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Cause and Effect - by Kam
Lately I've been reading Darren Brown's Absolute Magic book. It's a book on magic theory, rather than effects and such. I found this book to be such a valuable beauty to read, and the way Mr. Brown tells the stories and his ideas are in easy to comprehend English (with several vulgarities and humor along the way).
That was the rant about the book (when time permits, I'll do a review when I finish the book), but here's what the thread is for.
I've been reading about a quarter of the book, and it got me thinking... Brown proposed a vital thinking/rethinking to us magicians about our connection with magic and our audience. He talks about how many of us just do tricks, some of us do effects, few of us incorporate it into routines, but very very few of us actually deliver the powerful magic to the audience. We think so much of effects, that we fail to think of the cause in the first place. More often than not, to justify the magic that's happening, we tend to include a patter of some sort. Or some story that would go along with the magic... but that, in the hands of the audience, would actually end up as a story telling with some bewilderment in it, and NOT necessarily magic.
Take ACR, for example (it's actually one of several examples Brown presented in the book). Why would a card be so ambitious that it rises to the top? For a trick, yes a signed card put in the middle of the deck magically, invisibly jumps to the top is a puzzling thing. And the specs would usually gasp and may found that it's impossible... but THAT'S IT! That's the whole thing about it. Where's the connection? Where's the MAGIC? Impossibility certainly wow people, but it's not necessarily magical. We may do the pop up move, the face up riffle pass, or whatever ya know, but there still isn't any cause and effect. I hope you guys understand what I'm trying to get across here...
It doesn't even have to be a in-spec-hand kinda stuff. Brown mentions that Ortiz handling of magic has the cause and effect needed to make an effect/routine presenational, such when Mr. Ortiz demonstrates a gambling routine (which actually is a sleight of hand magic... usually of a sucker effect type). He starts off with "Let me show you the reason why you shouldn't play cards with strangers..." then he starts doing the best thing he could do, dealing false and stuff, and close it with "...and that's why, we shouldn't play cards with strangers". In there, there's a cause and effect in which Ortiz HAS a reason to show the magic in the first place.
So yeah, Brown's book really got me thinking to how I actually should construct the routines and repetoire that I have. What do you guys think? Ever come across to something like this before? |
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