I've been busy the last few weeks. And I will be busy some more. And this post almost wouldn't be here if not for the fact that I got a little time.
I was thinking. How come that every single week dozens of magic releases happen? Seriously! I was wondering. Magic routines has been released for ages now. But the really big ones were reserved for conventions. Now it's every single week. Fuck that.... learn a routine and polish it. Don't learn anything new until you mastered the repertoire you already have.
Here is are a few rules you can apply to most of your magic presentation:
Don't be creepy!
Don't be a dick!
If you think those rules don't apply to you, you are either in a way higher league (but that means you are smart enough not to read my blog) or you unable to see that these rule should apply to you.
Creepy people often don't know that they are creepy. How do you tell them? Does anypne want to tell them? I think somebody should.
You may notice that I just write what comes to my head. But you are reading it anyway.... Sucker!
Here is a video that I find hilarious.... A kid's magician. He is actually good. Has jokes, some strong tricks for kid's and then hell opens up, when the indoctrination starts.
It's a long video, the brainwashing starts about half way in:
He is a gospel magician and is doing a gospel magic presentation; I fail to see the problem. You may not agree with him but this is a thriving active subset of the magic community here in the states.
ReplyDeleteI jumped around and didn't watch the whole thing but he is better than many of the gospel magicians I have seen. No fail at all.
You didn't see the fail? Then you didn't watch it. Oh, yes, you said that.
ReplyDeleteHe just grafted horrific Gospel tags onto equally nasty magical effects. If you have to do Gospel Magic, and I would prefer to kill myself first, then at least write a fucking script.
BS
He is actually good.
ReplyDeleteThat was my favorite pom pom stick routine I've seen.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Barry, I pray you don't try to present gospel magic either.
He may be good. Michael, but that was shit.
ReplyDeleteChris, I thank you for your prayers like I thank you for the imaginary present you got for my birthday.
It might interest you to know that I am a deeply experienced performer of Gospel Magic. I will shortly be publishing a book on the subject. See here for more details:
http://barry-solayme.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/gospel-train.html
BS
I was just quoting Roland from the text above...
ReplyDeleteThen put it in quotation marks next time.
ReplyDeleteI know you have balls of steel, but I have diamond tipped boots. And you won't walk away from our next encounter, Mr Bunny.
BS
I did that purposely - I wanted to see which schmuck would bite. Not only did one bite, but took the bait hook, line, and sinker.
ReplyDeleteIf you'd have actually read Roland's post in its entirety, you would have known that it came directly from his text...I didn't need quotation marks.
Now if you want to pull those boots out of your ass, I'll prepare for the kick.
Don't bait me, Bunny Boy, I trained Rocky Marciano. You wanna know why his nose looked that way? My left hook is why. Now scram.
ReplyDeleteBS
If you trained Marciano then you must be nearly as old as Harry Lorrayne.
ReplyDeleteMy money is on Mr. Jay.
Why I oughta...
ReplyDeleteBS
Hmmm... I guess this is another one of those very rare occasions when I find myself disagreeing with you, Roland.
ReplyDeleteI would have found it highly distasteful for a magician to use Bible-themed patter during a gig for, say, the Richard Dawkins Foundation... I would have found it equally offensive for a magician to use blasphemous patter at a gig for a religious community.
But here, we're dealing with a magician who's a friggin' pastor, performing for an audience of 100% Christian spectators, for Darwin's sake! What could be more natural than Christian-themed patter under such circumstances? Hell, given the context I'd expect even an atheist magician to go for Christian references!
Let me illustrate what I mean. I support neither republicans nor democrats but if I had to perform at a convention of the former I'd probably throw in a few ad-hoc jokes such as "wow, that rope grew faster than taxes under a democrat administration!", while if performing for the latter I may go for something like "let me show you The Han-Ping-Chien coins, a trick designed to illustrate good wealth distribution according to republicans"... You get the idea.
When it comes to offensiveness, context is everything. Therefore, I do not see any failure here in that regard.
That being said, I do find that (overall good) performance to show a number of shortcomings - most notably the fact that he made several of his attempted climaxes, well... quite anti-climatic, a failure that can indeed be chalked up to his eagerness to jump to his Bible-themed parallels. If that is what you meant, then I agree with you, although that isn't nearly enough to make him true WMF material in my opinion.