Thursday, March 30, 2017

WMF Evan Era

Meet Evan, a a world-traveling entertainer, filmmaker, and father from Louisville/Crestwood, Kentucky. A very likable chap with a complete misunderstanding of magic. To him magic is nothing but a puzzle that requires explanation. Or so it seems. Evan has a YouTube Channel and over a million subscribers. Let that sink in. so over a million people get a notification when he is about to explain magic. But not his own ideas... no, mostly beginners tricks, but also store bought tricks. None of the things he "teaches" are his own. All the creations of others.

And I feel very strongly about that particular thing. If you just ruminate the creative effort of others you are nothing but a parasite. And a parasite Evan Era is. In the strictly technial sense. He just gains from those ideas and my guess is that he doesn't pay the creators any royalties, nor credits them.

Among the stuff he reveals are the Diminishing Cards, the Zig Zag Rope, the Magic Butterfly, the Water Crystal, Sword through Balloon, the Four Dimensional Trunk and the Card Zig Zag basically the whole Tenyo catalog up and down.

But not only that, also the classic Pen through Bill, the Knife through Arm, Sword Swallowing, the Appearing Cane, the Neck Cracker Gimmick, Several Fire Gimmicks, basic Spoon bending, the mirror glass, and he also reveals the Himber Ring.

The business model is obvious. His income is the videos themselves. That is a sound way of making some money. But he does it under the pretext of teaching magic. And he is not.

His is not teaching... he glosses over the method, with his limited understanding of magic, he regurgitates what others have said before him. He adds nothing new, shows no understanding of effect, structure and composition of a routine. Its just a dealer demo with an explanation.

And he sucks at sleight of hand. His videos are cut, mainly before the actual effect. This maybe a cut done for the purpose of pacing, but also reveals his lack of understanding magic.

Evan is this weeks magic failure.

Monday, March 20, 2017

"It fooled me"!

Penguin Magic's newsletter...

"Fooled me bad. And not just once. More like 100 times!"
"I performed this live on stage the same day I got it, then non-stop."
"Almost everything is a magician fooler. I love this!"
"I have no idea how it's done, and none of my friends do either."
"A prediction trick that'll get you a standing ovation."
"For the first time ever, she was TOTALLY FOOLED."
"This trick fools magicians bad. Then they cry. It gets weird."
"That fooled the %@#& out of me!"

I sense a pattern in the force. Did you get it? Did you?

Yes, most of them are CARD TRICKS...
Nothing wrong with that of course. For the most part.