Bizarre magic not really it's own form of magic.

Theres an old post on here somewhere about what bizarre magic is but I've changes since then. The thing about bizarre magic is that I think it's more a theme now then a style. There are no bizarre magic effects. To me I've notice that most bizarre effects are just some other styles effect with a odd presentation. Take a look at one of the review I did recent for 3 wishes. It's a nice prop with a great story but it's just a copper silver trick dressed up nice.

I'd like to say that it as a style requires more out of a performer than other methods but I think that really most magicians are crud. Like Sturgeon's Law says 90% of everything is bad. Fact of the matter is you don't have to be good performer to do good magic. I remember at one party I was at this guy I don't know comes up to me and takes out a playing card out of his wallet and tells he's kept it there ever since I did the magic. I guarantee whatever effect it was I did was crap. But it was still amazing enough for this guy to carry a reminder and bring it up. I can do way better stuff now. So like all other forms of magic the better a performer creates more magic. That said on the whole most of the people I know that focus on the bizarre side are little more focused on acting ability than on a perfect vanish.

Sunless Sea's and a lesson it teaches

Sunless Seas is a 2D top down ocean exploration survival game with a focus on story telling. It's a rouge like, for those unfamiliar with this term a rouge like game is one where your characters death is the end of the play-through. With each death you start over and the world changes from what it was last time.

How is this relevant to magic blog, well as I said Sunless Seas has a focus on story telling and when you die you're faced with running stories you're been through before and you die a lot. Obviously you can make different choices each time and get a slightly different story but either way by your fourth or fifth time you find your self clicking through with the words barely registering. And this can happen in performance by the time you actually get out and perform you've probably said your lines a over a hundred times, told the tale to your mirror  over and over again. Time after time, and now you gotta do it again it's so easy to be meh.

This is doubly true if you're tired or upset, I know I just gone through the motions a time or two when I really want to not and I know my performance has suffered for it. Theres no easy solution it is up to you to find what you need to revitalize a flagging performance.

A post I wrote about character on some forum

If you are a performer especially if you are paid to perform then it is of the utmost importance that you know all about your character. Notice how I say 'know your character' instead of 'have a character'. If you are a performer then you have a character and it's important to know who it is even if the character is just yourself.

Knowing your character is important because you need to be able to answer the five w's in relation to your character. The five w's being; who, what, when, where, why, and sometimes how. I suppose if you twisted my arm I would say that three of those are more important for the spinner than the others. At the very least take a look at your act and say "Who am I, What am I doing, Why am I doing it?"

Knowing the answer to these helps you know what sort of story you're telling. Human's are a story telling creature it's part of who we are. If you think that you're not telling a story that you are just doing an exhibition of moves then you are telling a story proclaiming to the world "Hey look how great I am". Knowing the answers to these question can help you with everything from choreographing your set down to the outfit you wear.

I'm going to answer some of these questions for my self to better illustrate my point.

• Who am I? I am Magnus, a wizard with my stave(s) at my side.
• What am I doing? Engaging in battle against my foes.
• Why am I do it? For Glory

These are the things I think about when I spin. I use the w's even deeper in relation to those answers. For example spinning a single stave in a buzzsaw I think what does this move do? My answer in context is that it provides a magical barrier as long as I'm spinning it. So the why am I doing it becomes because the enemy has launched an attack. The next question becomes what is the result of that attack? Did I successfully resist or did it have an effect? What does that look like?

The answers to these questions might change dramatically act to act or not. But a serious performer can't afford to ignore them.

Magic Mirror by Robert Neal and David Parr

One man's thoughts another man's words, an unusual premise for a book but it seems to work well. The book started as a collection of essays by Robert Neal, which were re-written by David Parr. Now I've never had any contact with Mr Neal, but David Parr is basically the head Mugwump at my favorite forum and thanks to the small but dedicated user base I have has some interaction with him. I've found him to be both helpful and insightful. This book is split into two parts, the first part is magical theory and the second part is effects. Not a lot of effects in this book maybe nine total but that's not this point of this book. The effects are darn good effects a fair few will make their way into my repertoire. But really if you are just hunting for good effects you may want to spend your money elsewhere, where this book shines is the theory portion. If you've ever wanted your magic to feel like something other than silly tricks, this book is for you. It approaches magic from a more anthropological view point. It asks and answers the question of why man created magic and why they need magic. The book also offers a new way to classify magic one I find to practical and thought provoking.

Bottom line is this book offers a new way of looking at the performance of magic. Which is something I think all performers need in general. Seriously if hope to grow at all you need to take a look at your magic from a different perspective at every opportunity.

Real

I was recently informed that David Blaine's minimalistic patter style comes from his belief that  "if someone was to do magic, like really do magic, I don't think they'd have a big presentation. They would just do it. Like I would just pick up a rock and crush it into sand. No fancy presentation" I don't actually care too much for Blaine's performances especially since he moved to a more stunt focused character but it got me thinking about what real magic would look like.

I came to the conclusion that the idea that if one could do magic they would just do it doesn't really fit into what I'm gonna call the cultural subconscious. I'm not really an expert but it seems to me for the most part going back in time both in real life and stories magic men, wizards, witches, shamans, witch doctors, etc required items and rituals and what have you. The beings who could just change reality with little more than a thought generally were gods and demons and other supernatural beasts, and in some mythologies the gods still needed items and all that to make the changes. But when a supernatural being does that, it's not magic, it's no longer the impossible its just that being doing its thing.

What I see as support of the idea of an underlying cultural understanding of magic is that anytime a writer deviates from this traditional thinking of how magic works they have devote time in story to exposition on the way magic works. Like in Harry Potter no explanation is given for how magic works you just read them doing magic. But for the Sword of Truth series (the only deviation I could think of at the moment) theres a page or two where one character sets another down and explains how magic works just before that knowledge becomes relevant to the story and that pretty much happens every time a new understanding is needed by the reader.

While I don't see myself joining the minimal patter bandwagon, I suppose if one explained in a reasonable fashion their Djinn like nature they could perform feats with no build. Although I fail to see a way to make it entertaining. Beside it makes the whole thing a little questionable, if you could just change reality why do you need me to pay you to perform card tricks. What I'm trying to say is that whether or not they know it people expects a little something to make magic, they expects odd words and gestures cause growing up that is what caused magic in the tales they were told. And because of this you can't do something magical with no build and expect it to be anything other than a surprise, magic needs a build up or its just tricks (which I'm not against just tricks cause those are still fun just not really all that magical).

That's a trick deck.

Due to the specific nature of this blog its probably safe to say that you my reader have been to a forum of some sort for magicians. However just in case you have not allow me to illuminate you as to a constant theme that pops up over again. There are basically two groups, one group says that if you use any deck of cards other than Rider backed Bicycles your spectator will think that you are using a trick deck. And the other group is sane, I'm kidding but the other group doesn't think that it has anything to do with the deck. I am of the second group and I believe that if the spectator thinks you are using a trick deck then it is your failing as a performer that caused this.

I only use Rider backed cards in two instances, practice and gaff work. The only time that I use Rider backs in front of  spectators is when they have the most reason to be suspicious. I mostly use Artifices now and before that oddly colored decks produced by MagicMakers INC.

I remember that cards existed before I got into magic seriously but I can't say that I remember their backs, and rarely were they expensive Bikes only serious card players would buy those. I can remember one back. When I was about 10 I got every trick deck at the Dollar Tree. One of which was a marked back deck and I had to memorize the secret markings. So that back kind of sticks out in my memory.

You know that if you go to your nearest store that sells cards, they have decks that only cost $1. They are complete crap when it comes to handling but they will work for any card game you could want to play. Now if you need to manipulate cards then you want bikes. Did you also know that right next to the Bikes, there are decks with much more interesting designs for a comparable price. Coke-Cola, Spongebob, Micky Mouse, Star Wars, are all represented in card form at my local store. My mom plays solitaire and she has two deck of bikes that I gave her after I no longer needed them. One of them is that silver deck Bicycle put out.  She has two other decks one has American flags on it and the other Battleships. My sister likes card based drinking game both of the times she went out and got a deck, she did not get bikes, she got Micky Mouse and Spongebob. I left a deck of red backed bikes out on a table one day after practicing and my mother asked me if it was one of those expensive decks I got online.

So if its not the cards that make people think you are using a trick deck then what does that leave? It leaves the performer. More so it is the performers character that leads the audience to believe that it is a trick deck. If you can't find anything in your performance character that leads people that way maybe its some of the real you slipping through. How do you feel about tricks and gimmicks like that? Me personally I'd rather do it all through slight of hand if I could. Which is probably why people come to that conclusion when watching me instead of the trick deck one.