Ennobling Magic

Discuss general aspects of Genii.
Brad Henderson
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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Brad Henderson » December 13th, 2017, 9:55 pm

keyes lies when he says he answers all the questions. he skips over all the inconvenient ones

but please tell me how they know the page call is a lie? sure we all lie. how will they detect this one is a lie? the didn't notice it in the video. i've never seen someone call it out in any performance i've seen it used.

and at least he tells us the truth - that his presentation is designed to put the attention on the method. that's what puzzlers do.

hey, here's a question you skipped. do you think you know more about magic than michael weber?

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jkeyes1000
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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby jkeyes1000 » December 13th, 2017, 10:02 pm

Jackpot wrote:
jkeyes1000 wrote:Below is a video that demonstrates the kind of lies i detest. Note that the performer (Osterlind) not only miscalls the page, but has the gall to TELL the volunteer which word she is thinking of!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYvmobtjsLw&sns=em


Mr. Keyes,

Would you be so kind as to identify all the lies on the video which have you so worked up? And why is it galling for the performer to tell his audience which word she is thinking of? If he can't identify the word how could he be reading her mind? If he can't identify the word how can he entertain his audience?

Thank you.


Gladly.

Hoy himself admits that his METHOD of forcing the page is simply to "lie". I don't think there's any doubt about that.

But Osterlind asks the woman to open to the page and read the first line (to herself). Then he proceeds to INFORM her that there is a word she is thinking of--the biggest word in the sentence....

This is not allowing her to choose, this is "leading the witness". She merely acquiesces to his "reading".

Best case scenario would be that she actually was thinking of the biggest word. But the trick works best if the volunteer hasn't had a chance to decide. If she truly had a specific word in mind, it could have been any one of ten on the page.

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jkeyes1000
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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby jkeyes1000 » December 13th, 2017, 10:12 pm

Brad Henderson wrote:keyes lies when he says he answers all the questions. he skips over all the inconvenient ones

but please tell me how they know the page call is a lie? sure we all lie. how will they detect this one is a lie? the didn't notice it in the video. i've never seen someone call it out in any performance i've seen it used.

and at least he tells us the truth - that his presentation is designed to put the attention on the method. that's what puzzlers do.

hey, here's a question you skipped. do you think you know more about magic than michael weber?


I never thought the Michael Weber quote worthy of mention, frankly.

It is essentially a pun (like Picasso's). It's only point is that "lying is easy". I don't dispute that, Brad. What I dispute is that the Easy Way is hardly artistic, and that lies are hardly admirable.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Brad Henderson » December 13th, 2017, 10:14 pm


But Brad's argument is that if you underplay the lie, no one will notice. Or everyone will be so intent on believing in The Impossible that they will ignore it. Surely if either of those premises are solid then why should anyone suspect?



nope. it's not about underplaying. the lie can be blatant. and i never said those who want to believe in the impossible will ignore it. i said if you give them an experience they value more than knowing they will fight to preserve it

either you are intentionally misrepresenting what i wrote or are incapable of understanding the difference.

neither reflect well on you.


I hope you're not telling me that what I need is a GOOD LIE in order to inspire confidence.


who says a lie is meant to inspire confidence? i said you needed to lie skillfully. which means you need to know when and how to lie in addition to which lie to choose. if you think the lie is the source of confidence then you don't understand lying.

but is this surprising for someone who has no practice with the technique?

My book test is structured as a scientific demonstration of subliminal influence. In order to rule out the kind of nonsense found in Hoy's routine, it is necessary to assure the audience that they have a free choice. Which they have indeed. They choose the books, the section to focus on, and their preferred page number.

Now, even if a wise guy knows that this is not a real scientific study, and knows that all ungaffed book tests are based on some kind of page force, he will first wonder, How can the performer let the volunteer choose the SECTION of the book? Wouldn't that muck up the prediction?

Second, How can he allow the participant to THINK A NUMBER? Sheer bewilderment so far.


how is limiting the selection to one portion of the book more impressive than allowing them to choose from any page ?

why do you need to rule out nonsense no one knows is being employed?

ah - because you're performing for people who know about 'ungaffed force books'? so you have designed this to appeal to people who know how it's supposed to be done - ie other magicians. so it isn't a trick that lay people would relate to because it's only interesting as a puzzle to people who 1) already know how the the trick should be done but are also 2) too stupid to fathom the implications of your continual changing of your number when the audience changes their mind about theirs.

sure.

Everything seems random and unpredictable, especially when the performer gets the "average" wrong and rather nervously concedes that the volunteer's figure is correct.

This is technically an algorithm, but without knowing that the performer deliberately chose a diametrically opposite number that when added to the participant's, and divided by two, would yield the force, they have only the vaguest notion.


so when you change your number after they change theirs they have no notion at all

uh huh

so they pick a number. you pick a number. then those numbers go through a prescribed mathematical calculation

apparently our expert vocabularian knows nether the definition of random or unpredictable.

you believe that a miscall of a page freely chosen by a spectator is more suspicious than the performer choosing the numbers that are used to determine that page?

again you show that your approach is only one for puzzlers to present to people who already know the method.

the lie is better.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Brad Henderson » December 13th, 2017, 10:17 pm

jkeyes1000 wrote:
Brad Henderson wrote:keyes lies when he says he answers all the questions. he skips over all the inconvenient ones

but please tell me how they know the page call is a lie? sure we all lie. how will they detect this one is a lie? the didn't notice it in the video. i've never seen someone call it out in any performance i've seen it used.

and at least he tells us the truth - that his presentation is designed to put the attention on the method. that's what puzzlers do.

hey, here's a question you skipped. do you think you know more about magic than michael weber?


I never thought the Michael Weber quote worthy of mention, frankly.

It is essentially a pun (like Picasso's). It's only point is that "lying is easy". I don't dispute that, Brad. What I dispute is that the Easy Way is hardly artistic, and that lies are hardly admirable.


so you lied when you said you answered all questions

got it

and who said lying was easy? (you clearly are incapable of doing so skillfully. )

the quote is that the shortest distance is the straight lie. it is a variation of baker's mandate that the best solution is the simplest.

simplest is seldom easy.

so do you know more about magic than both weber AND al baker?

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Brad Henderson » December 13th, 2017, 10:19 pm

jkeyes1000 wrote:
Jackpot wrote:
jkeyes1000 wrote:Below is a video that demonstrates the kind of lies i detest. Note that the performer (Osterlind) not only miscalls the page, but has the gall to TELL the volunteer which word she is thinking of!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYvmobtjsLw&sns=em


Mr. Keyes,

Would you be so kind as to identify all the lies on the video which have you so worked up? And why is it galling for the performer to tell his audience which word she is thinking of? If he can't identify the word how could he be reading her mind? If he can't identify the word how can he entertain his audience?

Thank you.


Gladly.

Hoy himself admits that his METHOD of forcing the page is simply to "lie". I don't think there's any doubt about that.

But Osterlind asks the woman to open to the page and read the first line (to herself). Then he proceeds to INFORM her that there is a word she is thinking of--the biggest word in the sentence....

This is not allowing her to choose, this is "leading the witness". She merely acquiesces to his "reading".

Best case scenario would be that she actually was thinking of the biggest word. But the trick works best if the volunteer hasn't had a chance to decide. If she truly had a specific word in mind, it could have been any one of ten on the page.


nope. he says one word stands out to her (strikes her) it's longer than the rest. - a true statement

then she is directed to think of that word.

dude, you really have to try harder

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jkeyes1000
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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby jkeyes1000 » December 13th, 2017, 10:23 pm

jkeyes1000 wrote:
Brad Henderson wrote:keyes lies when he says he answers all the questions. he skips over all the inconvenient ones

but please tell me how they know the page call is a lie? sure we all lie. how will they detect this one is a lie? the didn't notice it in the video. i've never seen someone call it out in any performance i've seen it used.

and at least he tells us the truth - that his presentation is designed to put the attention on the method. that's what puzzlers do.

hey, here's a question you skipped. do you think you know more about magic than michael weber?


I never thought the Michael Weber quote worthy of mention, frankly.

It is essentially a pun (like Picasso's). It's only point is that "lying is easy". I don't dispute that, Brad. What I dispute is that the Easy Way is hardly artistic, and that lies are hardly admirable.


I mean, "What I contend is that the Easy Way..."

Richard, is there any possibility of allowing us to edit our comments? I cringe at all the typos and groggy late-night grammar in my posts!

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jkeyes1000
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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby jkeyes1000 » December 13th, 2017, 10:31 pm

Brad Henderson wrote:
jkeyes1000 wrote:
Jackpot wrote:
Mr. Keyes,

Would you be so kind as to identify all the lies on the video which have you so worked up? And why is it galling for the performer to tell his audience which word she is thinking of? If he can't identify the word how could he be reading her mind? If he can't identify the word how can he entertain his audience?

Thank you.


Gladly.

Hoy himself admits that his METHOD of forcing the page is simply to "lie". I don't think there's any doubt about that.

But Osterlind asks the woman to open to the page and read the first line (to herself). Then he proceeds to INFORM her that there is a word she is thinking of--the biggest word in the sentence....

This is not allowing her to choose, this is "leading the witness". She merely acquiesces to his "reading".

Best case scenario would be that she actually was thinking of the biggest word. But the trick works best if the volunteer hasn't had a chance to decide. If she truly had a specific word in mind, it could have been any one of ten on the page.


nope. he says one word stands out to her (strikes her) it's longer than the rest. - a true statement

then she is directed to think of that word.

dude, you really have to try harder


She is directed to think of the longest word.

Who but a fool would fail to perceive that as a force? And it is NOT likely to be a true statement. Possible, but not likely.

Which is undoubtedly why the performer asks her ONLY to read the line, NOT to choose a word. He TELLS her what her word is, just like he TOLD her what page she stopped him at.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Jackpot » December 13th, 2017, 11:08 pm

jkeyes1000 wrote:
Jackpot wrote:
jkeyes1000 wrote:Below is a video that demonstrates the kind of lies i detest. Note that the performer (Osterlind) not only miscalls the page, but has the gall to TELL the volunteer which word she is thinking of!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYvmobtjsLw&sns=em


Mr. Keyes,

Would you be so kind as to identify all the lies on the video which have you so worked up? And why is it galling for the performer to tell his audience which word she is thinking of? If he can't identify the word how could he be reading her mind? If he can't identify the word how can he entertain his audience?

Thank you.


Gladly.

Hoy himself admits that his METHOD of forcing the page is simply to "lie". I don't think there's any doubt about that.

But Osterlind asks the woman to open to the page and read the first line (to herself). Then he proceeds to INFORM her that there is a word she is thinking of--the biggest word in the sentence....

This is not allowing her to choose, this is "leading the witness". She merely acquiesces to his "reading".

Best case scenario would be that she actually was thinking of the biggest word. But the trick works best if the volunteer hasn't had a chance to decide. If she truly had a specific word in mind, it could have been any one of ten on the page.


Mr. Keyes,

Thank you for answering part of one of my questions.

Mr. Hoy admits this particular force is a lie. Is his statement true? Or was he lying? Just kidding, we all the know the answer. Because all forces are lies. If forces were free choices magicians would not call them forces. We would call them free choices when discussing methods. What is important about any tool of magical deception is that the magician uses it judiciously and skillfully. In my judgement that was done here.

In any line of text there is almost always one word longer than the others. Mr. Osterlind asked if she was thinking of that word and she said, "Yes." No member of the audience questioned the selection of the page or her statement. Why? Because Mr. Osterlind presented a magical effect. (Or perhaps not. Maybe we should be concerned that the volunteer and the other spectators were lying. Perhaps they were lying to Mr. Osterlind so that he would think he had entertained them.)

I don't have the same issues with the presentation that you have. We are each entitled to our opinions. Unless it is done poorly lying doesn't degrade magic. Doing away with lying won't ennoble magic, but entertaining performances will.
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Mark Collier
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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Mark Collier » December 13th, 2017, 11:31 pm

Maybe he should just read minds and not have to lie about it.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby performer » December 13th, 2017, 11:33 pm

Mark Collier wrote:Maybe he should just read minds and not have to lie about it.


That is what I do.

Jack Shalom
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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Jack Shalom » December 13th, 2017, 11:54 pm

Is this going to be like that final episode of Newhart where he wakes up and Suzanne Pleshette is in the bed next to him? (Apologies to those who don't get the reference. But it's apt, believe me.)

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Mark Collier » December 14th, 2017, 2:03 am

Jackpot says,

"What is important about any tool of magical deception is that the magician uses it judiciously and skillfully."

That is pretty much what Brad has been saying all along.

Your assertion that magicians shouldn't lie is ridiculous. Of course they should lie. How else can they achieve their miracles? Lies don't need to be verbal...they just need to misrepresent.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby performer » December 14th, 2017, 7:47 am

He is not against misrepresentation. He is against direct, downright blatant lies. There is a difference you know. I am not 100 percent convinced by his argument but fair is fair. There is a subtle difference here. I don't see how you can do magic without misrepresentation but you CAN do it without lies if you really want to. I don't have a problem with miscalling page numbers or making mis statements as in the Piano Trick. In fact I don't think I really have much of a problem with telling lies if it is not a breach of an audience trust or lies that insult an audience's intelligence. By that I mean lies of the kind that audiences expect you to tell.

One size does not fit all in magic. I can quite imagine many performers who have an aversion to telling lies in real life finding it uncomfortable having to do so when doing magic. The good news for them is that there is plenty of latitude and flexibility for them not to do so if they don't want to and their performances will actually be better for it. If they lie during a trick their discomfort with it will give the game away.

In actual fact this is a silly argument because nobody lies that much when performing anyway! Even Jkeyes had to admit that in Brad's video there wasn't much in Brad's video that were unacceptable lies---just a bunch of fairy stories and magician's patter that audiences only half believe anyway or perhaps not believe at all.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby jkeyes1000 » December 14th, 2017, 10:15 am

performer wrote:He is not against misrepresentation. He is against direct, downright blatant lies. There is a difference you know. I am not 100 percent convinced by his argument but fair is fair. There is a subtle difference here. I don't see how you can do magic without misrepresentation but you CAN do it without lies if you really want to. I don't have a problem with miscalling page numbers or making mis statements as in the Piano Trick. In fact I don't think I really have much of a problem with telling lies if it is not a breach of an audience trust or lies that insult an audience's intelligence. By that I mean lies of the kind that audiences expect you to tell.

One size does not fit all in magic. I can quite imagine many performers who have an aversion to telling lies in real life finding it uncomfortable having to do so when doing magic. The good news for them is that there is plenty of latitude and flexibility for them not to do so if they don't want to and their performances will actually be better for it. If they lie during a trick their discomfort with it will give the game away.

In actual fact this is a silly argument because nobody lies that much when performing anyway! Even Jkeyes had to admit that in Brad's video there wasn't much in Brad's video that were unacceptable lies---just a bunch of fairy stories and magician's patter that audiences only half believe anyway or perhaps not believe at all.


Yours is The Voice Of Reason, Mark! I will accept this as the final word if everyone else will.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Brad Henderson » December 14th, 2017, 12:07 pm


She is directed to think of the longest word.


yes. because the last thing an experienced performer wants is for the revelation to be the word 'the'

Who but a fool would fail to perceive that as a force? And it is NOT likely to be a true statement. Possible, but not likely.


so you are calling everyone in that audience and everyone in every audience for whom magicians have performed this ruse for decades, fools? i suppose the family of with children reading beyond their grad level sitting in a fine dine restaurant were fools as well?

and you suggest i will have a hard time proving my position because i say things which sound elitist?????

the only people who see this as a force are 1) other magicians (and even then i know that most are deceived by it until they learn the method - precisely because it is so bold and 2) those unfortunate to witness it performed by the incompetent (this includes those who see the trick repeated back to back or are told in advance by the magician where the process is headed. this is a subset of the magicians incompetence. )

and how would it not be a true statement that there is a long word on that line you do realize the performer picks the page right? so he picks a page that has only one long word on it.

this is a standard ploy for the hoy ruse. that you don't know this again shows you are speaking beyond your depth. Like the neophyte who proclaims palming doesn't work because he can't do it, your lack of experience leads you to drawing baseless conclusions.


Which is undoubtedly why the performer asks her ONLY to read the line, NOT to choose a word. He TELLS her what her word is, just like he TOLD her what page she stopped him at.


an experienced performer wouldn't have to guess why he does this. he tells her to read the line so that he may then direct her to one of the words. it reinforces the notion of choice.

now the performer could say 'please look at each word in the line and think of the longest.' in that case it does seem a little like he is leading them (as would telling them to think only of the first word. though that does still play).

A second approach is to say 'please look at the line. is there one word that stands out, that's longer and more interesting than the rest'? this is better because it makes a bit more sense of the need for the long word - afterall, don't we want to work with what's most challenging or interesting? BUT there is a dramatic inconsistency here - why would the mind reader need to ask if there is a word longer than the rest? he should know that! so osterlind takes a third approach. As she is reading the line he announces that he senses one word just struck her, stood out to her. A real mind reader would be able to do that. he then tells her to focus on that one, the longest one.

and he doesn't tell her the page she stopped on. he reads it. we know he does because that's what he did the first time. He was told to stop, he opened to the page, showed the number but unfortunately her book didn't have that many pages. so he quickly repeated the process.

unlike your water to wine trick where no one would ever assume that a bucket in the house had water in it, this trick sets up the audiences expectations so on the repeat they have no reason to suspect it was any different than the first time. You yourself say that the magician making a mistake takes suspicion off the process, as you do when you fail at math. this is the exact same principle.



I mean, "What I contend is that the Easy Way..."


but as you admit, this isn't a skill you practice - so how would you know if it's easy or hard? clearly you haven't had any luck with it if your audiences can detect
your lies just upon your uttering them, so that belies your claim that they are easy.

but now you are playing the same game
as the purist. you are making your decisions based on what you enjoy and value and not what the audience is experiencing.

stop being so selfish.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Brad Henderson » December 14th, 2017, 12:23 pm

jkeyes1000 wrote:
performer wrote:He is not against misrepresentation. He is against direct, downright blatant lies. There is a difference you know. I am not 100 percent convinced by his argument but fair is fair. There is a subtle difference here. I don't see how you can do magic without misrepresentation but you CAN do it without lies if you really want to. I don't have a problem with miscalling page numbers or making mis statements as in the Piano Trick. In fact I don't think I really have much of a problem with telling lies if it is not a breach of an audience trust or lies that insult an audience's intelligence. By that I mean lies of the kind that audiences expect you to tell.

One size does not fit all in magic. I can quite imagine many performers who have an aversion to telling lies in real life finding it uncomfortable having to do so when doing magic. The good news for them is that there is plenty of latitude and flexibility for them not to do so if they don't want to and their performances will actually be better for it. If they lie during a trick their discomfort with it will give the game away.

In actual fact this is a silly argument because nobody lies that much when performing anyway! Even Jkeyes had to admit that in Brad's video there wasn't much in Brad's video that were unacceptable lies---just a bunch of fairy stories and magician's patter that audiences only half believe anyway or perhaps not believe at all.


Yours is The Voice Of Reason, Mark! I will accept this as the final word if everyone else will.


i lie often in my work. But i do not lie for the sake of lying. That's no different from adding sleights to a routine just because i can do them.

keyes position is untenable. There is no basis to suggest audiences know when a competent performer is lying nor can we establish that when caught it is more damning than being caught doing a move. And the goal of both are the same - to deceive. Further there is no historical basis to defend his position and the examples he has given have not made any sort of case for his claims.

Keyes seems to want to force us to accept both his odd value system and his limited scope for the goals of magic as an art. His is one that privledges the performers needs and pleasure ahead of his or her audiences. It focuses on methods not results, means not ends.

Now, if someone likes the challenge of creating magic without lies - that's fine. No where have i said someone SHOULDNT not lie.

quite the contrary. I have said we should use whichever techniques create the deepest illusion of magic possible in the presence of our audiences.

keyes on the other hands wants magicians to stop doing what they have done for centuries. He wants to limit rather than expand.

that is advice which should not be allowed to stand without comment.

no one here has told keyes that his choice to not lie hurts the art. (i do believe presenting puzzles for magic and being focused on ones self pleasure does). But keyes has said that lying DOES hurt the art, without anything to back it up.

to claim the positions are equivalent is false.

but mark is correct. everyone is different. some people can't lie, just as some people can't palm.

but just as we don't dismiss and or condemn the technique of palming because of some people's incompetence, we shouldn't condemn the technique of lying.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby jkeyes1000 » December 14th, 2017, 12:31 pm

Brad Henderson wrote:

She is directed to think of the longest word.


yes. because the last thing an experienced performer wants is for the revelation to be the word 'the'

Who but a fool would fail to perceive that as a force? And it is NOT likely to be a true statement. Possible, but not likely.


so you are calling everyone in that audience and everyone in every audience for whom magicians have performed this ruse for decades, fools? i suppose the family of with children reading beyond their grad level sitting in a fine dine restaurant were fools as well?

and you suggest i will have a hard time proving my position because i say things which sound elitist?????

the only people who see this as a force are 1) other magicians (and even then i know that most are deceived by it until they learn the method - precisely because it is so bold and 2) those unfortunate to witness it performed by the incompetent (this includes those who see the trick repeated back to back or are told in advance by the magician where the process is headed. this is a subset of the magicians incompetence. )

and how would it not be a true statement that there is a long word on that line you do realize the performer picks the page right? so he picks a page that has only one long word on it.

this is a standard ploy for the hoy ruse. that you don't know this again shows you are speaking beyond your depth. Like the neophyte who proclaims palming doesn't work because he can't do it, your lack of experience leads you to drawing baseless conclusions.


Which is undoubtedly why the performer asks her ONLY to read the line, NOT to choose a word. He TELLS her what her word is, just like he TOLD her what page she stopped him at.


an experienced performer wouldn't have to guess why he does this. he tells her to read the line so that he may then direct her to one of the words. it reinforces the notion of choice.

now the performer could say 'please look at each word in the line and think of the longest.' in that case it does seem a little like he is leading them (as would telling them to think only of the first word. though that does still play).

A second approach is to say 'please look at the line. is there one word that stands out, that's longer and more interesting than the rest'? this is better because it makes a bit more sense of the need for the long word - afterall, don't we want to work with what's most challenging or interesting? BUT there is a dramatic inconsistency here - why would the mind reader need to ask if there is a word longer than the rest? he should know that! so osterlind takes a third approach. As she is reading the line he announces that he senses one word just struck her, stood out to her. A real mind reader would be able to do that. he then tells her to focus on that one, the longest one.

and he doesn't tell her the page she stopped on. he reads it. we know he does because that's what he did the first time. He was told to stop, he opened to the page, showed the number but unfortunately her book didn't have that many pages. so he quickly repeated the process.

unlike your water to wine trick where no one would ever assume that a bucket in the house had water in it, this trick sets up the audiences expectations so on the repeat they have no reason to suspect it was any different than the first time. You yourself say that the magician making a mistake takes suspicion off the process, as you do when you fail at math. this is the exact same principle.



I mean, "What I contend is that the Easy Way..."


but as you admit, this isn't a skill you practice - so how would you know if it's easy or hard? clearly you haven't had any luck with it if your audiences can detect
your lies just upon your uttering them, so that belies your claim that they are easy.

but now you are playing the same game
as the purist. you are making your decisions based on what you enjoy and value and not what the audience is experiencing.

stop being so selfish.


Whatever, Brad. I honestly don't see the need to rehash the same stubborn contentions.

But I willI say that your idea that lying is a skill is nonsense. What talent does it require to hold a book in your hand (with your finger stuck in at the force page), flip the pages and utter the number YOU CHOSE?

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Bob Farmer » December 14th, 2017, 2:00 pm

Sadly, those who embrace the no-lying policy, will not be able to use any of the material in my forthcoming book, the Bammo Flim-Flam CONglomeration since lying, obfuscation, cheating and perfidious performance are the main methods employed. The same goes for my little booklet, Beat'em, Cheat'em, Leave'em Bleedin'.

I hope there's still a market after this thread.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby performer » December 14th, 2017, 2:52 pm

jkeyes1000 wrote:
performer wrote:He is not against misrepresentation. He is against direct, downright blatant lies. There is a difference you know. I am not 100 percent convinced by his argument but fair is fair. There is a subtle difference here. I don't see how you can do magic without misrepresentation but you CAN do it without lies if you really want to. I don't have a problem with miscalling page numbers or making mis statements as in the Piano Trick. In fact I don't think I really have much of a problem with telling lies if it is not a breach of an audience trust or lies that insult an audience's intelligence. By that I mean lies of the kind that audiences expect you to tell.

One size does not fit all in magic. I can quite imagine many performers who have an aversion to telling lies in real life finding it uncomfortable having to do so when doing magic. The good news for them is that there is plenty of latitude and flexibility for them not to do so if they don't want to and their performances will actually be better for it. If they lie during a trick their discomfort with it will give the game away.

In actual fact this is a silly argument because nobody lies that much when performing anyway! Even Jkeyes had to admit that in Brad's video there wasn't much in Brad's video that were unacceptable lies---just a bunch of fairy stories and magician's patter that audiences only half believe anyway or perhaps not believe at all.


Yours is The Voice Of Reason, Mark! I will accept this as the final word if everyone else will.


I am afraid Brad will never give up! It is now the battle of who is the most persistent!

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby observer » December 14th, 2017, 3:03 pm

jkeyes1000 wrote:
performer wrote:<>this is a silly argument because nobody lies that much when performing anyway! <>


Yours is The Voice Of Reason, Mark! I will accept this as the final word if everyone else will.


Will accept!

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Jack Shalom » December 14th, 2017, 6:18 pm

I think if Mark plays his cards right, this thread can overtake the Erdnase one.
What's the over/under?

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby performer » December 14th, 2017, 6:58 pm

It has bloody well overtaken my Royal Road to Card Magic experiment anyway. I got stuck at Chapter Nine and they have overtaken me at 13 pages.

I shall make another attempt to sum the matter up. There are many different skills and personalities in magic. Some people are good at sleight of hand but lack showmanship. Some people are great at showmanship but lousy at telling lies. Some people are great at telling lies but no good at sleight of hand or showmanship. Some people dress well when performing but are lousy at telling lies. Some people do not have much in the way of sartorial elegance but are brilliant at sleight of hand. And to get to the point at hand some people are good at telling lies and some people aren't. Or at least they are uncomfortable doing so. In other words we all have assets and limitations. The perfect magician has never been born. And in any case perfection is a lack of perfection in itself since if you are perfect in every way oddly enough audiences won't like it.

So what I am trying to say is if you are excellent at telling lies then all power to you; if you aren't then don't bother. And you probably don't need to bother because you may have other assets to replace your lack of talent at mendacity. What I am trying to say is that good liars may be good magicians or may be bloody awful depending on what assets or limitations that individual magician has. And bad liars may also be good magicians or bloody awful for the same reasons. If the bad liar chooses not to lie then nobody will know he is a bad liar and the problem is solved.

Quite frankly lying or not when performing is a rather unimportant matter. It is easy to lie or avoid lying depending on what you feel about the matter. What is vastly more important and always seems to be ignored is how you present your magic in the first place. Are you a showman or are you not a showman? Are you an interesting character when performing or as dull as dishwater? It is easy to turn on the lie tap and just as easy to turn it off. It is NOT easy to be a showman or an interesting character but vastly more important than whether you can tell lies deceptively or not.

I haven't really looked at jkeyes video yet. I really should. I have a feeling that he might fit the interesting character description. That is VASTLY more important than whether he feels comfortable telling lies. Sometimes it is preferable to see an interesting character doing his magic badly than it is seeing a dull personality doing everything perfectly.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby performer » December 14th, 2017, 7:29 pm

I have now been watching some videos of Jkeyes, not all of which consist of him doing magic. That is just as well because his magic is absolutely atrocious! But I am delighted to say he fits the interesting character qualification admirably. And I think that is FAR more important than being able to do the tricks properly. If he could actually do a tiny few tricks well he would outshine all of us.

He has a massive head start on us all. He is as mad as a hatter and this makes him far more interesting to watch than some sober, competent but pedestrian magician who does his tricks well but does not grab our attention because of the dullness of his or her personality. If he were to master 5 tricks very well indeed and present them with his wonderful eccentric manner I think he would be a great hit!

He is as mad as a March hare and this is a wonderful natural asset for a magician. He should use it to its full potential. It is far more important than the tricks themselves.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Brad Henderson » December 14th, 2017, 7:30 pm

But I willI say that your idea that lying is a skill is nonsense. What talent does it require to hold a book in your hand (with your finger stuck in at the force page), flip the pages and utter the number YOU CHOSE?


keyes, if you are holding a break at the force page then using the hoy ruse is senseless.

you don't even know how the trick is done, do you?

and apparently lying does take skill if you don't seem able to ever get away with it.

everything takes skill to do well

as mark just wrote, some people can lie well, others can't

you can't.

that's cool

but to tell others that lying harms the art is groundless

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby jkeyes1000 » December 14th, 2017, 7:54 pm

Brad Henderson wrote:
But I willI say that your idea that lying is a skill is nonsense. What talent does it require to hold a book in your hand (with your finger stuck in at the force page), flip the pages and utter the number YOU CHOSE?


keyes, if you are holding a break at the force page then using the hoy ruse is senseless.

you don't even know how the trick is done, do you?

and apparently lying does take skill if you don't seem able to ever get away with it.

everything takes skill to doy well

as mark just wrote, some people can lie well, others can't

you can't.

that's cool

but to tell others that lying harms the art is groundless


I never cared enough for Hoy's book test to try it. That's why I devised my own.

It would seem to me that if you are planning to show the volunteer the page number after having lied about it you need to be ready to open up to it. Thus I logically infer the finger.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Brad Henderson » December 14th, 2017, 11:35 pm

jkeyes1000 wrote:
Brad Henderson wrote:
But I willI say that your idea that lying is a skill is nonsense. What talent does it require to hold a book in your hand (with your finger stuck in at the force page), flip the pages and utter the number YOU CHOSE?


keyes, if you are holding a break at the force page then using the hoy ruse is senseless.

you don't even know how the trick is done, do you?

and apparently lying does take skill if you don't seem able to ever get away with it.

everything takes skill to doy well

as mark just wrote, some people can lie well, others can't

you can't.

that's cool

but to tell others that lying harms the art is groundless


I never cared enough for Hoy's book test to try it. That's why I devised my own.

It would seem to me that if you are planning to show the volunteer the page number after having lied about it you need to be ready to open up to it. Thus I logically infer the finger.


ah, so you condemn a method you have zero experience with. That's a reasonable way to take a position.

it's like the guy who has never tried sushi telling everyone it's terrible.

and no, if your finger is in the book you just open to that page when they say stop. a barely studied magician should be familiar with this as the method - alain nu and banachek have both published touches on this, but i think every magician who has done a booktest has come up with it. I used to do it almost every afternoon after high school band rehearsal for my fellow students.

you have them call stop the first time and show them the number. You contrive to have to do it a second time. there are many ways of doing this and osterlind uses the 'not that many pages' ruse.

the second time you merely hold up the page in front of them. They can't focus on the number, but your casual physical handling helps sell the miscall

perhaps you should actually know something about the techniques you condemn before condemning them.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby observer » December 15th, 2017, 1:21 am

performer wrote:<> far more interesting to watch than some sober, competent but pedestrian magician who does his tricks well but does not grab our attention because of the dullness of his or her personality. <>.


Well, but there are hundreds of things of which that would be true.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Brad Jeffers » December 15th, 2017, 2:26 am

jkeyes1000 wrote: Thus I logically infer the finger.
I think you may logically infer the finger from all of Brad's posts in this thread.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby jkeyes1000 » December 15th, 2017, 2:47 am

performer wrote:I have now been watching some videos of Jkeyes, not all of which consist of him doing magic. That is just as well because his magic is absolutely atrocious! But I am delighted to say he fits the interesting character qualification admirably. And I think that is FAR more important than being able to do the tricks properly. If he could actually do a tiny few tricks well he would outshine all of us.

He has a massive head start on us all. He is as mad as a hatter and this makes him far more interesting to watch than some sober, competent but pedestrian magician who does his tricks well but does not grab our attention because of the dullness of his or her personality. If he were to master 5 tricks very well indeed and present them with his wonderful eccentric manner I think he would be a great hit!

He is as mad as a March hare and this is a wonderful natural asset for a magician. He should use it to its full potential. It is far more important than the tricks themselves.


I think the few videos that I have posted on YouTube show my aversion for scripted material. I much prefer the "ad lib" approach. Which is why I dreaded making that "Water Into Wine" thing. I should never have mentioned it to my online friends! Like Brad, they are not satisfied to hear about it, they want to see it. I tell them I put it behind me years ago, but they egg me on

Perhaps there is a part of me that wants to discourage them from asking in future. Best way to get out of any duty is to bungle it.

When I do a trick for the local crowd, it's much more spontaneous, like my foolish videos. I am fairly good at writing patter, but I have almost no interest in rehearsing it and even less in reprising it.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby performer » December 15th, 2017, 8:12 am

With regard to learning patter (and I thank you for not using that pretentious word "script") I take the middle ground. I think it is fatal to learn it off by heart but it is equally fatal to try to make it up as you go along. I have found the best approach is to follow the advice of Wilfrid Jonson in his various books. To quote him thus:

"When you set out to do a conjuring trick you must know precisely what you are going to do and there is no reason why you should not also know what you will say. We do not suggest that you should learn every word by heart, as earlier writers have insisted and many conjurers do, but we do suggest that you should know your "main headings" as public speakers do, that is to say, know the general drift of your talk. You will never then be entirely at a loss for words and you will find that, when you have done a trick a few dozen times, you will say much the same things every time you do it. You will then have "set patter" for your trick which will have GROWN to fit you and which you will be able to use with success"

He gives similar advice in Mr Smith's Sleight of hand thus:

"This brings us to a debatable question. Should patter be learned by heart? The pundits in general repeat the advice Professor Hoffmann gave. that patter should be written down word for word and delivered from memory. This is, of course, the practice with actors, but the magician differs from the actor in being his own author, and is in another position.

The system adopted by many experienced performers is to memorise only a few "leading lines", a good phrase or two, a suitable joke, and any essential directions, and to fill in the rest as the spirit moves one. Gradually more and more leading lines are thought of until, eventually, the patter is completed and becomes the same at every performance. This system in my experience, produces better results than the laborious practice of sitting down and grinding out lines which are subsequently memorised, lines which often lack all inspiration"

This is the system I have used all my life and I believe it is the best system. Any success I have ever had in entertaining people is because of this system. I thoroughly recommend it particularly to jkeyes. It will save him a lot of tedious memorisation and give him the spontaneity he desires but at the same time it will protect him from the inefficiency of making things up as he goes along.
Last edited by performer on December 15th, 2017, 8:21 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby performer » December 15th, 2017, 8:18 am

observer wrote:
performer wrote:<> far more interesting to watch than some sober, competent but pedestrian magician who does his tricks well but does not grab our attention because of the dullness of his or her personality. <>.


Well, but there are hundreds of things of which that would be true.


I have no idea about "hundreds of things". I don't know anything about them. I am talking about MAGIC which I do know rather a lot about.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby chetday » December 15th, 2017, 9:47 am

My personal sense of morality forces me to pose the following question to perhaps generate new substance and insights to this most remarkable philosophical discussion:

Is Brad lying because he fails to capitalize the first word of his sentences?

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby jkeyes1000 » December 15th, 2017, 9:56 am

jkeyes1000 wrote:
performer wrote:I have now been watching some videos of Jkeyes, not all of which consist of him doing magic. That is just as well because his magic is absolutely atrocious! But I am delighted to say he fits the interesting character qualification admirably. And I think that is FAR more important than being able to do the tricks properly. If he could actually do a tiny few tricks well he would outshine all of us.

He has a massive head start on us all. He is as mad as a hatter and this makes him far more interesting to watch than some sober, competent but pedestrian magician who does his tricks well but does not grab our attention because of the dullness of his or her personality. If he were to master 5 tricks very well indeed and present them with his wonderful eccentric manner I think he would be a great hit!

He is as mad as a March hare and this is a wonderful natural asset for a magician. He should use it to its full potential. It is far more important than the tricks themselves.


I think the few videos that I have posted on YouTube show my aversion for scripted material. I much prefer the "ad lib" approach. Which is why I dreaded making that "Water Into Wine" thing. I should never have mentioned it to my online friends! Like Brad, they are not satisfied to hear about it, they want to see it. I tell them I put it behind me years ago, but they egg me on

Perhaps there is a part of me that wants to discourage them from asking in future. Best way to get out of any duty is to bungle it.

When I do a trick for the local crowd, it's much more spontaneous, like my foolish videos. I am fairly good at writing patter, but I have almost no interest in rehearsing it and even less in reprising it.


Very sound advice, Mark.

Yes, I always work out the patter exhaustively before I present a routine. So much so that I get sick of it and never want to think of it again. Which in turn curbs my enthusiasm for performing. If I am not excited by the act, then of course the audience will be bored. So I try to "forget" what I have written and sort of start over.

But that takes a great deal of energy, and that's something I have less and less of, these days.

I like to share my innovations (I wouldn't call them inventions) with friends who are very shrewd and sharp, as it puts the material to the test and there's nothing better than a challenge to perk me up. But then I'm on to something else.

I am a magician when I am in the mood, and it would be rather difficult to earn a living that way. I do it for fun. And once in a while I do manage to be "the life of the party".

Likewise an actor when I feel giddy enough. How good or bad I am is entitely dependant on my disposition.

I will say one kind thing to allI of you who have chosen Theatre as a career: I admire your ability to show up on time.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Bill Mullins » December 15th, 2017, 10:58 am

chetday wrote:Is Brad lying because he fails to capitalize the first word of his sentences?


I think that is just his tribute to e e cummings and archy the cockroach.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Bob Farmer » December 15th, 2017, 11:27 am

Jkeyes1000 is Erdnase.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Jonathan Townsend » December 15th, 2017, 11:33 am

Bill Mullins wrote:
chetday wrote:Is Brad lying because he fails to capitalize the first word of his sentences?


I think that is just his tribute to e e cummings and archy the cockroach.


Happy to learn of the latter. "i was once a vers libre bard" . Thanks :)
Mundus vult decipi -per Caleb Carr's story Killing Time

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby performer » December 15th, 2017, 12:37 pm

chetday wrote:My personal sense of morality forces me to pose the following question to perhaps generate new substance and insights to this most remarkable philosophical discussion:

Is Brad lying because he fails to capitalize the first word of his sentences?


Yes, I noticed that too! Jkeyes beats him in that department. Still, he is a professional writer so it isn't fair!

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Brad Henderson » December 15th, 2017, 1:58 pm

chetday wrote:My personal sense of morality forces me to pose the following question to perhaps generate new substance and insights to this most remarkable philosophical discussion:

Is Brad lying because he fails to capitalize the first word of his sentences?


dammit, i knew i had a 'tell'.

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Re: Ennobling Magic

Postby Brad Henderson » December 15th, 2017, 2:27 pm

Brad Jeffers wrote:
jkeyes1000 wrote: Thus I logically infer the finger.
I think you may logically infer the finger from all of Brad's posts in this thread.


;)


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