The Genii Forum

https://view.yahoo.com/show/today/clip/ ... lub-of-top

Haven't you folks ever heard of "Fight Club"?

That should have been: "Haven't they ever heard of Fight Club?"

Aw man, I'd petition to join, but there's no Joker!

Av

The members of The 52 are pretty steamed about this. It's supposed to be a secret.

When did it become innovative to pour wine into new hairstyles?

It’s funny how those who believe they discovered the new path never consider if they headed further into magic or away from it.

And if you get a tattoo of your secret club on youe hand, can you really be upset that people find out about your secret club?

Magic on the internet exists for one purpose - self promotion. Are they really upset that they are getting the one thing they have always sought after - attention?

Richard Kaufman wrote:The members of The 52 are pretty steamed about this. It's supposed to be a secret.

Maybe in 2017? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO0DBxVZvsM
okay Maybe in 2014? https://mobile.twitter.com/LauraLondon5 ... 4682496000

I think their whole rap about "Magic is dead" is utter bollocks.

They confuse change in venue for death of an art form.

If you go thru the last 100+ years of magic magazines, and/or The Billboard magazine, even during magic's "golden age", year after year, there constantly is the hand-wringing cries of, "Is magic dead?"

Yes, but those proclamations were made by people lamenting it’s decline, not those believing they had the singular vision to resurrect it.

I’m sure it feels quite satisfying to think one had that power.

Its like a cross between the ‘not dead yet’ scene from Holy Grail And a Benny Hinn revival. Except the only people being deceived are the ones already saved.

Magic will only truly be "dead" when science finally creates Star Trek's transporter. Here "dead" means that no matter what effect you present, a layperson will able to claim you just have someone in the back operating a transporter for you to accomplish all of your effects - thus they know the secret to every one of your miracles.

And even if you run a disclaimer stating that "No transporters are used in the performance you are about to witness" how exactly would you prove that?

Diego wrote:If you go thru the last 100+ years of magic magazines, and/or The Billboard magazine, even during magic's "golden age", year after year, there constantly is the hand-wringing cries of, "Is magic dead?"

Didn’t Max already write that one?

Yup, a while book.

Even if there really were such things: You put the props in the "magic box", misdirect them (badly) as you press the remote control activate button (so they don't notice the little light blink twice), and then continue your patter about antique mysteries... and when doing the cups trick try to remember not to call the little balls tribbles in public.

Diego wrote:If you go thru the last 100+ years of magic magazines...

Maybe we could have a little addition to our yearly remembrance post to include a published comment about our craft?

Jonathan Townsend wrote:Even if there really were such things: You put the props in the "magic box", misdirect them (badly) as you press the remote control activate button (so they don't notice the little light blink twice), and then continue your patter about antique mysteries... and when doing the cups trick try to remember not to call the little balls tribbles in public.

That's why you would have someone operating it for you as I said. There would be scant little need for any misdirection.

The transporter would make vanishes, appearances, transformations, and teleportation effects obsolete. Think of a Card will still be with us, as will other mentalism effects. Levitations, and suspensions won't be going anywhere either. Card locations, and poker deal effects will also be around.

Understood and agreed with what you posted. I was describing how to deceive in a world which has transporters. Think of McCoy waving a tricorder around a zig-zag box and looking all puzzled.

I don't think it's about technology per-se. Think of the three shell game and how people really try to guess where the pea is. You could use an elaborate trick table to put a pea where you want it. But that's really not how we work the trick.

In the story world of Star Trek using a transporter to send something somewhere would be unremarkable. That's not our craft. Played as magic somewhere it seems a violation of the prime directive. Again not our craft. We don't demonstrate technology. We may use that format when presenting a trick but it's the trickery which defines our craft. Historically the chess playing automaton was a trick. The point of that trick being an automaton was itself understood as base craftsmanship. The Jacquard Loom was invented about 1800. But playing chess!?? That took another two hundred years of hard work in our world. Even the Robert-Houdin era mystery clocks were a trick of sorts - gears being understood and expected while glass tubing was not. Using mirrors to show someone their reflection is not unusual but using mirrors secretly to hide things was (for a little while) a very effective trick.

Going back to Star Trek - a replicator which made the meal you were going to ask for... or tribbles which produce progeny of the color you name gets us back into our domain of trickery. Star Trek is an interesting fantasy where finding so many different worlds with people who can drink water and eat the same foods at a dinner table... that's an authorial trick which passed off fantasy as science fiction. As is using "transporter" to edit traveltime out of stories. Nice update on the practicalities of movie production where you shoot scenes out of order and edit to get continuity. You open a door in New York and then six weeks later you film a scene where you are walking away from a house in Los Angeles. When watching the finished film we don't see that part of the movie magic. And when watching Star Trek we don't wonder about such things.

Duncan's First Law:

Insufficiently Advanced Magic is Indistinguishable from Technology.

With apologies to Arthur C. Clarke.

Leonard Hevia wrote:The transporter would make vanishes, appearances, transformations, and teleportation effects obsolete. Think of a Card will still be with us, as will other mentalism effects. Levitations, and suspensions won't be going anywhere either. Card locations, and poker deal effects will also be around.

The whole "coordinates for beaming" thing and careful physics/mathematical analysis of a performance venue notwithstanding:

- I could easily beam the right amount of magnetic material into a spot in/on the object to be levitated that the audience cannot see and then beam adjustable magnetic field generators to unseen locations to effect any levitation or suspension (just watch for loose metal nearby like paperclips, nails, knives, saws, cement mixers, etc.) and then beam them all away in the reverse sequence in time with the performer's choreography. Probably other ways too.

- I could easily beam old cards out and beam new cards in to achieve any card effect I want: my top change could really happen without my two hands ever coming together at all, I could tear and restore a card flawlessly, color changes become trivial and so do deck switches - allowing me to do any poker deal I want after a spectator legitimately shuffles the deck. Forcing also becomes pretty trivial. ACAAN becomes ACTTAN - a card transported to any number. Card to impossible location? Sure: spectator legitimately selects and signs a card. Just as the last exposed piece of the card is tapped back into the deck, the card is beamed out as the deck is squared. Do whatever the heck you want to with the deck now. While that's going on, beam the card to its impossible location be it inside a selected lemon, your wallet or pocket, the spectator's wallet or pocket, a nest of boxes, the pocket of a friend they called on the phone, into the refrigerator of their grandma who lives halfway around the world, or even to the surface of the moon (note: may require confirmation of its appearance by an appropriately positioned observatory or NASA.)

- Mentalism? Think of a card? Unless you're willing to trust your spectator 100%, something gets written down somewhere. No reason the prediction I wrote couldn't be switched via beaming after the spectator names their card but before the prediction is opened/unfolded/revealed.

- Careful intermixing of molecules would also enable penetrations to occur (OK, OK - so you need to buy the top-of-the-line transporter not simply the base model.)

Yeah, it's all a stretch but it's fun to think about!

Brad Henderson wrote:When did it become innovative to pour wine into new hairstyles?

It’s funny how those who believe they discovered the new path never consider if they headed further into magic or away from it.

And if you get a tattoo of your secret club on youe hand, can you really be upset that people find out about your secret club?

Magic on the internet exists for one purpose - self promotion. Are they really upset that they are getting the one thing they have always sought after - attention?

I think you're taking their self-promotion way too seriously. They got positive coverage for magic in the midst of a difficult media clutter. I say congratulations to them.

Star Trek fantasy falls apart when you put a replicator in line with a transporter... or develop subspace for housing. John Scalzi wrote the book "Red Shirts" to explore how the show universe might seem to those engineers who are awake and living through what we TV audiences got to see.

The visual and sound design aesthetics of the show are appealing if you want to go making props for tricks. Card packs with suits (Klingon, Romulan, Vulcan, Human, couple of Antarean Jokers, extended packs with ...) maybe back designs reflecting TOS and TNG. Cosplay is cool so far but selling magic props might get more than a frown from Paramount or whoever holds the licensing rights.

Sound effects.

Jonathan Townsend wrote:….and when doing the cups trick try to remember not to call the little balls tribbles in public.

Funny, I think of the tribbles as more of a sponge ball effect.

Jack Shalom wrote:

Brad Henderson wrote:When did it become innovative to pour wine into new hairstyles?

It’s funny how those who believe they discovered the new path never consider if they headed further into magic or away from it.

And if you get a tattoo of your secret club on youe hand, can you really be upset that people find out about your secret club?

Magic on the internet exists for one purpose - self promotion. Are they really upset that they are getting the one thing they have always sought after - attention?

I think you're taking their self-promotion way too seriously. They got positive coverage for magic in the midst of a difficult media clutter. I say congratulations to them.

Thankfully nothing ever died from exposure.

(And my issue is with the hypocrisy of feigning anger over the revelation of a ‘secret’ that has never been. )

Lot of folks gonna be putting symbols on their vernet fingers... just saying

No mention of the52 in this interview:

https://www.marketplace.org/2019/03/01/ ... c-industry

Just finished reading "Magic is Dead." The book was a gift from a relative who saw a blurb about it in that underground publication called "Time."