Tag: magic

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The Universal Theory of Mind, Perception and Ketchup
or Magic Mustard

I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine who may well be the only other human being who reads or is even aware of this blog, when the topic turned to what makes a good magic trick. I’d been rolling around an idea for a while that we should start a podcast, but wasn’t sure what theme to use. My latest idea was “Magic Fixers” where we would take old rubbish tricks we don’t like and see if we could spice them up to make them work in a modern world.
Sort of like a weekly instalment of This post on the Linking Rings

I have some killer ideas for the Hotrod trick.

But the problem was that in discussing the kinds of things we could fix I made a startling revelation about magic, magicians, perception, reality and barbecue sauce.

Or mustard.

Or spaghetti sauce.

But not ketchup.

Continue reading “The Universal Theory of Mind, Perception and Ketchup
or Magic Mustard”

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Competition Time
or I’ll Be The Judge Of That

As I write this there is a local magic competition tonight, which I would have participated in were it not for my recent hospital stay. It’s a magic competition I have had an interesting history with, as a participant, organiser and rule setter. My disappointment with its fairness in the early days also nearly got me ejected from the club.

The thing about magic competitions is that as a performing art, appreciation of any given entry is entirely subjective. Generally a small number of judges are appointed and the rules set out criteria to them judge the competitors on. These judges will have different ideas of what counts as suitable attire for a performer, what is entertaining, what is mystifying etc.

Skill should be an objective measure, as is seen in gymnastics competitions, except when Simone Biles does a backward double-twisting double tucked salto dismount (thanks Wikipedia), everyone sees it. If a magician does a multiple diagonal palm shift and everyone sees it it wasn’t very good. One year the organisers had to tell the judges that a particular routine was entirely self working, because having seen no sleights at all the judges were under the impression that they were in the presence of an absolute master of prestidigitation. This disclosure got back to the competitor and caused no end of problems as it was seen as the organisers introducing bias to the judges.

Is there a way to fix all this?

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or I’ll Be The Judge Of That”

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Oddfellows
or Cumulative Conceits

The thing about diary tricks is that they are predicated on a rather strange idea; that the performer has a pocket diary for the year, in which they have written a playing card for each day. The natural instinct is to give a reason for this. These reasons are often convoluted out of necessity, as there is no normal reason for a person to do such a thing. The only reason to put things in a diary is to act as a reminder, and the only reason you’d have to remember a playing card for each day is for a magic trick.

But… How many other tricks have these conceits?
Continue reading “Oddfellows
or Cumulative Conceits”

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Problems That Solve Each Other
or In and Of Itself

Sometimes I set myself challenges. Occasionally personal, occasionally universal.

Personal ones include:

  • How to perform a borrowed ring routine without a borrowed ring?
  • How to perform a matrix on stage?
  • How to perform a show using nothing but paper?

The universal ones are things like:

  • How to end a show with a suitable climax?
  • How to deal with the awkwardness of audience volunteers?
  • how to give a show more meaning?

    • Often, usually in fact, I dont solve them. I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to assume that no one else has ever encountered the same problems as me, particularly the universal ones, and thus my inability to fix them doesnt trouble me too much. After all, some magicians spend their whole lives trying to solve just one such universal problem in a new way, let alone two or three…

    This post contains enormous spoilers for Derek DelGaudio’s show In And Of Itself.

    I never got a chance to see it live but it has now been made available to stream on Disney+ so no one with an interest in magic has any excuse. One month of Disney+ costs way less than a ticket to the show, plus you can invite all your friends around and watch Thor Ragnarok after.

    So do that, then come back to read me talking about how clever it was.

    Continue reading “Problems That Solve Each Other
    or In and Of Itself”

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    The Existentially Terrifying Scale of the Global Supply Chain
    or Mamma’s Got a Brand New Bag

    I think about plastic a lot.

    As you may know from my last post, I have a 3D printer. This troubles me sometimes in an ecological sense, because even though the PLA¹ filament I use is bioplastic, realistically it is neither recyclable or biodegradable, so the wastage and sprews and support material is going to landfill, where the best case scenario is that it will remain there for a hundred thousand years, and the worst case is that it somehow ends up in the food chain.

    Did you know there are now tiny particles of plastic amongst the sands of the furthest uninhabited reaches of the Sahara desert, as well as flowing through the bloodstream of every living human being.

    The thought that I was adding to that worried me… And then I needed a bag.

    Continue reading “The Existentially Terrifying Scale of the Global Supply Chain
    or Mamma’s Got a Brand New Bag”

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    Inside
    or Outside

    This isn’t going to be one of those clever high theory meta contextual posts I’m known for by my one reader. This is about a prop which most magicians know, very few use, and many have simply forgotten about. This post is about the Gozinta Box.

    The Gozinta box, in case you don’t know is a pair of boxes, each of which consists of an inner box and a lid which fits snugly over the top. The boxes are different colours to highlight the interesting property that gives the boxes their unusual name: the fact that either box can fit inside the other.

    That is to say you can open a red box, take out a blue box, open the blue box, close the red box, put it inside the blue box and then close the blue box.

    By itself, a fun effect, but it has a much more interesting application.
    Continue reading “Inside
    or Outside”

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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.

    Continue reading “Slice of Lith
    or An Acquired Aesthetic”
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    Dolla Dolla Bills
    or Die for King Money

    Can we just take a minute to appreciate the United States of America. I know their government oscillates between capitalistic neoliberals and capitalistic cryptofascists, their healthcare system is designed to funnel money towards corporate health insurance, they have actual unfiltered nazis marching in the streets and bizarre fiscal loopholes allowing billionaires with more wealth than a small country to not only avoid paying tax but actually receive tax rebates courtesy of the regular citizenry… *deep breath* but damn it if their physical currency isn’t just designed from the ground up for magicians.

    The dollar bill is worth so little that it’s cheaper to make a cover for an exercise book with actual money than to use that money to buy nice paper for the cover. The one, two, five, ten, twenty, fifty and one hundred dollar bill are all the same size and mostly printed in the same colours, made from a soft enough paper to fold easily and hold a nice crease. If you ask the average person on the street for a coin you are all but guaranteed to get a quarter, and there’s a statistically favourable chance that the quarter will have the design used for the majority of the 20th century, that of the eagle.

    Admittedly the production of state quarters since 1999 has slightly scuppered that last point but the odds are still heavily in your favour that the person you borrow it from won’t even notice if you switch it for one which does.

    God Bless America… and fuck the goddamn Royal Mint.

    Continue reading “Dolla Dolla Bills
    or Die for King Money”
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    Going Dotty
    or What’s Next

    So this is the part where I call back to several other posts simultaneously into a crescendo like those parts of a musical where it turns out you can interleave all three of the main leitmotifs into one epic finale song.

    This isn’t my last post¹, it just happens that I have now laid enough groundwork to start getting a little more meta.

    This post also contains 3 trick reviews, which seems to be what magicians like²

    Continue reading “Going Dotty
    or What’s Next”