Jay, read this!

I'm sorry to ride this train for so long, but I found this comment on Youtube by Jay Sankey, and it's worst piece of bullshit I ever read:

"The so-called 'secrets of magic' are not the real secrets. It's what a performer DOES WITH the 'secret method' that makes him or her a real magician. In the early days of cinema, the techniques were mysterious and kept secret. Over time, the value of those 'secrets' diminished and people focused on what they DID with the tech. Hopefully, the same thing will happen with magic."

You Jay Sankey are gravely mistaken! Here is why: Magic has one huge problem with the suspension of disbelief issue. Movies are a different beast and cannot be compared with magic. In movies or theater the audience is willing to suspend their disbelief, if the movie is good. The audience is willing, to accept for the duration of the movie that all the issues and problems of the characters are real. If in a theater play of Peter Pan the main character is flying, you can see the wires that he is hanging on. But the audience is willing to not see the wires. They know the wires are there, they see them, but they choose to ignore them, in order to continue being enchanted. Kind of how religion works.

In magic it is different. If something floats through the air, people will look for threads or wires. It has something to do with the too perfect theory, postulated by Rick Johnsson. In his initial paragraphs he states that the audience cannot stand not having an answer for a problem that is presented to them. And that they will find a solution, even if the solution is clearly wrong. So if they catch a glimpse of a piece of flying dust above the floating object they will think they saw a thread.

The intuitive solution can actually be disastrous in trying to establish any illusion. So that needs to be cancelled. If people know what an Elmsley count looks like they will see the Elmsley count each and every time no matter what the "performer DOES WITH the 'secret method'" even if no Elmsley count is used.

And that is the main reason why magic secrets should be kept secret. Your analogy about cinema is fucking nonsense. 

You Jay are doing a huge disservice to magic. The art that you love, the art that made you a name in the business. Please don't make the mistake assuming you know all about it, therefore you can rise above the time honored rules of magic.

Keeping a secret is hard, but it is smart to do it from a business point of view as well as from an artistic point of view.

WMF Jay Sankey ... for now

I always had this weird stance on Jay Sankey. One the one hand I admire his creativity albeit it's full of rehashing, but on the other hand his business conduct seems more than fishy.

But this new trend of his makes me award him a title. Basically he had let himself down to deal with the scum of the magic community. The exposers on YouTube. Maybe Jay doesn't know, though his technical abilities make me doubt that. He should clearly know that the people he deals with are maybe not mean spirited towards magic, but clearly disrespecting the secrets of magic and the creators who have come up with those.

I don't understand why Jay even bothers to mess about with them? Is he possessed by the spirit of attention? Does he need to crave admiration so much that he goes there? I really hope I'm missing something here.

So Jay Sankey's Facebook account got hacked

I can't explain it otherwise. Jay Sankey posts a few post linking to a YouTube user that is known for exposing magic and all. Jay is certainly not linking to the exposer videos, but to a performance video and tells everyone how inspiring it is. He also links to a clothing store in which said YouTuber sells some of his magic themed T-shirts.

Some Facebook users then rightfully complain to Jay what the hell is going on. How can Jay affiliate with a man that destroys the craft that Jay obviously loves?

What happens to those comments? Well they get deleted along with the initial post.

WTF Jay? Are you unable to man up and admit you are either wrong or if you have a compelling reason to post this at least share your thoughts on why?

Or do these post get deleted because of a shit storm that might tarnish your public image? Honestly I think it would do you better in the long run to allow a discussion and to admit failure. I remember years ago when you wrote a long open letter explaining why you don't work with penguin magic anymore. That was good. That felt honest. Now you work with them again... why?

This deletion of the posts doesn't serve the aim of being honest. It makes you feel like a unethical businessman who will do everything to have his public image be clean.

It's not just Facebook. Twitter is the same.

Learn some routining!

I finally figured out my problem with Jay Sankey. I think. He simply is unable to construct routines. He is able to create effects and develop half decent methods for that. But stringing them into a coherent routine with dramatic structure built in seems to be an unobtainable goal for him.

Stand up comedians seems to divide into several groups. One of them is the "one liner comedian". There jokes are never tied to an overall story. They do not work to a certain ultimate joke or message. They simply do one lines. Jay Sankey is a one liner magician. It's trick, after trick, after trick.

Being a close up magician doesn't require that sort of stuff, yet I have to see something by Jay Sankey that qualifies as a closer trick. He is really good at creating filler. But that's about it.

Also his Erdnase change sucks. Jay, just in case you are reading this. The Erdnase change is NOT done by openly outjogging the top card. The out jog needs to happen unbeknownst to the audience watching. And you do that by making sure that NOT your middle and ring finger push forward the card, but the pinky finger. And it only starts pushing once the hand fully covered the deck. If you need to I will send you a video file of the Erdnase change done right.

On a positive note. I really like your Wichita Slip.