T.A. Waters "On
the Waters Front"
ON THE WATERS FRONT
a column of information and opinion by T.
A. Waters
THE
OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS COLUMN ARE THOSE
OF THE WRITER, AND MAY NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT
THE VIEWS OF THE STEVENS MAGIC EMPORIUM
OR GEMINI.
Column
Six: HOW ELSE?
In
the wonderful act of Carl Ballantine, there's
a moment where he causes the lid of a small
basket to float up toward his hand. His
other hand comes out with a pair of scissors,
snips at a point between basket-lid and
hand -- and the lid drops to the floor.
When the audience laughs, Carl looks at
them, shrugs, and says, "How else?"
How
else, indeed. For a long time I have contemplated
writing a monthly column for a magic magazine.
It would, in tribute to Mr. Ballantine,
be titled HOW ELSE?, and its subject matter
would be both current and classical magic
effects that share one characteristic: they
don't fool laypersons.
Certainly
there would be no difficulty in coming up
each month with the material for such a
column -- a LONG column -- but some other
difficulties were readily apparent. Some
readers might object: "Hey, when *I* do
that trick, it fools them." We'll discuss
this point in a few moments.
A
more practical objection would be that no
sensible editor of a magic magazine would
run such a feature, since often as not it
would be at cross purposes with advertisers
in the magazine. Even so impractical a person
as myself can understand that a column which
tends to alienate a significant portion
of readers AND advertisers is not in a magazine's
best interests, whatever value it may have
to magic as a performance art.
This
particular column, however, is a one-shot
deal, so it can't even theoretically do
much harm -- and while it appears on a service
run by the Stevens Magic Emporium, no one
in the Stevens organization has ever tried
to influence my writing in any way -- except
for Amy prodding me to do it a little more
often! I am not likely to encounter this
kind of freedom anywhere else, so I take
this opportunity to get this out of my system:
catharsis for me -- perhaps some amusement
for you.
Perhaps
we can best begin with my favorite quote
from all of magic literature:
AUDIENCES
ARE FAR FROM BEING AS DUMB AS SOME PERFORMERS
SEEM TO THINK. -- Ted Annemann
You
might want to have this lettered on a sign,
and placed above wherever you keep your
rehearsal space. Annemann was, I think,
not offering an opinion here; he was making
an observation based on compelling evidence.
And what is that evidence?
It's
that so many performers do magic that almost
never fools anyone -- effects so transparent
that the audience is insulted. They don't
just do these tricks once -- they do them
for years -- and since the audience doesn't
rise up in a body and walk out, the performer
thinks he or she is fooling them.
Annemann's
particular bete noir was the Mutilated Parasol;
it was beyond his comprehension how any
performer could believe that this prop,
bearing little resemblance to any umbrella
the audience had ever seen, could fool anyone.
Bruce Elliott, who reviewed many shows for
Annemann's JINX, concurred in this assessment.
Indeed, I've never met a layperson who didn't
know after a single viewing EXACTLY how
the effect was performed.
Another
example is the Dove Pan. When I was nine
years old I was given a P&L Chick Pan
for my birthday; I still have that Chick
Pan -- but by the time I was ten-and-a-half
(all right, I'm a slow learner) I realized
that it was a prop that wouldn't fool anyone.
(Some
years ago I mentioned this to a friend who
at the time was doing kid shows. He disagreed,
saying he got a BIG reaction from the kids
when he produced the live rabbit from his
monster dove pan. I suggested that sometime
he try it by just lifting the lid and revealing
the rabbit, not doing the trick at all.
The next time I saw him he admitted that
the reaction had been identical.)
Interestingly
enough, the original versions of both these
effects WERE deceptive. The Mutilated Parasol
(or Sunshade) used a real parasol, and the
lid for the Chafing Dish, which later became
the Dove Pan, was far too thin to contain
a load. BUT......the original Parasol required
some skill to perform; it wasn't automatic
in working and didn't require a mechanical
and therefore marketable prop. Likewise,
the progenitor of the Dove Pan required
a special table, and could not be done surrounded.
These
were very baffling effects -- but there
was no broad-based commercial magic market
for them, and so they died. Thousands of
Dove Pans and Mutilated Parasols have been
sold: they're profitable for the seller,
and practical for the performer -- they
just don't fool anyone. The two items I've
just mentioned are, unfortunately, not even
close to being isolated examples. Let's
look at some others from past and present.
I
am told that the most popular apparatus
trick -- in the sense that it is the biggest
seller among such items in magic shops --
is HIPPITY-HOP RABBITS -- which is, as you
all know, a sucker trick aimed primarily
at children. Does it fool children? Have
you asked?
I
have. Few of them come up with the exact
method; most assume that the heavy covers
just switch one set of cutout rabbits for
another. When I point out that the covers
are sometimes shown empty, the kids patiently
point out that the rabbits are so thin that
you couldn't see them lying inside the covers
-- and there, of course, they are getting
close to how the effect actually works.
The important point is, whether they're
precisely right or wrong, the kids aren't
being fooled for a moment; they haven't
seen anything they consider even remotely
magical.
A
recent effect that has become very popular
among magicians is that in which a threaded
needle is passed completely through the
center of a matchbox, which is then shown
to contain a solid brass block. I saw this
effect shown to a layman in Hollywood Magic:
his response was, "Wow, that's really something!
What, does the block have a trapdoor in
the center?" I trust I need not comment
further on this.
We
talk about suspension of disbelief in stage
performance -- but the way audiences experience
it is nothing compared to a magician's state
of mind when he or she enters a magic shop,
or reads an effect in a book or magazine.
To quote briefly from a recent tome of mine,
MYSTERIES:
"...nothing
else would explain the many effects in the
literature and on the market that are simply
not very mystifying. Eugene Burger tells
the story of a close-up performer who did
a standard card-to-wallet routine for a
small group: after the performer's departure
a woman at the table explained the effect
in detail. As Eugene asks, 'Who was fooled
in this encounter?' Just because an audience
may be polite is no reason to suppose they're
mystified.
A
related point has to do with ego: the magician
thinks, 'Hey, when I saw the trick it fooled
me -- so of course it will fool my audience."
Not necessarily; it does happen that dumb
magicians perform for smart audiences...'
In
that same book I mentioned the current popularity
of "invisible thread" tricks; there are
now on the market all sorts of intricate
thread delivery systems, involving ingenious
take-up reels and the like.
But
let's get real (pun intended): do you actually
think that a spectator, seeing a dollar
bill floating in the air, doesn't KNOW it's
on a thread? We can engage in all the artistic
hand-waving; we can even pass little hoops
around the bill; and with all that it's
quite possible that we will mildly puzzle
the spectator as to just where the thread
is -- but it's a thread; they know it's
a thread. How else?
It
is worthwhile to note that some of the most
baffling magic I have ever seen involves
the use of a thread; employing it as a SECRET
device -- rather than as the only possible
explanation -- Gaetan Bloom has come up
with a number of brilliant applications
for it, ranging from mentalism to coins-through-table.
His applications are so seemingly completely
unrelated to the effects that he could probably
tell the audience he was using a thread
and they wouldn't believe him!
As
long as I am shooting at everything in sight,
what else? Ah, yes -- "interactive magic"
of the kind popularized by David Copperfield
in a number of his television specials,
and used by others as well. I'm talking
about the put-your-finger-on-the-screen-now-move-it-around
kind of thing -- much of it stemming from
either the Newton/Gardner VOICE FROM ANOTHER
WORLD effect, or a Karl Fulves card effect
titled HEX SQUARED.
In
the proper intimate setting, one-on-one,
and given the proper presentation, it is
possible for these effects to mystify; they
don't, usually, but it's theoretically possible.
But
-- television viewers are not total idiots,
the success of "MARRIED...WITH CHILDREN"
to the contrary. They realize that if 20
million of them (let's be optimistic) all
end up with the same result, it has to be
some sort of mathematical principle. They
may only vaguely intuit this -- they may
not know precisely how it works -- but at
its very best, the interactive piece is
to them a puzzle. Amusing, maybe; peculiar,
sure; but a puzzle -- and puzzles and magic
have nothing whatever to do with each other.
There's
nothing wrong with showing puzzles on television;
Scott Morris used to do it all the time.
What IS wrong is doing them on a magic special
and presenting them as magic or mentalism
-- because if these things are supposed
to be magic or mentalism, and the audience
KNOWS that they are nothing more than puzzles
-- guess what that makes them think about
the REST of what they see?
"Hey,
when *I* do that trick, it fools them."
Sigh. Does it, really? Have you asked? Are
you sure?
Oh,
okay -- maybe so, and if that's the case,
that makes you one of the few exceptions.
Most magicians live in a dream world; they
think they are mystifying people when, quite
simply, they aren't. It's the psychological
equivalent of the quirk some have of blinking
when they make a move -- thinking, perhaps,
that if they don't see it, nobody else will.
Magicians
go out on stage and wheel around the boxes
sitting on top of tables so thick they could
be rented out as condos, and think they're
fooling the audience; they use identical
twins in several illusions, secure in the
knowledge that the public at large has never
heard of twins or doubles; they hold three
cards together and think the audience will
believe they're holding only a single card;
they suddenly do a bit of staging totally
at variance with everything else in the
show -- because the method requires it --
and think the audience won't notice; they
do tricks that even the most dimwitted spectator
realizes are stooged, and then expect the
audience to believe that later helpers are
innocent audience members; they write stuff
down on a little piece of paper, instead
of the blackboard anyone else would use,
and think no one will wonder why; they do
illusions easily explained by stage traps,
but somehow expect that since they know
they're not using traps, the audience will
too; they put a ball on a stick and expect
the audience to think it's floating (exception
for Tommy Wonder duly noted); they use a
prop that looks like nothing this side of
a toy store for aesthetically challenged
tots, and expect the audience to believe
it's the magician doing the magic, not the
prop; they.....aren't magicians; they're
people on stage, with props. Sometimes,
at best, it should be billed as Magic By
Bekins; move this box, move that box.
"Hey,
when *I* do that trick, it fools them."
Let's
say it does. In the hands of a highly skilled
performer, some so-so or even bad tricks
can be made into something good -- but should
they be?
Some
years ago, when I was consulting for a Well
Known Magician, he would show me an effect
and ask my opinion. Sometimes I would say,
"I don't think it's a very good trick."
The WKM would respond, "I can make it play."
I
would then point out that this was not the
point at issue; of COURSE he could make
it play, because he was a brilliant performer.
The point was, indeed, should he? Wouldn't
his performing skills be better applied
to something more worthwhile?
And
even if this exceptional performer could
make a bad trick into something watchable,
does that somehow make it into a good trick?
I think not.
This
question relates, curiously enough, to a
debate that has been going on in mercenary
soldier and assassin circles for at least
three hundred years -- and probably three
thousand: how do you judge the worth of
a weapon? Is it by how effective it is in
the hands of, say, a master assassin --
or how effectively it can be used by rank-and-file
combat troops? In other words, do you judge
it by its best THEORETICAL potential --
or by how well it is likely to be ACTUALLY
used? An assassin might pick a Hammerli
503 Match Rifle with an optical scope sight
(no, assassins don't user lasers) -- but
this single-shot weapon, with its weight
adjustment mechanisms, would be wildly impractical
for the soldier in the field -- and, given
field conditions, would average out to be
LESS accurate. The debate continues.
In
magic, we're not likely to kill anyone --
unless you count boring them to death --
but there is some direct relevance. No question
that thousands and thousands of magicians
can actually get through the technical requirements
of performing Hippity-Hop Rabbits -- and
therefore, in terms of how it is ACTUALLY
used, one could say that it's serving its
purpose. It isn't fooling anyone, but as
with a lot of magic that may not be its
purpose; it may simply be a prop to be used
in filling up so many minutes out of a show,
so the performer can collect his or her
fee. By that reasoning, it's a perfectly
worthwhile effect.
If,
however, you want to hit the bulls eye every
time, you can't do what may work for the
"average" performer; you need better tools,
a more efficient weapon, if you will.
There
are a lot of people making magic their profession
because it seems to them an easy way to
make a living -- and, given that aim alone,
they're perfectly correct. Magic is one
of those novelty arts that, unfortunately,
allows anyone who can stumble through it
with even a slight modicum of ability the
means of making a living. When such people
hear magicians talking about how difficult
a particular effect is, how they worked
on it for a year or two before putting it
into the act, they genuinely don't understand,
because to them magic is easy. You buy the
prop, you read the instructions, you find
or steal a few lines to go with it -- you
go do it and you get your check; what's
the problem?
For
them, there IS no problem.
For
the rest of us the problem is that magic
-- true, mystifying, wondrous, entertaining
magic -- is very, very hard to do. Magic,
done with a sense of art, is one of the
most demanding of all theater arts. Given
good basic material, it is still extremely
difficult to create a magical experience;
without that good material, it's impossible.
The
basic notion of magic is that it is the
seemingly impossible; that may seem a tautology,
but so many in magic seem to have lost sight
of it. It isn't making spectators laugh;
it isn't impressing them with dance moves;
it isn't parading pretty assistants around
the stage. Magic is making the audience
believe they have seen something impossible
happen -- and so it must begin with mystery;
not a puzzle, not a peculiar box, not an
excuse for gaglines, but mystery. If the
magic isn't baffling, IT ISN'T MAGIC.
Near
the beginning of this harangue I quoted
from Ted Annemann, who knew a little bit
about how to truly baffle an audience. Let
me conclude with another quote, from someone
else who knew a little something about magic
and theater.
A
REAL MAGICIAN'S TASK, IT SEEMS CLEAR, IS
TO ABOLISH THE SOLUTION, THE POSSIBILITY
OF *ANY* SOLUTION...REMOVING FROM MAGIC
THE ELEMENT OF WONDER IS NO LESS DISASTROUS
THAN MUSIC WITHOUT THE ELEMENT OF PITCH.
-- ORSON WELLES
"Hey,
when *I* do that trick, it fools them."
Well -- I hope so.
Copyright
(c) 1996 by T. A. Waters. All rights reserved.
Waters/Gemini
Column Six
