so let's see where we have gotten after 8 pages.
to do that, let's look at how we
started
Is it really a good idea for magicians to lie to the audience? I think not. It is the worst kind of trick, it is a cheat and nothing more. A swindle, a rip-off. And I feel that The Public will resent and dismiss such undehanded tactics.
a statement with nothing to back it up. it also presumes the audience is aware the magician has lied. how could they unless the performer is incompetant?
the claim is they will resent and dismiss such tactics. but there is no way for them to be aware those tactics are in place unless 1) the magician gets caught, in which case the game is up or 2) the magician tells them, which is foolish.
Do you not sneer at a performer that utters a blatant falsehood, do you not consider him a hack? An artless deceiver, no better than a crooked politician?
except keyes has gone on to claim that the actual BLATANT falsehoods - such as 'i can read minds' or 'i am a magician' are permissible. He confirms he is talking about things related to the trick itself, things the 'truth' of which only a magician
would know. Again, how would a real
person know it was a lie unless the performer was incompetent?
but let's say we as a magician DID know the performer lied. Would we consider him or her any of the above?
absolutely not. If the lie did its job well then he or she should be praised for knowing how to use a technique well
How is it that we can despise a magic shop for selling us a trick by making inaccurate claims in its description, yet have no qualms about violating our audience's trust?
because we aren't buying the trick to fool ourselves.
or at least, shouldn't be.
here is where keyes reveals the problem in his position - he is thinking like a magician.
he cannot see the world from the perspective of the laymen who has no need to be concerned with whether this trick works the same or different from
other tricks like it.
now to be fair, most magicians think like this. They buy tricks not to perform them but to satisfy the urge to know "how it's done." they are puzzles. and magicians get sad when the solution isn't at least as cool as the puzzle. remember keyes has defined the art of magic as presenting illusions for the audience to figure out.
if you present magic as puzzles to figure out then yes, the audience will think it unfair if you lie to them about the conditions. i recall this same objection was raised regarding mystery authors in peter sellers' murder by death. The main character condemns these famous writers from withholding clues and introducing characters in the final chapter.
this IS unfair IF you are a presenting puzzles
we are not puzzlers
then again we still have the question: if we do our job competently and the audience cannot 'figure out' how the trick was done - how would they know they were lied to? this disappointment keyes claims exists can only exist AFTER the secret has been exposed.
you're not a willful exposer are
you Mr Keyes? it seems like you may be given how proud you are of your methods
Marshall Brodien used to hype the TV Magic Mouse by saying that the secret to its animation was a "little motor". The company would be sued for false advertising today.
a silly comparison.
unless you want to make the case that someone could sue a magician for selling tickets to a magic show which didn't use 'real' magic.
as jackpot has pointed out. we have one set of expectations for sales men and another for entertainers and story tellers.
or do we call the ASPCA on that evil goldilocks and her mistreatment of those poor bears,
Do you not think that we could elevate the resprctability of Magic by sticking to visual illusions and dispensing with deliberate misstatements?
[/quote]
no
1) the mere presentation of visual illusions is not magic
2) how can we elevate respectability
by not lying if the audience can't know we are lying unless we are incompetant. so your advice only could help if we are bad magicians
3) isn't seeing bad magicians the real reason people don't respect the art?
so here is where this started and here are still the reasons why this 'opinion' of keyes' is baseless and without value.
everything else has just been an attempt to deflect from that.