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 gen