The Genii Forum

1) In the Art of Magic website they sell the book, it costs $95. In Amazon they are selling it for $40. Someone in the reviews says it's not an authorized version of the book. Any information about this?

2) Is Teller talking about Kenton Knepper? If not, about whom? (page 79 of the magazine, first large paragraph in red)

Thanks

The first printing of the book had to be pulled before it was sold because some of the interviews had not been properly edited. Amazon was selling those for a while.

Mr. Charming, What book and what magazine are you referring to, please?

Is the new version indicated as a second printing? The one I got from Amazon 2 months ago says first printing.

What was wrong with the editing? Anything significant?

I bought and read mine from Amazon around December or January. It read smoothly enough.

For a $60 difference I wouldn’t mind missing a little editing

Q. Kumber wrote:Mr. Charming, What book and what magazine are you referring to, please?

Mr. Charming, What book and what magazine are you referring to, please? If you aren't prepared to answer, perhaps someone else could.

I think it's this one and this other one.

Marco Pusterla wrote:I think it's this one and this other one.

Thank you Marco. There is also a reference in the OP to a magazine. Do you know what that is?

I assume the magazine is Genii, the August 2018 issue. I've only looked (briefly) at the digital edition and I don't know who Teller is talking about, I'm afraid. We may all have a guess, but the only one with the answer will be Teller. I don't remember him participating to this forum...
Hope this helps.

It does Marco. Thank you. Your help is much appreciated and perhaps in future, people starting topics could make clear just what they are talking about and putting it in context. This not only helps the readers of this forum but future researchers using the search facility.

Assuming that Marco is correct and it is page 79 of the August GENII that is being referred to, here are the first two paragraphs quoting Teller (in red)

Teller: Sure. There’s always room for that. There’s room for everything. It’s art, you know? You can have whatever the hell you want.

DelGaudio: Do you think it’s a problem that it doesn’t exist?

Kaino: I don’t know. Aren’t there a lot of people who write intellectual, critical stuff about magic?

Teller: No. These are people who perform. It doesn’t mean they’re curators for art. There are no real magic scholars. Bill Kalush is the closest thing—a guy who just sits and reads and thinks about magic. He might be wrong in some areas, but he just does that, and sells potatoes.

Teller: I’d be happy to have people who just observed and commented, that would be fine. They’d probably be wrong, because magic is so full of inviting ideas that are wrong, that sound so good. I mean, that whole school of mystical stuff in connection with magic. Magic is not a very good vehicle for mystical stuff, because magic is all about the difference between what you see and what you don’t. It’s all about looking at something and going, “That doesn’t seem possible, but it’s happening.” That’s a fundamental part of magic, and you can’t really ask an audience to sit back and give up their critical faculties. They can’t do it. People pretend they can, and the result is there are performers who tell endlessly long-winded stories about mystical things in mystical terms, and play the drums, or whatever. And they’re never really going to be able to be taken seriously by the public. It sounds great, in theory, but I don’t think that pure theory on magic is all that helpful in the absence of performing experience.

Mr. Charming, what makes you think Teller was referring to Kenton Knepper, or indeed any particular performer?

He is talking about someone, that’s for sure.

Now that I have re-read your quote I now understand he is talking about Jeff McBride.

In any case, I don’t care much about Teller’s comments (although I did like some of what he said). I respect his knowledge but I don’t think he has talent and/or a valuable artistic vision. He just represents a certain demographic of American culture - the sad part. He and Penn could never become what they wanted to, so they became something else.

Penn & Teller are the best magicians in the world. I think they do just fine when it comes to talent and artistic vision.

And Teller is a great writer on magic. You should check out his essays in the David P. Abbott book from The Miracle Factory.

Mr. Charming wrote:
Now that I have re-read your quote I now understand he is talking about Jeff McBride.
.

Mr. Charming, it is not my quote but Teller's.

Teller: I don’t think that pure theory on magic is all that helpful in the absence of performing experience.

Regarding your conclusion, there aren't many who have more performing experience than Jeff McBride.

This reminds me of something I read in Stars of Magic to the effect that "magic is all things to all men". And of course tastes are subjective.
With regard to "experience" that doesn't always mean a thing. I am not referring to the magicians under discussion here but it is perfectly possible that the more experienced you are the worse you are. That is because you have years of experience doing things the wrong way and the bad habits becomes embedded within you. You are better off with one year of experience doing things the right way than 50 years of experience doing things the wrong way.

Sounds like Teller is referring more to Robert E. Neale and, maybe, Lawrence Hass as well.

You can see a bunch of their magic theory over here:

https://www.theoryandartofmagic.com/index.php?cPath=35

Robert Neale is a brilliant creator of magic. At least some of the time. But the theory stuff doesn't do much for me. But then again - that is not where my head is at these days.

PickaCard wrote:Is the new version indicated as a second printing? The one I got from Amazon 2 months ago says first printing.

What was wrong with the editing? Anything significant?

I checked my book again and I was mistaken about seeing first printing. I cannot find any indication of first or second printing.

How is one to tell which edition we have?

How substantial are the changes? Are we talking about typos or did one of the contributors content get pulled ?

I am all for theory but it has to be GOOD theory. Alas a lot of it isn't. I would burn that awful book by Henning Nelms for example. Another thing is that the theory has to resonate with you. It may be suitable for someone else but not for you. And even worse a lot of it of it is just plain wrong.

I find a lot of the better theory (at least to me personally) is scattered throughout the Royal Road to Card Magic and the works of Wilfrid Jonson. I might perhaps disagree with a small amount of it but generally speaking most of it is very sound. I also swear by the section on presentation in Expert Card Technique. And if you have the patience to work through OUR MAGIC by Maskelyne you will come across some brilliant thinking. And Strong Magic by Darwin Ortiz is pretty good too. A lot of people swear by Maximum Entertainment by Ken Weber but it doesn't paticularly resonate with me. In fact a lot of the modern writers on theory seem to be full of absolute dross. I have been reading a few of them lately and find them to be talking absolute nonsense.

Be very careful of what theory you use when you first start. You may use the ideas for the rest of your life and the results may be excellent or very bad indeed.

I should have mentioned that for children's entertainers I believe the theory espoused in the opening chapter of Open Sesame to be the soundest theory ever written on kid show magic ever written. It was authored by Eric Lewis.

performer wrote:........ And Strong Magic by Darwin Ortiz is pretty good too.

I really wanted to like Strong Magic, but alas I found myself thinking "well duh" at almost every single point Ortiz made throughout the book.

In reality, I found it to essentially be a high school Theater #101 course ... entry level stuff from start to finish.
As a book, it seemed to be far too full of itself.

Ortiz's Designing Miracles on the other hand, I found to be very insightful, I got a lot out of it ... and enjoyed reading it.

The book was indeed full of itself and I don't think he necessarily practices what he preaches but that does not necessarily invalidate his opinions which I found pretty astute except for his advice on hecklers which consisted of ignoring them and as a last resort informing the multitude that "this is what happens when cousins marry"

In any event it seems that even you agreed with the points he made in the book but more in the spirit of "well, everybody knows that". But I don't think they do. And if it is really a book only for beginners then why not? They have to learn somewhere. You Tube certainly won't teach them.

As for "Designing Miracles" I only read it cursorily so can't really comment. I vaguely remember his logic concerning how necessary it was to have the medallion in a box when doing Koran's Medallion trick. It sounded like a very logical argument indeed. However, one day I decided to rebel against the argument and indeed the standard wisdom regarding this trick and abandon the damn box which I found a bloody nuisance. My instinct proved correct. Just go straight into your pocket and bring the medallion out. The effect doubled in reaction.

In other words you can't always go by what you read. Just because something is in print does not mean it is carved in stone. Theories often sound good when you first read them but turn out not to be so wonderful in actual practice. Maybe this is what Vernon meant by "use your head"

I don't think Teller is referring to McBride. (The "drums" reference might fit, but not "long-winded".) I think Teller is constructing a straw man and not referring to any performer in particular, in order to make his point. And let's not miss his point by trying to find the gossip in the reference.

It sounds more like he is having a dig at bizarre magic rather than any particular person.

Mr. Charming wrote:He and Penn could never become what they wanted to, so they became something else.

This is not unique to Penn and Teller. To varying degrees this is true for all of us.