I don’t know if this is a better fit here or IMHO, but it’s about magic and TV shows, so I’ll put it here.
I’ve been watching this season of America’s Got Talent, and there have been a couple of magic acts. Notably, one of the acts going into the finals is a young man, Collins Key. He’s mostly going with a mentalist angle. He’s been doing some standard tricks, but doing them reasonably well.
My question is about appreciation of magic versus familiarity with how the tricks are performed. I keep finding myself looking at the magic shows and knowing how most of it is done, whether it’s Collins Key or the other magic acts. And then I see the judges reacting was astonishment, especially Mel B, like they can’t imagine how it could be.
So I’m wondering how you folks feel. I guess the question I want to know is if your understanding of how magic works, and in particular your ability to figure out how the tricks are done, affect your ability to appreciate the show? Do you watch something like Collins Key’s act and think “Hey, it’s the standard smash the watch trick, with the time reset gimmick, using a force selection”? Do you think “That’s pretty good, maybe could be a little smoother”? Do you not know how the tricks are done, and therefore sit in amazement at how he can stick the watch in a bag, shuffle the bags, have others guess the bags, and manage not to smash the $250,000 watch he borrowed? Oh, and reset the time on the watch to match the time that Howie resets on his own watch.
I’m curious how your familiarity with the tricks and ability to understand how they are performed affects your ability to enjoy the tricks. Whether it’s Collins Key’s act, or other magic acts. I’m using him as the catalyst.
At a banquet I went to there was a wandering card magician who did tricks right at your table, in the middle of dinner. He was amazing and I was astounded. Yes I know they are tricks but I don’t know how to do them and they are amazing and entertaining, and I don’t want to know the secret. He was also quite funny. My appreciation level was quite high.
I know just a bit about magic, and I find knowing the secrets behind some tricks basically spoils it for me. With Colin Key, I’m mostly sitting there wondering “Can those judges REALLY be that amazed? Surely they’ve seen that ‘reappear on the balcony’ thing a dozen times before. They’ve got to be acting.”
In particular, I thought the force on the bag picking last night was awfully obvious.
I’m moderately familiar with the basic illusions* and can sometimes figure out the gimmick. In fact, once I was asked to come up on stage and watched the magician work (and could see what he was doing).
It doesn’t bother me. I love the showmanship and the cleverness in creating the show. I know that it’s all “fake,” but it takes tremendous skill to make it work. It’s no different from the costumes or sets of a play. Nothing about a play or movie is real, either, and knowing that it’s not has nothing to do with the enjoyment of it.
I’m a supremely amateur magician: I know about 2 dozen tricks that I can perform with varying degrees of finesse. This is enough for me to teach a 6-week class to upper-elementary-school kids, though, and they give the class glowing reviews.
I start the class by explaining that there are two groups of people who love magic tricks:
People who appreciate the tricks for the skill it takes to perform them, and who treat a new trick as a puzzle to solve, and who therefore love knowing how a puzzle is performed; and
People who appreciate the tricks for the illusion of miraculous powers they create, and who treat a new trick as a chance to enter a fantasy world, and who therefore have their enjoyment ruined by learning how the trick is done.
Folks who take my magic class are presumably in the first group, but without the second group, it’s not as much fun to perform magic. The whole “magicians never reveal their secrets” is a tip of the hat to that group: keeping things secret is a courtesy to the folks who enjoy the fantasy.
I, of course, am in the first group. I’m terribly clumsy and inept compared to anyone who makes it on TV or who performs in public, so when I watch a trick and can figure out how it’s done, I’m still delighted by the magician’s skill.
Honestly, I can only appreciate magic tricks when I know how they’re done. Once I know how the trick is done, I can appreciate the performance art that goes into the delivery.
On the other hand, when watching tricks that I don’t know, I just get pissed off. I know I’m being lied to, but I don’t know how. It really does make me angry. Penn & Teller are about the only act that I can enjoy.
I really enjoy good magic, and have dabbled in the sleight-of-hand variety over the years. I’ve come to make a distinction between the terms “magic” and “trick”.
A trick is what you buy at the magic shop. It reveals the inner workings of how the basic effect is accomplished.
Magic is the effect you achieve after mastering the mechanics of the trick and adding the element of a polished performance.
When I see a magician, the first thing I’m interested in is the performance. If the performance is effective, I might be curious about the method–but not always.
Sometimes I’m perfectly content to just enjoy the performance.
I do have one pet peeve: trick boxes. Once something is put into a box onstage I immediately lose all interest. It may be a very cleverly constructed box, but it’s still a trick box, and it ceases to be “magic” for me.
What has come to interest me over time more than the mechanics of the trick, is the basic psychology of magic–why it works. I still find this fascinating.
I adore the gimmicks and tricks and devices, from the kind you make yourself to the dopey ones you buy at shops. (I really love the carrot guillotine, where it cuts the carrot but not your finger. If you do it right…)
But…I find the “patter” that accompanies many (not all!) magician acts to be tiresome. Too yakky. It makes me think, a little, of auctioneer’s chanting. It’s too, what, rhythmic? Metronomic?
The really good ones go beyond that. Penn and Teller are more elegant in their patter. But even the best ones… Hm…
I far prefer shows and books that explain how it’s done, to the actual shows themselves. I also know I’m a fussbudget and a spoilsport and in the minority! (If this post is a threadshit, I apologize. The OP asked question, and I tried to put at least some balance into my answer.)
When I know how it is done, I appreciate the skill that goes into performing it. When I don’t know how it’s done, i’m still impressed that they achieved it without my knowing. Since teleportation, transformation, levitation and ESP don’t actually exist, I know the answer is always "some clever manipulation* and getting mad about that seems as reasonable as getting mad at Usain Bolt because he can run faster than I can.
Yes. Penn and Teller do this all the time. They even perform the Cups and Balls with clear plastic cups – still works. Just emphasizes that the “magic” is not really in the “trick”.
Teller can stand on stage, light a cigarette, drop it to the floor and crush it out without ever actually having a cigarette or lighter. I am still not sure where the smoke comes from. There is not a thing you see that man do which is actually what he is doing.
Oh, subject? When I know how the illusion is done, I can appreciate the performance more.
I’m definitely more the “I want to know how it’s done” camp. I used to get upset when I didn’t know the trick method. Now I’m informed enough and mature enough I don’t get angry, but I prefer to know.
I’m not a magician by any stretch. I have never performed. I did read a card tricks book once, I’ve tried to learn to palm things, but I’m not really interested enough to practice to actually learn the skills. But I do like knowing how it is done.
My concern with regards to AGT is that I’m trying to evaluate my own ability to assess how the crowd and America evaluates the performances. The judges are pretty flabbergasted by things I see right through. Even when I don’t know the exact method, I know enough to see a possible way or where the trick is.
I understand part of the premise behind “a magician never reveals the trick” is because of the attitude I mention. It is really easy to be dismissive of something that you think of as simple tricks when you have no experience with the craft of performing them to be convincing and entertaining. Someone who has made an effort at the craft can appreciate the effort a performer went into to make the show good even if he hasn’t done that trick himself or is not up to that skill level. But someone who has watched a few “magic tricks revealed” specials has demystified the experience without replacing it with an appreciation for the skill it takes to do the performances well.
I would never try to do the act Collins Key is doing. It takes a lot of courage and dedication to get up on stage in front of hundreds of people and millions on TV and perform.
I just wonder at how America is judging these things with respect to the other acts. My criteria might be different enough to skew my picks against America’s. Not that it bothers me, I just like to be able to outguess the results. There’s my picks, and then what I think America is going to do. They aren’t always the same.
Sure, but to someone who has put zero effort into learning how tricks are done, and isn’t aware of the technique of a force, it might still be hard to spot. It relies on a spot of psychology.
I went to school with a magician, and he plied the gang with numerous tricks, occasionally showing us a snippet of how it’s done. Really gave me an appreciation of the skill needed to make these things happen.
The only time knowing how it’s done bothers me is if the magician is cheating. Camera tricks, for example, that essentially eliminate any need for the magician to actually put any skill into creating the effect. A shill who is supposed to be the amazed audience member.
Outside of cheating, I know how they’re done, sort of. I know he’s not violating the laws of physics, he’s not rebuilding a watch, he’s not moving the hands with his mind. So, he moved the watch away before hitting it, he, or a confederate set the watch in secret, etc. Finding out the exact moment when these things happen don’t particularly interest me. Can he make the trick entertaining is what I"m interested in.
I remember as a kid wondering how some tricks were done, and the only methods I could come up with that may have been possible seemed far too complicated to be the actual method, so I remained ignorant. Later I came to realise that the misdirection is in making the complicated look effortless.
I sort of know the basic principles of how some tricks work, but mostly it’s still a mystery to me. But even if I can figure out how it’s done I am still awed by the artistry.
I still don’t know how Paul Daniels made the elephant disappear.
I love watching Penn and Teller perform. The way that the little fella has gone beyond his disability and is able to “communicate” nonetheless, should be a lesson to us all.
What “disability” is that? You do know that he can speak perfectly fine, right?
Also, regarding the post about “cheating”, I went to see Sigfried and Roy in Vegas. They cheated in a really big way. There is a part of the show where they produce this enormous mechanical contraption. Just before the thing “appears”, they blind the entire audience with a high-powered flash of light. While I was sitting there momentarily blinded, I thought, this is not magic–this is cheating.
