Attempted Philosophy

On The Meaning Of Magic

Recently, magician Derek DelGaudio was interviewed by The Creative Independent about his thoughts on magic. Derek recently received the $15,000 Allan Slaight Award for "Sharing Wonder" and his show in New York, In & Of Itself, directed by Frank Oz, has been extended. 

Derek Delgaudio

I don't want to quibble over what is otherwise an extremely thoughtful and insightful interview from someone who is doing very interesting things with the form but there is one line:

“I think the word “magician” immediately implies that I’m here to deceive you, which is literally the opposite of what I’m doing. I’m using illusions or sleight of hand magic concepts to deliver truths and communicate the way I see the world.”

"Deliver truths" is a weird expression. I think it's our own insecurity which forces us to wrestle with the word "truth". There are things we want to be "true" that aren't in the literal sense and we recoil. There is a desire felt my many (even me sometimes) to say that the works of Shakespeare contain "truth" even though the events in them aren't real. They aren't true, they are insightful. We already have a word for that.

I cringe slightly the tendency, particularly among those in the arts, to take liberties with the definitions of common words. It's a hop, skip and a jump from dishonest politicians and pedlars of pernicious woo. If words stop meaning what they're supposed to mean, then no one can really take you at your word when you say anything.

Magic is an inherently dishonest endeavour. We portray things in a way that is not as they truly are. Trying to pass this off as a "kind of truth" is weaselry. Now, illusion has its value and place, so you don't need to shy away from deception. You can embrace it. It's an honourable thing to sacrifice a bit of your honesty so that others can experience a moment of mystery and amazement. I lie so you can experience an instant of childlike wonder that I no longer can (because I know how the trick works)... at least until someone comes along and does it to me.

Another Top Ten List

I think it's important in my industry — and many others — to keep an eye on how the rest of the world perceives us. What they think, rightly or wrongly, will shape how we interact with them. 

As I've mentioned before, it's not good to put too much stalk in anything on the internet that has some sort of countdown or top-ten-ish quality to it. An important lesson from con artists is that lies are most effective when they are specific. (They're much like jokes in that respect. That's why adding a descriptor like "a construction worker", "a priest" or "a black guy" focuses attention even though the semantic content of the joke would have been the same without it.) So the fact that someone has sorted something in order as a top-ten makes us more likely to accept that they're qualified to do so than if they had just presented us with a list.

And, equally important, "top" in the language of the internet doesn't have any connection to quality or value and usually just means "what came up fastest as I was searching google".

With that in mind, I watched this countown of the "Top 10 Craziest Magic Tricks Ever Performed" produced by WatchMojo.

My thoughts in order:

10. Paul Daniels: The Chop Cup

I've had the opportunity to see Paul Daniels perform this live before he passed away last year. It was a brilliant execution of a modern classic trick, and something I've looked up to for years. The blend of manic speed and crystal clarity is something which is extremely difficult to achieve. 

The label of "godfather of modern magic" is probably apt since Paul most likely performed more magic on television than any other person in history.

9. Thomas Blackthorn: Jackhammer swallowing

I had never even heard of Thomas before seeing this clip. Sword swallowing isn't really a magic trick since (normally) you are just doing exactly what you say you are doing and putting a sword down your throat. Magic has roots in shamanistic traditions so activities that demonstrate what we would now call "mind over matter" or dramatic demonstrations of people overcoming dangerous or fear-inducing things seem to be intertwined with magic.

8. Criss Angel: Coin In Arm

I've never been a fan of particularly gory magic tricks. Generally you can just the quality of a magic trick by the way in which the audience reacts. This feels like a bait and switch. You get a visceral reaction from the bloody gross bits and try and pass that off as it being a more impressive trick. But Criss did define magic for a generation of magic enthusiasts (slightly younger than me) and that look on a magician of dark goth-light outsider is still popular years later.

7. Lance Burton: The Dove Act

Lance portrays the perfect archetype of the twentieth century magician with complete with tuxedo, top hat, cane and doves. Dove magic is supposed to represent the creation of live — a symbol of fertility and freedom conjured from thin air. (And when you see this performed live, YES, the birds do really seem to come from thin air.)

6. David Blaine: Spitting Up A Live Frog

David Blaine also played a significant role in defining magic in the public imagination for the twenty-first century. Before him, most TV magic specials were essentially Las Vegas theatre shows captured on camera and broadcast. By taking close-up magic outdoors and spending as much time focusing on the the audience as on the performer, it gave people a new sense of what it was like to see magic live. 

Later in his career, he focused on creating a sense of realism with his magic. Well, it doesn't get more real than this.

5. John Armstrong: Tiny Plunger

I've also had the chance to see John perform this life (at the same conference where I met Paul Daniels, actually). And, I can honestly say I still have no idea how it's done.

Here the definition of "crazy" seems to have been temporarily extended to include "strange and whimsical". Nothing against the trick, it's certainly an outlier on this list that was most likely the result of someone's itinerant googling.

4. Harry Houdini: Chinese Water Torture Cell

Houdini was always more famous as an escape artist than he was as a magician. He was probably the world's first superhero and the world's first superstar. 

3. Cyril Takayama: Head Removal

The two recurring themes on this list seem to be taking the human body and putting it in physical danger and treating it as a stage prop. The way magicians used to break a cigarette in two and merge the pieces seamlessly back together, Cyril sections of his body and restores it. It's a very jarring effect. Although when the editors say they have no idea how he did it, I believe they're just being polite. 

2. David Copperfield: Invisible Man

Undeniably the most successful living magician, David Copperfield knows a good idea when he sees it. One of the greatest secrets is that he doesn't work alone. He is constantly surrounded by a team of brilliant creative consultants who are always pushing the boundaries of what's possible on stage. 

1. Penn & Teller: The Bullet Catch

I had a feeling this would be number one. The most important secret to remember — and what only adds to the mystery when you're lying in bed at three o'clock in the morning staring at the ceiling wondering how it works — is that there is no danger in this trick. (Penn has commented there is danger, but that's from someone who is mentally ill not realizing it's a trick and asking him to catch a bullet from a real gun out on the street.)

Pretend danger is a celebration of life. Real danger is for stupid people

Having gone through, I'm much more impressed with the list than I thought I'd be. Granted they don't seem to have a coherent definition of "crazy" but who has that ever bothered. The honourable mentions (the Pendragons, Harry Blackstone Jr. and Richard Ross) are also interesting and worth some further investigation.

Reasons for Pessimism

Author and theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss thinks their are reasons to be pessimistic, but that's no reason to be gloomy. Here in a short little insight on BigThink, he explains why the universe doesn't care about you... and that's a good thing. 

I love the part at the end where he emphasizes the importance of knowing how the world actually is. After all, I'm a magician. Some people say I spend my time trying to convince people of things which aren't true. Rather, it's better to say I spend my time trying to get people to to question and doubt what they see and realize that not everything around them is the way it appears intuitively.

Anyways... off to go create some meaning and purpose... and magic.

On Practice

Before being a magician, I studied math at the University of Toronto and in those days, I also made most of my income as a martial arts instructor.

Suffering for art - Photo by Michael Kostiuk

Suffering for art - Photo by Michael Kostiuk

Through math I learned how to break down tasks into smaller manageable parts; to problem solve. Through martial arts, I learned how to practice.

In a recent article, master jazz musician Wynton Marsalis offered up twelve tips on practice to be employed by musicians, but also athletes or just about anyone. The list is fairly straightforward but the full article helps put it into perspective:

  1. Seek out instruction: A good teacher will help you understand the purpose of practicing and can teach you ways to make practicing easier and more productive.
  2. Write out a schedule: A schedule helps you organize your time. Be sure to allow time to review the fundamentals because they are the foundation of all the complicated things that come later.
  3. Set goals: Like a schedule, goals help you organize your time and chart your progress…. If a certain task turns out to be really difficult, relax your goals: practice doesnʼt have to be painful to achieve results.
  4. Concentrate: You can do more in 10 minutes of focused practice than in an hour of sighing and moaning. This means no video games, no television, no radio, just sitting still and working…. Concentrated effort takes practice too, especially for young people.
  5. Relax and practice slowly: Take your time; donʼt rush through things. Whenever you set out to learn something new – practicing scales, multiplication tables, verb tenses in Spanish – you need to start slowly and build up speed.
  6. Practice hard things longer: Donʼt be afraid of confronting your inadequacies; spend more time practicing what you canʼt do…. Successful practice means coming face to face with your shortcomings. Donʼt be discouraged; youʼll get it eventually.
  7. Practice with expression: Every day you walk around making yourself into “you,” so do everything with the proper attitude…. Express your “style” through how you do what you do.
  8. Learn from your mistakes: None of us are perfect, but donʼt be too hard on yourself. If you drop a touchdown pass, or strike out to end the game, itʼs not the end of the world. Pick yourself up, analyze what went wrong and keep going….
  9. Donʼt show off: Itʼs hard to resist showing off when you can do something well…. But my father told me, “Son, those who play for applause, thatʼs all they get.” When you get caught up in doing the tricky stuff, youʼre just cheating yourself and your audience.
  10. Think for yourself: Your success or failure at anything ultimately depends on your ability to solve problems, so donʼt become a robot…. Thinking for yourself helps develop your powers of judgment.
  11. Be optimistic: Optimism helps you get over your mistakes and go on to do better. It also gives you endurance because having a positive attitude makes you feel that something great is always about to happen.
  12. Look for connections: If you develop the discipline it takes to become good at something, that discipline will help you in whatever else you do…. The more you discover the relationships between things that at first seem different, the larger your world becomes. In other words, the woodshed can open up a whole world of possibilities.

Add magic to your next event!