Magic for Fun and Profit

Although I remain a lapsed magician (in terms of performing) I still enjoy it as one of my favourite forms of entertainment.

On Saturday night the BBC's The Magicians show has had its moments, but overall it's a little too over-excited for me - and I don't need the 'torment a celebrity' forfeits, etc. Very tiresome.

I preferred the cooler Fool Us on ITV, which seemed to manage something much more focused on magic, and even method, and yet still (hopefully) entertain people who don't care how it's done. Hard to say, as I share a life with someone who finds magic extremely uninteresting...about as uninteresting as (say) sport. Penn & Teller always seem good value to me.

Recently I have been online watching Penguin Magic's live lectures, and that has been a treat. The first one seemed a little under-rehearsed, but that was the pilot (and free), so it's forgiveable. Since then I watched a free one with Franz Harary, who was very personable and honest - showing clips from his big shows and videos, and answering questions.

Most recently I watched Richard Osterlind's presentation, which was fantastic value as he went way past two hours (maybe something like three and a quarter) of detailed, informative and insightful commentary on his own material. As a working pro he has this stuff nailed, and for the geeks it all might seem pretty simple (the centre tear, for instance) but the fail-safe methods mean he can spend a lot of time on presentation. Again, a charming man, a delight to be in his (virtual) company - even in the small hours (UK). You can learn / buy some of his stuff here.

Tonight/Tomorrow you could watch and learn from another legend, Aldo Colombini, and if the strange time zone doesn't suit your body-clock or life commitments you can always buy into it anyway, as a recording remains available afterwards in your account.

And finally, using Lybrary (probably the best online source for magical reading material) I bought an eBook of Magic and the Silent Clowns, by Ben Robinson - a presentation combining two of my favourite things, and emphasising, yet again, the close link between magic and special effects. Franz Harary pointed out the connection when explaining some of the stuff he devised for rock concerts, etc.

Disclaimer: what's left unsaid

In conjuring adverts, you will often see a list of methods not used, designed specifically to divert magicians, who will read a description of the trick and start speculating. "Probably magnets..."

* NO magnets!

"Well, invisible thread, then..."

* No threads!

And so on, until the magician gives up, and spends the money just to find out about this

*entirely NEW principle!

UNLESS, he can think of something they didn't mention, which might just work...

Similarly, magicians on public television will often have to run off a list of disclaimers, otherwise (not being a live audience) the public may dismiss the effect all too easily. So they have to say "No cuts! No camera tricks! No stooges! No actors!" before even getting to the magic. We've all seen far too many amazing film special effects these days.

AND YET, they still need to have a method of achieving the effect, of course. You might be able to figure it out by spotting what they DIDN'T say - just like advertising and political speeches, performers consider it important that they didn't actually lie. There were no cuts or camera tricks when the Statue of Liberty disappeared, for instance.

Keith Barry & Hypnotism

I have recently caught Keith Barry on tv, doing the Derren Brown Schtick, including what may appear to you as morally dubious hypnosis tricks (instant inductions on random passers-by looks pretty like mugging to me) - getting their permission afterwards seems odd, too, as when will they know they have their free will and judgement back? When will they trust a stranger?

Having said that, such shows have to induce paranoia in the audience to prove effective (the Black Ops programme specifically appeals to all the conspiracy theory/MKULTRA/mind manipulation stuff, for instance). The fact that mentalists (as opposed to magicians) blur the area between conjuring tricks and tricks of the mind leaves one wondering...


As Dunninger used to say "For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation will suffice."

So naive punters will think the blindfold drive another and inexplicable trick of the mind, but people who know the trick, and also may think of hypnosis as predominantly social compliance, peer pressure, participant selection, suggestion, etc. might suspect that the hypnosis demonstrated may also have a couple of unmentioned tricks - for instance, to say 'no actors' are involved does not eliminate the possibility of stooges (whether 'instant stooges' - people invited to play along - or hired hands), being employed. Or of using people who have already, and previously, been hypnotised, so that one simple trigger can put them back under.

I don't want to go into that debate, right now, but check out Martin Taylor's site, about his show Hypnotism Without Hypnosis which so impressed Derren Brown. And Derren himself keeps that 'mentalist' ambiguity going by claiming to "combine magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship in order to seemingly predict and control human behaviour..."

Anyway, judge for yourselves - this is Keith Barry on the TED conference, he's certainly amusing.

Disclaimers

And as to those disclaimers, they are so familiar to magic shoppers that they have become almost a joke - look at Penguin Magic:

No mirrors!
No wax!
No chemicals!
No magnets!
No wires!
No strings!
No counting!
Not a stacked deck!
Not a marked deck!
Not a peek!
Not a pull!

Are We Live?

Penn & Teller forgetting to mention something important...

A future in magic

Unlike juggling, which you can do purely for your own pleasure - as a meditation, a sport, a challenge to oneself, a pastime - magic doesn't really happen until you perform it and share it - just like acting - and elicit a response.

Of course, some jugglers do it as a social activity, but I never got far into passing and those patterns. I tried it, but remained mostly a solo juggler.

I say this because I have entirely stopped performing, and couldn't really even do you an impromptu trick if challenged, although I remember some stuff which still pops out occasionally (from origami to finger tricks).

However, I do seem to carry on reading the literature of magic (I love ingenuity) and watching it when I can, and can occasionally even fall for buying something online, just because I can!

Recently I got a boxed set of Lennart Green (the Master File), not only to watch the performances, but to have him analyse and explain, and it is a delight to find that (skilled though he is) he remains predominantly a great entertainer. Some of his skills are high level, of course, but much of his material remains accessible (shall we say 'intermediate skills', at least in the card specialist world).

but what a charming show!

Re-kindling my interest in magic

Slowly but surely my hard drives have filled up with PDFs. E-books, articles, downloads, all sorts.

And I don't read them on the big screen that much...especially books (I can manage an article).

So I invested in a Kindle (I've been watching their development for a while) and not so much for buying from Amazon (although that may happen occasionally) but to upload all my PDFs (and most of them are magic related) so I can get through them on the bus, etc. The screen is not back-lit, so it works like paper on the eyes (you need light to read in bed, and the cover contains a little pop-out light).

Currently enjoying The Pageboy Speaks, which I got from Lybrary as a PDF. These columns from Pabular seem really evocative, even though I was never a regular reader, or even a good or serious magician (I used close-up to supplement my juggling/clowning stuff).

Still, I met Pat Page on several occasions in Davenports, and although he could be a wind-up, he was a great performer and salesman. Some of the stuff he mentions sparks memories of my times in the magic club of my youth (when I did take it pretty seriously) like seeing presentations to the club by Ron McMillan, or David Berglas, etc. And I saw a lot of live acts, good, bad and indifferent. These are the days before video and DVD, so if you caught something on tv you were lucky!

Damn everything but the circus!

"damn everything but the circus!
...damn everything that is grim, dull
motionless, unrisking, inward turning,
damn everything that won't get into the circle,
that won't enjoy,
that won't throw its heart into the tension,
surprise, fear and delight
of the circus,
the round world
the full existence...
damn everything but the circus!"

e.e.cummings

PARKLIFE
Parklife Brighton 2010


Parklife Brighton 2010



nofitstate - Inside Out Roundabout (Swindon 2008)


Norfolk and Norwich Festival - No Fit State Circus

Air Ball - NoFit State Circus at Maumbury Rings, Dorchester 2010



NoFit State Circus Parklife Taunton


NoFit State Parklife 2010


Parklife in Progress - NoFit State's residency at The Brewhouse Theatre & Arts Centre in Taunton


Parklife - No Fit State Circus at Brighton - coming to Dorchester in September 2010


nofitstate circus parklife (official)




Now.Here

Now.Here


Tabu

NoFit State Premiere Montreal



Tom Interview



Tohu Press Call
Tabu on Daily Motion
Tabu
Uploaded by nofitstate. - Arts and animation videos.

Performers – Creative Team

Ali Williams Creative Director

Lynn Carroll Community Development Officer

James Roberts - Circus Performer


Paul Evans - Circus Performer


Kevin McIntosh - Circus Performer
Anna Sandreuter - Circus Performer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnSCDrynZSk


Appropriate Title
Recent footage from newcastle and my trip to norwich with nofitstate circus


Tent up – Time Lapse

Nofitstate Circus Timelapse Cardiff WMC

Up Up and Away
NoFit State Circus Oval Basin Time Lapse


Miscellaneous Acts

counterweighted aerial hoop act
Shaena and Barnz Counterweight act from NoFitstate Circus Immortal show.


unicycle ballet


Stunt jump


Newspaper articlesHowie Morley in The Guardian

Jeni Williams' article for New Welsh Review, issue 68, 2005 - "Circus with Heart"

And talking of Show Biz - and entertainment...

And of course, many of these technicians don’t yet have the other bit – performance – where you can take essentially simple (uncomplicated, not easy!) stuff and actually entertain people!

I was juggling in Stomu Yamashta’s Red Buddha show when we got to Switzerland, and went out one evening to see Kris do this act in front of 4000 people – then had to go back and do my act. He had so much CONTACT with the audience!

Unusually enough, in this modern world of individuals, Kris got his act from his dad Bela, and if you got lucky you might have seen them doing synchronised juggling (I got stoned and I missed it , at some convention or other!) Here they do cigar boxes.

Chinese juggling acts have always depended on direct transmission of exact routines and moves, rather than what we call ‘creativity’. Both have their values. Hats and balls – all together now...

One beautiful body language tribute to W.C.Fields in there – the man who didn’t just out-juggle people, but added the CHARACTER to juggling...technique appeals to jugglers (geeks, maybe) but character and humour and contact appeals to ‘normal people’.

And, again, he did this stuff in his youth, but took one last chance (when the movies arrived) to film some highlights for posterity (that’s you and me) at the age of 54! And this they call an alcoholic. Go figure.

I stole more from this routine than from all the technicians...I had to really work hard (no DVDs, no internet, no repeat viewings) when I glimpsed these movies in specialist cinemas... If you think this stuff is easy, just try balancing a stick on your foot for a while, then kick it to the other foot, with a spin. See you in a year.

Extremely Extreme - Twice Nightly

As a kid I did do a lot of card stuff, but never got beyond basic sleights, really, as I liked ingenuity so I could concentrate on the performance, etc.

Later in life I got into juggling instead, and helped spread that craze far and wide, in the process generating students who far outshone me, and meeting people from other cultures who simply blew me away.

So the combinations you find in XCM (extreme card manipulation) profoundly impress and delight me, but I no longer have any desire to spend the time necessary to actually do that stuff. If you have no idea what I mean, look at Penguin Magic's demo video of the recent champions doing their thing.

It's come a long way from whenI saw Channing Pollock (live!) with his elegant moves...this vid starts with basics and ends with Freestyle!

Who was Channing Pollock I hear some people think... aw...

And of course, he didn't do it competitively, he just made a good living all over the world!

OK, OK, one serious flash at 2:50, but hey, he did this onstage...tv can be as cruel to card magicians (not XCM manipulators) as it used to be to ventriloquists!

Before all that was Geoffrey Buckingham, and I even saw Ron Macmillan do his award-winning billiard ball routine (YouTube doesn’t have everything, we didn’t always record everything back then!)

And, before my time, but much imitated, Welshman Cardini started the whole thing with his slightly tipsy Gent returning from a night out (makes sense of cards, cigars, billiard balls), as amused and confused by what is happening as we are. If you have ever been that drunk or stoned, you will empathize! An actor, not just a bunch of tricks...

Jeff McBride talking about it all

Of course, people filmed this from their Black and White tv, so you have to live with the quality of this 3 minutes

If you can bear it, here’s nine minutes

Not to put down the moderns, with great equipment and more time on their hands, but I remember being at a juggling convention when Karl-Heinz Zeithen showed some scratchy old video of Rastelli and Francis Brunn (also an acrobat and ‘flamenco’ mover), and these old films got standing ovations from a whole room full of jugglers...Here’s Francis with the great Jack Benny (making juggling ‘interesting’)

Here’s Francis (no embedding, but a clearer video - follow link to YouTube) in1969, at the age of about 47 – and remember this guy didn’t get one good take in front of his home video (after 100 takes) he did this stuff TWICE NIGHTLY.

Go practice....