Tag: Causal Premise

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Linus’ Blanketfort
or Every Day Clutter

A few days ago I mentioned how much I hate the term Organic as it pertains to magic. To re-iterate I get the need for gimmicked props that look natural, like a John Cornelius perfect pen, but somehow nicely engineered objects like that very rarely get categorised as organic. Rather, organic magic tricks are usually pitched at the younger end of the magic market who apparently don’t seem to own anything which costs more than £2.99, so they have to carry gimmicked bottle caps, gum packets and novelty keyrings.

Although the term gets passed around now and again, Organic has been supplanted by the new buzz phrase which if anything I hate even more – though not as much as its three letter acronym

Every Day Carry
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or Every Day Clutter”

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The Toothfairy Act
or an Insight to the Creative Process of a Maniac

A rarity for you all today. not only am I clearing a backlog of old topics by posting 3 times in one day, this post has TWO embedded videos featuring yours truly.

At the start of May I used a new routine I’d been working on to enter my local magic club‘s closeup competition. Within this post you will find a recording of my act AND a separate video giving details of my creative process in coming up with it.

Later today I will post some sour grapes about coming second masquerading as a treatise on creativity.
Continue reading “The Toothfairy Act
or an Insight to the Creative Process of a Maniac”

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Slice of Lith
or An Acquired Aesthetic

The year was 2004 and a group of cosmopolitan, metropolitan, Neapolitan (we all liked ice-cream) friends invited me to visit them in London, from whence we travelled to Camden Lock Market and I tried on many cool articles of clothing, none of which would comfortably stretch over my corpulent frame. I did however obtain some jewellery made from old circuit boards, all mounted in fixings that turned my skin green. 3/10, should have gone to Cyberdog.

Cyberdog wasn’t really my aesthetic at the time, but what IS an aesthetic?

Aesthetic is often used as a complicated way of referring to a look or fashion style, such as vapourwave, steampunk, goth, bdsm or the cultural appropriation of the Harajuku fashion scene.

Believe it or not this is a continuation of my series on the future and subversion of coin magic, but I’m coming at it from the other direction so buckle in as I explain a little art history.

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or An Acquired Aesthetic”
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Go hang a salami, Tenet
I’m a lasagna hog

In the pandemic, when everyone was told to stay home when possible and categorically avoid densely populated enclosed spaces, one absolute maniac decided against all odds to throw caution to the wind and release a movie with a theatrical only release, insisting that the only way to properly appreciate it was on the big screen. He asked people to line up and possibly give their lives to keep the magic of cinema (and the studio stranglehold on licensed screenings) alive.

And four months later I brought the Blu-ray because time is an illusion. You’d think he would know that, given that his previous movie Interstellar was about interacting with the past from the distant future (and also something about love and space).

The movie was Tenet and its a great example of how people go wrong in trying to construct a magic trick with a sensible causal premise.

Continue reading “Go hang a salami, Tenet
I’m a lasagna hog“

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Star Trick
or Talk to the Hand Wave

I’ve been watching a lot of Star Trek recently; not only the new series, Discovery, but also the ill fated series Enterprise. Star Trek: Enterprise was set a century before the original series and as such had the burden of retrofitting the existing canon into its plot.

I lack the encyclopedic knowledge that many people think I possess but there are three episodes which in conjunction have a fascinating quality which a lot of magicians would do well to pay attention to.

Continue reading “Star Trick
or Talk to the Hand Wave”