Magic Gone Awry

[Jester]

As many of you know, I am a professional card whore magician. As such, I have friends who are also professional con men magicians.

Well, not all of them are friends. Some are merely acquaintances. Some are people I've met briefly. A couple are sworn mortal enemies. You know...what every profession has!

In any case, on of my friends local colleagues recently agreed to be part of a performance of the amazing Key West Burlesque show. He just sent me a link to that performance that contains a deadly computer virus is pretty damn impressive.

Check it out here. Or you can try to check it out here, but not only is that not the performance, it's not nearly as entertaining. But for some people, sadly, it will do.

[ArcticChicken]

Thanks, I needed a laugh.

[Akasa]

That was good for a laugh. I have a couple magician friends myself. Always with the gags and puns.

[Kara]

I should take up magic again. I used to check out every magic trick book the library had (both of them) and read up on the tricks and gags. I have collected a few things here and there, magic card decks (though I still remember plenty of tricks you can do with a normal deck), cups and balls, and so forth. I love watching magic shows, though it was always a pain with my ex because she's the type who studies everything and then explains how she "knows" they did it. I know it's illusion, but I don't care to know how the big stage tricks are done, that's the fun of it. Whenever she was stumped, she'd ask me if I knew how they did it and my reply was always the same: "Magic."

I know it's more or less useless to me as far as "doing" anything with it, but I think I'll take up magic tricks again. If nothing else, my kids love them the way I always did. And that's the true magic in it, as far as I'm concerned. That child-like wonder.

[Jester]

I actually picked up magic for the very simple goal of impressing my then-six year old niece. Now she's 18 and doesn't give a shit.

That being said, I often tell people that if they want, they can bring in their own cards, and I'll do the same tricks. Sometimes they do, and are shocked to find out I wasn't bluffing.

I (usually) love doing magic tricks for people like your ex, Kara, as they come in all confident, telling me they are going to "catch me." There are three problems with this approach, though. One, my main goal is to make people laugh. So I am not hugely concerned with whether or not I slip up that much. Two, people who approach magic like that are missing the whole point, which is to have fun and be entertained and enjoy the show. Three, and most amusing to me, is that very rarely do these people ever "catch" me or figure out what I'm doing. Occasionally they do. Occasionally I fuck up. But fully 80% of the time when someone says they "know" what I did, they are flat out wrong.

I do encourage you to pursue magic again if you are interested, Kara. If you'd like, I can recommend some stuff and some instructors to you. Just a thought. (By the way, I've never been that good at cups and balls, so you're already ahead of me on that....)

[BookstoreEscapee]

That was great!

The second link, well, ...

[42_42_42]

Very much enjoyed that!

When are you going to post videos of YOUR magic act?

PS - 2nd link, is EVIL damn you!

[Jester]

An excellent question.

To be fair, I have posted to this site every single video of my magic act. Yes, that's right: there are none. At least, none that I know of. I will attempt to rectify that at some point in the near somewhere in the future.

[MoonCat]

How the HELL did he do that???

Oh, wait, yeah....not supposed to ask that....

[Jester]

1. You can ask all you want, actually.
2. Do not, however, expect a straight answer.
3. I actually do know how he did that, thank you very much.



(3a. Only because I asked him Friday night, to be honest. (Yes, magicians, like any other profession, will discuss things in house.))

[ArcticChicken]

I think I may be one of the few people out there for whom knowing how they did it doesn't ruin the magic.

[Jester]

Oh, it doesn't ruin it for me, even if it's not a trick I'm ever going to be doing. For me the pleasure is as much in the entertainer and how he/she performs as it is how they do it.

Frankly, I've seen magicians that mechanically were lights out, but they didn't entertain their audience, and thus were quickly forgotten after the trick.

And then I've seen magicians who were perhaps not as mechanically gifted, but they left their audience spellbound with a performance that no one there would ever forget.

Take a wild guess which one I prefer....

[rdp78]

Jester, you prankster that 2nd one was pure evil and the 1st was brilliant (getting bandana and banana confused ). I remember getting a magic kit when I was kid and well, I don't have any more of the equipment. I do have book on card tricks but I haven't done those in years.

Anyway there was four specials on Fox in late 1990s and then another one 2002 called Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Revealed. It's where a masked guy (because magicians don't reveal their secrets) demostrates how big time magic tricks are done and how they completely fool the audience. It was also a regular show on MyNetwork with 13 episodes for 2008-09 season. Here is a link to a webpage about it.

[Jester]

Yes, I and every magician I know are well aware of those shows.

We also know who that....."magician" was. His name was Valentino, and by all accounts, he had a third-rate dove act in Vegas before he became the "Masked Magician."

From a business standpoint, considering where his career as a magician was going, he made a great move.

From an ethical standpoint....well, let's just say I hope they paid him well, because he is unlikely to get any work as a magician, through another magician, or from another magician again. Ever.

The problem was not simply that he was revealing secrets. It was the fact that he was fucking with people's income.

You see, shit like that is not going to phase the big-name acts like David Copperfield, Siegfried and Roy, or Penn and Teller. They have huge budgets, and anything the Masked Malignancy revealed, they could simply replace. But for the majority of working magicians, that was simply not feasible nor affordable.

If you detect bitterness in the tone of this post, that is because it is there, and I made no effort to filter or edit it out. And I was not one of the magicians negatively affected by the Masked Moron. I can only imagine how bitter some of them are towards this buffoon.

[MoonCat]

1. You can ask all you want, actually.
2. Do not, however, expect a straight answer.
3. I actually do know how he did that, thank you very much.



(3a. Only because I asked him Friday night, to be honest. (Yes, magicians, like any other profession, will discuss things in house.))

Well, my question was rhetorical, I would never expect a magician to tell me their trade secrets. I always think I'm going to be able to figure it out, and then I get so caught up in it that I forget to try.