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GIFT GIF T MA M AGIC Performances that Leave People with a Souvenir
Tricks, essays, and interviews by Jeff McBride, McBride, George Parker, Lawrence Hass, Eugene Burger, Rich Bloch, and Robert E. Neale (in order of appearance)
Edited by Lawrence Hass
Gif Magic: Performances that Leave People with a Souvenir Tricks, essays, and interviews by Jeff McBride, George Parker, Lawrence Hass, Eugene Burger, Rich Bloch, and Robert E. Neale (in order of appearance) Edited by Lawrence Hass ISBN: 978-0-615-37503-8 Printed and bound in Canada First Edition 2010 Published, Distributed, and Sold by Teory and Art of Magic Press Lawrence Hass, Publisher www.TeoryandArtofMagic.com Illustrations by Jay Fortune Pre-illustration photography by c-nik, Michael Caplan, and Marja Lingsma Design, layout, and cover by Erin McLean
©Copyright 2010 by Lawrence Hass. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
Te authors dedicate this book to:
Lance Burton Burton and Mac King King for their their extraord extraordinary inary generosity generosity to the McBride M cBride Magic Magic & Mystery Mystery School School
& Max Maven who has given every one of us the gi f f of of friendship and wise, honest counsel
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CONTENTS
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From the Editor and Publisher, L ������� H ��� . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
From the Illustrator I llustrator,, J�� F ������ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
�� � B ���� . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii Foreword by R ���
�� � K ���� S ����� . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Introduction by R ���
Chapter 1 PAYING IT FORW F ORWARD: ARD: AN A N INTERVIEW INTE RVIEW WITH JEFF JE FF MCBRIDE MCBRI DE . . . . .1
Chapter 2 GEMSTONE GIFT, MIRROR VERSION, GEORGE PARKER . . . . . . . . .16
Chapter 3 GEMSTONE GIFT, QUICK VERSION, GEORGE PARKER . . . . . . . . . . 27
Chapter 4 LUCKY SEVEN, LAWRENCE HASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Chapter 5
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Chapter 6 TWO MAGICAL GIFTS: AN INTERVIEW WITH EUGENE BURGER 49
Chapter 7 THE ( COOKIE ) MONSTER’S DREAM, RICH BLOCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64
Chapter 8 HYPERTRIPTYCH, ROBERT E. NEALE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Chapter 9 GIFTS, RELATIONSHIPS, AND FETISH OBJECTS: AN INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE PARKER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Chapter 10 ZOR ZO R- ROSE, JEFF MCBRIDE MCBRIDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83
Chapter 11 SOMETHING, ROBERT E. NEALE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88
Chapter 12 ON GIVING, MAGIC, AND GIVING MAGIC ( INSPIRED BY THE WORK OF LEWIS HYDE ) , LAWRENCE HASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91
Chapter 13 TEHIS RE EROM, GEORGE PARKER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
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Chapter 14 SOME MAGICAL GIFT IDEAS FROM JEFF MCBRIDE . . . . . . . . . . . .117
Chapter 15 A SIMPLE GIFT, LAWRENCE HASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129
Chapter 16
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THE SURVIVAL VERSION , GEORGE PARKER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Chapter 17 DEBUNKING THE FIVE GREAT MAGIC MYTHS, RICH BLOCH . . .142
Chapter 18 THE GIFT OF MAGIC: SOME OBVIOUS REMINDERS, ROBERT E. NEALE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .148
Chapter 19 A CONVERSATION WITH ROBERT E. NEALE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .150
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .157 About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 About Theory and Art of Magic Press . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
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From the Editor and Publisher, Lawrence Hass
Te
book you are holding in your hands is the result of a most unusual and wonderful collaboration. It is the result of a group of artists who have come together to donate the fruits of their labor—their thinking, magic, artwork, words, and energies—to a project from which they will not receive a penny. penny. Tis free labor is being off ered ered to maximize the pro�t that will come from f rom f Magic—all Magic—all of which will be donated to Te Encore Foundation, a sales of Gi f 501(C)(3) organization organization that is dedicated to assisting magicians in need. nee d. In Rich Bloch Bloch’’s Foreword you will learn how Rich—w Rich—with ith the generous assistance of other magicians—created the Foundation to respond to a profound tragedy in one magician’s life. You will learn exactly how the Foundation functions to help magicians in need. You will feel lucky if you have not had to call upon its resources and grateful that it exists to help those who have not been so fortuna fortunate. te. By purchasing this book for yourself or as a gif for others you are directly supporting Te Encore Foundation. To further maximize the dollars that will be f sent to the Foundation, Teory and Art of Magic Press is also distributing Gi f Magic. Magic dealers who are interested in purchasing quantities of the book at a discount should contact me at: www. TeoryandArtofMagic.com. My heartfelt app appreciation reciation goes to everyone who has contribu contributed ted his/her labor, words, work, and resources to this book. Speci �cally, this means: To Jeff , George, Eugene, Bob, and Rich for their dear friendship, joyful enthusiasm for this project, and for always meeting my request for “one more” of something, whether it be a chapter, conversation, piece of advice, review of the manuscript—you name it. To Jay Fortune for donating his graceful, expressive illustrations. To Ruth Knafo Setton for the magical gif of her words. To Erin McLean for lending her special speci al eye and talents for design. To c-nik, Michael Caplan, and Marja Lingsma for their professional preillustration photography. To Max Maven for many things, but here, for his assistance with credits.
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To Samuel Smith editor of Te Linking Ring for for kind permission p ermission to reprint Bob Neale’s “Hypertriptych.” To Marc DeSouza and Larry Reichlin, dear Philadelphia friends, who always inspire me with their generosity and special magic. To Margie Hass, Abbi Spinner McBride, Marja Lingsm Lingsma, a, Bryce Kuhlman, and Tobias Beckwith for love and support all along the way. you:: everyone who has purchased Gi f f Magic and Magic and keeps Also, �nally, to you it alive by giving it to others. By doing so, you are completing the promise of the book and strengthening the worldwide community of magicians. Tank you!
A Few Words about My Involvement Tis
book project was born a number of years before I became involved. Te central vision was formed during a conversation between George and Jeff in 2004; afer that Eugene jumped in, then me, Bob, and Rich. ( Te exact details are covered in the interview intervie w with George, chapter 9.) Even so, I have been performing gif magic—magic that leaves people with a souvenir—from the beginning of my career. For me, it always felt like a natural thing to do; magic and gif-giving seem very closely closely connected. Not identical, but closely connected because the experience of strong, excellent magic arrives like a gi f: with a surprise, a bang, as a singular and memorable event. Also it is clear that magic (my magic, at least) bene b ene�ts from the spirit of gif-giving: it builds an enthusiastic relationship with my participant or audience rather than being all about “me, myself, and I.” And further, that spirit takes the edge off the the lies, omissions, and deceptions I use as a performer to create a magical experience: they become a mere means to a greater good. Again, this approach appr oach has always felt rather natural to me—even if unexamined. However,, sever However several al years ago the rigorous scholar in me woke up when I read and started to teach philosopher Jacques Derrida’s book on the subject, Given Time (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). I found myself becoming Time fascinated with the nature of human gi f-giving as a subject in itself and with the phenomenology of giving. Derrida Derr ida’’s book is not at all an easy read, but it is profound: Derr Derrida ida
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gifs and giving from sociology and anthropology (among other �elds), but most importantly, it took me directly to Lewis Hyde’s wonderful book on the subject, Te Gi f f : Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property (New (New York: Vintage, 1979). Tis is not the place to explore the details of Lewis Hyde’s inspiring book; keenly interested readers can jump ahead to chapter 12 to see my presentation of his basic claims. What is important here is that when I was invited by Eugene, George, and Jeff to to join in this book project in 2008—to contribute to it and publish it—I jumped at the opportunity because it meshed both with my own approach to magic and my philosophical study of giving. As I bring this manuscript to completion, completion, I am deeply excited and intrigued by all the material that has been donated for you: tricks with magical gi fs, essays, and interviews. Te thoughts and views expressed, ex pressed, as well as the tricks, are diverse, sometimes strikingly so, and I have made no editorial attempt to force force them into a mold. Obviously, the shared terrain of gif magic and the fact that the contributors are friends mean there are large areas of agreement. But careful readers will enjoy ferreting out the diff erences erences in thought and approach as well. Above all, my hope has been to create a book that will feed the heads and the hands of magicians everywhere. And also, perhaps, one that has a chance to make some good in the world. Lawrence Hass Sherman, Texas May 20, 2010
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From the Illustr I llustrator ator,, Jay Fortune Larry Hass has kindly allowed me to include some information on Magic Moments Day. A book dedicated to magic and gi fs is the perfect place to share this information and, hopefully, hopefully, you’ll be interest interested ed in taking part. Magic Mom Moments ents Day is a revolutio revolutionary nary concept by which magicians across the world can bring a moment of magic into the lives of others on a speci�ed day of the year. By downloading a sponsorshi sponsorship p form from our website, raising money for your chosen charity, and performing to an audience of your choosing on that day,, magicians worldwide will day wi ll be raising funds, smiles, and awareness of charitable causes. Magicians we need you! To take part in Magic Moments or for more information please visit our website: www.magicweek.co.uk/magic_moments. By clicking on the Magic Moments link there, you can download sponsorship forms, �nd out ways to plan your magic moment, and more. Perhaps you are a children’ children’ss magici magician an and would like to perfor perform m at a local children’s hospital to raise funds for new equipment? Maybe you are a silent magic act and a home for the elderly would welcome your skills? Perhaps as a close-up magician you could perform at a local restaurant raising money for your chosen charity? No matter whether you are a novice or full-time professional, Magic Moments needs you. We are aiming for Magic Moments to become an International Day of Magic. Our hope is that magicians will dedicate this day every year to performing magic for less fortunate people in our commu communities nities while also a lso generating funds for a worthy cause. We hope that you will welcome and support this initiative. All you have to do is give up some of your time to perform at a venue of your choice. Choose a place that is close to your heart or close to the heart of someone you care about. Your magic moment is going to be planned and given by you, with no interference from us or anyone else, so you are free to create your magic moment in any way you want. Go wild with creative energy as ideas are bound to come when you begin
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You are the key to the success of Magic Moments Day Day.. Our worldwide community of magicians has the opportunity, talents, and the reach to spread magic to millions of people across the world. Again, to �nd out about the next annual Magic Moments Day and for more information, suggestions, advice, or support, please visit: www.magicweek. co.uk/magic_moments. As a non-pro�t venture, Magic Moments Day is organized by a small group of dedicated magicians who would welcome your help and services; from publicity to website forums, if you can help spread the word we’d especially like to hear from you.
A Personal Note I want to express my appreciation to the authors and publisher of this unique magic mag ic book. In particular partic ular,, my deep thanks go to George Parker and Larry Larr y Hass for their encouragement and patience as emails bounced, shows took priority, priority, and I moved from one house to another. It has been my deep pleasure to create the illustrations f Magic, Magic, and I am honored to be a part of this project. for Gi f
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Jay Fortune is a performer, writer, illustrator, consultant, and producer of magic. Working alongside the UK’ U K’ss largest independent indepen dent entertainment entert ainment agency, he has created projects proje cts from magic on radio to full stage touring magic shows. His written works include productions for London’s O2 Arena. He has performed on TV, radio, and on stage in London’s West-End and Las Vegas. Magick and Mayhem , his one-man show show,, continues to push the boundaries of theatrical magic.
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Foreword For eword from Rich Bloch Beyond his role as professor, performer, promoter, and cheerleader for Magic-AsTeater, Larry Hass is a mensch. His commitment to publishing this book is the ultimate magic gif. Every dime of pro�t is being channeled into a project I started some years ago called Te Encore Foundation. Encore was born out of tragedy when one of our brethren magicians was traveling to a performance, became involved in an auto accident, and lost everything—his wife, his dog, his car and all the tools of his trade. At the World Magic Seminar, we held a bene�t performance, starring Siegfried and Roy, Lance Burton, Max Maven, Mac King, Fielding West, Johnny and Pam Tompson, John and Jen Cassidy, and other talented, generous artists, all of whom rose to the occasion. We We raised enough money to help out this magician, at least a bit. We were so inspired by the generosity of our colleag colleagues ues that we formaliz formalized ed the project by incorporating it as a 501(C)(3) corporation. In the � ve years following its genesis, Te Encore Foundation has, through the generosity and eff orts orts of hundreds of dedicated performers, helped people get over tough times. Tat’s the goal of the Foundation: to help fellow artists get over a rough patch. Te rules are simple. If a performer needs �nancial assistance to rebound from a cataclysmic illness or injury, for example, Encore sends some money. Te money is a no-interest loan; the understanding is that the recipient will repay it when, and if, he or she is able to do so. By and large, everyone we have been able to help has returned the favor and helped Encore. Encore has no paid staff —everyone —everyone who does anything for the Foundation is a volunteer. volunteer. It exists because be cause people like li ke Larry Larr y Hass, Je Jeff McBride, McBride, Eugene Burger, George Parker, Bob Neale, and the other sel �ess contributors to this little gem of a book care about their colleagues in magic and the theater arts. For that, I am profoundly grateful.
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Introduction Ruth Knafo Setton Tat
art is a gif given freely, without thought of reward or payment, was �rst impressed upon me the day I stood on my grandfather’s roof terrace in Morocco and helped him paint the wings of his gray homing pigeons to “make the world more beautiful.” When we’d painted the birds’ wings brilliant red, blue, and green, he set them free to burst into the sky. Tey created an unforgettable rainbow of color and feathers, a dazzling experience for unsuspecting passersby. . . an experience they spoke about for years aferwards. My grandfather would not have called himself a magician, but he shared many qualities with the six men whose gifs you will experience in the pages of this remarkable book. He gave the people who witnessed the rainbow �ock of pigeons a gif, one that George Parker calls a “positive trauma,” or a gif that is an experience. Jeff McBride, George Parker, Larry Hass, Eugene Burger, Rich Bloch, and Robert Neale—these six magicians are about to give you a magical gif that includes stories, tricks and illusions, interviews, dialogues, and words of wisdom, all in the spirit of gif-giving and friendship. Tis is, afer all, “a book by friends about friendship,” says George Parker. From conception to �nal production, this volume has been an act of generosity from magicians magi cians for magicians; and because they have given of their time and knowledge so freely, the book itself has become a gif, an enchanted garden of wisdom, dream, and memory, perhaps one of the most magical texts I have ever read. You’d have to travel far and wide in the internati international onal magic world to �nd someone who has not been the recipient of gifs from these generous, brilliant men. Whether we are speaking about gifs of knowledge and wisdom, gi fs of spirit and soul, gifs of astonishment and experience, gifs of therapy and healing, or actual concrete gifs you can hold in your hands, these six magicians have been at the forefront of exploring magic’s gif-giving potential. As Larry Hass points out, “ Te ultimate relationship between giving, magic, and giving magic can be seen in how generous, communal, and joyful magicians are.” Tis book is a potent demonstration of how generosity, communality, and joy result in a gif you will want to share with others. “Te essential is this, the gif must always move,” writes Lewis Hyde in
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relationship between art relationship ar t and commerce has always been be en fraught with tension, but in today’s market-dr market-driven iven society soci ety,, it is a challenge to remember that t hat the true value va lue of art cannot be measured in the marketplac marketplace. e. True True art has no price: it is priceless and needs to be given freely without expectation of a return gif. Larry Hass discusses the Talmudic concept of the highest form of generosity as giving anonymously with no expectation of reward or gratitude. And that, as Eugene Burger explains, takes us to the heart of magic: “a magical e ff ect, ect, whether it ends as a gif or not, must be given value by the performer if it is to be received as something truly special.” In these pages, we encounter the words of magicians who believe passionately in the power of their art and who eloquently communicate that belief. Bob Neale points out that magic provides us with a glimpse into a world of possibility in which surprises and unexpected endings simultaneously disturb us yet off er er hope. Jeff McBride McBride explores the idea that the true gi fs of magic result from the personal interaction between magician and audience members. Tey enact a ritual narrative in which the t he audience member is “a “a sort of hero in a mythic story,”” a tale that will become part of their personal mythology, story, mythology, a living memory of a magic experi ex perience. ence. Rich Bloch Blo ch imparts a crucial cr ucial lesson, less on, “It’ “It’s not for us, you see. It’s It’s them.” for them .” Re-envisioning the traditional magician’s role in relation to his audience transforms the performance into a reciprocal act shared by both performer and viewer.. viewer I myself have had the profo profound und pleasure of being the recipient of many of their gifs. Te magicians in this volume are patient, willing teachers who have inspired me to approach approach my own art as if I were a magician. Te primary diff erence erence is that my stage is the blank page, and my wand a pen, but in the end we are all creating stories of enchantment that we hope will live in people’s memories. I have sat in these magicians magicians’’ workshops, pored over their words, watched them perform both onstage and off , and seen them heal wounded souls and move audiences to awe. I’ve also had the pleasure of receiving concrete magical gi fs to place in my “magic corner”: Larry Hass’s silver wishing star, Je ff McBride’s tiny red rose on a wire stem, George Parker’s gemstone, playing cards inscribed with my name, Magic gic Ma Matters tters and Eugene Burger’s Magic and powerful texts like Bob Neale’s Ma Meaning Mea ning (written with Bob), and many other sacred treasures that remind me that
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and illusions, these magicians demonstrate the importance of magic in our lives. We need to believe, if only for a moment, that we have the power to transform ourselves, to conquer death, to free ourselves from the bonds of our mortal coil. In the hands of a master magician the magic splashes from the stage and illuminates the audience, inviting us to share in the Mystery, Mystery, giving us the gif of astonishment. And those other gifs, the physical ones we carr c arryy home with us, are like Cinderella’ Ci nderella’ss glass slipper: fragments f ragments that help us relive our magic moment in the Other World. World. A seashell that whispers a song in an ancient tongue, a feather that strokes our cheek, a single strand of thread that t hat is torn and restored, a painted bird that points the way to the garden where anything is possible. . . . Talismans Talismans and crystals, stones and stars, they are reminders that we ourselves are magical creatures whose powers have yet to be fully tested, whose limits have yet to be reached, whose potential is limitless. What greater gif can we receive?
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Ruth Knafo Setton is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Te Road to Fez. Fez. Born in Sa � Sa � , Mor Morocco occo,, she is the recipien recipientt of many liter literary ary fello fellowship wships, s, incl including uding awards from the National Endowment of the Arts and PEN. Her poetry, � �ction, ction, and creative non � �ction ction have appeared widely in anthologies and journals. Te Writerin-Residence for the Berman Center for Jewish Studies at Lehigh University, she is workingg on a series of novels about a female magician who sees her art as workin a s a gi f f . . . in every sense of the word.
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1 Paying It Forward: An Interview with Je ff McBride McBride It is the a f a f ernoon ernoon of Saturday S aturday,, August 15th, 2009—a hot, sunny day in Las Vegas. Vegas. Je ff McBride, McB ride, Eugene Burger, Burger, and I are gathered in the living living room of Je ff ff ’s ’s house; we are surrounded by books and artifacts from Je ff Je ff ’s ’s marvelous magic library, and by masks from cultur cultures es all over the world. It is a perfect setting for this conver conversation sation about magic, gi f f s, s, and magical gi f f s. s. —Lawrence Hass
Larry : Jeff , I have always thought of your magic as over �owing with generosity— from the cards �ying out into the audience, to the way you appreciate and recognize your assistants and stage crew cre w, to your passing on the gi f of magic to boys and girls during your performance of “ Te Miser’s Dream.” How did you come to have this sensibility in the �rst place? Was Was there someone in particular p articular who inspired this in you or did it come from some other source? Jeff : I think I was really inspired in this by my parents who were extremely supportive and gave freely of their time and energy in nurturing my magic. And so very early on, as I was starting to learn magic in my teens, I was also beginning to teach magic. Tere was something wonderful to me from the very beginning begin ning about seeing other people empowered by magic and about passing magic on to them. I never thought of magic as something to be hoarded. As a teenager performing
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think that sensibility came to me from my parents who were very much like that. Larry : Was there someone who performed magic for you that le f you with a gif? Someone who showed you that you could give a gi f when you perform? Jeff : Te �rst magical performance I ever saw was not a conjuror, but a balloon twister. His entire show was a give-away because he created the props and then gave them away. He created these hands-on, temporal gi fs. I remember it was a clown. . .he came to our Catholic C atholic school and was promoting promoting an appearance—a free appearance—at a shopping mall. So it was a promotional give-away, but for a free show. I had no idea of all that at the time, but I remember the clown made a round balloon with a whole bunch of long skinny balloons hanging off of it. Ten he played a game with the class, challenging us, “You get it, if you guess it.” What was this thing? I remember several sever al kids shouting out, “An “An octopus!” And he said, “No, “No, it is a meatball with a whole lot of spaghetti hanging out of it!” [laughter]. [laughter]. Everyone laughed and I laughed too, even though I didn didn’t ’t quite get it. But I did go see se e him at the new Jamesway department store. store. When he made that exact same �gure and asked, “Kids, what is this!,” I shouted out, “It’s a meatball with a whole lot of spaghetti hanging out of it.” And I got it; I knew the answer, and I got that balloon. I think that was the �rst gif that I received from a performer performer.. Maybe that is a strange sort of core experience to have in �uenced me, but it was really remarkable and memorable. It is always hard to know exactly what inspires us, but that could well have been a pivotal moment for me. Larry : It is amazing that you remember it so clearly. . . . Jeff : Second grade. Larry : Wow. So we turn from then to now: I cannot begin to count the number of times I have seen you perform pieces in which you give away something at the end. I have seen you give away wristbands, �owers, rainbows, cards, rubber bands, wands, shirts, stones, money. . .to name just a few things. What is all this magical giving about for you?
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is so much isolation. Now Now when a magician does magic, ofen there is a distancing quality—a separation of status—a feeling or experience that the magician has more status because he has this power and secret knowledge that the participant or audience doesn’t have. So the very act of presenting magic as a gi f creates a “bonding feeling” and there is more of a unity instead of a division divi sion set up between people. I have found that I have had many more life-enhancing experiences creating unifying magic as opposed to magic that separates and divides. I have had a lot more fun and pleasure that way. It has increased the happiness quotient in my life in a very simple, but profound way. To say a bit more, when I approach a potentia potentiall parti participant, cipant, I ofen can see when I mention the word “magic” that there is a mixed emotion, a kind of an apprehensive moment such as, “Oh no, what am I getting in to?” Or “If I sign this card will the pen shock me?” Tere is some of this going on because people have grown up with all these media images of the magician as a trickster and even as a dark trickster. So they don’t know if they are going to see a trick or have a trick pulled on them. How would they? One has to have considerable experience interacting with magicians to be able to realize the di ff erence, erence, and most people have had almost no contact at all with magicians. So setting up an atmosphere of gifing puts the participant at ease. It opens them up to a “conversation” [hand gestures back and forth]. It indicates that this will be a relationship rather than something that will be “done to you.” Larry : Is there a place in a gi fing performance when you feel their defenses melt away and they join right in with you? Jeff : Yes. It begins with touching their hands or placing their hands in a gi freceptive mode. When a person’s palms are open and together, they form a little bowl. Tis is an archetypal posture of receptivity, receptivity, of being bei ng a receptacle for a boon, for a gif, for something that is coming. Tere is a pregnant, empty space waiting (see � � gure 1). to be �lled with a magical possibility (see You are setting the person up to catch a moment of magic, for a magica magicall future. Tey don’t know what, but they know something is going to happen. For most people, when they are in this pose, it triggers a pleasure response: open and
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it is because they haven’t ever explored putting someone’s hands in this position. Larry : I suppose then we have a little experiment readers might try: put people’s hands in this position to see how diff erent erent and receptive they become. . . Jeff : . . .yes, but it also poses a challenge to magicians because they must have something worthwhile to place there! As an example, consider this: people would have a fundamentally diff erent erent reaction to a card trick if the magician said, “I have a surprise for you,” and put the participant’s participant’s hands in this position; then took out a box of cards and set them there like a little gif. As opposed to going up to someone, shu ffling the cards, and thrusting them at someone [laughter]—which is how so many cards tricks begin. . .with a “shuffle and thrust” [laughter as Je ff mimics mimics this], as opposed to any kind of relationship or a promise of a mystery. In magic as in love, what is ofen missing is a kind of “foreplay” that creates a setting and a threshold for the magic to be magical.
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Larry : Another thing too is that many magicians become so glib while they are “shuffling and thrusting”—they put up a wall of glib language that is unappealing and uninviting. So we need our words to touch touch them too, like when you touch their hands. . . .
other’s hands. Jeff : Yes, exactly. But let me stress that it is actually touching each other’s hands. Tere is a permission happening, a meeting. For one example of how this goes: you can take a handshake, add the second hand, then use the �rst hand to bring their other hand to the middle. In this way, way, you start with a socially acceptable gesture, gesture, see how it goes, and then if it is welcome, move move to another level le vel of intimacy. intimacy. se ts people into the opposite mode, mo de, doesn’t doesn’t it? Te “glibb “glibber” er” Eugene: Glibness really sets you are the more frightened I become. And that means I am not ready to receive much of anything. Jeff : Glibness sets up the following: “Do I now have to take out my rapier wit?” “Do I have to take out my own razor sharp tongue?” “Are we going at each other?” “Do we have to top each other?” other? ” Notice that we are now plunged into a status struggle as opposed to a bonding relationship. relationship. Larry : I am sure that the readers will have many questions about details of your approach. appr oach. Do you also do things with your eyes or voice? Jeff : I think that postures are very important for moving people into intimate relationship. In a lot of my magic, my hands are o fen positioned under my heart, which creates a sense of intimacy and openness. Ten bringing the hands up to eye level is important because it increases eye contact. However, depending upon the culture, one has to dial up or down the intensity of the eye contact. We also can use the magic in the middle—between middle—b etween our sets of eyes—to help sofen some of that intensity. intensity. If the connection is too overpowering we can let them focus on the t he magical object, which takes some of the intensit i ntensityy off the the bonding that is happening. Or conversely, we can dial up the relationship so the magical object becomes less important and the people can experience each other as the magic is happening.
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“a little untruth that can bring us to a bigger truth.” I think about David Abram, Sensuous. He says that when the priests he met in the author of Te Spell of the Sensuous. He Bali performed sleight-of-hand, they considered their secret sleights to be a sacred prayer that was unknown to the uninitiated. I kind of like that rationalization, that coping mechanism [laughter]. Because it is a deep challenge to be deceiving someone and gaining his or her trust tr ust at the same time. Larry : But by placing their hands right here [gestures in the cupped position] they are already halfway there. . . . Jeff : . . .correct, because you are using the magic to connect rather than to “blow the audience audien ce away” or “kill “kil l ‘em. ‘em.”” Or to distance distan ce them or one-up them. t hem. Instead of all al l that, you are creating a magical moment that ends with a talisman or touchstone of the fact that magic has come into their lives. Which is, if you think about it, far greater than the “trick.” Because the trick is over in an instant, but the gi f object can last forever. And every time they touch that object they can remember that magical moment and increase their t heir happiness, if the moment was a happ happyy one. Larry : It occurs to me that your ideas here pose a real challenge for card magicians because they have the cards down in front of them or off to to the side and this seems to communicate communicate something very diff erent. erent. Jeff : I love card magic. But I work really hard to get my card magic so it happens up around my face. First of all, having the cards up here makes much better TV! [laughter]. But also I can make a relationship with the cards between our eyes. Even so, I have to really work at getting into these positions because so much card magic we see happens at crotch level, gripping down here [two hands holding a horizontall packet], which horizonta whi ch not only takes us back to “shu “shuffle and thrust, th rust,”” but further furt her means the performer tends to be looking down at the cards. Te whole orientation then is eyes-down, e yes-down, head-down—which is just terrible for relationships. But think about it: cards are challenging because the very nature of the game of cards is combative: I win, wi n, you lose. Further Furthe r, cards are horizontal horizonta l by nature; they are meant to be played at a table looking down while not showing your true
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you bring out a deck of cards. In our culture there are hundreds of years of preconditioning about cards that trigger feelings of separation and combat: I trump you. Or you trump me. Or I will take your money. Or I will cheat you at the card table. So there is a lot of baggage on the table when you bring cards out; there is a lot more than cards coming out of the card box [laughter]. In this sense, card magicians have a much higher mountain to climb in order to create the kind of magic we are talking about. At the same time, magic evolves as we evolve. Te more conscious we become of our tools and what they trigger, the better able we are to transform those tools to create better eff ects. ects. Afer all, we are magicians! Larry : So I assume you might not start out with cards in a gif magic situation? I mean, you might get there, but you might start with other things? Jeff : It depends upon the kind of relationship I want to create. I humorously say, and remind myself, that magic should “comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable” [laughter]. So depending on the situation, I might start right out with “Cards Out of the Mouth”: Whoah!! You know, to lay claim to a territory as a magician or to just get attention. Again, performing magic involves status relations and sometimes, in some situations, you have to stake your claim just to play your part as a magician. Like in a party environment where everybody is vying for atten attention tion and statu status: s: “W “Wow ow,, he is the magician!” In situatio situations ns like that I will ofen open with cards. But in other cases, I will open with something so f, like a magic rainbow or �ower [“Magic Wishing Rainbow” and “Rainbow to Rose” Edge;; they may be viewed at www.magicalwisdom. from Jeff ’s DVD, Magic DVD, Magic at the Edge com/gifmagicbook, courtesy of L&L Publishing]. Or I will make money appear to pay for a check, or produce some little token to represent the moment. Tese are all sof, intimate moments. Another great one is Alan Wong’ ong’ss “Stargazer,” in which a rubbe rubberr band Edge and changes to a star. [Tis is also on Magic on Magic at the Edge and may be viewed at www. magicalwisdom.com/gifmagicbook.] I think this is a perfect trick: there are no bad angles, there is nothing to see how it is done, and then the participant ends up with an unusual, exquisite little gi f. Which, I might add, turns their analytical
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will come true tr ue”—so ”—so there is a little intention in that. Edge, I talk quite a bit about my philos philosophy ophy of gi f-giving on Magic on Magic at the Edge, which was shot at the Burning Burning Man festival. festival. Burning Man is all about the gif economy and gifing and give-away. Te gif philosophy and economy is also at the heart of the Wonderground experience we create every month in Las Vegas. With all the great press surrounding it and the community involvement, the Wonderground is transforming the Las Vegas magic scene in really exciting ways. [Editor’ss note: for a glimpse of the Burning Man festival, see the video clip [Editor’ at www www.magicalwisdom.com/gi .magicalwisdom.com/gifmagicbook, courtesy of L&L Publishing; to learn about the Wonderground experience, go to http://www.mcbridemagic.com/pages/ wonderground.php.] .b ecause it is not about money; there is no money there. Eugene: . . .because Jeff : Yes, money is not in use at Burning Man. By explicit intention and design, it is a gif culture. It is probably the western world’s biggest potlatch. People go to extraordinary lengths to give away as much as they can [laughter], with their art, with food, and with many things. Larry : I want to stay just a little bit longer on some of the details of performing gif magic. We have talked about the hands; we have talked about the eyes. Do you have any suggestions about the voice, about how we can use the voice to create the connection?
edg y. . . . Eugene: Getting sofer is part of it. Less hard and edgy Asking g the Jeff : Yes, getting sofer, but also creating a conversation. You know? Askin participant what is important. Tis puts half of the magical experience into their hands, literally and conversationally. When I ask a person “Is there something special in your life that you would like to bring into being?” that puts it squarely on the participant to conjure something deep inside of them. And I can tell when they are humoring me because they respond too quickly. When that happens I
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quickly, I pause just a bit and ask, “Are you sure you want that?” Tat usually gets them to probe a little bit deeper or more authentically authentically.. Because in these situations I want to subtly help them learn that this will not just be about “watching the magician do stunts”; it will instead be about the magician serving as a catalyst for magician is their wish ful�llme llment. nt. You You know kno w, a magician is asking you here, “What is important in your life?” “Wha “Whatt would you really like to bring into your life?” Tis is just full of meaning and possibilities. So I am also asking in eff ect, ect, “Can we play this magical game for a little while,” in the classic Bob Neale sense of making believe? I’ll tell you, this is fun for everyone; it is fun to take someone in a social situation to a deeper place, to a core value, and then give them a little token of the ride in the form of gif. Now I should stress that when I give it to them I say, “ If you take this maybe your and place it somewhere you can see it everyday, maybe your wish and intention will come true.” true.” I stress the “if “ if ” and the “maybe” because I do not want to make any extraordinary claims! [laughter]. Larry : Eugene, when Jeff talks about using questions, I think about your work because you so ofen use questions to invite people into the performance. Do you want to say anything about that? Eugene: First of all, it tells the participant or the audience that I am taking them seriously, that I am really listening to them, and that we are engaged in a conversation. . . . Jeff : . . .so much so that, if I ask a person a question when performing gi f magic in a social situation (and I do not mean a formal show, which is a very di ff erent erent context), and the person’s answer or the conversation turns to something more profound, the magical moment may even sacri�ced to a much more important connection. Te palmed object may go back in the pocket for a while or maybe forever while this person is in a state of bonding. Larry : As we are talking about this, I am imagining some readers might feel uncomfortablee about performing this way because it is so intimate. . . . uncomfortabl
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Larry : No, that was well worth it [laughter]. But it seems to me that the only alternative is just to be demonstra demonstrating ting stuff , and then it seems the magician is. . . Jeff : . . .trying to “blow the audience away”. . . Eugene: . . .and doing one-liners. Larry : What speci�c suggestions do you have for someone performing gif magic to help their performances be better? If you had one thing to suggest—one little gif—what would it be?
To start with the t he simplest magic possible, p ossible, the simplest si mplest techniques, so s o you don’t don’t Jeff : To have to think that much about the technical level or procedure. Tis allows you to focus on the quality of the connection and “the moment” moment” rather than the method. Tis allows you to be relaxed and at ease rather than anxious or worried about being exposed. Larry : Have you ever had a moment of gif magic blow up? Tere you are about to give this gif and the whole thing just falls apart?
ect “Kundalini Rising” for Jeff : Oh yeah. I remember I was doing my Rising Card e ff ect a group of people at kind of a new age center and I had dialed up the performance pretty strong on the breathing, the whole mythology of Kundalini, and all of the yoga involved. Ten at the end of the experience, afer the whole induction and mythology, with the card rising in her hand, I said she could keep the deck as a souvenir. I saw her eyes kind of open wide, and I said, “No, no. . .take it!” Which she did, but later I saw her leave the cards on a ledge. She did not want this gi f. Like this was too powerful; she did not want a touchstone. touchstone. We have to always remember that people experience our magic on lots of diff erent erent levels. Tey also have diff erent erent belief systems because of diff erent erent cultures or cultural programming and so they respond to magic in lots of di ff erent erent ways. So I usually ask permission before even performing. I will say something like, “Do you like magic?” For instance, I have had experiences in Africa when the reply
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that magic is this great scienti�c exploration of perception and deception, you know? So I just drop it. I am not on a mission to convert people to ”the western application applica tion of science through the optical arts of magic” [laughter]. G eorge Parker, and it touches on something Larry : Here is a question for you from George we talked about before. George says that it seems there is a di ff erence erence between, on one hand, what we might call a promotional gif, like doing an eff ect ect with a business card that has our name and address on it so they have it “for all their future event planning needs.” And on the other, giving away money or a gemstone or �ower that isn’t promoting anything. So the question here is, how should we handle promotional gifs so that they still feel like gi fs? I’d like to jump in on this. I was wa s just reading readin g a book that Jeff gave gave me about Eugene: I’d doing readings for people, and one of the author’s techniques was to do a Magic Square for someone on the back of a business card. So his idea is that while one side of the card is promotional, the other side has some value and remains a gi f. But it is a very tricky tr icky line to walk. wa lk. . .I think this is George George’’s question. Larry : Part of walking it, I suppose, has to do with how you handle the promotional side. I mean, I could talk about my business number and instruct them to call me “for all their future event planning needs,” or I can give them the Magic Square card without commenting on the “market side.” Jeff : Relating to this, there is a Rosicrucian concept of doing good acts in the world without suff ering ering gratitude. One can “suff er” er” from someone’s gratitude, which was for me a very tricky concept to understand. But for example, “Oh thank you!” [craven and supplicating]; this su ff ers ers me with a kind of status I may not want, and perhaps also suff ers ers me with their feeling of needing to reciprocate, which wasn’t my intention at all. So a key question to ask here is: when you give a gi f, do you expect it be reciprocal? If so, one needs to be sensitive to the fact that it starts to look more like a market transaction than a gif. And we also want to think about how to de �ect the idea that you want something back. We might say something like, “No, no, this
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in gif economies and circles. Tis is the idea that even if someone gives back, what he or she encount encounters ers is another gi f. So, for example, someone receives their “lucky card” from me, which sends them to my website. Nonetheless, he or she �nds there another gif—that is, the reading or meaning of their card—as well as the opportunity to gi f someone else by sending them a lucky card too. Tis is a subtle way to de�ect the circle of obligation. Even so, there is a diff erence erence between these kinds of gifs and the origami sculpture folded out of a ten-dollar bill that has been lef anonymously in the hotel room for the chambermaid. Larry : Te distinctions you are talking about remind me of an ethos that is very much present in Jewish culture. Te Talmud, for example, gives a ranking of diff erent erent gifs determined by how much recognition is attached to them, with the very highest gif involving the giver’s total anonymity. For Jewish people, strictly anonymous anonymo us giving is a mitzvah, a blessing in another way as well, because b ecause the word “Anonymous” on a list of donors provides coverage for people who are not able to give anything. Jeff : Yes, excellent. Tere is another dynamic to this as well, which is that there ofen has to be the right context for a gi f. People have to be in a gif-receiving mode or environment sometimes to even understand something as a gif. Tere was this fascinating story in the Washington Post recently about Josh Bell, the violin player. Josh Bell is a concert violinist who plays one of the most expensive violins in the history of the world and sells out concert halls for over a hundred dollars a ticket. And there was this social experiment where he was busking in a subway for many hours one day. day. He only made about $35; $35 ; most people just walked walked past him. It It was interesting: many children would would stop stop and watch him, but their parents would always pull them away. For some reason children could perceive this amazing gif that was there for them, but most adults couldn’t see or hear it because there wasn’t a context for this gif; the gif was invisible to them. So people need to have a sense that they are in an environment where a gi f is being given. I mean, to just leave a pen on a table for someone means nothing. It isn’t a gif; it is just a piece of junk. And here is the key thing: magic makes a gif special. Te moment of magic
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you might actually put it on your refrigerator and see my URL. Again, we need nee d to remember if that is the only reason why I am doing it, if that is all it is about, then it isn’t a gif. A pure gif is, at best, anonymous. Larry : Your comments here have brought us back to our intentions—that an important part of the context is the intention. Random events aren’t gifs; there has to be an intention of a gif, even if we do not know who gave it. Te ten-dollar bill folded into an origami �gure is anonymous, but but clearly it was intended as a gif. So this comes right back to us as magicians. What is paramount with gif magic is the intention with which we infuse our performance; that is what makes the di ff erence erence between a mere promotion promotion and a genuinely felt gif. Jeff : Yes, and sometimes my intention is or has to be market based and there is nothing wrong with that. Sometimes I need to perform a piece of magic in a certain way or setting that makes a booker want to hire me for money. Tis isn’t a gif situation—it is a commodity exchange: here’s my talent, hire me. But all that is very diff erent erent in spirit and intention from being in a park, approaching approaching a family playing there, picking up a leaf and making a �ower bloom from it, giving it to the grandmother, and then walking away. Here there is no promotion, no name even—all they have is an incredible story to tell and a memory. I have given and received this kind of magic countless times—having wonderful little exchanges that do not lead to any reciprocity. Larry : Do you think there is something about magic that makes it especially connected to gif-giving?
Let’ss look at the nature of magic: from one perspective perspect ive magic is an eff ect ect Jeff : Let’ without a cause. And that maps right onto a gi f—something that arrives without demand or a plan. Tus there is something about magic and giving, and receiving too, that de�es expectations. So there is a connection between magic and giving that we can only learn about by exploring the moment, by doing it and not intellectualizing about it. With performing magic speci�cally, you have to be out there thinking,
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the world I carry carr y a thumb tip with a rainbow streamer and a pocket po cket full of fold-up roses so I can take advantage of a perfect per fect moment. But you have have to be sensitive to whether or not the moment really is a good one. Justt the other day I was in China working with a man whose business Jus associate was a woman who didn’t didn’t really like magic. She was busy working behind a counter at a cash register and he said to me, “Do something for her!” Now even though I had prepared this extensive little routine, I could tell that the woman didn’tt have the temperament didn’ temperam ent or the time to indulge in dulge me in my gif-giving [laught [laughter]. er]. Not only was she pre-disposed not to accept any magical gi fs, she was actually determined to counter them [laughter]. I could tell this just was her point of view on magic. So I put that routine back in my pockets, but still wanted a moment of connection with her. I concealed one of my little �owers in my hand, and as I went to give her a little coin, I changed it into the �ower, and simply said goodbye. Tat was it. I walked away. Tat was it, and she accepted the gi f because she didn’t have the time to process what had happened. If she had seen me go into a whole magic routine, she would have just folded her arms and rolled her eyes. Larry : On another subject, as we head toward the end of this conversation: we know that part of Lewis Hyde’s idea is that when we have received a gi f, then we are ourselves inspired inspired to give on, typically to other people. . . Jeff : . . .pay it forward. . . .
that we have received a gif is that we Larry : Right. So sometimes one way we know that �nd ourselves engaged in a “labor of gratitude” gratitude” that keeps the gif we have received in motion [for more on this idea see chapter 12]. With this in mind, would you say there are speci�c pieces in your repertoire reper toire that were labors of gratitude in this sense? Pieces that were inspired by a gi f you had received and were giving givi ng on? Jeff : Not so much with speci �c pieces, but what comes right to mind is a ritual we do in our home where Abbi and I have a box of objects that we have collected from all over the world. When students or friends are here I invite them to select an object from the box—and all the objects have a story attached to them that I am
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through us. We are so blessed. We have so many gi fs coming into our lives, and we are happy to continuously “pay them forward.” So we have this exquisite box, which people will see when they come to the Magic & Mystery School, and they will be able to look inside and take a bit of the magic home with them. It does not even have to be performance oriented; the whole thing is just a state of mind, a way of being. It is a way of living with gi fs, so that gifs are passing through us continuously without hoarding them.
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2 Gemstone Gif, Mirror Version George Parker
Te Gif A small gemstone. In this t his version, version , the gemstone is an anchor to reinforce re inforce someone someon e’s belief that his or her wish will become as real as the stone. Te Eff ect ect Afer a mirroring exercise, a gemstone materializes between the hands of the magician and the spectator. Te Props A small gemstone such as a tiger’s-eye, amethyst, turquoise, or crystal. If you don’t wish to use a stone you could use any other small object. I have also used special coins (that I give away), little Guatemalan “worry-dolls” (a kind of good luck charm), and little pieces of jewelry j ewelry..
Introduction Tis is an eff ect ect to be performed one-on-one. Te spectator turns into a participant
along the way. While talking about various ways people try to get connected
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communicators. You explain how they imitate little gestures, words, and tones of voice to make the person they are speaking with feel more comfortable and open. Ten you go into an actual mirroring exercise that actors use to train their empathic skills, which ends up producing the gemstone between the four of your hands. Tis is not something you do for just anyone. I had to learn that the hard way. I have both selected the wrong person and chosen an inappropriate moment. Both types of situations ended with person not knowing what to do with the gi f and giving it back, which was kind ki nd of embarrassing. So now I take care to only do this version when the time is right and for people who are open and likely to make the connection. I have designed a quick, much lighter version for other situations situations [see the next chapt chapter]. er].
Te Prep Work I am right-handed, so I will describe the handling that way, but of course it could be reversed if you prefer using your lef hand. Start out with the gemstone hidden in your right hand. Clip it between the �eshy parts of the �rst joints of your �rst and second �nger ( � gure 2). 2). If you prefer, you can also clip it between your second and third �nger.
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Performance If the moment feels right, bring up the subject of how people in various parts of the world have diff erent erent habits of greeting each other. “In the western world, for example, we shake hands.” While saying this, stretch out 3). your right hand ( � gure 3).
Figure 3 Te participant will w ill automatically
mirror this. If she is reluctant to do this, gently help her by taking her right arm with your lef hand and guide it to your right hand. If you are relaxed she will not suspect that your hand is loaded, but also make your hand a little hollow so the hard stone doesn’t touch her hand. “In India they use the more ceremonial greeting, “namaste.” Put your hands together while you take a little
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“Tere are dozens of ways to greet someone but they all share the same purpose: to make a connection. Now there is a universal way of doing that. It’s called ‘mirroring’: you imitate the ways of your conversation partner, his tone of voice, his lingo, his gestures, and—if you are an advanced communicator— even the way he structures his messages. Of course one must not overdo this, but once you start to mirror your partner you will feel the atmosphere change. You will become more sensitive to his feelings and he will feel more open. Tese days, salespeople, human resource professionals, management trainers, coaches, or anyone whose livelihood depends on excellent communication is trained to master this technique. To start learning it, there is a basic exercise vie w. Make small gestures that actors use. use.”” During these lines keep your hands in view to stress your points. We want the participant to remember that she has seen your hand empty all of the time. “Imagine this is a mirror.” While saying this use your index �ngers to draw a rectangle in midair starting just above eye level ( � gure 5).
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bottom of this virtual mirror is somewhere around your waist. I keep my hands as open as I can. Te gemstone is hidden behind the second �nger of your 6). right hand ( � gure 6). Afer �nishing the rectangle, stretch your hands while saying, “Now follow my lead. lea d.”” Te participant will also 7); think of this stretch her hands ( � gure 7); as starting position.
Figure 6
Look into her eyes and say, “If this were truly a mirror you would be looking into your own Take ake eyes, and vice versa. versa.”” T a few beats to look her in the eye and let this sink in. Ten continue, “If this were a real mirror and I was doing this. . . .” At this moment you start to move your right hand eight or so inches to the right. Her lef hand will follow along. Return to the original position. Now do the same thing with your lef hand, moving it to your lef. Her right hand will follow along. Now start to cross both hands
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Figure 8 Comment on this, “Excellent. Have you ever done this before?” Afer you �nish this, you basically will repeat these gestures, but in the vertical plane, speeding up just a bit. First, lightly lightly touching touching her �ngertips, lif your lef hand up about eight inches, but keep it stretched. When you lower your le f hand you immediately do the same thing with your stretched right hand. Now 9). raise both hands but tilt them while moving up ( � gure 9).
When I do this, I start to move my lef hand about half a second earlier than my right hand. She will understand what to do and will not pay too much attention when the right hand, with the hidden gemstone, moves up. Although you may feel vulnerable because the gemstone is actually exposed, it is safe to do this because her own lef hand will block her
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Also remember that she doesn’t know what’s coming so she won’t pay attention to this. Tis is also true if there are people surrounding you. When you start to perform this you will want to feel safe and do the act for just one person. Once you feel comfortable, go to the next level and position another spectator on your le fhand side. Afer that you won’t really care anymore where people are because you will have developed con�dence in the invisibility of the stone during this phase. � gure 11) 11).. Keep Ten your hands meet hers as though on the surface of the mirror ( both of your hands just a little bit hollow so she won’t feel the hard surface of the stone. Lower your hands again so you you’ll ’ll end up in your starting position (as seen � gure 7). 7). in � in
Figure 10
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“Mirroring establish establishes es a connection between people. But if you want your souls to connect, sometimes you need to go through the mirror.” Tis is the line I use, but you might �nd it too heavy. Change it to suit your own style, but �nish in the same position as I do ( do ( � gure 12).. Tat is, push your hands 12) under her hands to pass through the surface of the virtual mirror mirror..
Figure 12
Ten turn your lef hand
palm up and move it toward the center, while your right hand stays the way it was and moves over to the center. Most of the time she will copy you without problems. If you feel she’s doesn’t know what to do guide her right hand by lifing the little �nger of your lef hand and locking her
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Lif your right hand and lower your le f hand while turning it palm up, guiding her 14 is an exposed view of this moment). You will end right hand in process ( � ( � gure 14 is 15. up in the position shown in � in � gure 15.
Figure 14
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“When people connect on that level new ideas are born and powerful emotions come into existence. And those will eventually materialize into what we call reality.” At this moment let go of the gemstone and then li f your right 16).. Don’t let it fall into your le f hand so the gemstone comes into view ( � gure 16) hand because that would give away the method.
Figure 16
Take the gemstone with your right hand, place it on her le f hand, and
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Notes � Tis piece came to be when my studies in palming techniques and strategies
merged with the well-known mirroring technique. I like this kind of magic very much: it feels like a dance between you and the spectator, who gradually turns into a participant. Instead of demonstrating a trick, it becomes something much more. I have performed this eff ect ect thousands of times and the small investment you make in buying the gif is nothing compared to the priceless reaction. I have met many people, sometimes years later, later, who still carry the stone with them and tell me they consider it a good luck charm. Of course you can replace the gemstone with any small object. Recently I have started to work with little bells, the ones court jesters tie to their hats. Tis off ers ers a new, fun challenge because be cause the bells be lls create sound if i f you aren’t aren’t careful, which is something you don’t want until the very end. Clipping them between the joints of your �ngers dampens the sound, but still you need to time t ime your speaking to help cover any mishaps. Te big reward is that when, at the end, ringing is the �rst thing that happens, it ampli�es the eff ect ect of the materialization.
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3 Gemstone Gif, Quick Qu ick Version George Parker
Te Gif A small gemstone. In this version, it is an anchor to help someone focus on his or her priorities. Te Eff ect ect Afer telling a participant par ticipant that a wish is nothing more than “a memory of your own desired future,” you ask her to make one. A fer doing so a gemstone materializes between the empty hands of the magician and drops into the participant’s hands. Te Props Just as in the Mirror Version [in the previous chapter], a small gemstone or any other any other small object. How However ever,, in this version you also need a thumb tip. tip.
Introduction Tis is typically performed one-on-one, although it easily can be done surrounded.
I developed this version because the longer and more intimate Mirror Version isn’t
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one associates with a thumb tip. To me, being fooled by methods and techniques I know very well is one of the most liberating experiences. It turns me into the person who I aspire to be: open-minded and playful.
Te Work Put the gemstone (or the gif of your choice) in the thumb tip. Put the thumb tip over the thumb of your preference. I am right handed but I have performed this using two thumb tips so I could immediately repeat the ritual. Tis comes in handy when you are performing per forming for two friends and don don’t ’t want the second one to feel lef out. I will describe it the way I perform it when w hen using my right hand.
Performance Either the right moment presents itself, or you have carefully worked for hours to make the right moment occur. Say, “As magicians we can help you to ful �ll your wishes. A wish is nothing more than a memory of your own desired future. 17). Please hold out your hands in a cup like this” ( � gure 17).
Figure 17
Trust me when I say that, properly performed, they will not spot the thumb tip. As has been observed countless times by working pros, if you act without guilt you will not evoke the suspicion of doing something sneaky. Guilt is the magician’s archenemy. A perfect technique executed with guilt is worse than a somewhat
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Immediately turn over your hands and touch the back of her hands with Immediately your thumbs and lightly touch the palm of her hands with both of your second � gure 18). 18). Tis looks extremely open. �ngers, supporting her cupped hands (
Figure 18
Ten
say, “Please, make a wish.” What is so interesting here is that most people, even complete strangers you have met only brie �y, will close their eyes to make their wish, something that will intensify the eff ect ect for them. Perhaps it is my intention that helps them relax, or perhaps they associate making a wish with a moment of pleasure, or both of these things. Whatever the reason, it is satisfying and even touching when a person I have just met closes his/her eyes to make a wish. Tis moment in the performance is a vulnerable one, so allow the participant some time to process it, then say, “Look at my hands. Tere’ ere’ss nothing between my �ngers.” Before describing how I gesture to hide the thumb tip, I must pause to say that I’m not a big fan of saying what is already obvious. Frankly, I dislike phrases such as “ Tis is a deck of cards” or “I will shu ffle the cards cards”” when you are showing or shuffling the cards. I call this “dubbing” and it frequently occurs occ urs in magic. But in this particular situation, it ampli �es the eff ect ect to underscore that your hands are empty by both showing and saying so. Unlike the Mirror Version,
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try to backtrack what happened I want them to be b e aware they clearly saw my hands empty. In any event, while delivering those lines you will elegantly carry out a series of movements that shows your hands empty and stresses the fact that nothing is hidden between your �ngers. Start by showing the back of both hands 19. as in � in � gure 19.
Figure 19
Ten quickly turn them
20) and outward, outwar d, showing the palms p alms of your hands ( hands ( � gure 20) and
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Figure 20
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Tis
all happens in one elegant, continuous movement. Tis �owing motion will not only create the illusion of openness and moving slowly, but the participant will remember having seen your hands completely empty. Further, all this happens about ten inches in front of her eyes, which makes it virtually impossible to spot the thumb tip. So don’t feel guilty or go into old-school moves like pointing your thumbs towards them. Your con �dence and the structure of the movementss will make the thumb tip psychologically invisible. movement You will now produce the stone and let it fall from betwee between n your hands. Figure 22 shows 22 shows how you rub your hands together as if you are compressing the air to materialize the gif of which you spoke. At least this is what it looks like to your audience. In fact you have taken o ff the the thumb tip while bringing your hands together. See � See � gure 23 to see the position of your thumb.
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Figure 23
As soon as your hands start to touch each other, bend your right thumb, with the thumb tip, inward. While making the �rst rubbing motion take the thumb tip off of of your thumb. In one smooth motion you continue rubbing your hands. Releasing the thumb tip in an uninterrupted motion is a knack. But once you �nd the right rhythm, it looks very ver y convincing. Te thumb tip is now secured between b etween your hands. Te opening is pointing down. By opening your hands just a little bit the gemstone will be released. Gravity will do most of the work but you’ll you’ll be able to assist through the rubbing r ubbing motion. Create drama by showing some muscle power while pressing your hands together. Make noises as if it takes a lot of e ff ort ort to materialize the stone. You don’t need to grunt or make bedroom noises, but a little 24) and say, acting is okay. Afer two or three seconds drop the gemstone ( � gure 24) and “My wish for you is that your wish will materialize into something as tangible as this good luck stone.”
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Figure 24
Final Toughts Tis
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Quick Version of Gemstone Gif is technically easy but very gratifying for the performer as well as for the receiver. I will typically perform this as “a random act of kindness,” or as a good way to show my gratitude to cab drivers, hotel sta ff , waiters, or any person that has been kind to me and may not be noticed or is under-appreciated. I have used it as a pre-show act to create some anticipation before performing my theater show. It’s also a great piece to generate (or at least measure the amount of) interest for other, more elaborate, magic. Opening with,
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Figure 25
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Addendum: One Handed Version � You might call ca ll this the t he Super Quick Q uick Version. Version. Cutting just a little edge e dge off of of a thumb tip (say 1/5th of an inch) will make the following move easier, but but be careful not to cut so much that the thumb tip won’t hold your gemstone anymore. Put the stone into the thumb tip and load it onto your thumb. You will basically go through the same movements of materializing the stone by rubbing, except you will do it with just one hand. Tis can be executed even faster than with two hands and you can skip any interaction if you like. To begi begin, n, invite the spect spectator ator to hold her hands in a cup just as above. Support his hands with your other hand. Deliver the lines you have scripted for yourself while showing the back of your right hand, then the palm of your right hand (while keeping your �ngers widely spread and wiggling them). Ten steal the thumb tip off your your thumb by bending your thumb inside of your �st. If you do this while moving your hand up and down and le f and right a bit you can easily camou�age this. (To understand this movement, just think of Fred Kaps doing his long salt pour.) When the thumb tip is secured in your �st, the open side is up. Squeeze your �st like your milking a cow. Tis looks to the spectator as though you’re materializing the stone when in fact you are turning around the thumb tip so the open side will be towards his cupped hands. Dramatize this a little bit. Te thumb tip will not be visible if you have cut it down su fficiently and if you control the angles carefully. In a surrounded situation you might want to keep your hand moving to be on the safe side. If you feel insecure about this moment, just cut your thumb tip down further to something you can handle and which will still stil l contain 25 and 26 are the stone. Figures 25 and are exposed views of this.
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4 Lucky Seven Lawrence Hass
“Lucky Seven” has become one of my prized, “go-to” routines. It fools both laypeople and magicians badly. Or, better put, it astonishes them deeply. I realize that when you read the script and handling you might not think such a strong reaction would happen. I didn’t didn’t think so either when w hen I �rst read the root source. . . and then I actually performed per formed the piece. At the end, people are fairly stunned and sometimes even gasping at the �nal revelation. “Lucky Seve Seven n” is based upon Rober Roberto to Giobbi’ Giobbi’ss “Seven, “Seven,”” which was Genii magazine, published in the May 2006 issue of Genii magazine, pages 16-18. Roberto designed the trick so he could teach it at the seventh “Gathering for [Martin] Gardner”—a private convention convention attended by magicians, puzzle experts, and mathematicians. Given the large number of non-magi non-magicians cians at the convention, Rober Roberto to’’s handling was essentially “self-working.” But as he observed (with lovely wit), magicians would “instantly come up with numerous complications” (page 16), and he off ered ered some of his own. I explored Roberto’s re�nements and tried several additional ones. In the end, I came up with the following handling, which is actually easier and more deceptive than the original at all key points. To my mind, an equal question
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unexplained weaken our magic.) Musing about that quickly lead to the theme of luck, which runs throughout the entire routine and holds it all together. together. My work on “Seven” is included in this book with Roberto’s kind permission. He asked me to mention his own work was inspired by Gary Plant’s “A Four-tunate Choice” (Genii (Genii,, September 1997) and by suggestions from Richard Vollmer. I am happy to do so, as well wel l as with off er er my thanks to all three gentlemen for their creativity and generosity. And yes. . . there is a great give-away at the end.
Script Every day in Las Vegas, people win big by trusting to luck. Let’s see if today is your lucky day day. Shuffle the cards. Go ahead: really mix them up. Are you satis�ed? Now I will not change the order of the cards, but I am going to remove one for later. later. Tis one! [ Te card is set aside but kept secret, either in a glass or on the table. Face the participant and start dribbling the cards, slowly and fairly.] At some point, say “stop.” Right here? Are you sure? Would you like me to drop off a a few more or start over? Here it is; remember it! [Turning your head, show the top card of the lower portion; then drop the remaining portion on top of it.] Take the cards and mix them. . . . Now go through the deck and remove a bank of any ten cards. Just make sure your card is among them. Let’s doubledouble-check check:: one, two, three, four four,, � ve, six, six, seven, eight, eight, nine, and ten. Good! Now I’ll deal the cards back-and-forth, like so, mixing them as we go. [You reassemble the two piles and start the dealing again.] Tis time you can see how they are mixed: watch the. . . Tree of Hearts [keep dealing]. Ah! See, this time the Tree of Hearts is over here. Again, now it is over here. You You see how it goes. Here’s the game: I will keep dealing the cards, mixing them as we go. . . Whenever you feel lucky, tell me when to stop. [Sotto voce:] Back and forth. . . mixing as we go. Right here? Tis is a big moment. Imagine you are in Las Vegas at one of those green-felt tables. Imagine
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tell you honestly, honestly, you could win big. Shall I keep mixing or do you feel lucky right here? It is completely up to you. [Either continue mixing or stop right there, as the participant decides.] You are committed! Te die is cast; the deal d eal is done; the cards are on the table. Open the envelope. . . . Yes, it is a genuine lottery ticket. You could win big. And its yours to have. . . if today is your lucky day. You will remember I removed this card before you even selected your card! It has been here the whole time. It is a Seven, a lucky Seven. [Counting down from the top of the pile on the table:] One, two, three. . .watch closely. . . four, � ve, six, six, and. and. . . seven. [Slowly and fairly isolate the seventh card.] Let’s see how you did. What is your card? [Turn the seventh card over; it is exactly the participant’s card.] You did it! You win! It’s your lucky day. [ Te participant keeps the envelope envelope and lottery ticket as a gi f f .] .]
What Is Happening Roberto’s original handling used the “Criss-Cross Force” to force the selection. Ten afer retrieving the ten-card packet, which includes the selection (the force card), you turn the packet face up to glimpse its position. A fer that, you perform a displacement (if necessary) to position the selection in the seventh s eventh position from the top. While the dealing procedure (to be described describ ed below) moves the positions of other cards, the seventh se venth card never changes position and the outco outcome me is assured. While I explored the use of other forces, such as the Hofzinser Cull Force (of which my handling is described in Transformations: Creating Magic Out of Tricks, Allentown: Teory and Art of Magic Press, 2007, pages 77-79), I did not especially like having to turn the ten-card packet face up to locate the position of the force card. Tat action, followed by the displacement, seemed to be just a bit too much “perceptual noise” at a crucial point in the routine. I quickly realized I could eliminate both the “face-u “face-up p glimpse” and the force by using a marked deck. (For the record, I use the “Ultimate Marked Deck” because they are Bicycle cards printed by the US Playing Card Company and because the marks are perfectly positioned at the corners.) From time to time, when working impromptu, I have performed “Lucky Seven” with the Hofzinser Cull Force and the face-up glimpse, but afer exploring the idea of giving a lottery ticket away at the end, I rarely use
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As mentioned at the outset, I realize that the above script and handling— with mixing, selection, dealing, displacement—might read as procedural and “hands-y.” But this isn’t how the piece plays. It all �ows smoothly and naturally. And with the application of the marked deck, “Lucky Seven” is about as clean as card magic gets. Te preparation is simple: the cards are on the table already from a previous piece or in a pocket of my jacket; a small, bright red envelope with a lottery ticket inside is in another pocket. Te action proceeds in keeping with the script. I will pick up the script at the �rst place that requires elaboration. “Now I will not change the order of the cards, but I am going to remove S evens and place one for later later.. Tis one!” At this point, remove any one of the four Sevens it aside, sight-unseen, on the table. For me, if there is some kind of appropriate glass, like a large-mouth wine glass, I will place the Seven in it, back toward the audience. I like the visual aesthetic this creates. “At some point, say “stop” “stop”. . . . Would you like li ke me to drop off a a few more or start over? Here it is; remember it!” Slowly and fairly dribble-drop the cards from one hand to the other. Because you are using a marked deck, you can stop wherever the participant wants, so underscore that this is completely fair. When the participant (say, a man for this description) is satis �ed, glimpse the mark on the top card of the bottom portion and, while immediately turning your head away, use your thumb to slide his selection to the side so he can see its face. With your head still turned, slide the card back square with the deck and place the top portion on top of all; then t hen square the deck, slowly and fairly. fairly. Only then turn to face the participant and immediately hand him the cards. “Take “T ake the cards and mix them. . . . Now go through the deck and remove a bank of any ten cards. c ards. Just make sure your card c ard is among them.” them.” It is important to tell him to remove a bank of ten cards. Tis decreases the likelihood he will remove one card at a time from diff erent erent places in the deck, which slows things down to a crawl. Tis hint doesn’t always work, but it usually does. If he starts to remove cards one-at-a-time, in certain circumstances I might reiterate it: “Take a whole group—that’s it; just make sure yours is among them.” “Let’s double-check: one, two, three, four, � ve, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. Good!” You need to make sure there are in fact ten cards or the e ff ect ect won’t work. But this counting “double-check” also makes sense to the participant.
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from hand-to-hand to read the marks and identify the selection. Tis will allow you to displace it to the seventh position, if need be. Here are the details— �rst of the displacement, then the handling and timing of it. If the selection is the top card of the packet as it is handed to you, shu ffle off one one card and throw the rest of the packet on top. Ten shuffle three single cards and throw the rest on top. Te selection is now in the seventh position (from the top). If the selection is the second card card from the top of the packet, shuffle off two two cards and throw the rest of the packet on top. Ten shuffle two single cards and throw the rest on top. Te selection is in the seventh position. If the selection is the third card, shuffle off three three cards and throw the rest of the packet on top. Ten shuffle one single card and throw the rest on top. Te selection is in the seventh position. fourth card, If the selection is the the fourth card, shuffle off four four cards and throw the rest of the packet on top. Te selection is in the seventh position. �f h card, shuffle o ff one If the selection is the the �f one card and throw the rest of the packet on top. Ten shuffle four single cards and throw the rest on top. Te selection is in the seventh position. sixth card from the top, shu ffle off two cards and If the selection is the sixth throw the rest of the packet on top. Ten shuffle four single cards and throw the rest on top. Te selection is in the seventh position. seventh card If the selection is the seventh card from the top: Stop! Do nothing! Enjoy the moment and thank the gods of magic. eighth card from the top, shu ffle off one If the selection is the eighth one card and throw the rest of the packet on top. Te selection is in the seventh position. ninth card If the selection is the ninth card from the top, shu ffle off two two cards and throw the rest of the packet on top. Te selection is in the seventh position. If the selection is the tenth card from the top (the bottom of the packet), shuffle off three three cards from the top. Te selection is in the seventh position. All of that reads as complicated, but it isn isn’t. ’t. If you take ten cards and practice placing a certain one in the seventh position from any position in the packet, you will see how quickly you will learn every placement. In some cases, it is simply obvious how the displacement should go. However, for the sake of completeness, complet eness, I have listed all the permutations above.
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is how I do it. I count the cards, from one to ten, with my attention (and my body tension) very closely focused on the cards. Afer “ten,” “ten,” I relax rela x my body bo dy and attention, attention , and look the participant in the eyes with a warm smile and a nod. I hold that moment—there is no rush; my hands with the cards are motionless. Immediately afer the participant smiles or nods back, and while still looking at him, I start the displacement shuffle as I deliver the next line, “Now I’ll deal the cards back and forth. . . .” By the time I get to the end of that phrase, the displacement is done and I start to deal the cards back and forth. Again, in short, the displacement shu ffle occurs “in-transit” between the moment of con�rmation and the beginning of the deal. Done D one this way, way, it �ies right by—especially because I have not turned the cards face up. “Now I’ll deal the cards back-and-forth, like so, mixing them as we go. Tis time you can see how they are mixed: watch the. . .Tree of Hearts [keep dealing]. Ah! See, this time the Tree of Hearts is over here. Again, now it is over here. You see how it goes.” What starts happening here is a dealing procedure that looks very natural and which will wi ll be repeated until the participant decides to stop.. Handled properly and supported with the right words, this procedure is fully stop deceptive for laypeople and for most magicians. Tey will believe both that the cards are thoroughly mixed and set into a random order by their decision about when to stop. (And they will be mistaken. . . .) Te dealing procedure is, simply enough, that the ten cards are dealt into two piles, starting on the le f, then right, back-and-forth, until the cards are depleted. At that point, the right pile is placed on top of the le f pile, and you can either deal them out again just like that, or count down to the seventh card to reveal the selection. Te procedure—dealing them out back-and-forth and then putting the right pile on the le f—always ends with the selection in the seventh position. positi on. Ver Veryy cool! You You will deceive dec eive yourself when w hen you do it the �rst several times. Te magic words to accompany the action are “deal” and “mixing”: I “deal “ deal the cards back-and-forth, mixing them as we go.” I use these words repeatedly and consistently throughout procedure. It is completely true that I am dealing the cards, but not quite entirely true I am mixing them—the them—t he seventh one doesn doe sn’t ’t move. To increase the conviction that the cards are being mixed, it is important to use Roberto’s brilliant device of the “demonstration.” Tat is, the second time
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any card), and leave it face up for three repetitions of the procedure. Te audience will see that face-up card turning up in di ff erent erent positions and diff erent erent packets. Te third time through the procedure with that card face-up (that is, the fourth time in total), it will land second down from the top of the right pile: turn the card back face down, place the right pile on the le f pile, and announce the game that the game will wil l commence, as follows. “Here’s the game: I will keep dealing the cards, mixing them as we go. . . . Whenever you feel lucky, tell me when to stop. . . . Right here? Tis is a big moment.” Troughout all this, keep going through iterations of the dealing procedure at a fairly brisk pace. Tere is no need to do it neatly. Te messier each pile is, the more random it looks. Just be sure the seventh card from the top of the combined packet stays in the second position from the top of the le f pile before reassembling the piles. And there is no need to square the ten cards afer each dealthrough. Messy is good. Tere is one further point to mention here. From time to time, the participant will say “stop” at some point in the middle of the procedure—that is, I won’t have dealt through all ten of the cards. Tis is no problem at all. I simply say, “Great! Let me just �nish this hand ,” while wh ile I �nish dealing the ten cards and put the right pile on top of the lef. Tis use of the word “hand” makes perfect sense with the procedure I have been using and the moment �ies right by. “Imagine you are in Las Vegas at one of those green-felt tables. . . . And imagine that the contents of this envelope are riding on the outcome of this hand. . . . I tell you honestly, you could win big.” Along with adding �avor (the Las Vegas setting) and an aesthetic object (the red envelope) this moment adds mystery and value to the proceedings: now they are playing for something! “So shall I keep mixing or do you feel lucky right here? It is completely up to you. . . . You are committed!. . . Open the envelope. . . . Yes, it is a genuine be st of my knowledge (and ( and con�rmed by lotteryy ticket. lotter ticke t. You You could coul d win big. big.”” To the best Max Maven), it is Richard Osterlind who �rst came up with the idea of giving giv ing away lottery tickets at the end of a routine; he uses them as the consolation prizes for his version of “Bank Night” Night” (see the DVD Richard Osterlind’s Mind Mysteries, Volume 1). Tis is a big-time, commercial idea. In “Lucky Seven,” the lottery ticket is not a the prize consolation consolatio n prize, but the prize for winning the game; it completes the script and sends the participant away with a gi f: everybody wins!
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ticket from a gas station. When I am performing in a city or state that doesn’t have a state lottery, such as Las Vegas, I use a genuine one-dollar or � ve-dollar poker chip from a famous casino, such as Harrah’s or the Rio. But I much prefer to give away a lottery ticket at the end; it �ts better with the theme of a game. “You will remember I removed this card before you even selected your card! . . .It is a Seven, S even, a lucky Seven. S even. One, two, three. . .watch closely. closely. . .four, .four, � ve, six, and. . .seven. [Slowly and fairly isolate the seventh card.] Let’s see how you did. What is your card? [Turn the seventh card over; it is exactly the participant’s card.] You did it! You win! It’s your lucky day.” Te speci�c order of events here is important for maximum eff ect. ect. First, you show the Seven. Second, you count down to the seventh se venth card and isolate it. Tird, you ask the name of his card. Fourth, you reveal that the isolated, seventh card is the selection. I should also mention that I do not ask the participant to count down and turn over the seventh card; I do it myself—slowly and fairly—so I can control the timing and drama of these elements. Until this publication, I have only explain explained ed “Lucky Seve Seven n” at a handful of magic lectures. I really hope you enjoy this piece. “Lucky Seven” is a worker.
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5 Cecil Lyle’s “Paper Hat Trick” Eugene Burger
Cecil Lyle was born in London in 1892. He made his performing debut in Birmingham in 1912, and created his famous Paper Hat Trick in 1920. He performed it at a matinee before the Duke of York on October 14, 1920, and on October 17, 1920, at the Magician’s Club in London. In his shows, the e ff ect ect was performed by Lyle’s wife. I have long belie believed ved that Ceci Cecill Lyle Lyle’’s “Paper Hat Trick” was one of the great eff ects ects of twentieth-century magic. Consequently Consequently,, I have been surprised that when many magicians perform it they throw it away as if it had no value. Te plot is simple. Two Two pieces of tissue paper p aper are shown, torn, torn , and crushed into a ball. When un-crumpled, they have transformed into a charming paper hat. I began performing the eff ect ect professionally professionally in the late late 1970s. In the early 1980s, I added a second hat to my routine: �rst, the traditional brimmed hat for a lady, then a stocking-type hat for a man. When I began performing it as a stage routine in the 1990s, I changed the sequence: I �rst made the stocking hat for myself, and then the brimmed hat for the lady assisting me. While basic hats can be purchased from magic dealers, the hats I use are of my own design. My major aim was for the performer to make both the brimmed and stocking hats with two identical ide ntical sets of tissue paper pape r. Previously, since each type typ e
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Also, I modi�ed the design with a star-trap pocket for easier handling. My hats are produced by Robert Charles in Chicago. Tey are the only hats that I have ever authorized. Interested readers should contact Robert directly at:
[email protected].
Performance Unfold the two pieces of tissue paper so the black piece with the pocket is toward 27). your body on the right side ( � gure 27).
← (Red)
(Black) →
Figure 27
Te pieces may be casually separated and shown: the red paper is
in the lef hand; the black is in the right, with the right wrist turned so that the pocket is hidden (see � (see � gure 28) 28).. Put the pieces back together, with the black piece nearest to you, and 29). Put the le f, loose pieces in front of tear them to the lef of the pocket ( � gure 29). the right pieces with the pocket and tear again. Again, put the le f, loose pieces in front of the right pieces with the pocket. p ocket.
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(Black) →
(Red) →
Figure 28
← (Red)
(Black) →
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which exposes the folded hat. Te hat is now unfolded. Tat is the basic technical handling of the props. In my performance of this eff ect, ect, the presentational frame is that this is a magic lesson for the assisting audience member. On stage, I usually have two chairs and the lady and I sit in them. I make the man’s hat �rst and put it on my own head—and then the hat for the lady is made. We both wave our hands (“in a mysterious way”) over the crumpled paper and I conduct the entire process in a light, but serious way. way. When I performed the eff ect ect in a show with Jeff McBride McBride in Atlantic Atlanti c City, City, I performed it with a little girl from the audience and we sat on the edge of the stage. When selecting my adult participant, it is exceedingly important that I �nd a woman who has a simple hairstyle that will not be damaged by wearing the hat. Also, even though it is obvious that I will be putting the hat on her head, I always pause and ask permission to do this or ask if she would like to put on the hat. Delivered with a friendly smile, this request is never denied—but the person (and the audience) appreciates the courtesy. People frequently comment positively aferward that I asked the lady if she would like to put on the hat, rather than just moving into her space and putting it on her. I make an eff ort ort to convey that all this is being done in a light lig ht way. way. Because I put on the �rst hat, there is no sense of disrespect shown toward the participant when she receives her hat. I’m not making fun of her; rather we’re having fun together. Tis attitude makes all the di ff erence. erence. Finally,, as I have said, even though the presentation is light-hearted, I’m Finally I’m also relatively serious as I open the papers to reveal the hat. Tis serves two purposes. First, it encourages the audience to focus on the magical moment (because, a fer all, the trick is a good one—stronger than we realize). Plus, the contrast between the serious activity activ ity and the amusing result creates strong impact. I hope you’ll have as much success with this piece of magic as I have. And to Cecil Lyle, from all of us (and especially espe cially me): thank you for this wonderful gi f!
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6 Two Magical Gifs: An Interv Interview iew with w ith Eugene Burger (Conducted by Lawrence Hass in Chicago on June 10, 2009)
ects end with gifs for the audience participant. Larry : Several of your magic e ff ects How did you get started with this approach? Was there someone who in �uenced you in this way or was it your own idea? probably came from the �rst time that Don Alan gave me a souvenir gif Eugene: It probably and it was probably a card with my name on it that had been discovered in some fabulous place. ects like this. Do you have a favorite? Larry : So let’s talk about magic e ff ects the greatest—close-up Eugene: Absolutely! I think one of the greatest—if not the magic gif eff ect ect is Bert Allerton’s Aspirin Tin trick. Te eff ect ect is deeply deceptive and the gif is so special because it is placed in an envelope with the person’s name on it. I think that it truly is one of the great eff ects ects of close-up magic mag ic generally. gene rally. You You can �nd it in Robert Parrish’s wonderful book about Bert Allerton, Te Close-Up Magician Magicia n (Magic Inc., 1958). I discuss it extensively in my book, Te Performance of Close-Up Magic Magic (Kaufman and Company, 1987), and I perform it during the
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Larry: Larr y: Yes, I remember! It was a most memorable night. ect Eugene: What I want to do here is explain my most up-to-date handling of the e ff ect because I have made some improvements, but my script has remained unchanged. Magic . Readers interested in that should go to Te Performance of Close-Up Magic. Larry : Let’s start with the e ff ect. ect. What is going on?
ect is that an audience member selects a card and then initials a Eugene: Te eff ect small piece of photographic paper, which is placed in an aspirin box that is not snapped shut. Te audience member then picks up the aspirin box with their thumb on the bottom and �ngers on top and aims it like a camera at the selected card. Tey click the box shut as if they are taking a picture. Ten the audience member opens the aspirin box to �nd that the initialed photographic paper now has a photograph of their selected card. And it gets better because the performer now attaches the photo of the card to the card itself using a picture corner used to secure photos in albums. Tis is placed in an envelope and the audience member’s name is written on it in reverse writing, just as Bert Allerton did. Te envelope is then given to the audience member as a delightful gi f. Now Allerton himself went one step further, because on the �ap of the envelope he had his name and telephone number number.. But depending on your view of marketing that is either a good goo d idea or a bad one. Larry : But you haven’t done that. . . . Eugene: No, I never have because I think it changes the nature of the gif. If the envelope doesn’t have my name and contact information it is a pure gi f, but if it does then it is becomes advertising.
ect? Larry : Besides you and Bert Allerton, who else has done this great e ff ect? Eugene: Don Alan performed it too, and that got me in some trouble.
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Well, I never ne ver knew kne w this, but apparently Don D on felt that he was Bert B ert Allerton’ All erton’s Eugene: Well, successor. . . . Larry : Ah, in Chicago and in close-up magic. . . . Eugene: . . .yes, and he apparently felt felt that all of Bert’ B ert’ss material belonged to him. So So from his perspective Robert Parrish had no right to write that book which I read as an innocent reader, reader, and I had no right r ight to write about the trick in Te Performance of Close-Up Magic because Magic because it was his. Now the story has a happy ending because before Don lef Chicago we had the opportunity to perform at a few parties together and he would give me rides home, so we had a chance to work this all out. By the time he lef Chicago we had made peace on this subject. But previously I had no idea what I was walking into. I had read a trick in a book and because I thought I had signi�cantly changed the method, I thought that it was open to discuss. Let’ss talk about how the trick is accomplished. In the bottom of the Let’ aspirin tin is a removable bottom—a rectangular piece of �le card. Above that is the photograph of the card, photograph side down, and above ab ove that is a false bottom on the bottom of which is a magnetic shim. Once the audience member inspects the photographic paper and places it shiny side down in the aspirin tin then you lif away the false bottom with the blank paper above it by covering the tin with something that has a magnet. Tat leaves in place the photograph itself for the audience member to put his or her initials on. Bert Allerton had his magnet in a match matchbook book and he justi�ed placing the matchbook match book on top of the tin with w ith this off -handed -handed comment, “. “. . . and you can make ma ke a little darkroom.” In Bert’s day you didn’t have much choice in magnets, so he used a horseshoe magnet and because be cause it was so strong he had to pick up the aspirin tin and hold it or the entire tin would have moved or stuck to the bottom of the matchbook. I found a magnet compan companyy in the Chicago suburbs, took my false bottom with the shim there, and experimented until I found a magnet that would pick up the false bottom without moving the tin. Now I had a much better situation. Te tin would never have to be touched—it was just laying on the table. Te next step was that I put the magnet in a stack of cards, which you can read about in Te
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If I were to take out a book of matches in someone’s home or even in a restaurant people would look at me as if to say, “What’s going on here? Are you going to light that match?” So my idea to put the magnet in a small block of cards was a good one. But in 1994 when I produced the eff ect—I ect—I made up and quickly sold a thousand of them—my friend Jack Gould had a brilliant idea, which was to put the magnet, not in a small group of cards, but rather in the card box itself. Tis was perfect because it meant you didn’t have to bring this small stack of cards in and out of play; the box was always there. Ten later I realized I could go one step further: I came up with a way to make the magnet removable by placing the magnet on a double-bla double-blank nk playing card that attaches to the inside of the card box. So for the �rst time, here are the details on this. ( � gure 30). 30). I take a card box and fold its �ap all the way back (
Figure 30
Ten I insert a
double-blank card into the box, draw a pencil line across the card at double-blank the folded edge, and cut off the the excess card. In the center of the blank card I place the magnet with a piece of heavy tape and in two corners I place two pieces of Blutack. Now this card can be inserted into the card case ( � gure 31) and the Blu-tack
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Figure 31
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Larry : Tat is really good! I recall that at one point you used a �ash bulb in the routine, didn’t you? Eugene: Yes, and that was quite fun, but then the Magicube �ash cubes became very difficult to �nd so I dropped that part. Larry : What makes this a great close-up trick? Eugene: First of all, it has a simple plot: we are taking a picture using an aspirin box as a camera. It is simple, but it is also weird and o eat. Also at the end everything is examinable and of course the audience member is presented with this amazing personalized gif. Larry : Where does one �nd an aspirin tin today? Most aspirin containers are plastic. Eugene: I have had students �nd them on ebay. In fact, one friend acquired one for “Blackstone Aspirin” from the 1920s or 1930s. But you know, Larry, this really is a trick for the few and not the many. Over the years I have had many people write to me about it, but not very many have gone to the trouble to make it up and incorporate it into their working repertoire. And further, it really is a close-up trick: it is a amazing trick for two or four people, but when you get to six or eight it becomes less eff ective ective because you can’t see it as well. For instance, it would absolutely not work in the Close-Up Room at the Magic Castle; that venue is just too big for this intimate trick. Tis is a trick for the few. Tis is true in another sense too because I always viewed it as a special trick—one that not every one was going to see. Tis e ff ect ect was for the wife of the president of the company. Tis was for the person who was paying the bill at the dinner party or for his wife. Tis is for the special person—it isn’t for just anybody. And you know, I have had people come up to me ten years later and say that they still have this envelope on their refrigerator. Isn’t that amazing? It is because you are giving such a unique and personalized gif. Larry : Where do you �nd envelopes that are exactly the right size for poker-size playing cards?
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Instead you want to go to a printer that specializes in wedding invitations. Or you could go to Crane Paper Company C ompany,, which you can �nd in malls in many cities; they have an envelope that is the perfect size. You could also look for the Eaton Paper Company and get their “Mr. and Mrs.” size envelope. Larry : So this is not a hard thing to �nd—envelopes that are just the right size. Eugene: Not at all, if you go to the right place. Larry : Let’s talk about personalizing the envelope. How do you do it? Eugene: I do what Allerton did—I write the participant’s name with reversed letters. Happily, there are only twenty-six letters to learn and one can learn how to do this in i n no time. time . But I must say, say, I still have h ave trouble with “W” “W”s; s; I turn the th e envelope upside down and make an “M.” I guess that is my little block. [Editor’s note: to see 33.] how all the letters are made and some samples of names, see � see � gure 33.] Larry : I suppose once you have practiced the letters thoroughly you can write someone’ss name ver someone’ veryy quickly quick ly.. Eugene: Yes, Yes, in fact fac t I timed myself mysel f before you came and I wrote the name “George” in twenty-� ve seconds. Larry : Have you used these personalized envelopes with other routines? Eugene: Yes, Yes, I have used us ed them with my Burned Burn ed Card routine, “A “A Bizarre Ritual” (in Te Experience of Magic, Magic, Kaufman and Greenberg, 1989), in which a pentagram is burned into a selected card. Tis card also makes an interesting souvenir.
ect when you write the name is an epilogue—it happens Larry : Tis part of the eff ect afer the magical eff ect. ect. How do you manage this dramatically so you do not lose peoples’ attention? Eugene: First of all, the audience does not know what I am doing, so they pay close attention as they are trying to �gure that out. Second, it only takes about
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around and they suddenly see their name. So it is a revelation. ahs and ohs in and ohs in that moment, or even another round Larry : So you must get some ahs of applause. Eugene: Absolutely. Larry : Let’s talk a bit more generally about gi fs and gif magic. How do you think about the relationship relationship between magic and gi g ifs? Eugene: I think that the question of gi fs takes us to the heart of magical performance. One of the most important things to realize about a gif is that it can be rejected; it can be dismissed or, if accepted, discarded later. For a gif to be received and treasured, especially a magic eff ect ect that becomes a gi f, it must be given value by the giver. And this is equally true with magic generally. For a magical performance to be received as a treasure by our audiences, as something special, it must be perceived as having value. Tat is why I say that the question of gifs takes us to the heart of magical performance: a magic e ff ect, ect, whether it ends as a gif or not, must be given value by the performer if it is to be b e received as something truly special.
per formances? What What do you have in mind? Larry : How do we give value to our performances? Eugene: Years ago I was involved in religion and I used to go to a lot of religious services. One thing I noticed, particularly in Roman Catholic services, was the way priests handled things. You can see that there are ways of handling things that give them value, that seem to honor the item as opposed to just picking it up and using it. So part of it is learning to respect the world of things, isn’t isn’t it? Part of it is also my intention and my attitude that gives my performance value. I think that this is at the heart of whole thing when it comes to magic, and I think that this is part of what was lost in the twentieth century: the sense that magic has value. But I also think that in the twenty- �rst century this is going to come back—in fact, it already has started.
er to my magic Larry : One of your quotes that I frequently think about and o ff er
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peripheral or optional; it is the whole thing really, really, if one wants the audience to feel that something special is happening. Eugene: Yes. . . . Larry: Let’s talk about some of the permutations you mentioned earlier. You said that a gif can be refused and not accepted. How and why does that happen? Eugene: Let’s say you give me a book and I don’t have any intention of reading it. In that case I might say to you, “Perhaps you can �nd a better home for this book because it really isn’t my cup of tea.” First of all, I am being truthful, but also when I say that, you appreciate the fact that I appreciate the fact that you are giving me a gi g if. So I am honoring the gif by saying it could “�nd a better home” and I am not rejecting it or the spirit of your gif in a negative way because I really do want to help it �nd a better home. Larry : So you might refuse a gif when you aren’t able to appreciate it or enjoy it? Eugene: Yes. And then a person might also accept a gi f and later reject it. Tis happens as well. Jay Inglee tells the story of going out to dinner and there was a magician present who did Card in the Wallet and at the end he gave the signed card to Jay’s aunt who received it very graciously. But when the performer walked away from the table she turned to Jay and explained exactly how the trick was done—how he had palmed the card off and and then put it in his wallet—and then she ripped the card into three pieces and dropped them in the ashtray. And of course the performer never understood that the gif had been rejected. He thought it was a fabulous success [laughter]. Larry : So I wonder, did he actually give her a gif? I mean if his magic was so weak that she could penetrate it perfectly. . . . Did he actually give her a gi f or did he only think he had? It seems to me there is an important lesson here for magicians who would give gifs when they perform: just because you give something out at the end doesn’t mean you have given a gif.
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Larry : Why is it usually easier to give a gif than to receive one? Eugene: I think it is about ego. Giving a gif may strengthen my ego because it feels good and I am in control. Receiving a gi f makes me vulnerable to you, the giver. And that can be scary. For example, think about how many people say, “You shouldn’t have!” I think that comes from the discomfort of being vulnerable to the giver. I think one of the most important things in life is learning how to receive gifs in a way that encourages people to give more and not less. Tis is true for everyone at all levels of society. society. We We need to learn how to receive the gi g ifs of others in a way that honors both the gi f and the giver and doesn’t reject them.
Yes, another, subtle way this reject rejection ion goes goe s is for me to say, “Oh “Oh thanks, thanks , now Larry : Yes, I will give you a gif tomorrow tomorrow,,” and then the n we have just started a system of exchange e xchange or a transaction. Eugene: And that is not a gif. Larry : Would you say then that every magical performance is itself a gif, or could be given in the spirit of a gif? What speci�c things might be required for a performance of magic to be given or experienced as a gi f? Eugene: Well, I don’t think of magic generally as a gi f. Tat is not the model or the metaphor I would use. Te reason I wouldn’t wouldn’t use it is because when I give a gif I no longer have it—that is part of the very character of a gi f. But with a magic performance, I still have my performance and can do it for others. Indeed, I have not given my performance per formance away. away. So for me, performing per forming magic mag ic for others isn’t isn’t a gif; it is a sharing . It is a sharing of something. We share it together, but I also keep it too. It seems to me that this is something subtly di ff erent erent from giving a gif. Larry : So magic is a sharing, and some magic can end with a gif given. But I see a fair amount of magic today that doesn’t seem like either of those. What do you think is going on? Eugene: I think a lot of the magic we see today is ego-driven. It is about me, the
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so o fen see in so-called comedy magic. Tere isn’t much sharing going on there, is there? recommendations for magicians seeking to explore Larry : Do you have any other recommendations these ways of performing—as a sharing or with a gif at the end? Eugene: First, I think one needs to understand the goal—one needs to just see the goal. And for me the goal is a magical interaction with a person or with a group of people. Whether it is a stage show or a close-up show, to me magic is about an interaction or relationship—a relationship—a magical sharing of something. Being B eing clear about that is the very �rst thing. And then I am in a position to ask what I am doing that contributes to this or what I am doing that takes away from it. We need to ask this with honesty and clarity because, be cause, for example, not all laughs are good laughs, and even though I get a laugh on some s ome line the audience actually may be thinking that I am a jerk.
Yes, indeed, indee d, one thing we know is that sometimes people laugh because bec ause they Larry : Yes, feel distinctly uncomfortable, or because they have been surprised, not because they “feel good. goo d.” Eugene: Yes. Giving a gif or sharing something with someone are really beautiful things. One doesn’t want to “yuck it up” or make it foolish or cheesy and common. ...
sentimental. Larry : . . .or overly sentimental. Eugene: Yes. Larry : A gif you are giving in this book is your �rst-ever explanation of the way you perform Cecil Lyle’s “Paper Hat Trick” [chapter 5]. I have seen you perform it dozens of times and it is always a big hit. Why do you think it is so e ff ective? ective?
magica l to non-magicians. When I started performing Eugene: Because it looks so magical
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solid, entertaining minutes! [laughter]. Te frame I use for it is “ Te Magic Lesson Lesson..” Te lesson isn’t isn’t only for the person up there with me, but also for magicians in the audience. Te lesson for them is about how to take a trick that everyone else has thrown away and turn into something special. So. . .it is very easy to do, and that is always a help help,, but it is a charming trick and to a lay person it absolutely looks like magic. Larry : I also think it is also a place where you establish and develop your performing character: charming, delightful, and fun. Eugene: Yes. Larry : When you perform it on stage you �rst create the man’s hat and put it on yourself and then make the hat for the lady or little girl, but you once told me that t hat at corporate parties you begin by creating the lady’s hat. What is that about? Eugene: [laughs] It is about me trying to make certain guys in the audience feel a little uncomfortabl uncomfortable! e! To explain that I need to back up a little. My �rst breakthrough with the hats was realizing that I needed to have the hats made myself because there was no one who was making a ladies’ hat and a stocking cap with the exact same size and color of paper. And that was what I wanted to have: both hats made out of the same size and color of paper. So at a corporate party, I will bring up with me both a man and a woman, I will make the ladies’ hat, and then everyone laughs. But it is important to say that I always select a woman whose hairstyle is such that she would be willing wi lling to put the hat on. Not that I am going to make her, because I never just put the hat on her myself. No, I always hand it to her or say, “May I” or “Would “W ould you like li ke to wear this?, this?,”” because be cause I don d on’t ’t want to get into i nto her space. spa ce. So afer I have made the ladies’ hat and gotten gotten a laugh, then I look at the guy in the audience I want to tease and say, “Why are you laughing?” as I take out two more identical pieces of paper. What is beautif beautiful ul about this moment is that the guy doesn’ doesn’tt know where this is going, and no one knows, and the question is whether I am going to make
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I am just �nishing unrolling the hat I immediately say, “Why look, it is a little pirate hat for you!” and that stops anyone from thinking it is a dunce cap that children in nineteenth-century schools ofen had to wear as punishment. Because I do not want him embarrassed at this moment, not at all. At this moment I want everything to be happy and resolved. So I call it a pirate hat and hand it to him, and if he is a good sport he will put it on because she put hers on, and if he doesn do esn’t ’t put put it on, it doesn’t matter to me. You know this is a fabulous trick. Once I was doing a Bar Mitzvah for the son of the largest commercial �orist in the city and the party was at the Park West, which is a quite an excellent Chicago location. When I arrived, there was a fourteen-piece band, nine of which were horns. I started my �rst walk-around performance and I was screaming to be heard. But I had happened to bring sixty hats with me and so I just started making hats. It was kind of embarrassing because people got in line for them, and I felt like a balloon artist, you know? But when I lef, the guy who paid me gave me a hundred dollar tip and said, “You were wonderful,” because he looked out into this room and there were all these people wearing these goofy hats. And so I was a great success that night. I have always carried a lot of hats with me, just for those situa situations tions I might encounter where the music is so loud that I have to move away from speaking toward tricks that are visual, and this is a great one. Te other thing I have done at Christmas time is had the hats made in red and white so the stocking cap would look like a Santa hat, and I would use them for both women and men. Larry : Have you ever tried other hat styles? Eugene: No, these are the only two styles I have worked with: the Cecil Lyle hat, which is the ladies’ hat, and the stocking cap. Tis is an astonishingly wonderful trick. Larry : How do you get into this?
approach for a corporate event, so I will talk Eugene: I have already discussed my approach about how I do it on stage. First, I will do it either with a little girl or with w ith a woman. Again, the key is to select someone who is going to have fun with this and who
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will usually sit on the edge of the stage and if it is a woman I have two chairs brought out for us to sit in. I begin by explaining that this is the magic lesson and I am going to teach her a piece of magic that is called the “Paper Mystery.” I take out the two pieces of paper and show them, and I do this with my right hand turned over so the po cket is 28 in the previous chapter]. Ten I tear hidden under the piece of paper [see � [see � gure 28 in the paper up [as described in the previous chapter] and say to the woman, “Now we must say a magic word. Let’s use the oldest magic word known: ‘Abracadabra.’ It means, it is created as it is spoken.” Now I wave my hand while stressing out the syllables, syllabl es, “Abracadabra!” “Abracadabra!” I stop, look at her, look back ba ck at the paper pape r, look at her he r, look back at the paper, then I open it, and it is the stocking cap. No one knows what is going to happen to it, and then I put it on myself. Ten I take the woman’s hand and I swing sw ing it between b etween us, and that th at gets a laugh, l augh, and then t hen I say s ay,, “Ho, ho, ho, ho,” which get the big laugh because be cause I have this white beard. Ten I say to the lady, “It is your turn,” and I take out two more pieces of paper that are identical to the �rst two. I make the �rst rip and holding onto the third that has the pocket, I hand the other two-thirds to her and have her rip it again. Ten I take her pieces back from her and make the ladies’ hat. A fer I have unfolded it, I put my �nger inside the hat and twirl it on my �nger up in the air so people can see all sides of it, and then I present it her and say, “May I?” She always says, “yes, “yes ,” because bec ause she is having fun and it isn’t going to bother her haircut. h aircut. I will tell you, many people, particularly magicians’ wives, have appreciatively commented to me about the th e fact that I didn di dn’t ’t just put the hat on the woman’s woman’s head. say “abracad abracadabra abra”? ”? Larry : Two questions: the second time, don’t you have her say Eugene: Yes, Yes, I do, that’s that’s right. rig ht. I instruct instr uct her to wave w ave her hand “in “ in a mysterious mysteri ous way” and say, “abracadabra.” Larry : What then is your �nal line for the trick? A fer you have opened the hat and she has put it on her head, how do you bring the piece to a close? Eugene: I stand up, with my right hand, gesture toward the woman and say her
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7 Te (Cookie) Monster’s Dream
Rich Bloch
Credit for the basic concept of a Miser’s Dream routine with cookies goes to Bob McCallister who for many years hosted a network show originating out of New Too. Bob was a genial, loving man whose preferred mode of York, Kids Are People Too. transportation in Manhattan was roller skates. I met Bob at Tannen’s Jubilee more than thirty years ago. When he died in the mid 1970s I lost a friend f riend and so did the kids. I have added a few wrinkles to his ingenious concept.
Eff ect ect Te
performer begins the legendary Miser’s Dream routine. ( Te routine toward which every one of our uncles—who no doubt knew nothing of the title and had never read a magic book—gravitat bo ok—gravitated ed instinctively because they all pulled quarters from our ears and noses when we were young.) Believing as I do in the power of evolution and Al Fosso, I will skip the modus operandi for operandi for this iconic mystery. It su ffices to note that, consistent with the standard routine, afer producing coins from the ears, arms, and noses of audience members, the performer drops the coins, noisily, into a bucket. At some point in the routine, however, much to the performer’s astonishment, he reaches into the
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he sets the bucket aside, reaches into his pocket, and removes a folded paper lunch bag. Te performer hastily �nds another available ear on a child, produces the next cookie and still another, and drops them into the bag, where they land with an appropriate thud. At one point however the perfor performer’ mer’ss attempt to produce a cookie from mid-air fails miserably. Nothing. He tries again, without success. “Where’s the cookie?” he asks. As he turns to look behind him, the children see a chocolate chip cookie hanging from the middle of his back. Te screams continue until he reaches back, removes the cookie, and drops it in the bag; then he immediately turns the bag over onto a waiting tray, which becomes piled high with chocolate chip cookies that have, in fact, �lled the bag to the brim.
Set Up You will need two chocolate chip cookies in your le f-hand pocket and a “replica” cookie with a small hook in it, similar to a hook coin (described below). Tis is discreetly pinned to the back of your jacket before you begin. A folded lunch bag is placed in your breast pocket. A bag chock-full of chocolate chip cookies is placed on a table behind b ehind you, out of sight. (I put mine in my satchel that is placed behind me on the table.) When you have wrung as much as you can from the standard Miser’ Miser’ss Dream, secure one of the chocolate chip cookies from your pocket and make that appear instead of a coin. Produce the cookie, act surprised, then eat it. Tis will get a big laugh and it immediately signals the children as to what is in store. Look perplexed and pat your pockets as if looking for something. Reach in your pants pocket and secure se cure the second cookie, but continue continue to search for, for, and ultimately discover, the paper bag. Remove it with your empty hand and open it. Hold the bag between your thumb (on the outside) and your middle �nger (on the inside). By snapping your �ngers, you can replicate, perfectly, the sound of something dropping dropping into the bag. Produce the palmed cookie, lower your your hand into the bag, palm the cookie again, and snap your �ngers as if the cookie had dropped. You are now ready for the next production. At some point, actually drop the cookie into the bag from well above it.
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from thin air. (At this point, you can produce an “invisible” cookie, toss it into the air and “catch” it in the bag with the appropriate thump.) Now for the build to the climact climactic ic moment. Reach into the air, searching searching,, apparently unsuccessfully, for yet another cookie. As you are searching and asking where the cookie might be, turn your back to the audience. Te children will immediately notice the cookie hanging in the center of your coat and scream. Tis is the moment you’ve you’ve been waiting for: while your back is turned, simply ditch the empty bag and switch it for the bag full of cookies. As you turn back, thank them for the discovery, reach behind you, and unhook the dummy cookie. I generally say something snappy such as, “I’ll keep this one for me and [dumping the full bag onto the tray] these are for you!” You may pass the tray around at that point. Tis will give the children ample time to eat the cookies during your show and wipe their hands on the furniture. In the event you should wish to ingratiate yourself with the hosts rather than incurring their everlasting enmity, you might consider telling the children, “I’m “I’ m going to put these cookies c ookies in i n bags, one for each e ach of you. At the end of the party par ty,, each of you who has behaved will have a bag of cookies to take home.” Te more entrepreneurial among you will print up appropriate promotional stickers for the little goodie bags. A �nal note on the misdirection cookie. It’s awfully hard to secure a bent pin to a real cookie. I have opted, instead, to simply cut out the picture of a chocolate chip cookie; they usually have a juicy one on the bag of cookies you’re going to buy. buy. I glue it to a piece of cardboard with a bent b ent pin glued or taped to the back.
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8 Hypertriptych Robert E. Neale
Hypertriptych Hypertriptych is a way of mounting Hypercard for both the display and demonstration of illusion and disillusion. It is not incidental that the title refers, although not exclusively, to a picture serving as an altarpiece. Te triptych is one of my symbols of spirituality.
Hypercard and its Construction Hypercard is a small piece of cardboard that looks impossible to the eye. No diagram can do justice to such a marvelous mar velous little vision, but but see �gure 35 below b elow.. (If you are already familiar with Hypercard, Hypercard, do the really impossible thing of trying to recall how you responded when you �rst saw it.) Te card has been cut and folded into this con�guration. No cheating has occurred, such as separating and then rejoining a portion. Note the �ap sticking up and the empty spaces. How could this be? And be assured that this drawing does not do justice to the actual threedimensional object. It is a visual and mental fooler of a high order order.. Pallbearers Review Revie w, Hypercard �rst came to my attention in Karl Kar l Fulves’s Fulves’s Te Pallbearers Volume 10, Number 10 (August, 1975). It was a brief mention that illustrated
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Fulves cites Kim Iles as the source who supplied the oddity to Martin Gardner. He also states that it is used as a question on the entrance exam for the School of Architecture Architectu re at the Univ University ersity of Leningrad. L eningrad. Te source remains unknown. To construct Hyperca Hypercard, rd, use a 3” x 5” index card. Fold it in half lengthwise so that the crease runs r uns from the center of one short edge to the center of the other short edge. Fold it in half the other way so that the crease runs from the center of one long edge to the center of the other long edge. Fold each of the short edges to the center crease you have just made. Te card is divided into eighths. Cut the 34. three slits shown in � in � gure 34.
Figure 34
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To form the oddity, give the right half of the card a half turn toward you. Tis means that the upper right corner moves up and toward you, and the lower right corner moves down and away from you. Te card should now look like � like � gure 35.. Te two sides of the card are horizontal and the �ap in the center sticks up 35 vertically.. It looks vertically looks odd instantly, instantly, and on re�ection, impossible.
Construction of Hypertript Hypertriptych ych Hypertriptych requires three 3” x 5” index cards, one 5” x 8” index card, a red magic marker, and some red plastic tape. See � gure 36 for for the completed model. Cut down a card to make a Hypercard that is 2 ½” x 4”. 4”. Color it red with the th e marker. Paste it to the exact center of the large �le card. Use the tape to attach the long edges of the small �le cards to the short edges of the large �le card. Te tape serves as hinges so that the new wings fashioned out of the small cards can be opened and closed.
Figure 36
Demonstration For display, Hypertriptych stands with the wings almost all the way open. Tey are hinged forward just enough to keep the construction upright. Te �ap of Hypercard sticks out horizontally. Once the illusion of impossibility has been
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Figure 37 When fully closed, only the center of Hypercard can be seen, the �ap sticking out between the wings, and the mystery has disappeared because the sides of Hypercard Hypercar d confuse the eyes. Disillusionment rules. Ten open up the wings again to their former position for the mystery to return. When the confusion is returned, the impossible appearance reappears. Te eyes tend to be fooled even though the mind knows better. What a gif for oneself and for others! In its humble way way,, Hypertr Hypertriptych iptych illustrates the functi function on of belie belieff systems in relation to illusion and disillusion. Te human animal lives by means of meaningss that it makes up. Without such illusions, we could have no organization meaning for survival. But these meaning-belief illusions are limited, can con �ict with each other,, and can grow other g row weak and unable to function. At the very worst, belief systems can attempt attempt to prolong the dying of illusions i llusions by defending them from the death they deserve. But at their best, they work to expose the destructiveness of not having any illusions at all. I believe spirituality to be a perpetual movement between the building up and the tearing down of illusions. When we remain stuck at either extreme, idolatries of belief or disbelief rule. But when we remain in motion, the believe rules and we are guided without diminishing ourselves spirit which is make believe rules and others. Illusionment and disillusionment are each incomplete without the other, and faith is always a movement toward one or the other. Tis tells you something s omething about what Hypertriptych means to me. Whatever
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Note
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An earlier version of this essay was published published in Te Linking Ring , official magazine of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, Volume 75, Number 3, March 1995.
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9 Gifs, Relationships, & Fetish Objects: An Interv Interview iew with George Ge orge Parker Parker
( Tis interview was held on February 27, 2010. George is at his home in Almere, a suburb of Amsterdam; Larry is in Sherman, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, and they are in conversation through Skype.)
Larry: George, let’s start with this. . . . You know the history of this book project as well as anyone because you’ve you’ve been a part of it from the very beginning. Tell Tell us f Magic came Magic came to be? about how Gi f
at Firedance 2004, held in George: Te idea was born in a conversation with Jeff at the Santa Cruz mountains. At that point, I had developed a lot of gi f magic and Jeff had had developed a lot of gif magic, and in his endlessly creative way he said, “Well, George, you should write a book!” [laughter]. I hadn’ hadn’tt thought about that at all, but his saying that did strike a chord. I felt, “this could be something.” However, I postponed it because at that point I had never written a book for magicians. But the idea stayed with me, and a year later, Jeff and and I talked about an early sketch I had put together. It wasn’t very organized
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Larry: How did Eugene come to be involved?
magicia n, and a dear George: Well, not only is Eugene a great teacher, a great magician, friend, but he is also a very experienced writer. Given my own experiences as an author, I knew if we worked together, we could make this magic book happen. So at the Magic and Meaning Conference in 2006, I shared a further draf with Eugene and he jumped on board. b oard. However, Howeve r, afer that decision, the project froze a little. Je ff , Eugene, and I all had a lot of things going on. But I kept working on my pieces—I wrote them up, brought Jay [Fortune] in to illustrate them, and put them together as a unit—and gave them to Jeff and and Eugene in the fall fal l of 2007. At that point the book was called “Te Gif of Magic” but again things stalled until you came on board in 2008. Larry: Yes, it happened when we were all performing at the Magic Castle in May 2008 for “Magic and Mystery School Week.” Knowing my work and research on the phenomenology of giving, Eugene said that I should join in the book project. George: I was so relieved when you came on. Your magic, philosophical approach, and talents as writer, editor, and publisher were a great gif to this book about gifs. And then you brought Bob Neale along, and Rich Bloch contributed contributed as well, and Jay doing the illustrations. . . . We have a perfect team—everyone is bringing his special creativity and diverse approach to the project. And friendship: fr iendship: this is a book by friends about friendship. friendship.
Le wis Hyde shows, one of the key things gi g ifs do is create c reate community, Larry: Yes, as Lewis and so the community of all of us—as writers, thinkers, and magicians—has been forged in the process of working on this book together. But also, I hope the community will expand because everyone who purchases the book is directly supporting other magicians in need through Te Encore Foundation—all of which builds and strengthens our communi community ty of magicians. George: I think you have just expressed the essence of it. I had read Lewis Hyde previously, but your keynote presentation at the Magic and Meaning Conference
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economy creates ‘wealth,’ but a gi f community creates ‘health ‘health..’” ’” and me, and Larry: So you read Lewis Hyde later in your life. I think that for Jeff and also for Bob Neale, Lewis’s book was an important in�uence and inspiration. I take it that isn’t true for you; you must have come to “magic as giving” from other sources. What were they? George: Magic had been the center of my life for about six years before I became a professional magician in 1999. Prior to that I had worked as a consultant, a management trainer, a computer systems salesman, a computer systems programmer, and before all that, I worked in health care, having studied psychology/pedagogics (or educational theory). But the connection for me between magic and gi fs happened way before that when my father put a cigarette into his hand, opened it, and his hand was empty. As a � ve-year old boy, boy, my �rst reaction was not “How did he do that?”—a rational thinking reaction. Instead, it was these deep butter�ies in my stomach, this strong feeling, and a sense that suddenly anything was possible. Tis felt like a great gif. It was really from this experience that I realized a gif could be anything— it didn’t have to have a bow on it, it didn’t have to be money or material things, it didn’t even have to be announced with words. My father showed me that a gi f could be an experience. ex perience. He had created for me what I now call cal l a “positive trauma” trauma” [laughter], which is what I now try to create and design for people in my shows and presentations. In any event, back then I knew I wanted more of that experience and wanted to see if I could create it for other people. So I got a magic kit, but was utterly disappointed—even devastated—because all it contained were “tricks.” Tere was nothing even near to what I had felt with my dad. A fer that, I stayed away from magic and started to �nd the connection in literature, such as Edgar Allen Poe. Tis was great because Poe explores mystery, the unknown, and other universes, which was kind of like the magic I had felt, but still pretty distant. I remember almost aching for more. For instance, I have a vivid memory from that time about wanting to be able to instantly materialize materialize a real pie on my hand using
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Afer that, because of that desire—rooted in my dad’s astonishing piece of magic—I started to treat my own life as a laborato laboratory ry in which I could make my visions into into something real. real. Tat is what all those di ff erent erent jobs were about and all the changes from one project to another: another : I was pursuing magical transformations transformations in my own life, which all �nally came together when I plunged into magic in 1993 or so. And the process of reinventing myself, my relationships, and my work hasn’t stopped. Larry: Besides that experience with your father, was there a rich gi fing culture in your family or around you growing up? How did you come to realize there t here was more to life that “wealth”? George: Well, my parents were both very generous people. Not just in giving me “stuff ,” ,” but in their attention and interest in me. For instance, we would go on a road trip or something and my mother would say things like, “George, did you just see that? Did you notice what what that looked like?” I would have to say say that both my parents gave me the gif of helping me be aware of the richness of the world around me. Larry: I also remember your telling me about being in �uenced by a signi�cant gif-giving holiday in Holland. . . . George: . . . Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas is the holiday based on an actual person Sint Nicolaas (Saint Nicolas) who died in 328 A.D.; he is the mythological root source for “Santa “Sant a Claus. Claus .” Te story is that he rode around on a boat full of gi fs, distributing them as he went. So in Holland, we celebrate celebrate his birthday on December 6th with a gif-giving tradition. Te basic practice is probably familiar to Americans—where everyone puts their name into a hat, then takes the name of someone for whom you need to make or buy a gi g if. But in Holland, there is more to it. Of course you have to get a gif for your person (although the gif could be anything and it didn’t need to be expensive). But you also had to wrap the present in a surprising way. Ideally you would create something that was related to this person’s character or preferences. So if your
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To top it all off , you have to write a poem for the person, p erson, one that comments on the person in a funny, but also very honest way. Te spirit of this is for you to give the person the gif of your honest, perhaps critical, yet loving commentary. My father was a master at this. I still have some of his poems, that is how revealing they were [laughs]. It is all pretty complicated and fun, but the point here is that growing up with this practice was extremely in �uential upon me because gifgiving had to be b e so thoughtful, intentional, and personal all at once. per form Larry: Let’s shif gears, from past in�uences to the present. When do you perform this kind of magic? What inspires you to move into a gi f-magic mode when you are out-and-about out-and-about in the world? questi on with a bit of history. h istory. Te �rst piece of gif George: I have to approach your question magic I developed was producing a little gemstone. gemstone. . . . Larry: . . .which is in this book. . .
be cause I have been doing it so long and George: . . .yes. Tis is especially dear to me because it is easy to carry around. And giving someone a gemstone has a little something special to it. It seems to have more meaning than candy or money. Now I am not a believer in the t he power of the stones, but I do believe that receiving a stone can aff ect ect someone in a powerful way, if you know what I mean. I love how the stone can trigger someone’s mind into a state of beauty and interest. In any event, I started working with gemstones to practice my palming and other sleights, but before long it developed into a presentation that engaged the participant and gave them a very powerful p owerful experience. Tis is a piece of magic you do not do “for” someone, but “with” them. Tis is true with all the gi f magic I perform. I am, above all, interested in turning “objective observers obser vers”” into “subjective participants, parti cipants,”” as Jeff would would say. I want to involve them in the process of the magic happening itself. As readers will see with “Gems “Gemstone tone Gif” [chapter 2], the participant is involved from the very start in mirroring the movements of my hands, which very quickly becomes interactive. i nteractive. But that also adds to the deep deceptiveness of
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astonishing. So now I can answer your question. It is important to choose “when” and “who” very carefully because if I do not, then the person won’t really have a signi�cant experience. I quickly discovered that you don’t do this piece for just anybody at any given moment. You have pick and choose the person and the place carefully. For example, as I mention in the write-up, if I am doing a show at a theater,, I might perform it for a person who is not going to be theater b e able to see the show because he or she will be working during it. I found in that type of situation, the person would be very open to joining in. Another thing I do to increas increasee success is “warm things up.” For example, I sometimes start by asking, “Would you like a gi f?” Tat question sets the stage for the interaction I am afer, and I can use the character of their response as a way to know how much or how little interaction will be appropriate. In Holland, for example, when you ask someone, “How are you?” it is normal for people to really,, honestly tell you! [laughter]. So when I ask a question like this, I listen, pay really close attention to them, and use the relationship that is developing to deliver the material gif. In my various experiments, I quickly realized that I needed to develop variations of my pieces so I could have a version to perform when I didn didn’t ’t have much time to develop the relationship. An example of this is the Quick Version of “Gemstone Gif.” I wanted to be able to do this eff ect ect quickly, say, for a waiter who had given me exceptional service. Tat is the perfect kind of moment to take a bill that I will wil l leave as a tip, wrap it around my thumb, and then pour p our out the gemstone for them. (Tis idea was inspired, I think, by something Roger Klause used to do—he would wrap a bill around his �nger and produce coins from it, like a little cornucopia.) I especially like this with the money and a gemstone because it deepens what is going on: the two di ff erent erent economies are connected in this presentation— one is wrapped around the other—and that pleases me very much. Larry: How do you deal with the situation in which you are about to perform this meaningful gif magic, but the person doesn doesn’t ’t join in because of previous bad experiences with magicians? magici ans? How How do you deal with the resistance that some people have when they hear magic is about to happen?
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But in those few cases when someone is skeptical, it is even better! b etter! Tis is one of the things I have learned as a pro: the most powerful magic happens when someone’s expectations are low [laughs]. have their suspicions suspicions [laughs]. . . . Larry: Ah! So you let them have George: . . . absolutely! But in my experience, it is much more usual to receive a diff erent erent kind of response. For example, a few years ago I was doing a show in Copenhagen, having a bite before going to the theater. Te waiter had been especially friendly, so as I handed him a nice tip, I launched in, “ Tis is for you. You can make a wish if you would like, because I have a gi f for you that will help your wish come true. t rue.”” Now, Now, the moment I delivered de livered that t hat line, this th is guy immediately imme diately closed his eyes and surrendered to the moment. Maybe it is just something about me, or the way I say it, but this is the reaction I get more ofen than th an not. When I say s ay,, “You “You can make m ake a wish, w ish,”” most people p eople close their eyes and now this experience isn’t about “magic” or “tricks” at all. It is simply about wishing and “away we go.” Later in the script the idea of magic is invoked, but my my participant is already so disarmed that when the stone appears, it �oors them because it is so unexpected. What is happening here is extremely important: the magic is supporting the ritual, rather than the ritual stroking my ego. Again, in this kind of performance, it is not about me; it is about the magical action and interaction creating a memorable experience. Tere is something more I want to add. When you are honest with the participant and genuinely present with them in the moment—when you create a little ritual that is meaningful to them, and then give them a powerful p owerful experience, the gif that arrives becomes a little “fetish object” for them. A fetish in this sense is a object that a person carries around to remind them of a powerful experience. Typically, the object doesn’t have much worth in terms of wealth, but it is charged with a powerful emotion now and keeps the memory of their wish alive. I think true wishes spring from our soul. So in a way the object becomes a doorway to our soul. Tis connection has always been a great part of the healing process. Tat’s why I think it contributes to our health. I call this intentional approach to gi f magic, Te Fetish Strategy.
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me. In the spirit of this, how would you reply to a critic who says, “All this stu ff about ‘wishing,’ its just for kids; you can’t really do that kind of stu ff for for adult men and women.” George: I would say in the spirit of Dunninger, “For those who understand, no explanation is necessary; for those who don’t, no explanation will suffice.” If someone truly doesn’t understand what I have been talking about, I would be the last person to try to convince him/her to do this kind of magic! But I would also invite them to play with it a little bit in order to see if some prejudice is keeping them from seeing the value here or whether this kind of magic just isn’t isn’t for them. Larry: Besides “wishes,” what are some other themes that lend themselves to gi f magic?
ers another kind of theme George: Well, “Tehis re erom” (Chapter 13) o ff ers completely: “ Tere is more than meets the eye.” For example, if you are walking through a city, you will make up in your mind an image of the city on the basis of all these impressions. But is that image really the city? Did you see everything that was really there? Tis kind of thing happens about organizations too. We form an image of what some organization or institution is, but we probably only have about twenty percent and probably far less of what is really going on. It is probably a much higher percent for what you know about your co-workers. Most people intuitively know this, but they forget. “Tehis” encourages people to form an image in their mind and then discover that there is more going going on. Tat weird, felt experience happens again and again. At the end, the participant turns over the card and sees there is yet again another sentence. My long experience with this piece is that people �nd this fun and delightful—it is a kind of gif to be reminded that there is “always more than one thinks there is.” Larry: It also occurs to me that one can “give magic” without using an explicit theme at all. George: Yes, that is what I have done with my business card for years. First, let
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Nonetheless, I wanted to turn the moment of handing out my business card into a micro-show. My thinking went like this: if an image tells us more than a thousand words, then I would add, “an experience tells us more than a thousand images.” So if I want someone to remember my name, which is a word, I need to create a strong experience with my card. So I invented a business card with an empty mirror on it in which, magically, my re�ection appears. Now the moment of giving out my card has become something more than just an exchange of information; it has become a micro-show, micro-show, a taste of what my big show is going to be. Or if the person has seen a big show, the card becomes a fetish that they might keep much longer than the average business card. Tis happens all the time: people call me and say, “I came across your business card and I remember the moment. . . .” It is eight years later! I think this shows that a charged object, one charged with the emotion and energy energ y you create as a magician, stays with people much longer than just some cheap give-away that marketers get out of a catalog. Larry: We have come back to your idea of a fetish object and what you called before “the fetish feti sh strategy. str ategy.” George: Yes, the fetish strategy makes you aware of how physical objects can be charged with emotion that is triggered by very magical routines. I believe this charging process is ritual magic. But the reverse phenomena can happen too. Rituals and ritual objects can become “dis-charged” when they have lost their meaning even though they are still performed or used. Tis can be seen especially with religious rituals, but a simple example is when one’s grandfather of eightytwo years keeps whistling at women but has no clue why he does it. Te ritual has become dis-charged. Larry: It seems then that part of our work as magicians is to charge our work with signi�cance; because if we don’t do that, our audiences won’t experience the kind of charge you are talking about.
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that will speak to those di ff erent erent speci�c audiences. It might be that I change the script, or it might be that I do di ff erent erent material itself. For example, to circle back to an earlier point, for a construction builder I might not use a gemstone or I might do it for his children so I do not directly engage him on the symbolic level, which might feel like a challenge. Of course I am over-generalizing, but you get the idea. Such a person can see it in his children and resonate with their enjoyment. For him, I would probably produce a bill, a coin, or something like that. So again, the task is to charge the experience and the situa situation tion with meaning, and that requires that we develop a whole variety of scripts, rhythms, props, cards, coins, whatever, to come up with ways to charge some speci �c object, in some speci�c moment, for some speci �c person. Larry: George, I assume you don’t believe that all the magic we do should be gi f magic. . . . George: By no means. But if you think about music, the most interesting musicians to me are the ones who are willing to explore ex plore and master diff erent erent styles of music. Tis is why I love people like Todd Rundgren or David Bowie because they are totally open to exploring new styles—or Beethoven for that matter, or Mozart or Stravinsky; they are all explorers. If you appl applyy this idea to magic, then you start to see many magicians only perform one style; they keep doing the same, s ame, repetitive thing. So for them, I think gif magic might be a perfect way to explore diff erent erent sides of themselves. For me, gif magic is important i mportant and I even weave it into my stand-up shows shows because I think thin k it adds to what people think magic can be, but it is far from the only kind of magic I do. Like the musicians I admire, I like to challenge myself, even re-inven re-inventt myself, by exploring many styles of magic. Gif magic is one of the styles I happened to have explored at some length. Larry: One last question for you. If you had three tips to give readers about performing gif magic what would they be? George: Te �rst one would be: “You are not the center of this kind of magic; the
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Second: “What do you genuinely want to give without getting anything in return, not even gratitude?” It could be an object or a piece of wisdom, whatever, but it should not be promotional since that has a commercial intention. intention. Of course, that is �ne too in it’s own place, but we are focusing on gif magic here. Te third tip is: “Start experimenting today with some trick you already have to see how you could do it in this mode, because this will cause you to explore explore your own intentions and think about who you are.” Ultimately, it might be a gi f to yourself to try working in this way! I have come to believe that these little moments of gif magic, which I have performed thousands of times, have been far more signi�cant in my life than the big, formal shows I do because they are so intimate and powerful, and they charge me so much that my scrapbook of memories is �lled with thousands of experiences, some of which will stay with me forever. forever. For just one example, once I perfor performed med “Gemstone Gif” for a woman who much later told me she had wished for her dying mother to pass away without pain. Te doctors weren’t able to take the pain away for some reason and it was horrible to see her mother like this. Two weeks later the mother was pain-free; four weeks later she passed away peacefully. I have no idea what happened here, but I do know that this woman connected something deeply personal to that performance experience and then connected the experience to a profound life event. While I do not perform gif magic to get anything back, there is no question that when the woman shared her personal story with me, I received a great gif.
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10 Zor - Rose Je ff McBride McBride
Tis
rose production was inspired when Jeff saw saw a preview for the 1998 �lm Te Mask of Zorro Zorro starring Antonio Bandaras. Tere was one shot in the preview (which does not appear in the �lm) that involves a similar production. It is very simple and direct, but extremely magical when one does not know what is coming. Tis piece also nicely illustrates what Je ff discusses discusses in his interview (Chapter 1): the connective power of magic that happens in the space between the eyes of the performer and the participant. —Lawrence Hass As Jeff performs performs “Zor-Rose,” there is no script. Te preparation is simple: remove the head and a small portion of the stem from a full-sized rose (or other similar �ower). Te head is turned upside-down so the stem can be secured against the back of the hand under a �nger ring. Jeff produces produces the rose with his right rig ht hand, and thus it is secured to the back of his le f hand. Te following description will follow that set-up, although of course you could switch the hands. Te piece is only to be performed per formed for a single person; it will not be magical magi cal to anyone at your sides. As you approach your participant, your hands are relaxed
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Figure 38 What is equally important is that you are making excellent eye contact with your participant, smiling and warm. When you get close to her (or him), about two feet away away,, your two hands will move at about the same time ti me in the following way. way. First, bring your right r ight hand up from the side, keeping the right palm toward the participant. Te palm-out right hand will settle in the middle of the space between b etween your two sets of eyes, with the “L” shape of your index �nger and thumb being at the center. (It is important that you do not lose your focus on the participant’s eyes during this motion or the connection will be broken; this means your right �ngers will be blurry to you in the space between you.) A moment a fer the right hand starts its movement, the lef hand does the same: it comes up from the side, le f palm outward; however, the palm-out lef hand settles back by the le f ear. (Te rose is concealed behind this hand.) With just one beat, and while maintaining warm eye contact, the lef hand starts slowly moving forward, as though you are going to put the participant’s face 39 captures a snapshot of this in a small frame between your index �ngers. Figure 39 captures
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Figure 39 Properly performed, the above actions should be rather hypnotic. However, you are not going to complete that expected movement of framing her face. Instead, as the lef hand approaches the right hand, you will quickly bend the le f �ngers forward so the rose is now standing upright, and your right hand will reach down 40 shows and to hold the rose so it can slip out from under your ring. ( Figure 40 exposes this movement from the side.)
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Once your right hand is holding the rose, it becomes stone still and the lef hand quickly and smoothly continues its forward bending motion so the stem is disengaged from under the ring; in one swif �uid motion, the lef hand turns palm 41).. Indeed, the hands up and comes to rest under the rose in the right hand ( � gure 41) are in a position of presentation and, smiling, you give the rose to your new friend. fr iend.
Figure 41 A couple of �nal touches are in order. First, it is important that you do not pluck the rose out from under the ring with w ith the right hand, but rather that the �ower becomes disengaged as the lef �ngers continue their downward movement. Practicing this will make the t he production smooth. Second, what makes this production deceptive and magical is that it happens so quickly in the weird place in front of the participant’s participant’s eyes where their vision moves from blur blur to focus. In In fact, you do the production on on the blurry side
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too close to her eyes or it will feel dangerous or invasive; you do not want her to blink. Gentle, �uid, and smooth is the idea. Practice and performance will teach you how to do this just right. As mentioned at the outset, reading this description or seeing the production from the side cannot convey how magical it is. Practice it and then try it out: you will see that it is extremely e ff ective. ective. Also remember the primary action here is to off er er the gif of the �ower and not to “slam, bang, smash” its production. If you keep your intention on the gi f, your performance will have the proper feeling.
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11 Something Robert E. Neale
Script How do we see ourselves when we look back over our own lives? Some people see. . .not very much. Tey draw a blank. [ Te blank face of a card is shown.] If anything, they see. . .what they could have been. When Studs Terkel was interviewing many Americans from all walks of life for his book, Working, a prostitute said. . .something. . .that became the theme for the subsequent musical. She said: If. . .I could have been [a blank card is shown] , What. . .I could have been [the other side is shown to be blank] , I could have been. . .something! [“another” side reveals a star] We all here are something. So you can c an keep this star star.. . .because .be cause you are something [the performer approaches, looks at, and gives the card to, a speci � speci �cc spectator]. . .who can be proud. . .and grateful. . .and mindful of others. As can we all.
Prop Employ a double-blank card with a large � ve-pointed star on one side. Cut the shape out of a gummed gold foil notary seal sea l two inches in diameter diameter.. Outline it with a red marker and also draw � ve short short red rays reaching outward outward from from between the
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Figure 42
Routine Te presentation can be for an
individual or a group group.. Hold the card in the palm of the open lef hand. Look toward the blank face when you say the word “blank.” Return your focus to the card a fer “She said” and hold it there while you deliver the quote quote.. Pause Pau se between “If ” and the rest of the phrase. Pause Pause between “What” and the rest of the phrase. Pause between “I could have been” and “something.” Show the �rst side blank. Use the so-called “Carlyle Turnover” to show the “second” side blank. Use a regular turnover to show the star side. To focus atten attention, tion, I give the card a minute shake down and up on the “If “If”” and again on the phrase. Afer apparently turning over the card, I repeat repe at this shake down and up on the “What” and the phrase. I give the card another minute shake up and down while giving the phrase for the last time, and then use the regular turnover to show the star side with a �nal shake.
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Turnover Use a fake turnover that twists the card one hundred eighty degrees on the same side. Consider using the standard so-called “Carlyle Paddle Move” or Phil Goldstein’s “Quadraphonic False Turnover.” For the “Carlyle Paddle Move,” brie�y, hold the card in the palm of the open lef hand. Te lef thumb moves below the card. As the hand rotates palmdown, the thumb pushes up on the card. When the hand is fully back b ack up, the card seems to be have been turned over. Place it in the right hand. Return it to the le f hand, turning it over in the normal way to reveal the star. star. For the “Quadraphonic False Turnover,” brie�y, start in the same position. Te lef thumb revolves the card over to the right r ight in book-fashion. bo ok-fashion. In a continuing action, the right hand takes the card c ard at the outer end and turns it inward. inward. Te card stays in the lef hand. It is actually turned over twice. Turn it over again in the normal way to reveal the star. For full detai details ls on both of these moves, see Phil Goldstei Goldstein n’s Focus (Seattle: Hermetic Press, 1990), pages 33 and 30, respectively.
Sources Tis piece is drawn
from the musical Working (1978), (1978), music by Stephen Schwartz, S chwartz, lyrics by Micki Grant. Te words, originally used by a prostitute, are from Studs Terkel’s book, Working: People Talk About What Tey Do All Day and How Tey Feel About What Tey Do (New Do (New York: Te New Press, 1996). And come to think of it, that prostitute was something.
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12 On Giving, Magic, & Giving Magic (Inspired by the Work of Lewis Hyde) Lawrence Hass
(Based upon a keynote presentation delivered at the Magic and Meaning Conference in Las Vegas, October 2008.)
Good afernoon everyone! Most of you know I am a philosopher, but you may not know the kind of philosophy in which I specialize. It is called “phenomenology.” Tat is a big word, but don’t let it scare you: “phenomenology” is simply “the study of living experience”—the study of experience as we live it. Phenomenologists do not seek to “analyze” experience or “explain” experience—there are other specialists who do that. Rather, phenomenologists seek to uncover and bring to light important features of living experience that have been overlooked or forgotten. forgot ten. Why do we do this kind of work? At At the outset, a brief answer will have to suffice: we do this kind of work to know what we live, so we can live it better . Phenomenology is about knowledge in the service of life. With that preamble in place, I want to tell you that during the past four or phenomenology logy of giving g iving . I have � ve years I have become deeply de eply interested in the the phenomeno been reading, thinking, thin king, and teaching about this universal human activity: giving activity: giving a
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At the same time, Jeff [McBride], Eugene [Burger], Bob [Neale], and f George [Parker] have all written about, spoken about, or actively perform gi f magic.. So my presentation today is going to interweave these two things: some magic general insights about human gif-giving and the practice of performing magic with a gif. Why am I doing this? My answer is an extension of what I just said: better,, live better, better, and I want to illuminate and clarify these things so we can give can give better give better magic. magic. For For me, this is what the best kind ki nd of philosophy does. It does not noodle around about abstract metaphysical things; rather, it tries to uncover and illuminate fundamental, important important life phenomena so we can do them better and experience them more richly. richly. magic”” I need to work for a while to Before turning to magic and “giving magic clarify the phenomenology of giving itself. And for me, the very ver y best book on this subject—the one that will guide me today tod ay,, the one that inspires me most deeply— f by is Te Gi f by Lewis Hyde. I am holding here the original 1979 edition e dition of the book, which has a rather rath er scholarly subtitle, subtit le, “Imagination “Imaginati on and the Erotic Life Li fe of Property.” However How ever,, the current edition, which is widely available at bookstores and through f : Creativity and Amazon.com, has been re-titled in a less formidable way, Te Gi f the Artist in the Modern World. ¹ Let’ss start here: Lew Let’ Lewis is Hyde is a really smart guy guy.. He is both a MacArthur Fellow and a Harvard Fellow, so he rotates his teaching between Kenyon College (where he holds a named chair) and Harvard University. Te �rst thing I would f is tell you about Te Gi f is it is not a fast read; it is somewhat dense. I don’t mean to say that it is dry or dusty-academic; it is not that. When I say “dense,” I mean you’ll need to stop every few pages and just absorb what you have read. If you do that, you’ll �nd that you are thinking about at least three things you’ve never thought of before. It is that kind of of book—a good book—one that makes makes you smarter smarter.. Indeed, I experience this book itself as a gif because it is so inspiring (as you will understand by the end of this talk); it keeps “giving” as we read and you will �nd yourself over�owing with ideas. In the time I have this a fernoon, I can only scratch the surface of the phenomena and implications implications that Lewis Hyde discusses, so if you are especially interest interested ed I encourage you follow up with the book itself. Te core, foundational idea in Lewis Hyde’s book is that we need to understand that two economies exist in our lives; humans live amidst two
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producing things, making money; it stresses e fficiency on behalf of monetary value. I do not have to make a large large argument argument about the reality reality of market econom economy: y: it’s all around us; it is what happens to be tanking right now as I speak [delivered in October 2008, at the onset of the banking collapse]. Te market economy is one economy that humans live in. I say it is one economy economy.. Already that might sound odd because many people assume and speak as though the market economy is the only one. But Lewis Hyde rather powerfully shows that isn’t correct; we also live in the middle of another economy, what he calls the “gi f economy.” If market economy is about buying and selling, gif economy is about giving and receiving. If market economy economy produces objects to be sold (“commodities” or “products”), gi f economy generates relationships and connections between people. If market economy is about individuals making money, gif economy is about making community. If market economy measures “cash value” and “wealth,” gi f economy is inspired by “worth” and “health.” With a vast array of real-world examples drawn from anthropology, sociology, and common, everyday experience, Hyde shows that the gif economy present, and equally important. He important. He is not saying is equally real in in our lives, equally lives, equally present, and that market economy is unreal, false, or unimportant; rather he is counteracting the usual assumptions that “market” is the only economy—the only set of values. For Lewis Hyde Hyde,, it is important to recognize, �rst, that there are two economies around us (not one), and then that they are radically distinct. You cannot reduce the gif economy and its phenomena to the market economy without destroying it. Tese two economies work on di ff erent erent rules. Teir touchstones, values, and goals are di ff erent. erent. Tey simply do not work the same ways, and if we do not realize this, if we try to assimilate one to the other (in either direction), we are going to remain blind to a whole dimension of living experience. His claim is not that they are unrelated—they are, and sometimes closely so. No, his claim is simply that they are irreducible. Having said that, for Lewis Hy Hyde, de, the problem that modern people face, in America at least, is that we have become so blinded by and swept up in market economy—buying and selling, producing and product, punching a time clock and making money—that we lose sight of the gif economy. For him, it is not that modern people are not giving and receiving—we ofen are—it is simply that we
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because that economy is how we make and nourish community and relationships, it is how we make spirit and become “inspired,” and it is how and why we make art. Indeed, for Lewis Hyde one of the greatest casualties of the domination of market values and market thinking is the extent to which it obliterates art. Te values and concepts concepts of market economy economy cannot produce art, art, do not produce produce art— all it can do is reduce artworks to “commodities”—and so cannot understand art and its genuine “worth.” Perhaps, then, we already start to get glimmers about the importance of his book for us, not only as gi f-givers, but as magicians! Having seen the two economies, their irreducibility irreducibility,, and the contem contemporary porary need to uncover and recover the gif economy, I want to discuss three essential features that Hyde shows are intrinsic to gi fs and giving. Again, my goal today is for us to see these essential features so we can give better, live better, better, and give better b etter magic (and we will get to magic down the line). Te �rst essential feature of the gif that Hyde reveals is that when you up.. Indeed, when you are genuinely a giver, you give up the thing give, you give you give up that you give; you give it up and give it away without any expectation of return or reciprocation. If you give something with the expectation you’re going to get something back, then that is not a gi f; it is a transaction, which is a market operation. In short, to give a gi f is to give something away without expectation, desire, or even hope that you will get something in return. When you are really giving a gif, if someone tries to give you something directly back, such as “Here, then, take this,” or “I’ll get the next one!” we typically respond, “No, no, no. . . .” because that annuls my gif by turning it into a market exchange. exchange. Tus, Lewis Hyde f is is property that perishes” (page 8); what perishes is your claim to the says, “ Te gi f thing you are giving. When I think about this important diff erence erence between a gif and a transaction, I am reminded of my sister (may she rest in peace) at Christmas Chr istmas time. Even though I am Jewish now, I was born Catholic so we celebrated Christmas, and along about the middle of November she would start asking: “What do you want for Christmas?” and then she would say, “Okay, put it on the list; now here’s what I want. . . .” Do you know this kind of thing from your own families? I loved my sister and we were close growing up, but there was a big part of me that didn’t want to tell her what I wanted, didn’t want to put it on a list, or see her list because
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have put it this way at the time, but I realize now that my resistance and discomfort was because a set of market operations—transaction, barter, barter, exchange—was being forced onto the gif-giving situatio situation. n. I just used the word spirit to to talk about what was being violated. Te word “spirit” is going to come up a lot today, because as I suggested before, Lewis Hyde argues that spirit belongs to the gif economy. Not in a religious sense, but rather in the “energy” sense. For Hyde, spirit is the current that circulates through the gif economy. As he explicitly puts it, spirit (not cash) is the currency the currency of the gif economy. When we give or receive a gif, we are inspired. Check it out in your own experiences: don’t you feel “touched,” “moved,” “inspired to give” when you have received a genuine gif? And aren’t our best, most authentic, gif-giving moments ones that are similarly inspired? Tis recognition that spirit is the current and currency of a gif relationship f already takes us to Lewis Hyde’s second essential feature of gifs, that is, “the gi f must always move” (page 4). In their very nature, gifs �ow; they circulate. Tey �ow between people in relationship and thus transform the relationship, and they do that between b etween individual people and groups of people. Tus, to change the metaphor a bit, gifs are the lifeblood of a community, however small or large. “Te gif must always move.” I am aware that this idea may at �rst seem strange. Don’t we receive a gif and then keep it? Doesn’t a gi f become my possession? posse ssion? However, Hyde shows that there is more going on here than we usually think. One could certainly “take possession” possession” and “hoard” something one was given, g iven, but those activities are really market operations—they are what moneymakers do with land, property, and capital. On the other hand, if we don’t confuse ourselves with market values, if we look carefully at what actually happens when we receive a gif, we can see the ongoing movement movement Hyde describes. Indeed, when we receive a genuine gif (and not a transaction token), when it arrives with a surprise (which f ourselves—if ourselves—if not to the person who gave it usually does), we feel moved to give a gi f us the gif, then to someone else, to others, or to a group as a whole. We can see what I mean here with a little example. Imagine someone at, say say,, Christmas (again) who happily takes gi fs from all his family members, but gives nothing to anyone else—who does nothing to help make the holiday or prepare the dinner—who shows up, gets his gifs, gives nothing to anyone else, does nothing
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giving, giving on, feeling, and feeling moved to give that energizes the commu community nity on that day. day. He inspires nothing and gives nothing; again, agai n, he will have “violated the spirit of the t he season. seas on.” We We would look l ook at such an extreme person and say, “He “He doesn does n’t doesn’t. He get it!” and he doesn’t. He has no idea of the gif economy and gif community that is �owing all around him. h im. It wouldn’t wouldn’t take very ver y long for such person to be b e excluded from the community, even in a family. All of this brings us now to the third and �nal feature I want to discuss: ive. Indeed, that is, by their very nature gifs are generat are generative. Indeed, the spirit of the gif, its current and currency, is generosity. In fact, this third feature was already contained in the �rst two features. Since giving requires “giving away” and inspires “giving on,”” genuine giving on, giv ing is generous and generative. ge nerative. Tat is to say, say, genuinely performed, pe rformed, authentically authen tically done, giving g iving generates more gifs, other gifs that circulate through a relationship or community, all of which transforms it and forges it as they �ow. To f keeps keeps giving. Tus, while it is certainly possible twist a colloquial phrase, every gi f for us to violate, annul, or reject some gi f we have received, ordinarily gifs inspire us, move us, change us (even if momentarily), and transform the relationship between us. In especially powerful cases, we might �nd ourselves undertaking what Hyde calls a labor of gratitude. We might labor in gratitude so that we pass the gif along. Hyde distinguishes the labor of gratitude from market-driven work, punching a time clock. “Work” is typically painful, forced, coerced, “counting down the minutes”—I minutes”—I do it for a wage. But labor in gratitude is typically inspired, unforced, and “time �ies.” We gladly do it for free, because we are moved to do it, inspired as we pursue it. I am certain that every one of you can identify a labor of gratitude that you perform. And I suspect what you will �nd when you re�ect on it is that your labor is actually inspired by some gi f that you were given by someone or some community. Also you will probably �nd that the fruits fr uits of your labor are aiming to be given on to others. For one example, my own talk today is a labor of gratitude toward Lewis Hyde and his book. Tis book arrived in my life as a gif. It changed me and touched me deeply, and there is no question that my talk today is a labor of gratitude to share this gif with you, to move it along, to pass it on. Additionally,, I suspect Lewis Hyde himself labored in gratitude to write Additionally his book. I say that because having written and published a few books recently,
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are Stephen King, Dan Brown, or Tomas Friedman, there is not much money in Transformations, was writing books. Consider this: my magic book, Transformations, was � ve years in au-Ponty’ ty’s Philoso Philosophy phy ] took ten years to the writing. My philosophy book [ Merle [ Merleau-Pon write. Tis kind of time frame and intense “labor” does not make good business sense. Trough the lenses of the market economy, economy, in fact, it makes no sense; I look like an idiot! [laughter]. But through the lenses of the gi f economy, they make perfect sense: they the y were labors of gratitude toward toward diff erent erent things and people who moved and inspired me. My philosophy book was a labor of gratitude on behalf of everything I learned from the great French philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and my magic book b ook was a labor of gratitude towards my teachers in magic: Eugene, Bob, Max [Maven], Juan [Tamariz] [Tamariz],, and Jeff . One way you can tell when a book b ook was a labor of gratitude is by looking at the dedication page. Tat is usually a big tip-o ff about who has given a prof profound ound gif to the author, a gif that they are attempting to “give on.” With this brief and partial phenomenology of giving in place, I will soon turn to the fascinating relationship I see between giving and magic, and “giving magic. mag ic.”” But �rst, I want to take a few questions—to make sure things are reasonably clear before we move on. Question: “What about re-gifing?” [laughter]. Let’ss talk about ab out re-gi fing—this is important. i mportant. Te customary notion Larry: Let’ about re-gifing is that it is bad—yet most people do it anyway! [laughter]. But Lewis Hyde can help us see that whether or not re-gifing is bad —or —or better, whether or not it is actually a gi f—depends upon exactly how it is done. For example, say someone comes to my house and brings bri ngs me a bottle of Chardonnay Chardon nay.. Te fact is that I hate Chardonnay. So imagine I go to my next party and just give that bottle of Chardonnay to the host. What I did was not a gi f. Someone calls out: “Chardonnay never is!” [laughter]. Larry: I completely agree! [laughter]. And besides that, the reason is that I’ve done nothing with the gif I was given. Tere’s been no labor, no gratitude, no labor in gratitude. Tere’s been no spirited investment in this action. I’ve just taken it and said thanks even though I don’t like Chardonnay. In fact, I violated the person’s gif to me because I took the bottle of wine while hating it, and then I am just going going to get rid of it. Tere is no generosity in my re-gifing; I am just meeting
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On the other hand, if I take that bottle of wine I was given and transform it somehow through the spirit with which it was given to me, then my re-gif could be a gif. Imagine that I wrap it in something really special for the host or write a little personal poem for her. Ten I’ve labored, at least a little, in gratitude. Te essential part of this is that I have transformed it in the spirit of genuine giving. Question: “Is a gif always a positive thing?” Larry: I am glad you asked this because it allows me to brie �y talk about some complexities I was not able to cover before. Te key thing about gifs is that they are lifeblood of a community; they are the tissue by which relationships are formed, forged, deepened, and extended. Obviously, that is o fen a good thing: communities and relationships usually need to be strengthened with the inspiring energy of gif giving. At the same time, however, gifs might be off ered ered from someone or some community that we do not want to be involved with. For example, a young man might off er er an engagement ring to a woman in the eff ort ort to bring her into a relationship she is reluctant to have. Or you might receive a gif from someone in a larger social, religious, or political group and, before you know it, you are enmeshed in a larger community you don’t want to be a part of. Or someone might pass on to you a gif that radiates his or her venomous envy envy or f s: “Beware s: “Beware of people bearing dark aggression. We might think of these as dark gi f gifs.” Tere is also a further subtlety, which would depend upon the exact appears to circumstances: the situation in which someone appears to be giving us a gi f, when they are actually trying to make us indebted to them. Tat is really just a disguised market transaction. About all these things, we need to be thoughtful and careful; giving and gif giving is a complicated complicated thing and not always a lways positive. Now it is my turn: I have a question for each of you. When would you say you have received—not dark gifs—but gifs in the full, inspiring sense we were discussing earlier? When have you found yourself laboring in gratitude? Someone in the audience: “Last night, somebody showed me a piece of magic and just opened himself up to me.” Larry: Ah! Te person gave you a gif and you felt inspired. You felt connected to him. Tis is how the gif economy works! Good! How about the rest of you: as you think about your lives, when have you received gi fs in the full sense;
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Larry: I am glad you feel you have received gifs here this weekend. Me too! I would also observe that you all have given have given gi gi fs to the community as well. Some of you have donated presentations presentations to the conference, and we thank you for sharing “the fruits of your labor lab or..” Some of you have been bee n attending to important impor tant logistics logist ics to help the conference go forward. And all of you have contributed contributed books to the book give-away. Tis conference is a really excellent example of a gi f community, of a gif economy, where the whole thing �ows and goes and grows through people’s generosity. Tere is no dealer’s room here! [laughter]. I am not saying there is no place for that; I love a great magic shop as much as the next person. But to me, the world gets a lot more interesting and understandable when we appr appreciate eciate and see the gif economy going on around us and see that we can consciously choose to foster it. Te truth is that everybody gives and receives gifs; the human animal �nds and forges communities through giving. No one can really live for long by being an entirely entirely,, one hundred-percent, market-driven person; the notion of such a person is an abstract �ction off ered ered by Adam Smith and other other (market) economic econ omic theorists. Actual human beings—the ones who are born into families, live, and die—form friendships, communities, and relationships no matter what they happen to do to pay the bills. Obviously, many people have market professions: bankers, stockbrokers, business people, accountants, and so on. But there are socalled giving professions too—a fact that is worth underscoring because these are so ofen devalued by those market masters. Teachers are one example: as a teacher I’m I’ m in the giving “business.” Mentors, authors, artists, academics, doctors, healers, clergy—the list of giving profes professions sions could go on and on. Some people pe ople spend their days working in the market economy; economy; that t hat is wonderful. Other people spend them laboring in the giving economy; that’s that’s wonderful too. My overall point here, and for Lewis Hyde as well, is that it is not like one economy is good and the other economy is bad. Te essential point is they are fundamentally diff erent—related erent—related but irreducible. Hyde says, and I agree, that deep problems come when we confuse the two or fail to recognize the gi f economy, which happen to be the tendencies in modern America. Again, market economy is not a bad thing; what market economy does for you is promote individuality. Its tools and concepts, such as cash, transactions, work for a wage, wealth, give one a
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thinking, for example, of my �rst paying job when I was sixteen, which allowed me to eventually buy a car. . .which allowed me to get out of the house! [laughter]. Wealth, work, capital, exchange value provide an individual with mobility—class mobility or just traveling-the-world mobility. Tese are not bad things; they are good things. But that’s only one half of the picture, because it is only through the gif economy that communities are made, that love is found, that generosity abounds, that people feel inspired and labor in their gratitude. It is only through the gif economy that healing and holding happens. And as Lewis Hyde argues at great length, it is only through the gi f economy that art and the work of artists can be adequately understood. Indeed, if the market economy “produces,” it is the gi f economy that “creates.” Tis is a perfect place for me to turn our attention to the promised topics of magic and “giving magic.” One of the key themes of the second half of Hyde’s book is his argument that artists and the processes of art-making fundamentally belong to the gif economy. As we know from our experiences as artists, typically inspired and created. Indeed, artwork is inspired and created. Indeed, art is not “manufactured” or “produced” like cars on an assembly line; that is the way the market produces commodities. On the contrary, art �ows from inspiration and the �ow itself is a creative one. Inspiration and creativity: these are things one only gets from the gi f economy. At its best, artwork inspires us and transforms us and, in powerful cases, we labor in gratitude to give on what we have received from it. I am certain that all of you know that feeling of inspiration from other artists and teachers. Of course, the work of artists can be turned into or treated like commodities, and thus become a cog in the machinery of market operations. (I am thinking of some of the Cirque du Soleil shows across town, and the “Disneyi �cation” of Times Square in New York City.) I am sure those things can be experienced and enjoyed on some super�cial level, but to witness the crass, grinding gri nding transmutation transmutation of artwork into “product” “product” is painful for all of us who care about art and artistry ar tistry;; we know that something essential has been lost. When something born in the labor of our gratitude gets wrenched into the market world, it feels like something cheap and dirty has happened. To be honest, I wouldn’t say it has become “cheap and Poppins ins on Broadway and it dirty”—I recently paid a lot of money to see Mary Popp was squeaky clean! [laughter]. What has happened, precisely, is that the inspired,
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is the result of this discordant transplanting transplanting of a gi f artifact into the commodi �ed world of the market. Hyde’s work on the gi f and gif economy can explain and clarify our feelings about this; he can help us understand what is happening here. I can now make a key point for you, one I have been working toward from the beginning. Tat is, since magic performance is a form of art, it originates in the world and economy of giving. And so, from the start, we need to approach our craf and art as a giving. I mean, later we might let it be transplanted into the world of market values, but if we start in that world, if we start with those market values, we are not really really going to be creative or much much inspired. We We might produce a product, but we’re not going to create art that gives and keeps giving. I think this insight is especially illuminating for magicians working today. I think this because we are just drowning in “product,” aren’t we? All the downloads, junky tricks, and piles and piles of DVDs: they are “product,” they feel like product, not like artworks that have been inspired and creatively brought brought into being. Tey inspire nothing: we consume them and feel starved, so we buy some more, consume consume them, and feel starved star ved again, and so on. Tat is a happy thing for a marketer, but it does nothing for us as magical artists. As creative magicians who want to create something meaningful and moving for others, the current trends of rather desperate magic-market buying and selling is one to avoid. And the �rst step in avoiding it is simply to see what is going on, to understand the di ff erent erent worlds and economies that Lewis Hyde writes about. avoid. But So in our eff orts orts to be creative magicians, we know what to avoid. ed? Ho how might we proce we proceed? How w should we go forward to make magical art? One way to get started, I think, is to try to become keenly aware of our inspirations. I say this because being deeply conscious of our inspirations can help us start to labor in gratitude. So think about who inspires you; think about where and when you get inspired—then see if you can’t consciously create from your gratitude. I think you will �nd that the result will not be the bad kind of re-gi fing—where you just replicate and give away an imitation of what someone has given you. If you are alive and aware of the gi fs you have received from another magician, if you are really inspired by them to give on, this will lead you to infuse it with yourself and your creativity. To be sure, Lewis Hyde does not call it a “copy” of gratitude [laughter].
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have to underscore this fact, but again, in our market-driven magic subculture, we see many people refer to themselves as magicians when all they do is produce product to buy and sell. We have become too tolerant of the extension of the word “magician” to people who are essentially salesmen. Tey might “perform” on the download, on the DVD, or at the magic lecture, but it is just a means to the ends of market values. I think it might be time for us who care about magic to be a little more discriminating about who we call a magician. Creating a download, selling a trick, demoing a trick, teaching a trick so you can sell it, probably doesn’t make a person a magician. On the contrary, a magician, a magical artist, is someone who performs; he or she is a performing artist. Tey perform hopefully inspired and created artworks in an inspired and creative way. Tey seek to “give on” in their own way the gifs they have received from other people, other artists, and artworks. As we approach the end of my presentation, I would make two �nal comments about the creative circuit of art and artists. First, it is no accident at all that, from the dawn of written history, artists have come together to form communities communi ties and collectives. Te way I put this for my magic students is, “artists dwell in packs” [laughter]. Hyde’s ideas help us understand why: artists dwell in communities communi ties because commu communities nities both sustain and are sustained by the creative, inspirational giving and “giving on” that marks the gif economy. Look around and see, examine the world: creative, inspired, inspiring artists live and work in packs. Tis is true of magicians, and the Magic & Mystery School is an excellent example of one of these complex collectives. But it is true of all the artists I know: architects, writers, painters, musicians, dancers, actors, and so on. So as a little piece of homework, I invite you to think very carefully and clearly about the magic communities to which you belong. b elong. What are they? Make a list. Some of them might have big familiar names, but others might turn out to be the small, intimate group of folks “who get together every other Saturday.” Magic collectives, like all artist communities, are diverse and complex. So ask yourself, “Wha “Whatt precisely are my support commu communities?” nities?” And then ask, “Do they support, nourish, and inspire my creative and performative work? Or am I simply feeling obligated , giving energy, without getting charged?” Finally,, once we identify our core communities, ask, “What Finally “What can I do to be a better
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dynamics of giving can help us become much clearer about our own actions and the kind of communities with which we will choose to be involved. Te second comment I want to make is that, in a very important sense, it takes courage to live and perform as an artist—that is, in the gi f economy. It takes courage, �rst of all, because so much of the world around us is the market economy, �lled with people who act and think their market values, assumptions, and categories is the only way. From that perspective (as noted before), being an artist, writer, philosopher, teacher, performer, looks pretty stupid: “How are you going to make any money doing that! ” It takes courage to stay creative and inspired in spired in the face of these widespread attitudes attitudes and pressures. Living and performing as an artist also takes courage in another sense. Tis is because performing and giving gifs born of our gratitude and inspiration doesn’t itself entail they will be received. It takes great courage and character to labor in gratitude because our “fruits” might be refused, rejected, or criticized. I think about this as a college professor: I labor hard and creatively to o ff er er great classes for my students. But, for one thing, I don’t always succeed; creative work is like that! Also, there is no guarantee that my students will connect with the gi fs I am trying tr ying to give. Now what I have just said about teaching is at least as true for performing magicians. It takes great courage to give the fruits of your creative labor—there are no guarantees at any given performance that you will succeed in adequatelyy sharing it, no guarantees that the audience will be in any frame of mind adequatel to receive it. Te good news, however, is that as magicians we have access to all these gif communities that can and do support our creative, performing lives. Indeed, the intimate relationship between giving, magic, and giving magic can be seen in how generous, communal, communal, and joyful magicians magici ans are. One sees and feels that spirit at the big conventions and the smaller gatherings, such as this one. Words that magicians use to describe this feeling is “brotherhood,” “family,” or “community.” You hear things such as, “I can go anywhere in the world and �nd a magician who will give me a place to sleep.” All this is the spirit of giving; it is the gif economy in action. And there is a wonderful abundance of it in our subculture of magic. Afer donate their all, magicians all over the world donate their artwork (in hospitals, at community events, magic gatherings, over dinner). Tey contribute their writings and tricks to
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subsets is a pretty �ourishing gif economy. While we currently struggle with an overabundance of product, marketers who call themselves magicians, and some confusion about the diff erences erences between buying tricks and actually performing them, these incursions of market economy do not outweigh the generous abundance that can be found among magicians all over the world. And so I want to close today with a little list of maxims for the health and well-being of magicians—maxims that follow from the basic insights and arguments in Lewis Hyde’s inspiring book on giving. Tey are not rules, but tools—possible guides to our behavior in the world. I hope you will receive them in the affirmational spirit with which they the y are intended. We We might try tr y more to: Honor our inspirations inspirations.. Labor in gratitude. Perform more ofen, that is, give is, give magic. Donate our magical labor labor,, even more than we already do. Donate our resources to support the magical labor of others. Tat is, be a good patron of magic! Tink less about buying and selling magic and more about performing it. Tat is, again, give again, give magic. Remind people about the important diff erences erences between gifs and commodities. Remind people about the important diff erences erences between how products are produced and how we create as magical artists. I believe that if we let these little maxims guide us, the results will be better magic. I believe they will be better for magic. And I believe that will create a healthier magic community.
Notes � f : Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property (New York: 1. Lewis Hyde, Te Gi f f : Creativity Vintage Vin tage Books, 1979). Second S econd Vintage Vintage Books Bo oks edition re-titled, Te Gi f and the Artist in the Modern World (2007).
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13 Tehis re erom George Parker
Te Gif A special card containing two messages. One message has magically become visible during the eff ect. ect. Te participant (a man in this description) is lef to �gure the second message out for himself.
Te Eff ect ect Random letters on a card magically reassemble in two phases until the �nal, readable sentence appears: “THERE IS MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE.” Te Props Tere
are three types of cards in play. Tey are included with this book as a gif. What I will refer to as type ty pe I cards have random rand om letters on them. You You will �nd six of them. Te type II card reads, “TEHIS RE EROM MHEA ENYET ETH EST.” And the �nal revelation, the type III card is saying, “THERE “ THERE IS MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE.” A sample of each of these cards can be seen below, � gures 43, 44, 45. You can perform the eff ect ect with the cards included. If you want to learn more
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Figure 43
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Figure 45
Introduction In the mid-1990s I worked a lot of trade shows. I developed a trade-show approach approach that would place salespeople in better position to “score the lead.” A “score” means that the salesperson makes “ �rst contact” and secures the customer’s data. Research showed that with my approach the company attracted � ve to seven times the amount of customers they previously got. And the “scores” went up as much as 350%. Tis is not the place to explain every strategy I used, but one particular trade-show magic eff ect ect I performed in those days seems to have been part of the result. It started from my thinking about how we could trigger the curiosity of my client’s customers. Mailing them something that would magically transform
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the “house magician” at the trade show? And why keep it at that? Why not invite them to staple their business card to the �nal result and put it in a bowl for a prize drawing? So I let my client formulate a theme or a one-liner. I would create type I, II, and III cards. And they would send out the invitations to the trade show and include the type I card and instructions. When I had the basic idea, I worked out a �rst version together with my friend Frank Neeling, a wonderful musician and magician. Tis version used four cards. I developed the e ff ect ect further to what you will �nd below. I do love this e ff ect ect because it involves a lot of interaction with the spectator who becomes more of a participant. Also because the �nal message not only relates to the real world, it relates to the trick itself—and I enjoy selfreferential scripts.
Te Work Tis eff ect ect is designed to play with the participant’s perception. Of course, every magic eff ect ect plays with wit h the audience’ audien ce’s perception percepti on but this e ff ect ect takes it to a physical level. So I’ll �rst describe the eff ect ect from the participant’s point of view to help you understand what kind of reactions I am looking for. Ten I will describe the workings from the performer’s point of view.
1. Te Spectator’s Point of View First phase. A magician presents a small stack of identical cards. He says, “I’ve f ronts of the cards. Te got a message for you,” and then shows you the backs and fronts backs and faces are the same and you are confused because you see a jumble of letters. He asks, “Can you make anything out of this?” and you do your best to make sense of it. Te magician slowly turns the stack of cards clockwise and counterclockwise as you desperately look for clues. Ten he takes two steps back and you look at the face of the top card from a distance. Te magician continues to rotate the cards. You are still not able to see a pattern. Ten he says, “Te weird thing is that the letters you need to create the message are all here. Te problem is they are completely scattered over the surface. It’s like in real life: the ingredients are there but you just have to �nd
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Te magician smiles and
waves his hand over the cards, and much to your surprisee you see the bouncing letters surpris le tters morph into a clear sentence. You You are pleasantly surprised and a little bit relieved since your curiosity will wil l be satis�ed. Because the magician is standing a few steps away from you, you can see it is a sentence but you’re not able to read it. He steps forward but your initial relief turns into a bit of disillusionment when you discover you still can’t read it because the card is upside down. Te magician notices it too, “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s upside down.” Afer he has �nished turning the cards one hundred eighty degrees, you are confused because what seemed to be a sound and solid sentence is actually groups of letters that form incomprehensible words: “TEHIS RE EROM MHEA ENYET ETH EST.” Te magician says, “I promise you, all the ingredients to decipher the message are here. Te words have the exact same length as they do in the �nal message.” You try to reshuffle the letters but can only come up with something like: “THERE IS MORE. . . .” But you can’t �gure out the rest of the message. Second phase. “Let me help you. Please hold out your hand.” You do so and the card is turned over. Te magician rubs it against the palm of your hand, looks at it, rubs it again, and then slowly turns it around, “I’ “I’m m sure you will wil l be able to read it now!” Te letters on the card have been rearranged and form a sentence: “THERE IS MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE.”(Type III card). You feel relieved and satis�ed. Tird phase. “You can keep the card as a present and you’ll �nd you can decipher a second message all by yourself.” Te magician points at the letters in the border of the card. Afer looking at them you turn the card around and �nally you are able to read the clearer version of them on the back. You are very pleased with yourself when you solve this little puzzle. It says: “True “True is what you believe is true.” Te line repeats repe ats itself all around the border b order..
Discussion As you will have noticed, I aim to create a range of micro-emotions: confusion, relief, surprise, magic, being moved a little bit, hope, disappointment, a bit of frustration. I don’t like straight lines and I personally think many e ff ects ects suff er er from a build up that is simply too linear. Some performers can get away with that because they add a range of emotions to the eff ect ect or they are excellent comedians
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Also I especially enjoy audience participation. My good friend and mentor Tommy Wonder Wonder put considerable consid erable eff ort ort into avoiding too much interference interference by the audience, an approach that worked very well for him. However, I especially like to connect with, touch, and interact with people pe ople whenever I can to create more waves of emotions. Although I learned many important tools for audience management and control from Tommy, this piece (and others I perform) is intentionally structured to increase audience involvement. involvement.
2. Te Magician’s Point of View Arrange the cards face up in the following order: one Type III card (the readable sentence), � ve Type I cards (the messed up letters), one Type II card (the incomprehensible sentence), and one Type I card. Tere are of course many ways to change the cards from one version vers ion to another. Please play with diff erent erent methods to perform the transforma transformations tions from one card to the other other.. I will wi ll describe below a basic working version of the changes. the top First phase. When you say, “I’ve got a message for you,” Push off the two cards as one so that the second card (Type II) and the bottom card (Type III) are hidden. If necessary, you can “get ready” by secretly pushing the top two cards to the side, getting a little �nger break, and re-aligning the top cards before you step up to the spectator. Tis is the way many magicians get ready to prepare for a Double Turnover.
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Afer spreading them in this way, count o ff the cards by pushing them one by one from lef to right keeping them fanned and in order. Keep the bottom (Type III) card hidden by not pushing over the card that covers it. When you say, “Can you make anything out of this?” square the cards and display the top card (showing the cards as in � in � gure 46 ). ). Allow some time for the participant to process the information because he will want to at least try to solve this puzzle. While he is trying to �gure out the message start to turn the stack of cards slowly clockwise and then counterclockwise, counterclockwise, as if you are trying to help him look at the text in a di ff erent erent way. Take two steps back and keep turning the cards slowly. Te participant will still have trouble deciphering the message, so say, “Te weird thing is that the letters you need to create the message are all here. Te problem is they are completely scattered over the surface. It’s It’s like in real life: the ingredients are there but you just have to �nd the right mix to create the highest possible value. And that’ th at’ss why I am here to assist you.” At this point perform the Houdini Color Change by switching the top and second card (the Type II card) in the following way. Hold your hands in the position shown in � in � gure 47. To help the parti participant cipant remember that your right hand was empty you can wiggle your �ngers playfully, as if preparing for the magic. He will focus on your hand and remember rememb er he has seen se en an empty hand so he won’t won’t jump to the conclusion that you must have a card hidden in your hand. Tat thought alone would kill a lot of the magic that is going to happen. Now the basic idea is that you will push the top card to the side, and then slide the second card out the other side until you can slide it back b ack on top of the top card. But to create the illusion of transformation with this move there are some details to which you must pay attention. First, push the top card toward the top of your lef hand �ngers using the palm of your hand until it is outjogged for about 48 to see the exposed view half an inch to an inch. i nch. Look at � at � gure 48 to v iew.. A lot of things happen while getting into this positi position. on. You use the palm of your right hand to push the top card to the side; at the same time your le f �rst �nger holds back the rest of the stack. Immediately a fer the top card is in the new position, you will put your le f �rst �nger back to where it was when you started. Te consistency between the �rst moment ( � ( � gure 47 ) and the second moment
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Figure 47 Now when your right hand moves back to show the sidejogged card (of course the audience thinks they look lo ok at the top card of a stack), the heel of the hand 49,, exposed view of the slides the second card back along under the top card ( � ( � gure 49 returning movemen movement). t). Once it is free, your right hand pushes down on the second card causing it to tilt slightly. As this is accomplished your right hand starts to move back again (towards the top of your le f �ngers) and carries along the former second card on top of the former top card until the stack is squared. Te right hand immediately moves back again to reveal the change. To deepen the impact, open the �ngers of your right hand on the way back. It is as though your �ngers moved the letters into what seems to be a sentence. To �nish this illusion rub the card a little bit as if moving the last letters to the right spot.
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Figure 49
It should should appear as though waving your hand over the card with the mixed up letters created created a readable sentence (at least it will seem s eem readable at this point in the routine). Since you are standing a few feet away from the participant he won’t be able to read the card but will assume it makes sense now now.. Slowly get closer so s o he becomes aware that it is hard to read. Ten look at the card and apologize, “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s upside down.” Turn the whole stack around to show the message: “TEHISS RE EROM MHEA ENYET “TEHI E NYET ETH EST. EST.” It sounds like a foreign language. l anguage. Is it Latin or some kind of fairy language? Say, “I promise you, all the ingredients to decipher de cipher the message are here. Te words have the exact same length as they do in the �nal messag message. e.”” ta ke the top card containing the Second phase. As you deliver the last line take weird sentence and give it to the participant. par ticipant. At At the same time your lef hand drops to your side so you can turn over the bottom card (the type III card) against your lef leg. Tat is, with your hand at your side, turn over the stack of cards, push the bottom card (which of course is now the top card) halfway o ff the the stack, and use 50). your lef leg as to turn over the card ( � ( � gure 50). Te spectator is very busy reading the card so there is no rush nor should you be worried being caught. Don’t look at what you are doing with your le f hand;
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Figure 50
Pleas e hold out your Please you r hand.” hand.” Use the time he needs to decide which hand to extend to take the card out of his hands. While moving the stack into view view,, place the type II card right on top top.. If you time this correctly they will not see the type III card. Ten execute a simple Double Turnover. Once both cards are turned over reposition the participant’s hand a bit while keeping the stack in full view. Te reason for this is to put a little bit of time between the Double Turnover and the �nal revelation. Take the new top card (the type III card) and place it on his palm. Wait a moment, then look under the card. Rub it on their hand and �nally turn it over. THAN MEETS THE “I’m sure you sure you can read read it now!” He sees: “THERE IS MORE THAN EYE.” Tird phase. Allow some time for the participant to process the message. Ten say, “You can keep the card as a present and you’ll �nd a second message
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Final Notes Te
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Houdini Color Change is a well-known technique that is o fen mistakenly attributed to Erdnase, who later described it in Te Expert at the Card Table. Te complete details of this technique as well as evidence to support its correct 3 by Roberto attribution can be found in the wonderful Card College, Volume 3 Giobbi and translated by Richard Hatch (Seattle: Hermetic Press, 1998), pages 744-746. Of course there are many alternatives for exchanging the cards. Tis is a perfect eff ect ect to experiment with various techniques. For example, I sometimes use a Top Change for the last phase. Tat is, afer they have studied the card, I take it back, talk about how the card contains all the information you need to make sense of the word jumble, execute the Top Change, walk back three yards, show the card (the type II and III cards will wil l look the same at this distance because the length of the words are exactly the same), and immediately start to shake it a little bit (to rearrange the letters but also prevent the participant from focusing too much). Ten, while I walk towards the spectator, I slowly stop shaking the stack and the letters seem to have rearranged themselves right before their eyes. Recently, Richard Sanders used this kind of e ff ect ect in his “Identity.” Although he uses a diff erent erent technique, the eff ect ect looks the same in the mind of the spectator spect ator.. Of course I actually give the �nal card away. If you want to do that too you can either create a Survival Version® of this eff ect ect [see chapter 16], purchase re �lls, or design your own special saying and order this customized version. You can e-mail me to make inquiries about the last two options at george@georgeparker
[email protected]. .nl. To help you create cre ate your homemade Surv Survival ival Version® of this eff ect ect I’ve added some pictures of the cards I made, � made, � gure 51. If you have created your own one-line saying, mix the letters up and write the type II card c ard using the same layout as the type III card. So use the same number of words. Although they are fantasy words they should have the same length as the type III cards. It is nice if the �rst two or three words are almost readable instead of complete gibberish. Using the same layout helps create the illusion of transformation. Making the �rst couple of words, almost readable helps create a nice tension.
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14 Some Magical Gif Ideas from Jeff McBride McBride
From the beginning of my involvement with this project, I knew I wanted to have this chapter be a part of the book. Tat’s because Je ff Je ff is is an over � owing owing fountain of creative thinking, and I knew he has long been applying that creativity to magical gi f f s. s. At �rst � rst I thought we would just compile a short list of some of his gi f gi f ideas, ideas, but soon it became clear that it was better to explore them in a conversation. Tis conversation was held on Sunday, March 21, 2010 through Skype. —Lawrence Hass
A Magic Gif With a Future Larry: One of your great magical gif ideas is the way you sign and personalize a playing card. Would Would you talk about this in some detail? I am sure readers will want to learn about it. How did you get this idea to do something more meaningful with a signed card? Jeff : Magicians are gifing audiences all the time, but I feel they are ofen unaware
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For example, I have seen many people perform something such as “Te Ambitiouss Card,” which is a very Ambitiou ver y quick, very good cocktail-party e ff ect. ect. Tey have the participant sign the card, which is good and generates interest, but at the end of the routine they give the participant the card with their own signature sig nature on it as a souvenir. Tat just doesn’t make sense to me: why would a participant �nd his own signature special? So years ago, I started doing something diff erent, erent, this practice of personalizing the card, c ard, especially for close-up work. I got the idea, I think, from personalizing the playing cards I was throwing out in my shows. As you know, my my manipulation manipulati on cards that I throw t hrow out have a little message on the back: “ Tis is your lucky card. Every card holds a special meaning. To discover this card’s secret, go to www.mcbridemagic.net to �nd out.” out.” And there is a little tarot reading waiting there for them. In any case, many times people bring their card up to me afer the show and ask me to sign the t he card: of course I am going to write my name on the card— theirs.. Tink about how odd that would be! So I just got into not ask them to sign theirs the habit of personalizing these cards. I would ask the person’s name and then write, “To Janet” (or whatever), followed by a little inscription and my autograph. Terefore when I was in a close-up setting performing signed card e ff ects, ects, this seemed the natural thing to do. I �rst have the person put her �rst name on the 52)—which is, incidentally, card, “Janet” (see � (see � gure 52)—which incidentally, the perfect per fect way to save
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Figure 53
embarrassment from my misspelling her name. Ten I take the card back from her and add the word “To” in front of her name, and then add a short inscription and � gure 53). 53). my autograph below it (see (see � Afer that, I go further. I tell her we are going to create a little piece of art and I hope she will show it to her great grandchildren someday and tell them all about this moment in time. My intention here is to convey that there is more going on than this moment and that hopefully by the end of this experience they will want to keep the card to show their great-grandchildren. . .or at least somebody at the office the next day [laughter]. Larry: Tis is great because it overcomes the problem of just handing the person something at the end of the routine which they didn’t really want, and don’t know what to do with, so it just gets thrown away. Jeff : Especially if, afer the names, you go on to make the card a piece of artwork. I say, “Up here in the corner, I am going to draw a little symbol of Mercury, the magician, magici an,”” and I draw a little Mercury glyph. g lyph. Ten I ask her to draw something that
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want her to feel relaxed. Sometimes I will point to my own symbol and say, “Don’t worry. I am no Rembrandt, but neither was Picasso,” which gives her permission to scrawl. Because, afer all, Picasso gave us all permission p ermission to scrawl! [laughter]. Ten I say, “See, we have this valuable, one-of-a-kind piece of art.” What we have just done is imbue this commonplace piece of cardboard with some heavy mojo: her signature, my signature, personal symbols, and even a possible future (the possibility of showing it to her great-grandchildren). Now �nally, we are ready to launch into the eff ect, ect, which for me is usually my Card to Wallet gic at the Edge Edge,, which may be viewed at www.magicalwisdon. [“McWallet” on Ma on Magic com/gifmagicbook, courtesy of L&L Publishing].
Audience Participant as Hero Jeff : To expand upon this idea a little, we ofen think what we are doing is showing people tricks. What we are actually doing is giving our audiences the gi f of a personalized magic experience. Even more, we are giving them a story in which they play an important role. Tis is so important because we live in a story culture—a culture cu lture full of stories; we are surrounded surround ed by stories. We We wake up reading stories in the newspaper, ne wspaper, on television, in books, bo oks, but they are always someone else’s else’s stories. But here the magician gives me the palpable gi f of a story I can tell for the rest of her life: “Look, this card was given to me by the Man with the Fastest Hands. Amazingly, it went into a wallet that was in my hands the entire time.” Or, “I opened up my hand and sponge balls poured out of them.” “He took my key and bent it.” “He took my card and somehow stuck it to the ceiling.” Te real gifs here are the stories that our participants par ticipants can tell—their own story. Tey are not merely re-telling re-telli ng someone some one else’s else’s story stor y. Tey have become a sort of hero in a mythic story — magician—and they have met a magician —and have proof of the magical experience. Larry: Wow! Jeff , this is a fantastic. To give people a story in which they are the hero is a truly wonderful gif. Jeff : Recently, I read this very interesting book on comedy magic called Stand Up by Ian Keable. Keable. I enjoyed the book bo ok a great deal, yet he had a chapter in it on working
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role is that the audience is there to be at the end of the jokes—a foil for the jokes; the second role is to hold the props, to essentially be a glori�ed display stand. But Ian Keable doesn’t mention another, far more powerful role: audience participant as hero. Tat is the role I build most of my routines on. Larry: Me too. Jeff : But the sad truth is that we did not grow up watching the audience member made into a hero. Mostly they play the foil. For example, one of my earliest recollections of magic is Al Flosso doing the coin routine in which the boy is the foil, not the hero. he ro. Now Now it is true that t hat Al gave frequent a ffirmations, “Y “You’ ou’re re all al l right, ri ght, boy!” But most of the time we saw comedy magicians tell people to “stand on the trap door,” or “hold up the other clean hand,” and never saw the audience member as hero. So there is, and has been, b een, a conscious shif in the kinds of roles an audience member can play on the stage—they can be b e a hero.
c urious about this. My perception is that audiences have changed changed over Larry: I am curious time, that there was more tolerance in the t he past for that kind of use and sometimes abuse, whereas now audiences are much more disapproving, particularly with children and women. Do you agree? Are audiences changing? I mean, we look at Flosso now and it is pretty distasteful; it looks like he is assaulting the kid [laughter]. t hink there are still audiences who enjoy insult humor and put-down humor; humor; Jeff : I think I think those t hose audiences are still out there. At the same time, I think t hink the more o fen thoughtful magicians are exposed to it, the more they start to move in another direction because they are looking for a new context and new direction for magic. It is those of us who have seen so much audience-abuse magic, we are the ones looking for ways to do something di ff erent erent and empower our audience members. At the same time, in the last twenty or thirty years, there has been more push-back in our culture about certain kinds of things; there has been a lot more emphasis in our culture on respect and non-violent communication, communication, and more emphasis on interpersonal skills—cultural values that were just not there �fy years ago.
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Practical Party Magic Larry: Let’s shif into some other areas. What other kinds of gi fs have you been exploring? Jeff : Let me set this next thing up with a bit of context. On Magic at the Edge I teach “Rainbow to Rose,” which is more of a social, personal trick. Also we both know some fairly fast gif magic pieces, such as George Parker’s quick gemstone appearance [see chapter 3]. But also a gif magic performance can be more formal, such as “ Te Fire Ritual.” Tis kind of piece works in a diff erent erent way than those others; it can be the climax of a social gathering or party, and I have used it many times at birthday events or anniversaries to put a formal group gifing experience around the event. [“ Te Fire Ritual” can be viewed at www.magicalwisdom.com/ gifmagicbook, courtesy of L&L Publishing.] So there are personal, one-on-one gif-giving magic tricks and more formal group gif performances, but here is something that falls in-between—it in-be tween—it is a gif approach for the well-known fountain of silks. You can take your small gif for someone and wrap it up in the founta fountain in of silks. In the course of a party, when people are opening up presents, the fountain can sit under your leg or you can load this easily into play by putting it under somebody else’s scrap of wrapping paper. Ten you say, “Oh there is one last present,” and you tear open the wrapping paper and release the snap or velcro strap—whatever the seal is on your fountain of silks—and now the fountain itself is a big surprise spilling out of the torn scrap of wrapping paper, paper, and at the t he center is your little boxed present, perhaps with a small card on it. Ten when all the attention is on the little gif box, you reclaim the fountain of silks so people do not mistakenly think that is part of the gi f. We wouldn’t want that! [laughter]. Larry: Tat is great. You could put a little wrapped present in the fountain. . . . Is there anything else one might produce out of it? Jeff : Well, the fountain is perfect for anyone who, like me, is not very good at wrapping presents or who really doesn’t have time to run to the store for wrapping
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party. You could load it with candy or a small object—anything about the size of a boxed watch. It would be an excellent way to give a ring to someone—it would work for a proposal. Larry: It occurs to me that you could even take the loaded fountain of silks and wrap it in black paper and just place it on the gif table. You wouldn’t even have to hold it under your leg and secretly load it in. You could just open up the present, remove the fountain, and launch in. Jeff : Absolutely. In fact, you could experiment with having the person who is receiving the gif open it him or herself because a good, packed fountain of silks kind of undoes itself. But as I said, it would be pretty easy for the fountain to be mistaken as part of the gi f itself. It would be important to use that moment of misdirection when the gif comes out to steal your fountain away.
Magical Gif Experiences Jeff : Here is another kind of gif for people to consider: the gif of a really unusual, experience. Experiences can be deeply memorable and a ff ecting wonderful experience. wonderful ecting gifs too. For example, one of the great pleasures of my life is the magical communi community ty that has evolved here in Las Vegas Vegas over the years. One of the most talented inventors I know is my friend Gary Gar y Stadler, Stadler, who we call Te Wizard Garee. And one year he gave me the amazing gif experience of “A Jeff McBride McBride Show.” To explain explain,, occasi occasionally onally we have art parti parties es at our house where we create gifs for each other, like delicious food, pieces of music, art work, and we spend the weekend surprising and delighting each other. And one time Gary sat everyone down on the couch or chairs, turned out the lights, put on a piece of music he had created, and performed the Illumination light routine—with the lights on the fan and the dancing vortex canes. We were all just blown away. I had given him the seed of an idea for lights on a fan, and he just ran with it and gave me the gi f of a full Jeff McBride McBride performance. I mean, he dressed up, created the music, and then give me that tremendous experience.
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careful, loving intention can also be a very powerful gif.
Magic at the Crossroads Jeff : At the same time, we can have moving gif experiences without someone’s speci�c attention or intention. Sometimes the surrounding context helps us experience something as a gif. For example, the whole context of the Burning Man festival is about gifs and giving; people work all year on creating gifs and many of them of them will be given anonymously. People will just put their gi fs out there to be received without any recognition or reciprocation. Many people consider anonymous anonymous giving in this way to be the purest form of giving g iving because b ecause we don’t don’t even have to “suff er er gratitude” for our gif. In this kind of situatio situation, n, the gi f-natur -naturee of the objects and experiences are carried by the context, by the fact that the whole spirit of the festival is to be a big gif community and gif economy. On the other side of this festival experience, the experiences of receiving gifs, we have no idea what we are seeking, and perhaps we just come across, say, an interactive art installation that aff ects ects us deeply, like a message in a bottle. Tese gif experiences, of anonymous giving and unexpected receiving happen all the time in certain communities like Burning Man—large ones and small group gatherings. Let me give you a speci�c example of this. At Burning Man, you might walk into some art installation and �nd what is called a “Hermeon”—which refers to an ancient place, a temple or shrine at-the-cros at-the-crossroads. sroads. What you will �nd in one of these—just as was true in the ancient world—are all these diff erent erent little objects or symbols piled up. Te point is that you can take one of those things and also leave something of your own for a fellow traveler on the path. . . . Larry: I love that. . . . Jeff : Yes, it is an ancient gi f-giving tradition for getting connected to other people traveling the road. And it can take lots of forms. One of these at Burning Man was a battery-powered refrigerator in the middle of the desert and people could
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mysterious, anonymous gifing object in the middle of the desert. Larry: I am wondering about something. . .we are talking about anonymous performers.. So how might we create something giving. But as magicians we are performers like anonymous anonymous magical giving within the framework of a show? Or what might a Hermeon look like in a contemporary magic show? Jeff : Ah! Tat is an interesting question [laughter]. One thing might be to have an art installation or a Hermeon in the lobby—you could set something like that up in the lobby l obby.. You You know, know, anything that t hat gets people pe ople interacting interac ting and sharing sh aring moments mome nts would be in the spirit—anything that supports even momentary gifs of contact. And afer the show, signing autographs is gi fing.
Te Gif of Connection Larry: Your saying that reminds me of something further. Sometimes a fer a show, one can put people in contact and relationship with each other. You know, know, signing autographs or chatting afer the show we sometimes say, “Oh, I just met someone you need to meet. Come with me and I’ll introduce you. . . .” We are starting to make a web-work of relationships. Jeff : I really do think this is an important thing, something I have learned over the years, and something I try to share with all the magicians I work with, young and old alike. Tat is, bookers for a party are not necessarily wanting some hotshot to come and “blow people away” with their technique or their “mad skills.” What bookers are really looking for, at the bottom of it, is somebody to make happy party guests and help those guests interact. I think a good, interactive magician can take a very stale group of people at a party who don’t really know each other and by the time the magician moves on to the next group, those people know each other’s names and are, say, pondering over an impossible object or experience. A good interactive magician gives everyone at the party something to discuss, both at the party and afer they leave it.
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connecting with each other and excited, that is for us to have given a great gif. Jeff : Yes, we might think our task at a cocktail party is to do “ Te Ninja Rings,” people together but on a much more practical level, we should be linking the people together as they watch. Magic then becomes the medium that accelerates communication and connection. People sometimes think of magic at a party as a “diversion,” but I really feel strongly that the magic at a party should help people open up to each other so there is a more relaxed and gregarious feeling in the room. Larry: So then, to extend your metaphor, while we performers might be “the key ring,”” everyone ring, ever yone else is the rest of the set—they have all been linked. lin ked. Jeff : Tere we go! [laughter].
Wee have talked about several magical gif ideas so far: turning a signed card Larry: W into a piece of artwork, performing in way so the person is internal to the story rather than a spectator, using a performance to create connections with you and each other at the show, perhaps creating a Hermeon in the lobby before or afer the show. . . . Jeff : . . .you know, sometimes the Hermeon is something as simple and as special as a guest book. . . . Larry: . . .yes, sure. . . Jeff : . . .because people leave gi fs in them—the gif of their sincere words. As you know, we have a gi f book in our house. Everybody that comes to or visits one of our classes signs the “Guests of the House of McBride” book. We do not say it is a guest book because people have a default kind of response such as, “Oh thanks for the great time.” We tell everybody that opens the book that we want something more than that—that we hope the person will leave behind a gif of wisdom. And it is a give-and-take—it is a Hermeon—because they leave a gif of words, advice perhaps for a fellow traveler on the path of magic and mystery, words to live by,
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and Billy McComb—from every great magician who has entered this house, whether it is Siegfried, Siegfr ied, Lance, Johnny Tompson, or Teller. And then, too, guests may take with them something from our Box of Treasures, which is full of transitional objects in our lives, things that have spent time with us, but which are now ready to move on to make room for new things. Because as you know, as Lewis Hyde shows us, gi fs have to “pass on,” they have to pass through us, they have to stay in motion.
Anonymous Gifs Larry: Do you have other magical gi f ideas you would like to share?
erent ways of creating Jeff : Well, I would like to encourage readers to explore di ff erent and leaving anonymous gifs. Tey don’t have to be big and complex; they can be as simple as, for example, in a restaurant, leaving the salt and pepper shakers balanced on edge. Te waitress or bus-person comes over to clean up the table and all of a sudden they �nd this moment of wonder le f for them. Larry: What is the technique for that? Jeff : It is an old idea. You put a small pile of salt on the table and then tap the saltshaker a few times to pack down the salt in it at the angle you want. Ten you put the shaker at that angle on edge amidst the salt so it balances there. Finally you gently blow the rest of the salt away so you leave a little mystery. It is a temporary, delicate, static piece of magical art for that moment—a little gi f for the person who has waited on you.
erent that idea is from f rom something I remember from Larry: Tat is terri�c. How diff erent the S. S. Adams magic book I had as a kid, where you put your tip into a glass of water, put the menu on the top, turn the whole thing over on the table, then slide the menu out so the waitress has to spill water all over to get her tip. What a nasty little idea that is! A dark gif. . . .
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Larry: Do you have any �nal thoughts you want to share about magical gifs? Jeff : I think I want to add, and stress, that the magical gi fs we give people are a touchstone and talisman to reactivate a moment in time. In this way, a simple little stone or a playing card can be a time-travel machine. A person opens his wallet and takes out this card and they journey back to a time when they had a miraculous encounter. And then they re-tell the story and the story gets multiplied. Te little gif has become b ecome a touchstone and a treasure. In this way way,, magic magical al gifs transform the mundane into the magical; they make something that is very common into something uncommon and special. I think it may also be an important gi f for us to realize that one person’s piece of scrap paper could be another person’s golden treasure—a trigger for a wave of memories of an encounter they had with a magical person in a most magical world.
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15 A Simple Gif
Lawrence Hass
Tis
little production of a small gif object is simple, almost nothing, light as air. And yet, for the right person at the right time, experience has proven it to be genuinely delightful. I have performed it hundreds of times to very warm, astonished reactions. In thinking about why this piece plays so powerfully powerfully,, I have come to see that part of the answer is its very simplicity. Everything is so clear and direct: the little star (the object I usually produce) appears out of nowhere. Also the piece engages the participant’s heart and hands, and leaves them with a memorable gif. Many years later later I have had children and adults show show me their star and recall when they received it. If all that isn’t enough to tempt you to learn “A Simple Gi f,” consider this: you will never, ever have to pull a quarter out of someone’s ear again! First things �rst: I learned this piece at Alain Nu’s Phoenix Gathering in 2001 from my friend Just Alan—a most wonderful magician. I saw a lot of great magic that weekend, but Just Alan’s little piece really knocked me out. Just Alan calls it “Wish Granted” Granted” and I am grateful for his kind permission to share here my handling, script, and little touches. Please think of this as Just Alan’s gi f to this book of gifs.
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there I see a child (boy or girl) between the ages of six and ten, or a smiling, warm woman. Or 2) I am invited to socialize at someone’s house and they have a child who is interested that I am a magician. Or 3) from previous visits, I know a secretary,, waitress, bank teller, check-out secretary check-out person, etc. who is interested in the fact that I am a magician. In these kinds of situations, with these kinds of people, I launch in.
Script You know, know, there is magic all around us, in grand things and simple ones. . .like the everyday wishes we make. Tell me: did you make a wish on your birthday this year? And did you really,, truly wish it would come true? really Well. . .touch my hand right here. I just made a wish. And it really came true! [Open your hand to reveal a little star.] Tis wish is for you. Keep it, and sometime today make a magical wish of your own.
Method I prefer to produce a little star because it perfectly �ts with the theme of making wishes. But I will also produce a penny (which still �ts the theme) if I don’t have my stars with me, and occasionally, for the right person, I will produce a little 54 shows you the objects I use and their relative size.) You can �nd heart. (Figure (Figure 54 shows such things at craf stores.
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I begin with the small object I want to produce in right-hand �nger palm position, with my right arm down at my side. On the word “Well. . .” I extend my lef hand, palm up, �ngers open so the participant sees that it is empty. On the word “Here. . .” I move my right hand up and toward my le f hand, which 55). What happens is that the right hand will leave the remains stationary ( � ( � gure 55). star in the lef hand as it uses the right index �nger both to turn the lef hand palm down ( � ( � gure 56 ) and to point to a place on the back of the hand for the participant to touch ( � ( � gure 57 ). ). As you look at these three t hree �gures, imagine them as mere moments in one, �uid motion.
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Figure 56
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Now this might seem easy to do, and it is, but it is also easy to do badly. I have taught “A Simple Gif” to dozens of students over the years and many of them “get it” but some just do not. No matter how hard they practice, pr actice, they t hey can’t can’t make the movement natural and the secret placement invisible. So at the risk of belaboring something “simple” I want to share some essential details for making the piece fully deceptive. 1. It is imperative that the right hand does not clutch the star as it passes over the open lef palm. Indeed, while I hold the star in a loose right-hand �nger palm when my arm is at the side, when I bring my right hand in motion toward my lef hand, I loosen the grip further and let centrifugal force keep the star against my �ngers. Tus, as my right hand approaches my le f palm, it slows down and the star will naturally �y into my lef hand. So instead of “right-hand clutch,” “pause,” and then “release” (all of which would be painfully obvious), the correct action is a �owing, almost throwing movement of the star into the le f hand. It will take considerable practice for you to get the right feel and speed for this action. 2. Equally important is the fact that the secret placement (actually (actually,, throwing) of the star is an in-transit i n-transit action (Arturo de Ascanio). Tat is, it secretly “happens on the way” of a strong primary action. acti on. Here, the strong strong primary action is using the right index �nger both to turn the lef hand palm down and to point to a place on the back of the le f hand for the participant to touch. In fact, the pointing action and request for the participant to touch your hand is so strong that the previous moment, when the right hand was over the le f palm, becomes psychologically invisible. As you practice the movement, always keep your intention on the primary action and try to forget about the secret placement; this is essential for success with this move. As you start start working on this piece, it will be intention right difficult to get the intention right because you will be focused on getting the move right and keeping your right �ngers relaxed. As you keep working on it, you will suddenly �nd that you both have the right �ow and intention; then the piece will be deceptive. 3. A fer all my work with students on this piece I can tell you a common problem is the tendency for the right-hand motion to be too fast as it approaches the lef hand. Doing that draws unwanted unwanted attention to the right hand and all is lost. Practice moving the right rig ht hand so it is slow enough to feel natural, but fast enough
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Magic, Seattle: the Gaze” during the secret placement (see Te Five Points in Magic, Hermetic Press, 2007, pages 11-12). Tat is, I look at my open le f hand, then, as my right hand �ows toward it, I look up at my participant to catch her attention while the placement happens, then I look back down at my right index �nger pressing on the back of my le f hand. Tis subtle shif of my gaze splits the participant’s attention even if she doesn’t look directly at me. I invite you to try the piece with and without this technique; I think you will quickly notice the di ff erence erence it makes.
Final Toughts When I say the line, “And I think it came true!” I give my le f hand a little twitch— Secrets, 2000.) Tis what Topas calls “ Te Clic.” (See his lecture notes, Presentation Secrets, is an important action because, as Topas says, it is powerful and expressive and it precisely de�nes the moment of eff ect ect (page 10). Afer the “Clic,” I slowly, �uidly open my lef hand one �nger at a time to reveal the star. A fer a couple of seconds, I pick up the star and present it to the person with a gi f-like intention. Trust me when I say it will be very warmly received. As thoughtful, creative magicians, we are always tinkering with this and that as ways to improve the deceptiveness of what we do. Tus, I know from my own experience that some of you may be tempted to devise a way to show the right hand empty at the outset of the piece. For example, you might be tempt tempted ed to use a Ramsey Subtlety or devise some way to secretly load the star a fer showing the hand empty. Far be it for me to sti �e creativity, but my advice is: forget is: forget about it . Showing the right hand empty in advance is unnatural and unnecessary. As Touch, page 73), this kind of action Vernon taught (for example, see Te Vernon Touch, “telegraphs” that you are getting ready to do something and subtly challenges the audience. Both of those things are exactly what we want to avoid with a friendshipmaking piece such as this one.
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Te Survival Version : A Concept for Your Magic
George Parker
Introduction I am lazy at times. I’m scared of failure. I’m ashamed of half-baked, half- �nished products. I can’t stand feedback that’s right on the money. In short, I have hangups that make me postpone action. At the same time, I love to perform magic and create amazing memories, and without action I am not going to be able to do that. So many years ago, I realized that I needed to either solve these hang-ups or come up with a strategy that helped me move forward in spite of them. For reasons I am not entirely clear about, I did the latter. Over the last thirty years I have used my own life as a laborato laboratory. ry. I wanted to learn about how people create reality, reality, how they bring real things into being. So I started to study books by people pe ople who were exploring these ideas. ide as. More important, important, I tried out every concept and technique that I found. As a result of this practical approach, I have rede�ned myself several times as a person and as a professional, and now I live in parallel worlds living my visions as a performing artist, author, and motivational speaker. Although there is still much more to discover, I keep going back to some basic principles that help me be creative and productive. One
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Te Concept Many people don’t don’t dare to dream up their lives and so they cannot can not live their dreams. dre ams. I’m not talking about huge dreams, like putting a man on Saturn or anything like that. I’m I’m talking about events you wholeheartedly want to have happen in your life. In making an eff ort ort to make those fantasies come true you will generate creative energy and improve the overall quality of your life. Many people seem to shut off their dreams because they think they need money to achieve their goals. Or they stop fantasizing about what they really want to achieve because they feel they don’t don’t have the talent and skills skil ls to materialize their dreams. Most of the time, however, however, a person doesn’t need money, but rather solutions. Further, if someone doesn’t have the skills, they can usually get the necessary training. And frankly, frankly, talent is highly overrated. Take any emotional “�atliner” or mentally retired person who thinks nothing of him/herself; put the right r ight pressure on this person to produce something creative and they will do it. Afer all these years of teaching and talking to people from all walks of life, I believe there is �re in all of us. Igniting it is inspiration; the rest, ninety-� ve percent, is just just persistently persistently working to move move closer to your your goals. Te Survival Version concept is a way to get connected to your goals right away—in a way that is mental, emotional, and physical. A Survival Version of something is a micro-version of your highest vision in life. Tis micro-version includes all essential aspects of what you want to achieve ultimately. But it’s done without any any budget, or with very ver y few means. Tese are the steps you take: 1. Vision. Imagine having a hundred billion dollars. Or living in a world where money is no issue whatsoever. Or imagine living in a magical garden where every fantasy immediately materializes. materializes. Ten create what I call “a valuable memory of your own future.” Tis means that you fantasize about a moment in the future you truly long for and for something you really want to happen. 2. Essence. In your mind, distill the essential ingredients in this movie or picture. What aspects must be present? Or what properties cannot be omitted? Tese essentials can be b e material in nature such as a color, color, shape, or thing. But also think of other kinds of properties such as a certain atmosphere, a speci �c person, an emotion, or anything you feel cannot be lef out. 3. Action: the Survival Version. Create a micro-version of this vision in your actual life. Include all or most of the ingredients that you discovered in Step
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is already there. Be inventive inventive.. Improvise. Tat is, �nd a way to prototype your own future into your your present life, even if it is for a very short time. Force yourself to do this within twenty-fo twenty-four ur hours. 4. Learn. What worked? What didn’t? Did the action change your vision? Start planning the next action including everything you learned.
Two Examples 1. Suppose you crave for a vacation. Start imagining the ideal vacation. Maybe you imagine going to California. You see yourself having great dinners, meeting interesting people, having a couple of days at the beach, reading a good book, keeping to your own schedule. Once you have done that look at these pictures in your mind and ask yourself: What cannot be omitted? What elements do I really need to be there? Maybe you feel that having time on your hands is essential and also reading a good book. Maybe you also think that wearing shorts will add substantially to your overall experience. (I’m not kidding, these things happen!) Now create a Survival Sur vival Version of that vacation. Plan a day and a night n ight off , and if you cannot do that plan half a day and a night. Put on your shorts, pick up a good book, and turn off your your cell-phone, computer, and anything else that could possibly interfere with your free space. 2. Once someone tested me by saying, “I want to spend more time with my kids.” I said, “Okay, imagine doing something with them that would satisfy this need. Be generous and make up ten memories of your future and then pick one that stands out.” A fer a while he said, “I would like to spend one night in the Sahara with them. I did that once.” I asked, “What is essential in this image?” He said, “My kids need to be there. Te sand and the starry night are a big part of it, along with the atmosphere of playfulness and really enjoying our time together.” Now he needed to create a Survival Version keeping these elements in place, so I asked him, “What could you do over the next few days?” He answered, “Well, I suppose I could go to the beach.” “But what if I wouldn’t allow you to leave your house?”” “Well, house? “Well, I could do something s omething near ne ar our sandbox sandb ox outside.” outside.” I pushed him even ev en further, “What if you would have to create this experience inside your house?”
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Discussion A Survival Version may seem trivial at �rst view. “I’m not going to pretend I’m in the Sahara while I’m in my sandbox. How childish!” Or “I really need my vacation and I’ I’m m not going to take a day off and and pretend I’m in Barbados!” You must understand that a Survival Version doesn’t mean compromising your vision. It invites you to make up your future without looking at what you think is possible or impossible. Afer you’ve created a vision of what you wholeheartedly want, creating the Survival Surviva l Version Version of it will wil l help you to get real rea l with it. To clarify this a bit more, consider the di ff erence erence between a reactive state of mind and a creative c reative state of mind. min d. “Reaction “React ion”” and “creation” “creation” have the exact same letters. But the slight di ff erence erence in the order of the letters amounts to an enormous diff erence erence in how we live and act. For example, a reactive sailor will �rst listen to the weather forecast; then based upon what he hears he will then determine his goals. But a creative sailor will envision his goal �rst, then listen to the weather forecast because it will provide him with information he needs ne eds to determine his strategy. strategy. In a reactive state of mind we look at the world as a collection of unchangeable facts that have to be coped with as they come. But in a creative state of mind we see the world as the ever-transforming result of our individual and collective ideas and actions. A reacti reactive ve mind looks at one’s life and perceive perceivess facts. A creative mind looks at one’s life and sees possibilities. A reactive mind is led by current reality to have ideas about its future. A creative mind is led by the reality it wants to produce to have insights about how to make it. Both types of awareness look at the same world but have a completely diff erent erent experience of it. In a reactive state of mind you will always need comp compromises romises because you are very attached to current reality. But in a creative state of mind you will keep inventing new reality, including reinventing yourself, until it coincides with your vision. A Survival Version of something, of course, �nds its roots in the creative state of mind. By trying out your future you will create a new experience experi ence and new experiences will lead to new knowledge. Te type of knowledge that is produced
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and your subconscious mind. Terefore experiences are the highest level of information and they will speed up your learning process much more than any theory.
Applying the Survival Version Concept to Your Magic I �rst published the Survival Sur vival Version Version concept in my Big Book of Creativity (published Game (2009), a card game by Archipel, 2004) and I also discuss it in Te Creation Game (2009), I have created to help people shape their lives in the way they want. But I’ve been applying it to my magic from the very beginning. b eginning. Here is the application: 1. Vision. Visualize the ideal routine or show for you. Imagine what kind of magic you would perform if there were no limits, no technical problems, and no budget limitations. Tis doesn’t mean to imagine yourself as a real magician; I suppose you could go for that kind of a grand fantasy, but for me, that’s not much of a creative trigger. Instead, I try to think smaller and more speci �c, such as, I want to mess with the minds of my audience in a playful way. Or I want to create a suspenseful act, or do a hilarious routine and juxtapose it to a creepy one. Or I want to invent a David Lynch kind of storyline. Visualize whatever you like, but keep fantasizing until you are truly excited about it. It can be a routine, a whole show, a single eff ect, ect, an out�t, a prop, or a method. 2. Essence. Just as a true alchemist, distill the essential ingredients. What is essential in this routine, eff ect, ect, or show that you have envisioned? Tis is not an easy question to answer. Te nature of the essential ingredients may vary var y. And there will be a diff erent erent set of essentials in every project. Also a fer having done a Survival Version, your idea of what is essential will develop. When I came up f h Element , the eff ects, with my �rst non-linear theater show, Te Fi f ects, props, music, and lighting were not essential. However, the non-linear structure was central, as well as my desire to have it be a one-man show. In another project I’m currently developing, the challenge is to use one deck of cards (at least that’s how it would appear to the audience), and every eff ect ect should have a diff erent erent premise and use
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Here is a list of some considerations that may help you determine what is essential: · the way it aff ects ects
the audience (emotionally, mentally, physically)
· a speci�c prop or quality of a prop (weight, size, shape, etc.) · the number of people for whom you should be able to perform per form it · a method
you really want to use
· sound and music · a stage picture · a certain category of eff ects ects (productions, vanishes, transformations,
etc.).You can use the works of Sam Sharpe or Dariel Fitzkee as guides. · a speci�c story you want to tell
3. Action: the Survival Version. Focus on the essential aspects of your vision and create something you can do/perform within twenty-fo twenty-four ur hours. For Te Fi f f h Element I did a card routine that followed the non-linear structure I had envisioned. Further, Further, I used a bunch of eff ects ects from my existing repertoire but disrupted disrupte d their previous prev ious structure. struc ture. For the “all “all card” show, show, I created a short routine including several diff erent erent premises with cards. When you are stuck and start to rethink the whole thing, be aware that this is an ofen-used and well-camou�aged procrastination strategy. It appears you are moving forward but most of the time you are not. “Doing” is a great way of thinking. Once you have created your �rst Survival Version you’ll see why. 4. Learn. You will get reactions and new thoughts based on step 3. Use this feedback and everything you learned to take your act closer to your vision. If everything went well, rehearse your act until it overlaps with your vision. If there were parts that didn’t work out as you hoped, re �ne or rede�ne your vision. Or re�ne/rede�ne your next action. Final Toughts: From Survival Version to Full Version and Back Again
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so I have stumbled on techniques, props, and other possibilities I couldn’t have conceived by merely thinking about my acts. Having worked with this concept for so long now I have also discovered another side bene�t I expect that you will �nd helpful. To clarify this, let me give a little background. As just mentioned, I f h Element show developed my Fi f show from a Survival Version into a two-hour, oneman evening show. While this worked really well in theaters, it would not work at dinner shows or at 10:00 p.m. in Las Vegas, where I performed a version of this show in 2006. For those occasions I needed to scale it back to forty- � ve minutes to an hour. But here is the “survival version” pay-o ff : because I had worked through all of the above stages of the t he survival process and thus was aware of what was essential to the show, I could easily make what Eugene Burger calls “a good director’s cut” of the show. So in fact I created several shorter versions of the show, throwing out lines, acts, props, and everything ever ything that wasn’t wasn’t really essential to move the show forward. Aside from being bei ng able to travel with the show more easily, easily, it also helped me purify the show for “commando” situations. Tus, while the concept of the Survival Sur vival Version Version enables you to materialize your vision immediately immediately,, the same concept can further help you perform per form your vision in its purest form—one form—one in which every line, every prop prop,, every movemen movementt is well thought through and charged with actual and personal experiences. And that’s when real magic happens.
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1. Editor’s note: “ Te Survival Version” is a registered trademark belonging to George Parker, however, I will not indicate that at each appearance in the text.
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17 Debunking the Five Great Magic Myths
Rich Bloch
(Delivered at the International Brotherhood of Magicians Convention, July 2, 2009) Tis morning I want to address what I see
as � ve great myths myths in magic: 1. You must practic practicee in front of a mirror. 2. Sleight-of-han Sleight-of-hand d is the epitom epitomee of our art. 3. Exposure will destroy our art. 4. I am just one new trick away from stardom. 5. All people love magic—an magic—and d can can’t ’t wait for me to perfor perform. m.
Myth Number 1: Practice in Front of a Mirror Some years ago, the World Magic Seminar ran a magic movie festival, where we invited would-be �lmmakers to present short pieces on magic scenarios. If you were there, you know some of the �lms were positively brilliant. In my judgment, however, the most brilliant �lm of all never got made. Mike Close had the idea of �lming a magician practicing a trick, shot from the perspective of the magician. You would see him looking at a mirror and working on a di fficult card sleight. Ten at the crucial moment of performing the Hofzinser Cull Spread, the screen
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we’ve all done it. Of course, standing in front of a mirror creates a body double where we become performer and audience at the same time. But then comes the self-imposed illusion. At that moment of potential artistic crisis, to insure the audience part of this duo is totally fooled, we blink, and presto! Te sleight is done and the “audience” is dazzled. Te point I am making is this. Of course it’s important to practice. One needs to school the muscle memory and to become at ease with the mechanics. Doing it in front of a mirror is helpful, at times, to insure one accounts for angles and other logistical and geographical necessities. But if all one does is practice in front of a mirror, mirror, the point of all the t he work has been lost. Te reason to perfect the move is so we never have to think about it again; the purpose is to free whatever artist resides in our souls to concentra concentrate te on presentation, on entertainment. Only afer we have mastered the physical skills, can we ask and answer that all-important question in life, as in magic: “Was it Good for You?” In the �nal analysis, the purpose of the physical practice is to support our mental discipline, because if we are not focused on the presentation, we will never be able to make those critical artistic decisions that underlie any successful performing adventur adventure. e.
Myth Number 2: Sleight-of-Hand is the Epitome of Our Cra f To this, I say: nonsense say: nonsense.. In truth, I didn’t always feel this way. When Nick Ruggiero and I ran Collectors Workshop, we took endless glee in recounting some of the phone calls we would get from clients. I could do forty minutes on those phone calls alone. (“Please make sure you wrap it in brown paper and send it to my office.”) Te labyrinthine eff orts orts some clients took to conceal the purchases from their spouse—and in magic that probably means their wife—were legendary legendar y. But more frequent than those calls were the ones that went something like this: Caller: I want to order trick number 221—“Te Ultimate Miracle.” I have only one question: Does it require any sleights? Answer: No No,, it is entirely self-working. Caller: Do you swear to God? Answer:: Yes. Answer
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Caller: Good. Can you overnight it? I have a show tomorro tomorrow w night. For some time, we used to chuckle and shake our heads at these indolent, benighted, misguided souls who were of course purchasing eff ects ects that had been carefully designed precisely for them. But then it occurred o ccurred to me: they were correct in an important way. Tink about it. Te goal of great sleight-of-hand, no matter what the move, is to hide any evidence evi dence of sleight-of-hand. As I postulated above, the goal is entertainment. And if one can skip the mirror mirror,, the blinking, and the self-deception and head straight for the entertainment, by God, we’ve we’ve come close to being b eing actors who, in the sage words of Robert-Houdin, are playing the part of a magician. To prove my hypothesis, imagin imaginee the following. You sit in awe of the miracles that Juan Tamariz has just spun for you and then are told that every eff ect ect in the show can be done by purchasing one trick deck—red or blue, poker or bridge, Bicycle or Bee—for � ve hundred hundred dollars. Tere would be a line around the block, and they’d all be behind me.
Myth Number Number 3: Exposure is Bad and It will Ruin Magic se. But it is a rule that in my judgment is very badly To be fair, this is not a lie, per lie, per se. understood. At the outset, we need to de�ne terms here. By “exposure,” we usually mean intentional exposure. We are afer bad guys who proceed in a mean-spirited fashion to tell everyone how it’s done—especially for pro�t. To be sure, no one will walk the plank at the I.B.M. for accidentally revealing an e ff ect. ect. Now the poster child of mean-spirited exposure is the Masked Magician. Tat son-of-a-bitch actually revealed (gasp) the Linking Rings on TV! Just when 150 million people had collectively forgotten they used to perform it themselves right out of the S. S. Adam Adamss magic set their t heir grandfather passed on to them! My friends, I am here to deal in inconvenien inconvenientt truths. Tere are good reasons to guard the gates of our secret cra f. But the following is not one of them: “If we reveal that magic involves tricks, people won’t believe in magic and they won’t believe we are magicians.” Wrong. Keep this to yourself if you must, but I’m here to tell you that our secrets are available in every ever y public library, library, in every e very magic store, in thousands of free websites on the internet, and occasionally, in boxes of
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that magic still exists, that we still wear our top hats and capes?” Te answer is clear: magic exists because people wish it to exist. And that explains the virtue of the rule against disclosure. We We keep the secrets for the same reasons good parents don’t don ’t spill the beans be ans about Santa Claus. We We protect the treasure tre asure for the same reason re ason actors don’t pierce the fourth wall. It’s because there is something inherently enchanting about the ability to create fantasy, fantasy, to construct illusion in the eyes of a them.. child or in the minds of an audience. It’s not for us, you see. It’s for them I am not here today to defend some no-talent bastard who takes thirty pieces of silver for intentionally intention ally destroying destroyi ng illusions. However, I suggest to you that the inept presenta presentation tion of magic—by which I include thoughtless and inappropriate inappropriate presentations presentatio ns as well as outright errors—does the real damage; it inspires cynicism and the rejection rejec tion of magic by our audiences. audiences . Ultimately, Ultimately, it’s it’s the loyal, good-hearte good -hearted, d, but inept devotees who drive damaging stakes in the t he heart of this craf.
Myth Number 4: I am Only One Prop Away from Greatness Tis
one is really a self-imposed deception. No one would say it aloud. Rather, we mouth platitudes that go the opposite way, “It’s not the trick; it’s you,” and that sort of stuff . While that happens to be true, the fact is that we stand in front of the dealer tables and surf the ads in the magic magazines with the unshakeable conviction that the only thing standing between us and immortality is one killer trick. If you don don’t ’t belie believe ve that, go home and open up the drawers in your magic room—or in my magic room. Tey are stuff ed ed with discarded (or should be discarded) crap that is nothing more than the collected tombstones of dashed hopes. Tis next statement will surely guarantee my expulsion from the Magic Dealer’s Association (if �feen years of unpaid dues has not already done that), but here it goes: props are our enemies. One morning, my family and I were camping out in the Grand Canyon. I sat up in my sleeping bag with the greatest prop idea I’d ever had. It was a variation of the old carnival item where you hit something with a sledgehammer to see how strong you were, and if you hit it hard enough the little slug would travel up and ring a bell. In my concept, a borrowed watch would travel down toward a jar of smoking acid. Lights would �ash, bells would ring, and the spectator’s watch
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get him started building what became marketed as “Carnival Countdown.” It cost thousands of dollars and it was one of the most beautiful props we ever built. I performed it again and again and again. However, I never lef the stage without some lingering disappoin disappointment. tment. So I did what I always did in such cases: I videotaped it and sent it to my mentor and life-changing teacher, Davey Marlin-Jones. I asked him, “Why am I not getting a better response from this?” “Because,” Davey responded, “the prop is far more interesting than you are.” Davey advise advised d me to get rid of it immedi immediately ately,, and I did. It It’’s almost impossible to overcome anyone or anything that is upstaging you. Tink about it. Tere is no other performing art that plays to its props. Actors don’t decorate the chairs and tables with glitter tape. And magic is the only art where you can buy a box and be on stage that night. You can’t do that with a violin. Moreover,, doing a one-man show is the hardest of all theatr Moreover theatrical ical genres. We are deprived of the usual theatrical elements that make for build-ups and resolutions. Tere are no entrances and exits; rarely are there moments when we are off stage, stage, so what we bring to the show is revealed very early on. And if the set doesn’t change as we progress through the show, the audience has pretty much seen it all too quickly. Yet we dare to present ourselves with shiny props that generally reside on stage at all times, demanding attention even before such attention is appropriate. Nonetheless, our irresistible temptation as magicians is to hitch our hopes to the awe that will be inspired i nspired by that Chinese box in the corner. Finally Final ly,, we attempt to overcome all these built-in booby traps without the assistance, intervention, or oversight of a theater director. We may be “actors playing the part of a magician,” but there is no self-respecting actor in the world who would attempt attempt a theatrical t heatrical adventure like this without some serious direction from someone who knows what they are talking about. Te lesson here is relatively simple, but terribly important. We need to tell kids to practice, to protect secrets, but more than that, we need to tell them that if they want to perform, they need to do far more than just read the magic instructions. Tey need to read and learn about theater. At its best, magic is a theatrical discipline. It doesn’t matter that sometimes our theater is no larger than a living room; we need nee d to know what it means to be on stage.
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“He asked asked me if I liked card tricks. I said no. He did � ve.” Ideally,, magic, like any other art, should be available on demand rather Ideally than “demanding to be available.” I distinctly remember a visit to our home by a close friend of ours that coincided with a visit by a magician acquaintance. During the course of conversation, conversation, the magician pulled out a small change-pursesize zippered pouch, which, he con�ded, contained a full forty-minute show. We nodded politely p olitely,, desperately afraid that any skepticism would be met with a fortyminute proof. Te lasting image I am still trying to shake from my mind is our walking upstairs to my study with the magician demonstrating four variations of sponge ball moves he felt should be shared. I remember praying for a lightning lig htning bolt to strike—I didn’t care whom. And remember, I love magic. I’ll say it again, magic is a theatrical art that ought to be cultivated properly and nurtured gently by us, its stewards. One of the beauties of magic is that its particular theater can exist in virtually any setting. But it’s worth remembering that theater performances are generally most successful when the patrons, in one manner or another (such as by buying a ticket), show some desire to be entertained. It is worthwhile, having noted that not everyone loves magic, to close with some observations about why they feel that way. Too ofen, spectators see magic as nothing more than a puzzle, or more cynically, as carrying the aura of a cheat, a swindle. Tis fact is why I have such an aversion to referring to magic e ff ects ects as “tricks.” In the �nal analysis, if we are true trustees of this art, we need to remind folks of the meaningful distinction between illusion and deception. Deception is a mean-spirited act, practiced by one upon an unknowing other. other. It generally results in pain and unhappiness. Illusion, on the other hand, is a joint eff ort ort involving the willing suspension of disbelief. When properly pursued, the result of illusion is enjoyment and happiness happiness and a certain trusting complicity between the performer and his audience. Tese are the distinctions that separate the Actor from the Grifer, the Performer from the Perpetrator. I admire everyone who appr appreciates eciates the possibilities of magic, who dedicates themselves to being stewards of the art, who values the happiness and satisfaction that a bit of illusion and wonder can bring to people’s lives. As I look around the room, I see so many people who embrace these values too. Among other things, this explains why I’m so �attered to have been asked to address you this morning
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18 Te Gif of Magic: Some Obvious Reminders
Robert E. Neale
Matters,, Teory and Art of Magic Press, 2009, pages 5-6.) (An excerpt from Magic from Magic Matters
Magic is a gif. Some of the implications of this thought follow. . . .
Some Obvious Reminders 1. Magic itself is a gif. It can create the appreciation that things are not as they seem, and therefore, that something better is possible. p ossible. Tis gif counters demoralization by off ering ering new possibility and hope. Producing a silk can suggest that something surprising and wonderful can occur occur.. 2. Te speci�c theme of a trick can be a gi f. Magically joining two silks that represent people can signify the possibility p ossibility of love. 3. Tis gif of the possible is ambiguous. And it is dangerous. Will it be for better or worse? So reaction to it is ambivalence. Folk tales about three wishes and their unintended consequences illustrate these dynamics.
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and hearts of the audience. Tis can save performers from sentimentality. 5. It also follows that the audience can reject it just like any other gi f. It can be returned to the giver, discarded, saved for another time, or given to another person.
er a physical gif to a spectator spe ctator or the entire audience. 6. A performance can also off er Such a gif can be a token of the more fundamental gi f of the performance. It seems likely that this does not happen as o fen as it could and should. 7. Te gif can also be of oneself, something personal from the performer. Tis can be an idea and/or and/or feeling, something something of concern concern to the performer. performer. It need not necessarily be identi�ed as such for the audience, and there is a danger of a confessional approach that abuses the spectators. 8. Finally, such a gi f is reciprocated, as the audience gives back to the performer during and afer the show. If the performer does not realize this and sees gi fing only as a one-way process, he or she is presumptuous and patronizing. In sum, magic is both giving a gif to the audience and receiving a gi f from the audience. Magic performance is a gif exchange. . . .
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19 A Conversation Conversation with Robert E. Neale
( Tis conversation was held by e-mail, July 15-16, 2009.)
Larry: Tank you, Bob, for this conversation to supplement your contributions to our book on giving magic and magical gifs. I am so pleased that t hat you are a part of this shared project, for many reasons, but one of them is that you have already done considerable thinking and writing about gif magic. In fact you have a whole Matters.. section of gif magic in your latest book, Magic book, Magic Matters As part of that section you provide a list of eight reminders about the nature of the relationship between magic and gi fs. We have reprinted that list in this book [see the previous chapter], and I want to ask you a few questions about your ideas. Your �rst reminder is that “Magic is itself a gi f.” And that is, you suggest, because it “creates appreciation” and “counters demoralization” by o ff ering ering new possibilities and hope. I understand that, I think. Let me ask you to say more: are there other things that gi fs do? Are there other things that magical gifs do?
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thanks for engaging me with questions.) What comes to mind immediately are: gifs reveal something about the giver; giver ; reveal something about the giver’ giver’ss understanding of the receiver; gifs off er er connection between giver and receiver; and especially, gifs prompt gif exchange which helps foster friendship and community. All this involves a host of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, so any speci �c giving can be quite a fulsome piece of intercha interchange. nge. Magical gifs can do all this too. i magine critics of this book b ook project who might say, say, “magic as gif,” “gif Larry: I can imagine of magic”—all this is mere metaphor and loose talk that yields confusion and the meaninglessness of words. “Magic “Magic is a gif? Duh, no. . . .magic is a performing art.” What might you say to that imaginary critic? Bob: I’d say, “You are right!” Tere are a great many terms and phrases that are exceedingly vague and perhaps quite empty. For example: God, freedom, democracy,, love, and the American way of life. Tese are valuable precisely because democracy they are vague enough to win wi n a general hearing and provoke provoke fruitful conversations among people. With topics such as these, and a good many others, we typically start from our own meanings and tend to assume that we understand each other. So I would say “magic as gi f” is a valuable way to start the discussion, but far from f rom sufficient to end it. To me, it serves as an opening reminder that the performer is making an off ering ering to others. Tis is a most obvious point, but I do not know the extent to which it is app appreciated, reciated, understood, and utilized. To To the imaginary imagin ary critic, I would also observe, obser ve, just for the serious fun of it: those t hose terms about freedom, love, and “magic as gif” may only refer to our illusions. If so, that is just �ne, as illusions i llusions are among our most valuable products. But that is another topic. Or is it? Larry: Your third reminder is that the gi f of a magic performance is ambiguous and dangerous. Help us understand this. “Ambiguous” and “dangerous” isn’t usually how we think about gi fs in general. Do you think all gifs are like that or only magic gifs? And if only magic gifs, what gives them this power?
er connections between people. Tus, giving and receiving create Bob: Gifs off er attention to relationship and to obligations. obligati ons. Given the nature of the human animal,
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I guess I assume that we are more comfortable both ignoring it and ignoring the other ways we have for coping with it. I don’t blame us one bit. But now and then, some acknowledgement of these dynamics is to our advantage. Your sixth reminder is that a magic performance p erformance can Larry: Let’s shif gears a little. Your off er er a physical gif to the participant part icipant or the audience as a token of the performance. per formance. In fact, our book here is full of magic like this. You also suggest that this “does not happen as ofen as it could or should.” Why do you think so? What do you think is going on with contemporary contemporary magic that it loses sight of this? Bob: To give a physical gi f is such an obvious thing to do! It is such a normal and even expected part of our living with other people. Tink of all the occasions on which we off er er a gif—the big formal ones, the small personal ones, and totally unexpected and haphazard ones. Whenever a magician gives away a playing card with the spectator’s signature on it, it can remain tucked in the corner of a bedroom mirror for years. We hang on to such items. As a non-performer, I am happyy to recommend that we try to off er happ er a gif during every performance. pe rformance. I believe that, even when received by only one person, an entire audience will experience the connection established. So I think magicians should develop the habit. Why we have not is a puzzle to me. Maybe it is a matter of when and why we began to be performers? Maybe some social maturity maturity is required? required? Maybe there many many more reasons that do not come to my mind. It surely was an understanding that came to me, shall we say, late in life. Larry: As usual, Bob, your list of reminders tries to respect the complexity of the topic at hand. So while you provide us a number of ways in which magic is a gi f and relates to gifs, you also want to protect magic and gi fs from sentimentality. gic Matters Matters,, but can you say some You have written at some length about this in Ma in Magic things here? What troubles you about sentimentality in magic? What might you say to someone who insists that gi fs by their very ver y nature are sentimental? sentimental? Bob: Well, I take it that “sentimentality” refers to behavior that is an excessive emotional response to some situation. So in being cautious about sentimentality,
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can be all sorts of things. For example, they can be “appropriately” supportive, cautionary, or destructive. So I would say that “inappropriately supportive” gi fs are typical of sentimentality. In some speci�c cases, the situation is not always clear. And my presentation for “Something” [see chapter 11] is a good example of this ambiguity. Is it sentimental or not? Tat depends on the attitude of both the performer and the audience. Te performer affirms to the audience that we all are “something.” Tis is a version, perhaps, of that traditional conviction that we are all children of God. But what does it mean to us and to others? In my presentation, presentation, I deliberately refer to a prostit prostitute ute as the source of the conviction. With an audience of friends, I know about the people who I am proclaiming are “something.” But with an audience of strangers, I do not. Is my claim for real? Do I really mean it? Or is it a marvelous mar velous example example of secular piety? Sentimentality? Further, Further, if I do mean it, what are the implications about anyone and everyone in the audience? About prostitutes, yes, and about murderers, rapists, child-molesters, enemies of our communities at all levels? Are they “something”? And, if so, how are we to relate to them? To me, these are mind-boggling questions about the nature and demand of acceptance and rejection between people. Our answers to the questions are equally disturbing to me. It is easier to be sentimental. But such super �ciality is not my intention with “Something.” Come to think of it, it might be fun to reconsider the conclusion, conclus ion, and make a brief addition that inhibits sentimentality in the audience. A couple of questions might do it. Larry: Tis brings us to the dark side of gi fs. Indeed, you remind us that gi fs can be rejected, discarded, or casually re-gifed (ouch!). Does that provide any special lessons for us magical givers? Bob: I do not know what might be special lessons for us magical givers. All the performing arts (along with so many other professions and vocations) off er er gifs that can be responded to in these ways. I am not even sure that they represent the “dark side” si de” of gifs. Te “dark “dark side” side” to me lies in i n the performer who neither expects nor tolerates rejections or discards. In psychotherapy psychotherapy there is a term most helpful to the budding therapist—“the helping neurosis.” Tis refers to those who cannot handle a patient responding negatively to their attempt to help. We try so hard to
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therapists, are are accustomed to this dynamic and can even use it to further f urther their goals. Of course one can try tr y to avoid this problem by off ering ering only “light” entertainment that is a welcome gif of distraction from daily life. Terapists cannot do this, and magicians can, but need not do so without deviation. I am not a performer and ponti�cate on this matter perilously, but I obviously enjoy sometimes presenting “heavy” entertainment themes as is done by humorists and dramatists. Larry: I must say you have one piece of gi f magic that is so disturbing I wonder if Tricks, it is even performable. It is called “Pass It On” (in Life, Death & Other Card Tricks, pages 23-26). It is a deeply intriguing trick—I have thought about it a lot—but the pay-off is is that the performer passes an allegedly fatal curse on to the participant: a negative gif! Tell us about negative gifs. Is there any light in them? Why should we ever perform such a thing? And how have your performances of this trick been received?
li ke to make up disturbing pieces. pie ces. I need nee d to mouth off about about gender Bob: Yeah, I do like bias, torture, and capital punishment matters that underline problems in our society. So presentations come into being that are deliberately disturbing. Let me repeat: I am not a performer. performer. I do perform occasionally for other magicians and for friends. Only rarely have I performed for strangers. When I created “Sole Survivor” Magic gic and Mea Meaning ning , pages 133-136], I warned Eugene that it could not be [see Ma performed for everyone, ever yone, but he went out and presented presented it in a bar. bar. I was delighted. (Eugene can get away with a lot!) So it all depends, I suspect, on the intention and manner of the performer. “Pass It On” is in the joke section of my card book. It is a joke, but it also has a serious intention. Te end of the presentation tries to allow for both the practical joke experience, giving the spectator and audience permission to ventilate their feelings, but but also discusses the experience of so-called so-cal led “primitive” and “childish” reactions. And I do not want to involve a spectator in such an experience without encouraging their immediate reactions. Whether or not this can work depends depe nds on both the performer and the audience. Undoubtedly Undoubtedly it will fail with some people or many. I do not know. I have never performed “Pass It On” as I have performed “Sole Survivor.” Maybe I should ask Eugene to do it. I acknowledge that it is easy for me to encourage others to take risks, as I do, for
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do not see why w hy magicians need do less. Clowns may be society’ so ciety’ss saviors. Larry: Even though we have just focused on a negative gif, much of your magic is �lled with marvelous or delightful gi fs, like “Hypertriptych” [see chapter 8]. “Hypertriptych” is so interesting to me because it looks and feels so impossible; I feel my mind bend as I look at it. But why is that delightful? And how can such an impossibility hold open new possibilities, as you suggest in your reminders? I suppose what I am a fer is the important but complex question about your understanding of the relationship between the impossible and the possible. How can they co-exist in i n a magic trick or performance? Aren’t Aren’t they opposites? Is magic the art of the impossible or the possible? Bob: Yes, well, good question! I proclaim: impossibility and possibility must coexist for human life to exist and for magic to support it. To a ffirm only one alone of these two is to elevate it to a false god. It is only when they are full partners that meaningful human reality occurs. What more can I say? I can add further proclamations, ones that I support, even though they may be contradictory. I say, try for the impossible and claim success. success. Borges a ffirms, “revelation is imminent.” As many authors have said in eff ect, ect, “I know this is true because I made it up myself.” Te clash of impossibility and possibility fosters illusion, that act of imagination without which we cannot live and through which magic supports our humanity. Larry: Having studied your books and essays, I know that one of the central concepts in all your thinking, and thinking about magic, is “play.” Indeed, in your earliest book In Praise of Play you you frequently say that playing is a gi f. And so in your thought I see a three-way connection—a triangle: “Play—Gi f—Magic.” Do you want to say something about this? Is magic a gi f also because it is play? How is play a gif? Help us understand this cluster of relations. Bob: Well, I am not sure that I do want to say something about this. Play is so big a topic for me. I might invite the reader who is especially interested to check out my essay, “ Te Teddy Bear Illusion: On the Tree Mothers of Magic” Magic” in our book,
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magic and religion is tenuous at best, the place of play for the human animal and for magicians is profound. [Editor’s note: Bob also discusses this important and subtle set of ideas in his book bo ok with David Parr, Te Magic Mirror (Seattle: (Seattle: Hermetic Press, 2002)]. Larry: Reading In Praise of Play , which valorizes play as the measure of a ful �lling work related life, led me to think about how frequently we hear the language of work related to magic. We say things thi ngs like “I have to go work on my magic. magi c.” Or “I want to go see this t his famous magician so I can get ‘the work’.” Or “Here is how the trick works.” If you are right that magic is play (and I think you are), what is all this language of work about? And what are the costs of it? Bob: Te issue you raise is justi �ed and big. But who knows what we mean by “work”? I pair it with “play” and it remains just as complicated. I do remember my own original feeling and thinking about these two terms and behaviors. My father was a small town lawyer who loved his work. It was his life. A fer I wrote a dissertation on play for my doctoral work as a young man, I realized that I was talking to my father. And sometime afer that, I also realized that for my father, father, his work was really play. Yeah, and sometimes my play is really work. So it goes. One more thing, Larr Larryy. Te conclusion of my eight reminders on the gif of magic is about reciprocation between the performer and audience. Magic performance is a gif exchange. And you, Larry, know quite a bit about that.
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B���� Sensuous . New York, Vintage Books, 1996. Abram, David. Te Spell of the Sensuous. Magician. Magic Inc., 1958. Allerton, Bert. Te Close-Up Magician. Magic. Kaufman and Greenberg, 1989. Burger, Eugene. Te Experience of Magic. Magic. Kaufman and Greenberg, 1987. -------. Te Performance of Close-Up Magic. Derrida, Jacq Jacques. ues. Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money . Translated by Peggy Kamuf. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Table. New York: Dover Publications, 1995. Erdnase, S. W. Te Expert at the Card Table. Review. Volume 10, Number 10, August, 1975. Fulves, Karl. Te Pallbearers Review. Chronicles. No. 1, 1978. -------. Te Chronicles. Colleg e, Volume Volume 3. 3. Translated by Richard Hatch. Seattle: Giobbi, Roberto. Card College, Hermetic Press, 1998. Magazine. Volume 69, Number 5, May -------.“Seven. -------.“Se ven.”” In Genii: Te Conjurors’ Magazine. 2006. Focus.. Seattle: Hermetic Press, 1990. Goldstein, Phil. Focus Tricks. Allentown, PA: Hass, Lawrence. Transformations: Creating Magic Out of Tricks. Teory and Art Ar t of Magic Press, 2007. f : Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property Propert y . New York: Hyde,, Lewis. Hyde L ewis. Te Gi f York: Vintage Vint age Books, 1979. Magic. 2008. Keable, Ian. Stand Up: A Professional Guide to Comedy Magic. Neale, Robert E. “Hypertriptych.” In Te Linking Ring . Volume 75, Number 3, March 1995. -------. In Praise of Play . New York: Harper & Row, 1969. Tricks . Seattle: Hermetic Press, 2000. -------. Life, Death & Other Card Tricks. Magic gic Matters: Matters: Tricks Tricks and Essays Essays.. Sherman, TX: Teory and Art of -------. Ma -------. Magic Press, 2009. Neale, Robert E. with David D avid Parr. Parr. Te Magic Mirror . Seattle: Se attle: Hermetic Press, 2002. Parker, George. Het kleine boek van de Creativiteit [Te Big Book of Creativity ]. ]. Amsterdam: Archipel, 2004. Magazine. Volume 57, Plants, Gary. “A Four-tunate Choice.” Genii: Te Conjurors’ Magazine.
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D ay and How Tey Feel Terkel, Studs. Working: People Talk About What Tey Do All Day About Abo ut What What Tey Do. Do. New York: Te New Press, 1996. Secrets. Self publish Topas. Presentation Secrets. published, ed, 2000. Vernon on Touch: Touch: Te Writings Writings of Dai D ai Vernon Vernon in Genii, Te Conjurors Conjurors’’ Vernon, Dai. Te Vern Magazine Ma gazine from 1968 to 1991. 1991. Washington, Washington, D.C.: Te Genii Corporation, 2006.
DVDs Magic. On Te Chicago Tapes. Tapes. Te Miracle Burger, Eugene. Gourmet Close-Up Magic. Factory, 2004. Magic gic at the Edge. Edge. L & L Publishing, 2008. McBride, Jeff . Ma 1 . L & L Publishing, Osterlind, Richard. Richard Osterlind’s Mind Mysteries, Volume 1. 2003.
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A���� ��� A������ (in the order of appearance) Jeff McBride is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading magical artists. His innovative style of magic combines mime, masks, Kabuki Teatre, world-class sleight-of-hand, and grand illusion to create a completely unique performance experience. Jeff McBride has traveled the globe many times, having performed in dozens of countries on six continents. He has been featured on every major television network in the United States. He is also a regular headliner on the Las Vegas Strip, a city in which Jeff has has been acclaimed as “light-years ahead of the pack” by the Las Vegas Review-Journal , which also named him Best Magician in Las Vegas. Vegas. His shows have won similar acclaim at such wide-ranging venues as the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the Olympic Arts Festival in Barcelona, o ff -Broadway -Broadway in New York City, and on tour with the Radio City Rockettes. Jeff McBride McBride is also one of the most honored magicians of our time. He has gician of the Year Year by the Academy of Magical Arts in Hollywood, been named Ma named Magician and has received dozens of honors and awards for his magic, including being a Magic in Monte Carlo. three-time award winner at the International Grand Prix of Magic in In additi addition on to his work as a perfor performer, mer, Jeff is celebrated as a worldleading teacher of magic. He has lectured and led workshops for a wide array of organizationss including Te Smithsonian, Te Disney Institute, the International organization Brotherhood of Magicians, and the Center for Symbolic Studies. Jeff also also writes a C magazine and he is the author, monthly column, “ Te Show Doctor,” for MAGI for MAGIC ystery School (2003). with Eugene Burger, of M of Mystery (2003). Jeff McBride McBride is the Founder of the McBride McBride Magic & Mystery School in Las Vegas, which has become recognized as the world’s leading school for magicians. Since 1993, Jeff ’s school has been off ering ering a wide-array of educational experiences for magicians from around the world, including Mystery School, Master Class, the Magic and Meaning Conference, and many other specialized classes on magic performance.
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George Parker is an internationally successful corporate speaker, storyteller, and stand-up illusionist. He has dedicated his life to exploring and inspiring the process of transformation. George’ss perfor George’ performing ming and teaching is grounded in his lifelong studies of theories of change in such �elds as biology, psychology, physics, hermetic philosophy, and organizational management. It is also grounded in his own intentional, practical eff orts orts to explore radical transformation in his own life— eff orts orts that have taken him from studying pedagogics/child psychology (his university degree), to working in health care, then as a programmer/system developer, salesman, trainer, and consultant. Since becoming a full-time profes professional sional magician in 1999, George has performed thousands of shows in over twenty countries. He has elevated the notion of a “lecture-show” into a distinctive artistic category of its own—one that combines high quality conceptual and intellectual content with great entertainment value. As a result, result, he is one of the most sought-a sought-afer, busiest corporate speakers in the Netherlands and throughout Europe. Alongside his corporate work, George has also written and produced two f h Element (2006) and Te Death and Resurrection one-man theater shows: Te Fi f Show (2009). Not only has he performed these shows in cities such as Las Vegas and London, but he travels internationally to teach magic to and lecture for magicians. He is a member of the Faculty of the McBride Magic & Mystery School in Las Vegas and is a regular Keynote Presenter at its annual Magic and Meaning Conference. George Parker is the author of two books on the creative process that have become bestsellers in the Netherland Netherlands: s: Te Little Book of Creativity (2001) (2001) and Te Big Book of Creativity (2004). (2004). He has also authored Te Creation Game (2009), a card game/practice that inspires fun and thoughtful creative transformations for the participant. On a more personal note, George met the love of his life Marja Lingsma thirty years ago and they have raised two sons, Ivar and Emil. Marja is a digital artist, and together, together, she and George Ge orge have co-created co-created a book of images and poetr poetryy, Imagination-Reality-Mystery (2010).
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Lawrence Hass, Ph.D., is a magician and a philosopher. He is Associate Dean of the McBride Magic and Mystery School in Las Vegas and holds the position of Professor of Humanities at Austin College (in Sherman, Texas). Larryy has performed his thought-p Larr thought-provoking, rovoking, inspiring magic from coast-to-coast, including such diverse venues as the Wynn Casino in Las Vegas, Chicago,, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University University,, Magic Chicago Pennsylvania , Jeff McBride’ McBr ide’ss Wonderground in in Las Vegas, Vegas, and the Magic Castle in Hollywood. He is also the author of the bestselling book for magicians, Transformations: Creating Magic Out of Tricks (2007). His award-winning essays on magic have been published, in four languages, in leading international magic journals and magazines. He has been a regular columnist for MAGIC for MAGIC magazine and he currently writes a monthly column for M-U-M , the magazine of the Society of American Magicians. Magic, an ongoing Larryy is also the Founder of the Teory and Art of Magic, Larr series of ventures dedicated to elevating the magical arts. In one of its forms, the Teory and Art of Magic produces artful performances and educational lectures by world-leading magicians. In another of its forms, Teory and Art of Magic Press is dedicated to publishing high-quality books for magicians that will feed their heads as well as their hands. Afer twenty-three years in the college classroom and many awards for for it, Larry is well-known as a master teacher and he is a leading teacher of magic. He has taught many college-level courses, not only on aesthetics and phenomenology phenomenology,, but also on magic performance, and on the theory and history of magic. He also travels the world off ering ering lectures, workshops, and mini-courses speci �cally for magicians and magic enthusias enthusiasts. ts. In his capacities as a magic performer performer,, writer writer,, and teacher teacher,, Larr Larryy has been featured in a wide array of international media, including the New York Times, USAToday, Te Chronicle of Higher Education, Education, by the Associated Press, Press, and on the Discovery Chann Channel el .
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Eugene Burger is an internationally famous magician, having entertained audiences from Las Vegas to Tokyo. Tokyo. He has appeared on television tele vision numerous times in Great Britain, Canada, Belgium, Finland, Japan, and in the United States on Mysteries ysteries of Magic such highly acclaimed shows as Te Art of Magic (PBS) and M (TLC). He has been pro�led twice on CNN. Eugene’’s performing talents also have been widely recognized by his peers, Eugene for example, he has twice been named “Close-up Magician of the Year” by the Academy of Magical Arts in Hollywood, and in 2008 he received a prestigious Performing Fellowship from that institution. At the same time, over the last thirty years Eugene Burger has become recognized as one of the craf’s deepest thinkers and most eloquent spokesmen for instilling artistry and intelligence into the performance of magic. He has achieved this stature through lectures, workshops, and classes o ff ered ered worldwide, but also through over twenty best-selling books and DVDs for magicians, including Te Experience of Magic Magic,, Te Performance of Close-up Ma Magic gic,, Mast Mastering ering the Art of Magic Magic,, Spirit Teater , Magic and Mea Meaning ning (with Robert E. Neale), and Eugene Burger’s Magicall Voyages Magica Voyages.. Since the early 1990s Eugene has partnered with Jeff McBride McBride in creating the McBride Magic & Mystery School in Las Vegas—an institution for which he serves as Dean. Since the late 1990s he has partnered with Larry Hass in the creation of Te Teory and Art of Magic program, an ongoing series of events and educational programs at institutions of higher learning designed to celebrate the magical arts. During the past several years, Eugene has been a featur featured ed speaker for top executives of such major companies as Coca-Cola, WilliamsWilliams-Sonoma, Sonoma, Unisys, and Pottery Pot tery Barn, B arn, as well as top business schools including Wharton, and the graduate schools of business at the Universities of Chicago and Maryland. In the year 2000, Eugene was named one of the “One Hundred Most MAGIC magazine. In�uential Magicians of the t he Twentieth Twentieth Century” by MAGIC magazine.
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Rich Bloch In 1946, famed comics Bud Abbott and Lou Costello asked Billie Bloch, Rich’s mom, for permission to have her three-year-old son stay in Hollywood and begin a career in show business under their tutelage. Billie declined, whisking her son back to the safety of the East Coast. But the hook was set. By age seven, Rich was hanging around stage doors and doing magic shows. At eight, he landed his �rst T.V .V.. gig gi g as assistant to Dick DuBois DuBois,, television’ tele vision’ss �rst Magic Clown on the DuMont television network in New York City. And so it began. Rich has become one of the busiest corporate entertainers in the world. He is a frequent headliner on Las Vegas and Atlantic City stages, a motivational speaker (Rich is a two-time recipient of the coveted “Blackstone Award” from the International Platform Association), an author, and a playwright. He has served as scriptwriter and magic consultant to the legendary Orson Welles (who once introduced Rich as “an Edison of magic”) and to various theater companies, including the Folger Shakespeare Teater in Washington. Washington. He is a featured headliner head liner for various cruise lines, including Crystal, Cr ystal, Regent, Cunard, Holland Holland America, Silver Sea, and Royal Caribbean. He has been a � ve-time nominee for Stage Stage Magician of the Year at Hollywood’s Magic Castle and was the recipient of a Fellowship in 2006 from that institution. Rich also has a long history in magic as an invento inventorr, (out of magic, too—he holds a patent on a device to assist disabled ice skaters), builder, and performer. He is the originator of more than eighty eff ects ects used worldwide by professional magicians. At home in Washington, D.C., he lives with his wife Susan (a Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University), two children, three cats, an Old English sheep dog, and a parrot that does card tricks.
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Bob Neale is a teacher and writer. Troughout his career, he has exercised his imagination by making up things in the overlapping overlapping areas of religion, magic, and the t he arts. Te results have been psychological theories about death and dying, religion as mature play, and the relations of loneliness, solitude, and companionship. An understanding of the place of magic in daily life grew out of these explorations. And the expression of it was facilitated by his creation of origami models, puzzles, and tricks, frequently presented presented with social, soci al, political, and philosophical meanings. He cares about magic as imagination at play in the expression of truth through illusion. Bob is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ with degrees from Amherst College and Union Teological Seminary in New York, where he taught for twenty-four years as Professor of Psychiatry and Religion. His publications during that time include include In Praise of Play (1969), Te Art of Dying (1973), and Loneliness Loneliness,, Solitude, and Companionship: New Dimensions in Relationship (1984). Bob is an internationally exhibited and published creator of origami models. He delighted many paperfolders and magicians with his “Bunny Bill” in 1964. In 2009, his impossible object “ Te Impossibill Braid” gave instruction on construction in both text and DVD. Between these years, he has published Origami, Plain and Simple (1994), Folding Money Fooling (1997), Frog Tales (2000), Tales (2000), Magical Designs (2006). Designs (2006). and Which Came First ? A Collection of Magical Bob’s essays on magic and tricks have appeared in many journals, pamphlets, and books. He was a monthly columnist for Te Linking Ring for for � ve Imagination (1991) was followed years. His �rst book for magicians Tricks of the Imagination (1991) gic and Meaning (1995); by: co-authored with Eugene Burger, Ma Burger, Magic (1995); Life, Death and Other Card Tricks (2000); Tricks (2000); co-authored with David Parr, Te Magic Mirror (2002); (2002); with the assistance of Michael Weber, Celebration of Sides: Te Nonsense World of Robert Neale (2006 Neale (2006 DVD); Tis Is Not A Book, Book, (2008); and Magic Matters (2009). and Magic Matters (2009).
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and Art of Magic Press is an outgrowth of the Teory and Art of Magic program, an ongoing series of educational events and conferences dedicated to promoting promo ting and celebrating the magical magica l arts. Since the program’s founding by Dr Dr.. Lawrenc Lawrencee Hass in 1999 at Muhlenberg College, the Teory and Art of Magic has featured performances, talks, and lectures by world-leading stars of magic, including David Blaine, Eugene Burger, Roberto Giobbi, Andrew Goldenhersh, Max Howard, Bill Kalush, René Lavand, Max Maven, Jeff McBride, McBride, Jim Steinmeyer, Ste inmeyer, Juan Tamariz, Tamariz, and Teller Teller (among many others). Te program continues from Dr. Hass’ Hass’ss new home base in Sherman, Sher man, Texas, Texas, where he is Professor of Humanities at Austin College. As an extension of Dr. Hass Hass’’s endeavors, Teory and Art of Magic Press publishes high-quality books that are intended to help magicians think and learn more fully about the magical arts and also to teach top-�ight performing material. For more information about Teory and Art of Magic Press, please go to www. TeoryandArtofMagic.com.
Published by Teory and Art of Magic Press Transformations:: Creating Magic Out of Tricks, Tricks, 2007. 1. Lawrence Hass, Transformations Mysteries, 2008. 2. Lawrence Hass, New Toughts and Mysteries, Matters,, 2009. 3. Robert E. Neale, Magic Neale, Magic Matters f Magic: Magic: Performances that Leave People with a Souvenir Souve nir , 4. Lawrence Lawrenc e Hass, editor. editor. Gi f 2010.
