It is quite clear that you don't appreciate the analytical approach to this subject Brad. Your understanding of the psychology of the audience is limited to the assumption that they just want to have a good time and don't really mind being lied to if it provides them a momentary diversion.
but you've offered no 'analysis'. You have never established that there is a method by which they know you are lying other than failure and you have yet to establish that being caught lying is worse than being caught in any technique.
so please, share us your 'analysis' - but saying this is what audiences value with NOTHING to back it up isn't 'analysis'
having said that, i didn't say audiences just want to have a 'good time.'. i said audiences care only about how what you do makes them FEEL. Art can produce many feelings including those of great discomfort. What i said was, if you give the audience a feeling they VALUE MORE than knowing the secret then they will fight to protect and preserve this feeling.
And we see this every day, people will ignore obvious factual truths if they challenge the comfort of their pre existing beliefs.
this notion that people don't like being lied to is nonsense. When given the choice between hard truths and comforting bulls^%t, many - if not most - opt
for the bull.
people don't go to a 'magic' show to face hard truths. you want to limit their experience to that of puzzle participants. that's far too shallow of a goal for magic than i, and many, are prepared to settle for.
My belief is that people come to see a magic show to be impressed by a performer whose speciality is the practice of little known methods that allow him to create wondrous illusions. Lying is not a "little known method". It is as common as dirt.
because you are a puzzler and not a magician. this belief of yours places the emphasis of the experience onto appreciation of technique. When our feelingful response comes from appreciation of technique that is NOT magic, that is juggling. Technique is the domain of craft. As you wrote earlier, for you magic is the creation of illusion so the audience can attempt to figure out how it's done
the problem keyes is you are trying to strip magic of what makes it magic
you are taking something profound and rendering it trivial.
YOU and this attitude do more to sully the art than any prevarication.
Therefore I feel that it sullies the art. Now there is no way that you or I can prove that lying helps ot hurts. We can only consult our own intuition for an answer.
and that's the problem. you don't have the experience on which to safely trust your intuition and i can prove it:
your approach to magic eschews lying. So you tell us how lying doesn't work
this is the equivalent of someone who has no experience palming telling a room of magicians that palming doesn't work.
if you aren't practicing it, how can you expect to obtain the skill set to use any technique effectively?
the examples of lies you provide suggest this lack of understanding. you simply don't know how or when to lie, man.
But I think you will admit that gaining and keeping the audience's trust is vital to any performer's career. Trust in What? That is the question. Trust that your words are true as you attempt to misdirect them, or trust that you cannot be trusted?
again, how can they know they can't trust you unless you get caught, and why will they trust you less for having uttered a verbal lie as opposed to a non verbal one?
you're spinning in your circle again
and tell me, do they no longer trust emma stone because once she said she was a high school kid and another time she said she was an la barista and another an aspiring writer from the south ?
once again you are trying to force a misguided notion that the audience cares how you do what you do. They don't. they only care how you make them feel.
technique is a back stage issue. stop trying to get the audience to look at the electrical sockets.
You seem to be saying that on ONE LEVEL, they know you are a liar, but if you hypnotise them with your brilliant llies, they will forgive and forget. I don't buy that, Mr. Henderson.
no. never said that. never said anything like that.
are you really that desperate ?
And even if it were true, it would be to the advantage of every magician to extend that trust beyond the moment of rapture; to the life long memory of their performances.
And as we have discussed ad nauseum, there is no need to do this if you don't get caught. In fact, there is no way to do this beyond telling them you aren't lying - but
why would they believe that any more than if you said you were using a 'perfectly ordinary deck of cards'?
and how can you prove you weren't lying without exposing your method to prove that while you indeed did this, you certainly didn't say that.
as you have admitted the audience doesn't know if the skilled competant performer is lying or not - so without an observable
difference in the performance, why bother.
(i know, i know - because it's self evident
to the person who admits to having zero real world experience using the technique. we got it).
and why do you think that the discovery of a mirror doesn't kill their trust for you any less than having that discovery accompanied with words?
again, your position is utterly groundless
No one is going to begrudge you the use of gimmicks and sleights. They may smile and admire the cleverness of man's technology, or the fluid grace of his practiced moves, but when they realise that he lied in lieu of these things, they are likely to feel foolish, gullible and naive to have been astonished. Not the sort of thing that I would pay to see again. How about you, Brad?
what planet are you from? if they catch the card in your hand you are a crappy magician and they won't want to see you again. There is no 'grace' in exposing the sleights. that's failure.
You really think that the spectator who spies the mirror is going to admire you???
again, what planet are you living on? have you ever performed for another living human being?
i would LOVE to see you flash a palmed card at a bar mitzvah or for a party of high powered wall street traders and see exactly how much 'admiration' comes your way.
the thing is, it's hard to prove that a performer lied - if they know how to do so skillfully.
But as you don't have any really world experience using this technique - afterall, you have chosen to eschew lies from your act - it stands to reason that you wouldn't be successful in your attempts.
Anyone? Where are these folks whose thoughts you know so well, despite the fact that you never discuss your methods with them?
not sure who you are addressing here.
i don't discuss methods with my audience because ITS NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS.
methods are to be hidden, not exposed.
UNLESS you are a juggler or puzzler. In one the methods are the show. In the other, the deciphering the methods is the goal
that's not the goal of a magician
the magician conveys the feelingful response of magic. Magic is the feeling you have when that which you know is impossible occurs undeniably in your presence.
if the audience sees your methods or thinks the experience is about figuring them out - you aren't doing magic.
you're a puzzler
which is why your audiences don't seem to respect magic as an art.
it's because you're doing it wrong.