I think we sometimes forget that the performance of a magic trick isn't itself entertaining to most people. The phrase 'magic trick' is perhaps something of an oxymoron. A trick isn't magical, any more than it is generally entertaining. The entertainment in our craft -- I hesitate to call it an art, for reasons I could easily return to with the minumum of encouragement -- comes from the magic, not the trick.
Anyone can demonstrate -- even perform -- a trick; few can perform magic. Anyone who doesn't understand what I mean should go to YouTube, type in the word 'magic' and wait for ennui to envelop. (I could put some links in here, but wouldn't want to embarrass anyone who may grow out of it. Perhaps we should hope that they find the love of a good woman who will gently point out the error of their ways and lead them henceforth into honourable and useful employment. But maybe they'd have to ditch the card tricks first.)
Who is at fault. The dealers? We wish to sell our wares so we present them in the best light, and in the way we think will appeal to potential purchasers. Should it be enough to outline the effect as seen by an audience, and leave the customer/perfomer to make his decision based on whether that will fit his style and his act? Probably, and most dealers would go quickly broke if they operated on that basis.
We're buying dreams ('magic'?) to some extent, of course. In my teens when I first started to read magic catalogues and then attend conventions I read descriptions and watched demonstrations. And their power depended on their ability to trigger my mental 'magician fantasies'. I wanted to be Channing Pollock, and later Chan Canasta (television had recently started to creep north of Luton and many's the evening we'd spend huddled over a neighbour's nine-incher warming our toes on the whippet and dreaming of stardom). Of course most of us grow out of that, although perhaps not entirely as there's probably an important aspirational element too.
Now, of course, we have even more powerful fantasy-triggering techniques. I'd always prefer to make a decision about buying a prop or trick based on reading a good description than watching a demonstration, but perhaps that's just me. Now we have websites with MTV style performances -- selling the sizzle rather than the sausage? Has the medium truly become the message?
From watching these mini-epics we get the impression that 'street magic' is the predominant magical format. And too often we're told that these are 'real world' performances. No they're not, and please don't try to insult our intelligence by pretending otherwise. When was the last time you walked up to a stranger in the street and thrust a pack of cards beneath his (or preferably, her) startled nostrils. Me neither. I make my living from selling and performing magic, and I'd be willing to bet a week's wages or £20 that anyone outside television who makes a living from 'street magic' is rarer than a fifteen-year-old who has read Tarbell, or an acceptable Glide.
I'm not talking about street performers who do magic. That's a horse of quite a different hue.
Earlier this year I was at the British Juggling Convention. I always have a great time at the BJC, and enjoy seeing the skill and dedication displayed by these guys. (Except Poi [essentially, placing a ball in a sock and whirling it around your head] which I believe is derived from an ancient Japanese word for too crap at juggling to catch things.)
But there are two types of jugglers. Pro's and hobbyists, you might say, but it's not as simple as that. And the difference certainly isn't based on skill. There's a term used in juggling circles these days: sports juggling. Mmmm, part of me wants to say, juggling is, or should be, entertainment. It comes from a long and hallowed tradition of circus and variety/vaudeville. Sport is about running around in circles, kicking balls, or some combination thereof. Mind you, a bit of club passing or some nifty diabolo work wouldn't half liven up the Olympics...
OK, I'm probably being too harsh. If someone wants to chuck things around as a form of exercise that's fine. The problem is when they do it on stage and expect it to be mistaken for entertainment. Fine, you can juggle nine balls while hardly ever dropping one. That's clever and I will admire the skill. For several seconds. But you haven't got an act, even with a sequinned waistcoat and a blue spotlight. There has to be more... let's hear it for fewer balls and more theatre?
So have we got a new genre developing... 'sports magic'? I hope not, as this would be even lower down the entertainment scale than sports juggling, as often there isn't even the skill to admire.
If you wish to indulge your desire to do tricks, without any thought of structure, narrative and all the other stuff that should go with them, that's OK (through gritted teeth). But please don't inflict them on anyone other than members of your immediate family, who hopefully will love you enough to indulge you for a little while, while hinting that you may profitably spend a little time discovering where your true talents lie.
And if that's outside magic, well, you can always shrug and console yourself with the thought that you may have saved yourself -- and others -- some proportion of the discomforts and embarassments that beset us on life's journey. And also, you'll have a much better chance of attracting women.
Within magic, too, we need to find a genre that suits us. For example, I abandoned my children's magic act some years ago after discovering that many members of my young audience had not reached the level of intellectual maturity to appreciate fully the wonders I lay before them. My cabaret and close-up performances, however, continue at carefully spaced intervals. ("This man has to be seen to be believed!" -- Greaseborough Gazette)
Magic is first and foremost a form of theatre, whether your stage is the street, a table top, or the kind that comes with a proscenium arch and red velvet curtains. And the magic is in the theatre (the craft, not the building), and in you, never in the trick. Or maybe ultimately it happens in the hearts and minds of the spectators...
Perhaps you disagree? Everyone has a right to be wrong. And perhaps I've exaggerated a little in the interests of readability and/or what I've been known to pass off as humour. Write and tell me what you think.
Russell J. Hall
russell@magick2go.com
