Yeah, that one was pretty bad. I know the performance is important. But, if the trick is so easy that you immediately know how it is done, no amount of showmanship is going to fix that. Now, sure, if the actual performance shows a ton of skill, that part can make it entertaining. And you can always turn it into a comedy act, and that can work. But a simple to perform trick that you could do at home, that you can figure out well before the reveal? Yeah, that’s rather underwhelming.
That said, my current stance on Brown actually was inspired by a different trick I saw around the same time. He had some people design some sort of ad or something, while saying he would predict the ad, leaving his prediction in an envelope on the table. He left the room while they were discussing it, of course. Then he came back and wowed them.
That in and of itself is just a kind lame trick. You know he had some way to watch them, and that he was able sneak his “prediction” into the envelope before the reveal. And to be fair, that’s what he told the audience he had done. However, what he told the people doing the trick was that he had used a bunch of subliminal messaging on the ride over, to get them thinking in a certain way.
That was when I realized “Oh. He has no problem lying about how he performs the tricks.” So I got suspicious the had lied about other reveals. I started looking into it online, and found that he had. And that was when the bubble burst. If he’s willing to lie about how he does the tricks, there’s no reason to believe him when he says things like he didn’t have any stooges or actors or didn’t use any camera tricks.
And then, well, there’s that Captain D video I linked above, showing a clear camera trick, followed by him claiming a false reason for why it happened, and flat out saying there were “no camera tricks.”
That’s why I don’t think he’s a very good magician, as I once told @ianzin before. I think a good magician would want to make sure no one thought he was using such disappointing “cheats.” It’s why I assume that all of his tricks are well known tricks that are dressed up. The one trick I wondered about, where he apparently used subliminal messaging to make everyone in a mall stop and hold up their hand? It has no allure for me now.
I think that sort of thing completely ruins everything. Not revealing tricks, but finding out that the magician has no integrity, and doesn’t adhere to the rule that you only directly lie during the patter. Once you lose that trust, the whole thing falls apart.
It’s why I very much like Penn and Teller.
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One single slip-up and he would lose two games.
