Should we discuss magic tricks?

Great Debates
1

This thread in GQ in which Mahaloth asked how a card trick on the Conan O’Brian show was performed started turning into a discussion of whether or not we should be discussing how magicians do their tricks.

Ianzin said:

and was followed up later by Quasimodem:

Personally, I don’t see how a trick can be “spoiled” unless you believe that magic is real. Whenever I see a trick being performed, I know that the magician is using some clever, but perfectly explanable technique to make me believe that he’s done something physically impossible. I get a great deal of enjoyment from understanding how these tricks work, and knowing the secrets doesn’t “spoil” the performance for me any more than knowing how special effects are created spoils movies.

I don’t really buy the business argument, either. I get paid for what I do because my job is difficult, not because I keep what I do a secret. I could tell the entire world exactly how I do my job and it wouldn’t affect my job security in the least, because even knowing exactly how it’s done, not a lot of people would be able to do it well, and even fewer would be willing to put in the time and hard work needed to become skilled. I enjoy watching magicians because I have a great appreciation and respect for their technical skill and their showmanship, and because I know that even if I knew exactly how every trick was done, it would still take me years of work to get near their level of proficiency.

So, all in all, I’m in favor of discussing magic tricks on the boards. What do the rest of you think?

–sublight.

2

and here I thought you were gonna say something about the old tiem walk, regrowth combo.

3

sub, I totally agree with you. Well said.

4

:confused: huh? After all the folks thinking my BSE thread in the Pit was actually about bestiality, I tried to make the topic line of this one as clear as I could. What’s the old tiem (time?) walk, regrowth combo?

5

I see no reason not to. I feel that the outcome of this debate might be ‘spoiler’ warnings for magic threads.

There are many types of people and 2 of them are those who enjoy not knowing and those who really really want to know. Me being part of the later. Kind of like the difference between say a Columbo episode and an Agatha Christie mystery. One revels in the interplay between the two sides and the other is a hunt for the truth. And if you’re the kind of person who likes not to know then your best bet is to stay away from threads which give things away. And for those who like to know it would be there responsibility to not trick the first kind into reading a thread about how to perform magic.

And as for those who are committed to learning the truth they have to deal with the fact that virtually all of the professional magicians will NEVER tell you leaving them only with educated guesses which isn’t always very satisfying.

6

LOL its a card combo from magic the gathering…the trading card game. just being whacky is all.

7

Yeah, we all enjoy the skill of the magician and also seeing if we can work it out how they did it, or appreciating the trick when we have it explained to us.

But what about the people who haven’t had a chance to see the trick yet? How much of your enjoyment of the trick would be taken away from you (and everyone) if the magician explained to you how they were going to do it before they did it?

I reckon it would totally spoil it for me and I like knowing how it was done. Just not before I see it!

8

One of the most amazing magic tricks I ever saw was performed by Penn and Teller. They did the old cups-and-balls routine, then announced: “We are now going to break two cardinal rules of magic. Number 1: Never do the same trick twice. Number 2: Never do the cups-and-balls routine with clear cups.” They proceeded to do exactly that, but it was done so quickly, and with such exaggerated movements, that I was even more amazed the second time through - and almost fell on the floor laughing.

9

That’s a good point, Futile Gesture, but I’m not sure how much I agree with that, even.

In the case of something like Copperfield’s Statue of Liberty trick, knowing the secret would spoil it, I suppose, because the “trick” is everything; there’s little or none of what I think of as “magic skill” involved. Given enough money to buy the equipment and time to rehearse a suitably dramatic-sounding script, I could do the SoL trick just as well as Copperfraud, and so could you. In fact, if all I did was draw the curtain on the SoL, spend a few minutes trying to talk the audience into becoming Amway distributors or just reading off a few hundred digits of pi, then open the curtain onto an empty night sky, the audience would still be pretty impressed. I’ll grant you that kind, because once you know the secret, the trick kinda sucks. Interestingly, a lot of DC’s show falls into this category.

OTOH, I’ve seen P&T perform a lengthy cup-and-ball trick (probably the exact same trick FriendRob mentioned, now that I review), then demonstrate how it’s done using transparent cups, then do it again with regular cups and I still have a damn hard time following all their moves. With that kind of act, knowing how it’s done won’t spoil a thing for me because I’m more impressed with level of skill they’ve achieved.

10

While there can be exceptions to every rule, I think for the most part it should be OK to discuss magicians’ secrets. There are dozens of books that explain the classic maneuvers employed by professional magicians, for instance the The Amateur Magician’s Handbook. These books explain palming, misdirection, false cuts, and most other methods used in classic close-up magic. You can read a book and gain the knowledge, but does that make you a serious threat to Penn and Teller? Of course not, unless you are willing to PRACTICE for hundreds, if not thousands, of hours, to become truly proficient. The book points the way, but the effort still has to come from within. One can also argue that there is an element of inborn talent that is essential to success as a magician, and a book certainly isn’t going to give you that. And similarly with something you read on the SDMB.

If we’re going to fight ignorance, then we should be free to share the knowledge that we’ve gained, especially if we can provide cites. At a time when the Free Internet seems to be on the decline, and we increasingly click on promising search results only to find fee-based sites festooned with prices and little shopping carts, the free and open forum for the sharing of ideas and information that the SDMB provides is more important than ever.

11

There are teenage boys out there who are, at this very moment, hoping to become the new Copperfields or Penndragons or Blackstones of the world, practicing with cards and balls and cups and wants and rings and such…
this discussion would absolutely cause them to go ballistic.

I know… I used to be one of them.

But it’s imagination and practice by the performer that allow us to be fooled by the magic that we see performed. Some magicians are specialists for children, some work blue and use coarse language, some specialize in animals, some in HUGE illusions, etc. Knowing HOW it’s performed doesn’t stop my enjoyment of the spectacle of it. I love to watch children’s faces when they’re fooled by the “quarter-out-of-the-ear” trick, just as much as I love being fooled by Penn and Teller’s double-bullet-catch.

Should we discuss how it’s done?
Sure! Absolutely!

Will it diminish our enjoyment of a well performed trick or illusion?
Doubtful.

12

I don’t think so.

It might not be that disturbing to you, AFTER you have seen the trick. But for other people who haven’t seen it, but hear how it is done, it can ruin it. It did for me when I learned about how the card on the ceiling trick was done before I saw it. I knew about this one trick where the chosen card was thrown and stuck to the ceiling…so when I actually saw it performed, it wasn’t “WOW!” it was more like “Oh, so that’s how it’s supposed to look like.” Still neat, but definitely not AS cool as it could have been if I were totally un-prepared for it.

Discussing the intricacies of tricks for all to see will most certainly destroy the fun for someone. I myself have discussed Penn & Teller’s bullet through the glass, and now I wish I hadn’t. Someone can read about that, and then go to the show, sit there and tell the person next to them what is going on, play-by-play. Boring.

And as a hack magician, I’d be pretty pissed if someone told other people how “The Twins” by Brother John Hammon was done after I just did it for them (which I have been dutifully practicing for over 1 month now, every day). “Yeah, you see, all he did was this, that, and the other. You just didn’t see it from your angle.” What a spoiler! Not everyone who learns how a trick is done will just keep that knowledge to themselves- there are ass****s out there that will try and ruin an effect to make themselves look better. In fact, there are quite a few people like that. (Quick magic tip: Have people sign their chosen card. Then they can’t say “Nope, I had a different one.” You can still use the card later, it doesn’t ruin anything, the back is still the same design, the front is still different from the other 51 cards…).

Another thing I don’t like about it is that people don’t have a comprehension of how much effort goes into doing a magic trick. When a trick’s secret is given up, or explained away in 2 short sentences, people then think that it is somehow easier or less, well, magical. When in reality that person has spent years developing the skills to perform that trick. Because of the nature of magic and how we learn about it growing up, we come to it with different reactions compared to other arts. ‘Tricks’ are just gimmicks when we are first learning about magic- just some piece of wood with sparkly stones on it. Turn it this way and it looks like they are different colors, turn it the other way and the ‘magically’ turn into one color. So when we are told how a trick is done, then it does lose its importance or reaction, because we file it away as a gimmick, that the magician didn’t really do all that much, it was the special piece of wood, not him. It would be sort of analagous to telling someone “Picasso? Oh, all he did was take a brush, slap some paint on a canvas, and voila!” and have them believe you- “Oh, really? that’s not so hard, my six year old can do that.” You didn’t do the trick, the gimmick did. Picasso didn’t paint the canvas, the brush did. Wrong.

Magicians know it takes much more than just a special gimmick to pull off a good trick, but other people will ignore your calloused hands, your months of working on a trick over and over and over again, the glib way you presented it, and simply focus on the fact that you had fake whatever to accomplish the trick.

So no, don’t be like that jerk mystery magician and give up the goods on the tricks. It’s part of the fun, especially for the magician- we do it to see the look on your face, not to show you how a little wax and string can go a long way.

-Tcat

-Tcat

13

I worked for several years as a close-up magician - made a decent living at it. I have no objection to discussing magic tricks via e-mail or in some other private setting, but I won’t do it in a public posting.

Not because it would affect how I feel about doing the trick, or because it would affect my income. For the first few years I performed, when people asked me how tricks were done, I would sometimes tell them; particularly if they expressed interest in the way Sublight did. And 90% of the time, I saw their faces register extreme disappointment.

Now if I do a trick and somebody really wants to know the method, I’ll refer them to an instructional book, video, or something similar. (Just about everything being done is also being sold and/or published, if you make the effort to find it.) The people who really want to know will investigate further. The ones who don’t, won’t.

I do close-up magic because people like it. It sort of ruins the point if I take away the joy immediately afterward, and turns it into “Hey, look how nimble my fingers are.” At that point, it’s an exercise in competition and selfishness. Neither I nor my audience enjoy it. And if it isn’t fun anymore, what’s the point?

I won’t try to stop anyone else from discussing how magic is done, because I’m not part of the Topic Police[sup]TM[/sup]. I’ll be glad to share research and resources, and I’ll correspond in e-mail. But I won’t post how a trick was done, lest I rain on someone’s parade.

14

I vote yes, with spoiler warnings.

Let’s be honest: doing stage magic is not just about impressing people with seemingly-impossible tricks, it’s also a large part about showmanship. If that wasn’t the case, any pimply-faced geek with three foam balls and good dexterity could attract the babes. As it is now, the best magicians are the folks who have, to some degree, the ability to charm the audience and play with their emotions while doing their routine with the foam balls. Talking about magic trick secrets is no worse than revealing the ending of Hamlet – even when you know what it is, a lot of the enjoyment of a performance is going to depend on who is performing. As others have noted already, Penn and Teller (and they are the gods of stage magic these days, IMO) can turn a routine cup-and-balls trick into a captivating experience by their showmanship alone – even when using clear cups and explaining how the trick works.

So yeah, let’s talk about magic tricks, and leave some spoiler warnings for folks who don’t want to know.

(And I can’t stand David Copperfield precisely because his showmanship is so blatantly gloss and stretched out; I quickly get bored with his flash that I focus all my attention on figuring out his tricks, which isn’t hard to do anyway. P&T, on the other hand, never fail to give me such a jaw-dropping performance that I’m too busy watching them do the trick to even try to figure it out…)

15

Ok, the key to the sawing a woman in half illusion is first you get a woman with a detachable torso, then…

16

There’s an old story about a magician who used a midget wearing pants that made him look like a man’s bottom half (something like the back end of a horse costume) and a gentlemen who had lost his legs in an accident and who could walk using his hands. After sawing his “assistant” in half, the two halves ran off the stage in opposite directions.

Presumably, this took place in the early part of the century, and audience reaction prevented the trick from being done as part of the regular routine. I can’t verify this at all, but it makes a damn good story.

17

I’ll attempt some clarification here. What I originally suggested was that the SDMB might consider not discussing how magic tricks are done for the following reasons:

(a) it’s pointless. The only people who know the right answers are magi, and we don’t post the secrets on the Boards. (I’m sorry if I’m injuring anyone’s pride here, but believe me, 99% of the time when people think they have sussed out how a trick is done, they are dead wrong.)

(b) it doesn’t square with the SD remit. Exposing magic methods is not ‘fighting ignorance’, but it may be making life harder than it needs to be for some very hard-working men and women who try their best to provide a legitimate form of entertainment.

I’m surprised at some of the comments so far.

Sublight said

.
Well, let me try to help you. A good magician is trying to entertain you, in part by doing things which seem impossible. If the secret of a given trick becmes rather widely known, it is ‘spoiled’ in the sense that it can no longer be used to create the temporary and entertaining illusion of something impossible having happened.

Sub also offered this comment, echoed by one or two others:

Quite so, but your job doesn’t involve trying to create a temporary and entertaining illusion of impossibility. You’re not comparing like with like. If you (as a spectator) know how trick X is done beforehand, then the magician cannot succeed in his aims as much as he would like by performing trick X. Sure, there may still be many things you enjoy about his performance, but his chance to create that temporary illusion is gone.

Javaman, among others, pointed out that there are many books that explain magic secrets, as well as other sources. Yes, there are. But again, this is not comparing like with like. It is one thing for an individual with a genuine interest in learning about magic to obtain a book and study it - presumably with the intention of one day beng able to entertain people. It is quite another for a public forum to give away secrets to x tens of thousands of people for no other reason than a few people like to expose secrets - which are not their intellectual property anyway.

Several Dopers mentioned Penn & Teller, and their routine in which they ‘expose’ the Cups & Balls trick. This is one of a number of routines in which they seemingly break the magician’s code. Okay, some information.

There are several times when P&T seem to expose how a trick is done, but they don’t really. The ‘secret’ they ‘explain’ is not the real secret. Obviously I can’t say more without giving too much away.

Secondly, in all cases except the Cups & Balls they only ‘expose’ tricks and illusions which they themselves created, specifically for the purpose of doing a ‘reveal’ (whether straight or fake) - so, in other words, they aren’t handling any intellectual property except their own, nor are they damaging the interests of any other magician.

Thirdly, their Cups & Balls routine, which is brilliantly funny, is harmless to magic for a couple of reasns. There is no one trick known as ‘the Cups & Balls’ with one secret. You could watch P&T’s version, and then watch another magic act do a similar-looking trick, and be utterly flummoxed. P&T were very careful what they exposed and what they didn’t. Also, the ‘explanation’ is deliberately speeded up and rendered incoherent and confusing, making the ‘explanation’ funny rather than an exposure of magic secrets. (I know Teller fairly well, BTW, and I’ve discussed this point with him several times. There’s also a funny story about him on my website.)

Some posters have used the faux-analogy with the movie special effects industry. Knowing how the SFX work doesn’t lessen enjoyment of the movie. True, but the aims of the movie-maker and the aims of the magician are not the same. The movie maker aims to tell a story, and SFX may or may not be part of that process. If you know how the SFX are done, he can still succeed in his aim of depicting a great story. Also, you can make a great movie with no SFX. A magician hopes, in part, to create a temporary and entertaning illusion of something impossible having happened. If you know how he does what he does, he can’t do this (at least not with that trick).

I hope this moves the discussion on a bit.

18

To the above discussion, I would add the following:

If you don’t want to reveal a secret, fine - nobody’s forcing you.

But whenever somebody asks for the “trick” behind a trick, often someone will post something roughly equivalent to the following:

IMHO, that’s rude and demeaning.

19

hey, ianzin! i don’t believe you! you never discussed nothin’ with Teller! everyone knows he don’t talk!

20

gatopescado, it is when he’s on stage that Teller doesn’t talk. He has been known for talking and taking interviews without Penn Jillette. Oh, you probably believe that Silent Bob never talks either, which makes his directing skills all the greater.