them treat you.

I would suggest that, in the long run, it is more difficult to live in this world following those last two laws than it is following the first forty-eight laws above. The forty-eight laws above are part and parcel of today’s “accepted business life” – for the most part, you won’t be castigated, ridiculed, or made to look foolish if you follow those laws, despite the fact you might step on some of the “little people” on your way up.

In stark contrast, often these days standing up for what’s right – doing the right thing – gets you loads of ridicule and ribbing. It’s a sad thing to see occur, and worse to see it so often in an area of life I love, magic.

By the way, the book I referenced is put out by Penguin Books. No, not the same company you might be thinking of. I just thought it was an interesting coincidence, though.

I got my start in the world of advertising and marketing when I was fourteen years old. This was before the Internet. It was before MTV. In fact, it was before desktop computers. I was a runner for an ad agency which immediately led to a part time gig at the local radio station. My primary interest was writing ad copy and producing commercials for radio and television, something I still do although these days I do it in my own studio.

Within a couple of years, a remarkably short span of time, I worked my way up through the ranks to production manager – the guy responsible for commercials being done well and on time – largely a result of the fact no sane human being wanted the job. In other words, as a high school graduate I fit the job description and, in fine Peter Principled manner, I ended up with the position.

One of the very first lessons I learned, virtually from day one and a lesson I take with me to this day, is the value in speaking clearly and properly. The first part is a lot easier to “fix” when broken than the second, which can only be “fixed” by effective education and disciplined learning.

Unless you’re performing a silent act, from the moment you open your mouth to speak, the success of your act depends on what comes out. If your opening sentence is mumbled, you have lost your audience in fine, if not unfamiliar form. It’s a whole lot easier to keep them in the first place than to regain them.

Speaking clearly is one of the fundamentals dealt with in Ken Weber’s seminal book, “MAXIMUM ENTERTAINMENT”. (If you don’t already own this book, I have to assume you did not know it was available. You absolutely have to own a copy of this book and read it several times. I told Ken, when I met him in Las Vegas, that I considered it and “Greater Magic” my “stranded on a desert island” books; the former to keep me occupied, and the latter to help me be successful should I ever be rescued.)

Ken writes:

“Yes … luck plays a considerable role in the success of a performer. For just one example, where your Mum happened to pop you out and grow you up makes a difference, because you will sound like your neighbors. That may be fortuitous, or it may be unfortunate. Some of us have naturally pleasing voices, some don’t.

An off-putting accent, a whiny voice, a too-slow or too-fast speech pattern: all present obstacles that must first be recognized and then modified. Careful analysis of your videotaped presentation is, again, the first step.”

(Chapters 8 and 9 deal specifically with this post. They are worth reviewing if you have this book in your library.)

Ken and I are both True Believers in video taping your performance for review and critique. Cutting your foot off with an old, dull, rusty knife is probably only slightly less painful than the first time you sit down and watch a video tape of your performance. (It does – or at least should – get less painful with each subsequent review but I suggest you keep handy a copy of your first tape for those times when you think you’re an excellent, preeminent performer. Nothing keeps you humble like watching your first tape.)

Pay particular attention to how fast you speak. Many issues dealing with clarity can be fixed immediately simply by s-l-o-w-i-n-g d-o-w-n. All evidence to the contrary, the brain thinks faster than the mouth performs. This causes many people to speak faster than they can clearly mouth words. While what you intend to say may make perfect sense between your own ears, something gets lost in the translation for your audience when you speak too quickly. SLOW. DOWN.

The other, primary fix is in how you physically get the words out of you. Speak this sentence out loud. Now do it again, and notice from where the words come: your throat or your belly. If you take in a deep breath and start your words in your belly, they’ll come out louder and clearer than if you pinch them through your throat.

How can you train yourself to speak better? Record your voice, then listen to it. Repeat.

In the late eighties, a company called Achievement Dynamics began running radio commercials for an audio book product called, “Verbal Advantage”. The ad copy read, “People judge you by the words you use…” – and do they ever.

Speaking colloquially is perfectly acceptable in the appropriate situations. It may be in private or group conversation. It may even be because your character requires a speech pattern that is colloquial in nature. But for everyone else, using proper English before an English-speaking audience is of paramount importance.

Mentalism, to a greater degree than magic, requires its practitioners to gain immediate respect of the audience. After all, the subtext that runs through people’s minds – which is human nature – is, “If you’re one of us, how can you be special?” (Or, “A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.”) And this is especially important for younger performers, and far more so for younger mentalism performers.

A command of the language is an overt message to your audience that you are a serious professional. (Yes, I know, we shouldn’t judge people that way, but you can either go with how we should do it or how people really do it.)

Does that mean you should pretend you are Stentor somehow propelled through time onto a stage channeling Sir John Gielgud doing “Henry V“? (I hope you didn’t actually ask that.) No, what you should do, however, is consider the character you’ve created for your act and decide if it’s best for him to speak properly – and then make sure he does.

Actually, I don’t think mentalism sucks at all. I happen to love mentalism with the same degree of feeling I do close-up magic. Mentalism appeals to a higher order of entertainment, to be sure, and it’s in that stratosphere that sometimes bad things happen. Like magic, some presentations of mentalism reek. Generally speaking, that’s not mentalism’s – or magic’s – fault. That’s the performer’s fault.

The principles underlying mentalism are closer to the mechanisms that make magic magical; the gray matter between our ears that expects a certain thing to occur along that familiar “cause and effect” road and, when it doesn’t, it’s like falling out of a tall tree, but without that sudden deceleration that can become so problematic for most of us.

Those underlying principles are most often tied directly to the names “Annemann” and “Corinda” and rightly so because so much of what we can call classic mentalism finds the seeds of its birth in those names.

Richard Osterlind has a new set of DVDs coming out very, very soon now that deals precisely and brilliantly with this very subject. This DVD set, called “Easy to Master Mental Miracles” – which you can order now here – along with copies of Annemann and Corinda make up a college course in the fundamentals of phenominal mentalism. (The graduate course is called “actually performing this stuff for real people” – and not everyone choses to attend classes.)

There’s nothing wrong with mentalism, per se. The problem is found in some of its practitioners.

Some people simply are not cut out for magic and mentalism. I’m not being ugly about this, it’s just so. Their personality – that is the anti-social, condescending method of human interaction that brings so many of these social misfits into our art form to begin with – is simply at bitter odds with what normal people would call “entertainment.”

So, when one of these poor fellows finds himself in the midst of diminishing or non-existent audiences, who do they entertain? Why, fellow practitioners, of course. (There’s an indelicately worded phrase for that, which I’ll get to later.)

If there’s one thing that can make a poor performer even worse, it’s unfounded, unearned praise – which is generally presented by one ill-equipped performer to another. (Normal people would call this behavior “lying through your teeth” or “the blind leading the blind.”)

Given the choice between constructive criticism and destructive praise, give me the criticism any day of the week and twice on Sunday. I can’t fix what others convince me isn’t broken.

As a follow up to my post yesterday about Jamy Ian Swiss’s book, “Shattering Illusions,” I thought that since I’m already late to the party getting my copy, it’d be okay to dwell on the book a little more.

The second chapter is called, “Mentalism Grows Up.” And, while it’s not my intention to quote my way through the book – something I could easily do, since the whole thing is quotable – here’s a great section from chapter two:

In Mentalism & Its Presentation by Bob Nelson & Syd Bergson (1959), Nelson insists that the mentalist must “convince his audience that he is ACTUALLY reading minds and predicting future outcomes,” and repeats such claims throughout his work. “The object of the mentalist is not to just entertain…but to so [sic] entrance his spectators into believing that he is actually doing true MENTAL MIRACLES” (All emphasis per original.)

The problem with this approach, however, is that while a certain percentage of the potential audience will be attracted to the delusion of special abilities, much of the audience — those with functioning bullshit detectors—will recognize the practitioners as the pathetic losers they are and run in the opposite direction. Little wonder that mentalism was rarely perceived as sophisticated, grown-up entertainment outside the hands of a very few. Mentalism at magic conventions seemed to make bad card tricks look good. How many times can you watch some pudgy myopic nimrod puff out his chest and prattle on for twenty minutes on the basis of two words read off a center tear, as if anyone but himself (and his Psychic Entertainer buddies) cares?

So. I guess a good question to ask is, who are you really fooling?

I’m not sure where is the best place to begin this quotation, so this is as good as any to begin:

But lacking some larger substantive goal, the audience is left watching trick after trick after trick, each time receiving this most dreary of messages loud and clear: See, I fooled you. See, I fooled you. See, I fooled you again.

And this is why most magic sucks. I accept that as a given, an a priori assumption that colors all of my thinking about magic. It is a caveat that will hover above and lurk between the lines of these pages in the year to come.

And so I love what magic occasionally is more than what it most often is presented as.

And I hate every self-styled conjuror who misinforms the public about what magic can be. I hate every neurotic social misfit who ever bought a sponge Ding-Dong or mangled a Double Lift in an act of magic aversion therapy.

What should we do to remedy the situation? Should we spend our lives as mimics, mindlessly recycling old saws and standard tricks without a moment’s examination? Should we live awash in covetousness, as vicious thieves robbing the most precious creative fruits of those artists we envy? Should we devote ourselves to the containment of the paltry secrets of our art, as if the mechanics of a centuries-old card sleight were the moral equivalent of a state secret? Should we institutionalize mediocrity by way of our associations, avoiding honest evaluation and the pressure to achieve greatness, all in the name of good fellowship? Should we embroil ourselves in petty disputes, busily hacking at trees without a moment’s glance toward the forest? Should we use our special skills as a bludgeon with which to beat down our victims, in order to compensate for our own personal inadequacies?

If the present state of affairs is any clue, then the answer is yes.

But I say — no.

And I will continue to say no in the following pages.

After a too-long hiatus from writing for the magazine, Jamy Ian Swiss began his new Genii Magazine column, Shattering Illusions, in 1993 with an essay from which the above quotation is taken. That essay was the opening salvo to a terrific column which, as all great columns do, ended too soon.

Those sixteen essays, along with a few more, were reworked and then compiled into book form. “Shattering Illusions“ was published by Stephen Minch’s Hermetic Press.

I mention this for three primary reasons. First, I’d recently ordered a copy of the book directly from Jamy and it arrived this morning. The book had been on my “wish list” for quite a while and I only recently thought to order it. Maybe it’s on your list, too. If so, order a copy. If it isn’t on your list, order a copy anyway. (Just substitute it for the next trick you were going to buy and probably will never perform anyway; you’ll be far better off for it. Trust me.)

Second, quotation touches on a number of things I’ve already given time to here in this blog.

Finally, it’s inclusion represents a theme I’d planned for this blog from the beginning; to discuss or at least mention books that deal with the more important aspects of magic and mentalism – which is to say, books not about tricks, but books that deal with the why and not the how of magic. If there are two things most of us don’t need it would be another hole in our head and another book on how to do a magic trick.

Another book high on my current list is Richard Osterlind’s new e-book, “Essays,”which I will review in detail soon. In the mean time, you can immediately purchase and download a copy here now.

“But it’s not fair!” (And in these cases, the word fair is generally pronounced as a long, annoyingly drawn out, “fay-yerrrrrrrr.”)

You know someone has exhausted any semblance of a reasonable, rational argument when their answers become, “But others are doing it, too.”, “Why are you ganging up on…”, “No one can prove this wasn’t an old trick to begin with…”, “But I want choices…”, and so on.

It may be because directly answering the question may cause the answerer to force himself to examine his own behavior and beliefs, and that may be more painful than just not answering the question and looking like an idiot. (Speaking of choices…)

It may be my age, or my experience, or the phase of the moon, but I can’t find time or energy to try to debate people like that. It’s like talking to a brick wall when the person with whom you are attempting to debate an issue won’t address the issue directly, but finds it necessary to deflect.

For the purposes of discussion and commentary, I present this quote by Sean Murphy (aka Maxwell Murphy) who is, ostensibly the guy who owns Penguin Magic, claims in a recently deleted thread of discussion on his own discussion board:

Personally, I think it’s good for our customers to have as many options as possible, and I love it when we’re able to offer a generic item and a name brand item next to one another on the shelf just like a grocery store offers Toasted Oats and Cheerios.

Everybody has different needs, and everybody had a different budget.

If a product is junk we don’t want to carry it. But if it’s high quality and a better price, we think our customers deserve the option to purchase it.

As for the issue of what’s a copy and what’s original, it’s very complex. I know that Magic Makers works closely with a research team, and they vigorously defend the origins of many of the items they manufacture. When they appear to be knocking off an other company’s trick, the trick often dates back before that company ever started marketing it.

But that’s a very long and boring argument, and it’s not even really the issue. The real issue is do you want the choice to buy one of several brands of a given effect? Or do you want only to be able to buy one brand of any given effect.

I think you’ll find that you’ll get the best quality for your dollar in a market with lots of competition. But there are also some potential drawbacks.

I’m excited to hear what you think.

And hear he did. After which he deleted what was said in response.

Here’s a fundamental difference of opinion which, I think, may be rooted in the fact that Murphy is not a magician. (At least he stated this to Rosie about a year ago, as reported here.)

Using the “generic version” excuse doesn’t work for a number of reasons. Generics, in the world outside of magic, come about when private label companies wish to offer a product similar to a brand name. A brand name becomes a brand name after much effort and expense in building the brand. This occurs as a result of time in market, marketing efforts, and other things that cost money. That’s why brand name products cost more than their generic counterparts; generics don’t factor in the costs of R&D, marketing, etc. Generics may be produced as a result of a brand item’s patent expiring, or when the brand manufacturer licenses the rights of his product to a generic manufacturer.

Is that the case with the “generic versions” of magic tricks put out by Rob Stiff and Magic Makers and referred to by Maxwell’s comments?

It was recently announced that Magic Makers is releasing a DVD called “Crushed and Cured", ostensibly an instructional video teaching Anders Moden’s Healed & Sealed trick. Anders was not asked permission to teach his trick. In fact, Anders was not contacted at all by Magic Makers.

Just prior to that, Magic Makers released a DVD titled, “Ghost Kings.” When viewing the online demo of the trick it becomes clear that this is simply Lee Asher’s trick, “Asher Twist.” In this case, Lee reports he was contacted by Magic Makers for permission, but Lee declined. Magic Makers produced the DVD anyway. (I’d be happy to send you to the links on The Magic Cafe where this was discussed, but those threads were deleted. However, this remains for your viewing.)

The other issue is that of patent and copyright law. I bring this up only because it is so often mentioned in excuses and rationalizations for knocking off a creator’s trick. For the most part, copyright and patent law does not pertain to magic secrets. THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE LAW, IT’S ABOUT MORALS AND ETHICS. (Sometimes yelling does help.)

Partial birth abortion is legal (currently, anyway), but everyone with whom I’ve discussed the matter states it is anything but moral or ethical. Yet, doctors hide behind the law to claim what they do is right. Because something is legal (or, not illegal) does not make it right; it makes it not illegal.

The other excuse is, “Some magic tricks are just too expensive. It’s not fair to price magic tricks out of the reach of most buyers, so it’s good that we have a choice.”

Inequity. “Them and us.” “The Haves and the Have Nots.” Class warfare. Place into the mix the phrase, “But I want it…” and an expedient means to that end, and you have the present situation we’re discussing.

In times past, there have been ideological “solutions” to the sorts of inequity brought about by the fact that some people will not or cannot perform the same actions as others to get successful results and, therefore, find themselves without. In every case I can find, such solutions have been bitter, utter failures.

In the long run, you cannot short-circuit the path to success.

In the United States of America, the application of a good idea and hard work often yields financial success. Our free market economy, supported by our system of laws, virtually guarantee success. Some people, unwilling or unable to provide the “good idea” part decide to appropriate the ideas of others in an effort toward bridging the reasonable and perfectly equitable inequity as they see it.

How can someone argue such behavior is ethically and morally sound, let alone laud it?

There are many, many examples of good coming from horrific bad. I think it’s a testament to human nature to find some good in a bad situation. Sometimes that comes in the form of a phrase that otherwise would seem crass, as in the example I used for the subject of this post.

In the 1950s James Warren Jones, a man degreed by Indiana University and Butler University, began an inter-racial mission for the homeless, sick and jobless located in Indianapolis, IN. By the mid-1970s, Jones’ The People’s Temple had built a relatively large group of followers relocated in Ukiah, CA (deemed safe from the coming prophesied nuclear war.)

It was also about that time that New West magazine suggested illegal activity going on in Jones’ People’s Temple. Under the microscope, Jones decided to move his organization to Jonestown, Guyana. On November 18, 1978, as a result of the killing of visiting Congressman Leo J. Ryan, along with others of his visiting party – all there to investigate reports that some members of Jones’ cult were being held against their wishes – Jim Jones decided to put an end to his group of followers by forcing everyone to drink a beverage laced with a lethal dose of cyanide. Those who refused were shot to death.

914 bodies later, the names “Jim Jones” and “Jonestown” became etched in history.

While it’s been widely reported that Jones actually mixed cynanide with FlaVor-Aid and not Kool-Aid, the phrase “don’t drink the Kool-Aid” has become ubiquitous in pop-culture, garnering over 3,000 hits on Google, with an additional 100 or so hits for those who can’t spell.

(It’s interesting to me that “don’t drink the Kool-Aid” is so prevalent a phrase on the Worldwide Web that a Google search to find Kool-Aid manufacturer’s web site would have been a complete wash were it not for the fact I knew General Foods owned the brand.)

“Don’t drink the Kool-Aid” is now synonymous with the admonition against laying blind trust in someone you like and/or respect; think for yourself; search the facts, and then make up your own mind.

This phrase came to mind recently as a result of a thread of conversation over on Penguin Magic’s discussion forum which was (mostly) discussing the subject of knockoffs, theft of intellectual property and the effect on the world of magic. The topic was titled, “Whats the deal with magic makers inc.?” though you won’t find it any longer; it’s been completely deleted from the discussion forum.

The topic was started by member “Beesflirtn” on Sunday, October 17, 2004 at 10:26 p.m. It actually covered most of the points I have made on this blog and elsewhere regarding the abuses of intellectual property and how it affects magic. To that extent, I am sorry to see it gone, but I can’t say it surprises me; “For everyone who does evil hates the light, lest his works be exposed.”

Among the many pages of responses, you would have found proponents and opponents of the idea that any manufacturer has the right to make any trick he thinks he can sell. Actually, some were very well stated, on both sides of the fence.

Troubling, though, were the followers of certain manufacturers and web-based retail sites. These people, apparently, refuse to consider that their idols in magic and retail may be behaving in an unethical and immoral manner. When faced with facts and questions, these people deflected direct questions and, instead, engaged in ad hominen attacks on the questioner. Or they used the flacid argument, “Others are doing it too.” Or the equally impotent, “If you’re going to accuse X of selling ripoffs, why aren’t you accusing Y?” All because it seems impossible to ascribe unethical behavior to someone they like and respect. Psychologists might invoke the phrase, “double bind.”

In short, they drank the Kool-Aid.

For whom the bell tolls?