From BigThink and Champion poker player Liv Boeree
An interesting read... literally
Teleportation Explained
For those curious as to the explanations of the many tools at the disposal of the magician for accomplishing miracles, this is not one of them. But very interesting nonetheless.
How to practice
In addition to my performing career, I've had lots of opportunities to work with students in different fields. For years I taught martial arts (which was mostly how I paid for university where I studied math... not the fast track to popularity you would think it was) and for nearly as many years tutored math (primarily for high school students). Now I teach magic several times a year through a children's community outreach program called My Magic Hands.
One of the things which often needs to be included in that training is an instruction on how to practice. This short animated clip summarizes things quite nicely. It's important, because once you learn strategies for effective practice, they transfer almost immediately to any discipline.
While they gloss over it briefly towards the end, particularly effective is the idea of starting slowly and building up speed over many, many repetitions. I remember both for students of martial arts and magic, when something is not working, the tendency was to attempt to do it faster or more vigorously. In fact, speed early on just diminishes the amount of control that you have and tends to make things worse.
When it came to math, the equivalent was for the student to try to do as much work in their head as possible. I believe the unstated premise was that the method which had the least amount of writing in the page was the most effective because it got to the solution "faster". In fact, trying to juggle lots of pieces of information behind the eyes slowed them down, increased their chances of making a mistake and making it impossible to find later. What proved the most valuable the most often was the method which left the most steps visible on the page (in accordance with the cliche dictum of showing your work).
Another early magic mentor highlighted another important phrase: practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent. So effective practice becomes extremely important.
Face2Face - Again
A few weeks ago, I sat down with David Peck, the host of the Face2Face Podcast and ridiculously tall Canadian magician Brian Roberts to discuss their upcoming lecture "Spare Change for Social Change."
Both David and Brian have appeared several times as guests on Magic Tonight. I've been a guest on David's podcast twice already (see here and here) and but this time I was able to steal the microphone and serve as interviewer and host. We met in the mysterious back room of the Browser's Den of Magic, who will be hosting the lecture later this month.
We talked about the process of sharing and uncovering secrets and the value that different magicians place on different branches of the craft of magic. Eventually, David's inner philosopher reared its ugly head and we discussed the role of the modern performing magician in today's society. It was a very interesting conversation to be part of.
You can download the podcast here (episode no. 263) or subscribe in iTunes. Tickets are available for the lecture on Saturday, February 26 at 6:00 PM, $20 when you reserve online.
*The unhealthy obsession with "introductions" in the podcast is a dig at a previous appearance of mine on the "Discourse in Magic" podcast... long story.
How to beat the house (or at least win at Monopoly)
“We live in an unpredictable world. What are the chances?”
No matter how old we get, we never quite seem to get used to the idea of not being sure what's going to happen next. Recently on an episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage the risible hosts and panel discuss how to deal with chance events, the gambler's fallacy and (possibly most important of all) winning strategies for Monopoly!
Listen to the Infinite Monkey Cage on BBC Radio 4 online.
Learning how to cope with uncertainty and understanding how to deal with probabilistic events is one of the most important skills we can have. Our instinct is to ignore the problem, trying to pretend that we can predict the future instead of taking the more humble approach and asking, "What is the responsible way to make decisions given my limited knowledge of the world?"
Games offer an useful sandbox to explore these ideas without real-world consequences (of course, I'm not referring to gambling with real money here). In the same way as I've described magic tricks as a safe way for people to explore the limits of their own reason — playing with being deceived by harmless tricksters where the worst possible outcome is someone fails to find the card you picked.
The Infinite Monkey Cage is always a funny and educational resources if you don't mind the British accents. You can subscribe to the podcast just about anywhere.