Magic in BoingBoing

[Jonathan Townsend]

... Sticking a secret in the middle of a popularly read blog ...

What constitutes a magic secret?

Let's not use "described in method section of somebody's currently marketed magic shop item" as definition relevant to anyone outside our tiny market.

[MagicbyAlfred]

Mark the catch 22 you posit is potentially depressing, and some no doubt do go look it up the next day. Usually, I will never see that person again - attributable to a little magic spell if I find out they looked it up - but in most cases where they have seen me at a private booking, because they are flying back to Des Moines, Dallas or wherever. The restaurant/bar gigs are a different story. Regulars return each week to see me (bunch of masochists!), and that keeps me learning new material. If they don't say they've looked it up, or that they know how it's done (which as I noted, they almost never do say), I don't worry that it was because the previous performances were bad or mediocre. If that were the case, why would they return asking for more and leaving nice gratuities each time? And oftentimes requesting that I do the such and such trick from last week for their friends, relatives or clients.

I guess the depressing part is that over time, with many magicians performing for many people in many different places, the exposure could exponentiate. But you know, it's a funny thing the S _ o _ c _ and S _ d _ coin trick has been around forever, and I have read numerous admonishments that it is owned and/or known by many layman, yet it almost never fails to kill as a one-on-one trick, so I really wonder what percentage of spectators either know the secrets or bother to look it up? Most probably have better things to do. And anyone can find the secret to the ID from numerous online sources, but I have yet to have anyone say they know the secret or ask to examine. Of course, I never refer to it as the ID when I perform it.

I must admit that am still a little worried about all of it though...

[Brad Henderson]

what proof do you have that people read that blog and become magicians?

What proof do you have that people who read the blog suffer detrimentally from the so-called exposure?

There is no way to validate either claim.

We disagree as to the intention of the post. You believe it is gratuitous exposure of magic, and I believe it is a magic lesson.

But yet you have repeatedly made that claim. You condemn psychics for making claims they cannot back up, but you are above such criticism?

I have provided real world examples of what exposure does. You claim exposure brings people to magic. Should be easy enough to show examples of it.

Now TEACHING people magic can bring people to magic, but if you read my posts you will see that my issue is NOT with the medium of the content, but that the content fails to TEACH.

Tell me, Widdle, what in the title of the post about playing cards made you believe it was a magic lesson? (and just fyi, the secret is explained as well as the trick without link clicking!)

[Bill Mullins]

We disagree as to the intention of the post. You believe it is gratuitous exposure of magic, and I believe it is a magic lesson.

For people who don't care to learn (and they exist), how can it be a lesson? How can the mention of one-way backs be anything but exposure?

youtube for the most part requires searching. Sticking a secret in the middle of a popularly read blog does not.

You have to click to read the post. That's effort. Your reward is a nice little magic lesson (with a link to source text).

As Brad says above, you don't have to click into the post to get to the exposure. It's right there -- anyone reading the blog sees it.

It may have been that you had to click into the post when it was on the front page of the blog, but so what? Why should someone who shows interest in old style playing cards (and they regularly blog about unusual decks without any magic reference) and clicks into a post on that subject be "rewarded" with a magic secret?

If the post had simply said "this deck has a special feature which helps the owner do some clever magic tricks -- go to page 160 of this book to explore further", it would have been a step in the right direction.

And another problem I have with Boingboing and magic (to go off on a slight tangent) is that so often, they reduce magic to a gimmick or a secret, when it is so much more. Telling (or even "teaching", although I don't think that is the right word here) someone that if you have this prop, or you know this thing, you can do magic, tears all the art from it. Magic is more than an S.S. Adams device, or a secret from a gum wrapper.

[P.T.Widdle]

Magic is more than an S.S. Adams device, or a secret from a gum wrapper.

What's wrong with either of those items? Are you also going to denigrate Tenyo? Once again, please enlighten me as to the proper, accepted entre into magic?

Tell me, Widdle, what in the title of the post about playing cards made you believe it was a magic lesson?

What difference does it make if the post advertises learning a magic trick in its title or not? The beauty of this post is that you do not expect to learn a trick with cards, but then you do. What a wonderful way for that to happen! It's like if you saw a post about making a dessert with bananas, and then you were shown how to do the un-peeled-banana-with-slices-in-it trick. Maybe you could perform that trick when you serve the dessert. What's wrong with that? Oh, there's no art to it I guess.

I'd like to examine Jonathan's proposition for a definition of exposure to try and clarify what's going on here.

Let's say my uncle shows me a trick, shows me how it's done, then he leaves. That's intentional exposure.
Let's say my uncle shows me a trick, shows me how it's done, then teaches me how to perform it. That's a lesson.

Or my uncle shows me a deck of his old-timey cards, talks all about how cards are made, some history, and then tells me about the one-way principle, and that it can be used with this sort of deck. Then he hands me a book with one-way tricks in it, and tells me where I can buy my own old-timey cards. - That's a cool lesson!

Frauenfelder clearly states, "Most non-magicians will not notice the asymmetry, and you can have a lot of fun with these decks." He's talking to you as a would-be magician, as someone who will try this trick.

Why should someone who shows interest in old style playing cards be "rewarded" with a magic secret?

Why should a kid get a magic trick in a gum wrapper? He just wanted a piece of gum, after all? And while some kids will toss the wrapper, maybe a few will learn the trick, and maybe one will perform it to a good reaction and be encouraged to look for more magic. How did that happen? He wasn't looking for magic - he just wanted a piece of gum. What a horrifying entre into magic! (worse than buying an SS Adams trick off the spinning rack!)

If the post had simply said "this deck has a special feature which helps the owner do some clever magic tricks -- go to page 160 of this book to explore further", it would have been a step in the right direction.

Perhaps that would have been better, although it's kind of like saying, "Go look it up in the book, sonny!"
Why not hear it from the person (your uncle?) telling you about the cards first? That's a little more personal, showing that he likes the trick and wants to explain it himself first, instead of as a cold throwaway to a book page.

Well-written posts where you can discover cool things (like magic), is why BoingBoing has been around for 27 years. They're doing a mitzvah for magic with their posts.

[Bill Mullins]

I could line-by-line answer your comments. But it would be wasted.

Telling secrets to people who aren't looking for them is exposure. If you don't accept that, we don't have enough common ground to have a discussion. It's like we are speaking two different languages without an interpreter.

[MagicbyAlfred]

That really does strike me as the bottom line...

[performer]

I am delighted to see everyone ganging up on Widdle. This is the sort of thing that over zealous sceptics like to do with believers. They all gang up en masse to ridicule and win by sheer weight of numbers. Now the boot is on the other foot. Law of Karma you know.

[Jonathan Townsend]

... to ridicule and win by sheer weight of numbers...

Asking to explain their position, define terms and justify claims made with process to reliably create evidence.

[Jonathan Townsend]

... a funny thing the S _ o _ c _ and S _ d _ coin trick has been around forever...

I thought it was a Downs (dime and penney gaff) item updated by Dick Himber into and effect with a coin change in a volunteer's hand. These are both significant steps forward from the item in Scot's book where you show both sides of a gaff, slide off part of it to put a c/s in their hand ...

[P.T.Widdle]

Telling secrets to people who aren't looking for them is exposure.

I don't think Jonathan would be satisfied with your definition.
For example, people tuned into the masked magician's TV special precisely because they were looking for secrets. And he provided them. That's exposure, but it doesn't fit within your narrow definition.

Regardless, there are two main issues within your statement to address. The first is what constitutes simply telling secret, as opposed to telling a secret within the context of teaching magic.

The second is the idea that only people who are looking to learn magic should be taught a magic trick.

Regarding the former, I think in the case of this recent BoingBoing post, it is very clear that the secret imparted was in the context of teaching a magic trick. He addresses the reader as a would-be magician, and provides a link to magic textbook. Pretty cut and dry.

So regarding the latter idea, only people who are looking to learn magic should be taught magic tricks? Sadly, then, that leaves out serendipity. The boy or girl who buys a piece of gum (to continue using your frowned upon example), and discovers a magic trick on the gum wrapper is a child who was not initially looking to learn a magic trick. But serendipity stepped in (Remember, it is a trick being taught on the gum wrapper, like how to make a butter knife stick to your hand, not simply a secret to a magic trick).

How can you narrow the window to learning magic to people who are already interested in learning magic? And what is the "correct" way for one to get interested in learning magic? Just by seeing a live magician?

Finally, I would argue that Frauenfelder believed he was actually talking to people who would want to learn a card trick. Not just because he addressed the reader as a would-be magician, but also because he believed that the same people who are interested in buying an anniversary Bicycle deck would also be interested in possibly learning a card trick with that deck. What a stretch!

[Jonathan Townsend]

Especially in this performing art - if they can't do what you purported to teach - you have not taught and they have not learned.

How do you know if your attempt to communicate has imparted a working understanding? Teaching is not the same as explaining, describing or offering clever aphorisms.

[MagicbyAlfred]

Yes, I agree with Jonathan as to the distinction between teaching on one hand, and explanation or description on the other. Magic, and the teaching of it, are both arts, in my view. I would venture to say there are elements of science in both, as well.

I did not really see Bill's statement that, "Telling secrets to people who aren't looking for them is exposure," as a definition of exposure, but rather an instance or example of exposure. Although he can certainly speak to this far better than I, I don't think he meant it as a definition but rather one way among several in which exposure can occur. The fact that there may be other ways for exposure to occur does not invalidate the example as a bona fide example of exposure.

Let's say a bunch of layman come up to me at the bar and say, "Hey Alfred, explain how that rising card trick you do is done. We haven't been able to sleep at night thinking about it." Well, notwithstanding that they are in fact "looking for" the secret, it would be no less exposure for me to then go ahead and tell them than if they weren't looking for the secret and I just gratuitously approached them, and decided to spill my guts on the method for the rising card.

As to the masked magician, I don't really think all the people to whom he divulged the secrets were "looking for" them. It was more that he made them aware that he was going to explain the secrets and then they looked.

[P.T.Widdle]

You can learn something without being taught it. Sometimes teachers (and students) forget that.

I don't believe you can so easily delineate between explanation and teaching. In this case, if you look at the lesson/post as a whole, the brief explanation is just part of lots more information about cards, the history of Bicycle, and directions to examples (tricks) that can be tried using the explanation and the deck of cards shown.

Not parsed, but taken as a whole (as it is intended), the post satisfies as a lesson in several related areas, one of which is a card magic trick.

Now Jonathan, as to your question, "How do you know if your attempt to communicate has imparted a working understanding?"

Assessment has always been the bane of teaching, IMHO. Just look what public schools have to put up with today (sorry, veering into political territory).

[performer]

... to ridicule and win by sheer weight of numbers...

Asking to explain their position, define terms and justify claims made with process to reliably create evidence.

I has to wait for a translator before I could respond. No. I would describe it as a bunch of supposed intellectuals jumping up and down like a bunch of acne ridden teenage hooligans who take great delight in bullying others. They can give it out but can't take it in return.

[P.T.Widdle]

Miss New Jersey performs magic:

http://boingboing.net/2015/09/04/miss-n ... magic.html

[Q. Kumber]

Today I came across an article in the Washington Post about Queen Elizabeth.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/style/ ... g-monarch/

One small section struck a chord which is pertinent to this discussion.

In sum, she has heeded the advice of a Victorian political essayist named Walter Bagehot, who said that the monarchy must wrap itself in Oz-like mystery to remain precious. “We must not let in daylight upon the magic,” he wrote in “The English Constitution.”

Elizabeth, in the public eye for most of her 89 years, has kept us in the dark, magnificently.

“People actually know much less about the queen than they imagine,” Lacey said. “But it seems to me that’s less important than that people feel they know her very well.”

[P.T.Widdle]

The monarchy analogy doesn't hold because no one but family is ever expected to become a Queen. Should that also be true for becoming magicians?

[Jonathan Townsend]

...because no one but family is ever expected to become a Queen. Should that also be true for becoming magicians?

? kinda depends on what you mean by family

[performer]

I once showed Her Majesty's husband a card trick. I must say he was very privileged to have the opportunity to see me at work.

[P.T.Widdle]

Oh, the horrors of exposure during this entertaining and informative David Williamson story:

http://boingboing.net/2015/09/14/watch- ... ans-t.html

[Brad Henderson]

you are a petty and small minded person, arent you Widdle?

[P.T.Widdle]

I do not want to see ANY negative personal remarks in this thread. None.

[Brad Henderson]

wasnt a remark, it was a question.

[performer]

A remarkable question!

[Richard Kaufman]

Brad ... you know exactly what I mean.

[performer]

The only thing about that video that bothered me was the bad language. As a psychic reverend and holy man of the cloth I do not approve of swearing while performing in public. Or even speaking in public in front of an audience. The second you use profanity on stage is the second you become a bad magician. I find it disgusting and unbearable.

[Bill Mullins]

The only thing about that video that bothered me was the bad language. As a psychic reverend and holy man of the cloth I do not approve of swearing while performing in public. Or even speaking in public in front of an audience. The second you use profanity on stage is the second you become a bad magician. I find it disgusting and unbearable.

Roger is sympathetic to your point of view.

[performer]

Magic is supposed to be an art form not a vehicle for disgusting language by the lower classes. If disgusting second rate comedians want to indulge in this low class "entertainment" that is entirely their business but magic should not be sullied by it. There is far too much of this seaminess on stage nowadays and it should be eschewed forthwith.
Ugh!

[P.T.Widdle]

Rick Lax on fooling Penn & Teller:

http://boingboing.net/2015/09/17/rick-l ... nn-an.html

[P.T.Widdle]

Mark Frauenfelder's new e-book on making trick decks is out:

http://boingboing.net/2015/09/29/my-new ... e-coo.html

I love that this book is available and promoted to people outside of the magic community. Making your own tricks is a great way to get invested in magic through the fruits of your own labor. Kudos again to Frauenfelder on his thoughtful and respectful promotion of magic.

[Brad Henderson]

Mark Frauenfelder's new e-book on making trick decks is out:

http://boingboing.net/2015/09/29/my-new ... e-coo.html

I love that this book is available and promoted to people outside of the magic community. Making your own tricks is a great way to get invested in magic through the fruits of your own labor. Kudos again to Frauenfelder on his thoughtful and respectful promotion of magic.

why do you want people outside the magic community to have access to this information so cheaply?

do you have any evidence that making trick decks is a great way to get invested in magic? What are the numbers on that? did anyone here get into magic that way? anyone here know someone who did?
it's an impressive claim you make, can you back it up?

is this a thoughtful promotion of magic? do you know he has given it thought and isn't just trying to make a quick buck by selling classic magic secrets to people who are just mildly curious? Again, would love to see your evidence for this claim. Have you bought the book? is it well researched and credited? you know, like a thoughtful book would be.

unless, of course, you're just a fan boy. Lots of young people get caught up into hero worship on the Internet. It's understandable

What do you hope to accomplish with your unfounded claims? Are you trying to get a rise out of people or are you just so in love with your boing boing friend that you can't help yourself?

[P.T.Widdle]

I have bought the book and I'm looking forward to reading it and making some of the tricks with both my own son and with the magic class I'm teaching.

So much disdain from you, Brad, for the readers of BoingBoing. Get over it. They are every much entitled to learn about magic as any kid who learns the craft the "traditional" way (and still no one has enlightened me as to what the proper and traditional way to learn magic is).

Regarding your cynicism of Frauenfelder, you would have to be blind to not see his love, respect and appreciation for magic through his numerous posts and projects. I have no doubt there are plenty of magic book authors who did it just for the money, but I think you're pulling that accusation about Frauenfelder out of your a**.

About making your own magic tricks, all the best beginner magic books I've read have sections where you have to construct your own props. Why would that be included if it wasn't a good way to learn about magic? Do you actually believe there's no learning value in making your own props?

I proudly admit to being a fan of Frauenfelder and his continued posts and projects about magic for a wider and deserving audience. You, however, want to keep the learning of magic locked in a little box for..who exactly?

[Brad Henderson]

please show me where I have ever said there is a right or wrong way to learn magic or that only some people are entitled to learn. . . And then we can discuss the point I have actually raised.

sound good?

[Jonathan Townsend]

...Making your own tricks ...

... this information so cheaply?...

That's at least two different issues. Who gets what / at what price? And what makes it "your own"?

parsimonious is not the same as terse.

[P.T.Widdle]

please show me where I have ever said there is a right or wrong way to learn magic or that only some people are entitled to learn. . .

You're correct, you never advocated for a specific right or wrong way to learn magic. That was others, including your little buddy performer:

"The right way is the way that I and others of my generation learned it."

However you did say this:

"do we really want or need more people interested in performing magic?"

To which Richard Kaufman responded with a resounding, "YES"

[Brad Henderson]

and richard is entitled to his opinion. As someone who sells things to magicians that seems to make sense.

So other then creating a market for the sales of secrets, why would we want more people involved in the performance of magic? Why would that be good for magic? good for magic dealers, yes! good for magic????

please show evidwnce of that

[P.T.Widdle]

and richard is entitled to his opinion. As someone who sells things to magicians that seems to make sense.

So other then creating a market for the sales of secrets, why would we want more people involved in the performance of magic? Why would that be good for magic? good for magic dealers, yes! good for magic????

please show evidwnce of that

I think it's pretty presumptuous and cynical of you to assume a purely financial motive for Richard to believe there should be more people interested in performing magic.

Your questions about why more interest could possibly good for the art of magic seems closed-minded. Is it bad for other arts that more people are interested in performing them?

[Brad Henderson]

are most arts built on deception and the requirement that the performer/artist deceive the audience. It seems to me that most magicians fail to achieve that minimal level of competence, and their failure discourages people from developing a positive relationship with magic. Why would we want more people doing something when there is k guarantee they will do it well?

And is there any evidence that more people doing something is good for that thing? Seems to me that something that is, by definition, supposed to be unique and special can only harmed/diminished through saturation and over exposure.

Trends tend to devour their own. I think back to the stereotypical guitar wannabe (common in that era) from animal house. Do we really want to get painted with those same brushes?

So, other than creating a market to sell magic secrets to them, why exactly are more people in magic good for magic?

[P.T.Widdle]

why exactly are more people in magic good for magic?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCKK9Rt4WKU