Congratulations Andrew

You made it. Writing daily about a topic that has limits is a task I can only honor with highest regards. I hope it was worth the effort and serves as an excellent portfolio and reference for future work. Having a journalist background myself I know the value of such an online resource. About your plans to go with a weekly schedule, well don't... Twice a weeks seems optimal. And it's easy. You got your main article done rather early in the week and additional notes, which will come up eventually to be added later that week. Also if you keep your articles a bit shorter, not only is it faster to do, you also leave yourself the chance to elaborate further on any given subject to "make your point more clear". Less text also is less shocking to a new reader.

Add more pictures. People love pictures. Also commenting on current news and debates could be a nice lead in to theory. Don't be afraid to have an opinion, you are not a obliged to objectivity.

I could write all of that as an email of course, but then I wouldn't have anything to fill my second post this week. (See what I did there?)

So Happy New Year to you and your 52 (at least) wonderful figments of your mind. 

PS: Fix your blogroll, still on default!

WMF The Avant-gardist

Andrew over at Ye Olde Magick Blogge had such a nice run with the archetypes of magic. That inspired me (great term of ripping off an idea) to post my most disliked types of characters that magicians portray worthy of failure. Let's continue with the Avant-gardist:

A basic writing class will tell you, that when writing a fictional story the readers need a character that relates to them. Same goes for movies. An audience needs an "Everyman", an ordinary individual to identify with. A magic show is a bit like a movie. An audience is watching the magician. Usually magic shows are one man shows, ergo the magician needs to be the Everyman. He cannot be too far out. He still needs to be relatable. A bit weird is okay, but once the weirdness goes to a point where the general audience cannot follow anymore, I see a problem.

A typical example of this type of performer is Dan Sperry. He might be the nicest guy, but I cannot relate to his act. His motivation why he does magic remains unclear and way too much is left for the audience.



While it might be nice that the audience needs to make up their own damn mind, I still think that the main purpose of magic is entertainment. Making me think is not my idea of entertainment. Don't confuse that with stupefying the act. The movie "Inception" is a nice example on how to do it right. You have characters you can relate to. Their motifs are clear, yet the implications of the plot are far from being stupid or simple. (Besides, that is why the first Matrix movie was great and the other two failed aside from the pretty pictures)

Back to magic: I see why certain magicians want to be a character that is far out. Differentiating yourself from others is a way to be unique. But not at the cost of not being understood. If the magic show has no "Everyman" it better be so darn amazing that the audience can look past the fact that the "why" deprives itself from the show. Some manage that fine line. Most don't.

Holiday Rant

Starts at 3:10

A Zach Mueller you are young, therefore death is funny. But don't let it hang out that you simply don't care about people dying with grinning through the entire sales pitch you did. A little more maturity... it'll come with age. Right now you have to fake it.

Also, why a deck of card. If you want to spend money for a cause, do so. Don't buy a deck of cards. The cards cost 10 dollars the deck. 100% of proceeds derived from sale of this deck will go directly to charity: water operations. That means the 10 bucks minus the production costs. I have no clue how much these decks really cost. But I got told that in the magic business a sales margin of 900% is normal. I don't know if that applies to playing cards, but let's assume that of the 10 bucks you would spend 8 dollars got to charity water operations. The rest is for the cards and shipping and handling.

So if you wanna help and spend 10 bucks. Go directly to the source:

The B Magic Shop, an experience!

Wanna know how not to run a brick and mortar store? Then check out the B Magic Shop in Arlington Texas. They are open since the first of December and the shop itself in the not so nice part of town. When you drive there is is pretty much the first glimpse:

A magic friend called the store before going there.

On December 1st (Opening Day), I called the B Magic Shop. Here's how that conversation went:

Store: Hello?
Friend: Is this the B Magic Shop?
Store: Who is calling?
Friend: (I repeat) Is this the B Magic Shop?
Store: (He repeats) Who is calling?
Friend: A potential customer...did I reach the B Magic Shop?
Store: (awkward pause) Yes
Friend: What time do you close today?
Store: When you want to come?
Friend: I don't know...what are your hours?
Store: When you want to come?
Friend: I don't know...maybe today...when do you close?
Store: I'm probably leaving at 4pm today (10 minutes from then).
Friend: Oh, ok, thank you.
Store: WAIT! When you wanna come?
Friend: No idea, I'll swing out there sometime soon.
Store: WHEN?
Friend: I don't know? Maybe next week sometime.
Store: (CLICK) Hangs up.

But still being curious about this mysterious new shop he went there.

I decided that TODAY was the day and I would head out to visit the B Magic Shop for myself. GPS starts to lead me thru Arlington and I begin to get that "not so great feeling" in the pit of my stomach as I'm leaving the nice part of town, and I begin to drive thru the "not so great part" of town. Very depressed area, buildings falling apart and in some need of some repair. But I venture forward and arrived at the shop at 12pm (noon). They were closed. I found it mildly humorous they were closed because they had a larger banner on the window that read "WE ARE OPEN!"

I peaked inside the windows and the showroom was a mess. It was dirty, the industrial carpet was old and coming up from the floor in places. The back wall was lined with shelves of DVDs. They appeared to be very old and worn and not in "new/pristine" condition. Since I couldn't get my hands on them, I couldn't tell if they were pirated copies or not, but the appearance of them leads me to believe so. There was a long display case that had B Magic Shop spray painted on the front with some small gadget stuff inside (cards, ball vases, etc.). Couldn't make out much of what was in there. The props I saw on the other shelving all looked to be either "home made" props with poor paint jobs, or old dirty and broken things in major need of repair. Not the kinds of stuff you would expect to see in a NEW Magic Shop Showroom. Pretty bad secondimpression since they've been open now for 19 days. If I didn't know better, I would assume that the tenants in the space got evicted and just abandoned their product in the store.

If you check out their website you will find obvious rip offs of Losander's Tables as low as $70, Neilson Bottles for $8 and the Dean's Box for $69.00.

The shop was suggested as a WMF but I cannot do that. I got this strict rule: If they don't ridicule themselves on the internet I leave them alone. But because of the obvious sale of rip offs via their website they get an honorable mention from me. So if you wanna buy stuff from them, I suggest not to.

How to create new effects!

I was thinking about methods, structure, effects and value... Yes, every effect has some sort of value. And value can measured. Here are the points by which magic value is measured... (the list is far from being complete yet an indicator for my thinking)

• having a practical use outside of the "entertainment/mystery/magic"-realm
• being extremly impossible or dangerous
• looks (sounds) beautiful

Let's look at those points: If something makes sense it does have a value. Meaning there is much more reason to perform it. A candy production in the end, for all the kids really has a lot of value. There is a reason to do it.
If something is extremely impossible it also has value. Pushing coins through a table feels more impossible than having them go from hand to hand (aka coins across) Because the more impossible or dangerous something is the more people feel drawn towards this stuff.
Also, if something looks good it has value. What else is the purpose of dance and music? That is why a slow linking rings routine is not that bad.


I think of these as some sort of options. An effect can have 3 points in each of those three categories, adding up to 9 points. Here is an example: Coins Through Table

It really has no purpose outside the magic realm (just one point) unless the patter justifies it somehow (which is rarely done.) But it is really impossible? Well some sneaky business seems possible but is not seen. (so I give it 2 points) Does it look good? Well it can! (adding 2 points)


That gives the effect a value of 5 points out of 9, which is not that bad.

Now... what can be done to make the score even higher?


Substituting the coins for something that we wish we could push through a table... or substituting the table for something we wish we could push coins through for example.
How many times did we wish to take out the coins for a piggy bank without breaking the piggy. That would give the effect a solid 3 points in the practical use category and another point in the impossible category, because it feels even harder to accomplish than the table version. (So it would be 8 out of 9 points.... which is much more valuable)

From that thinking here is the new effect:


Effect: An empty piggy bank is shown and examined.  Three or more coins are put into the piggy bank via the slit on the top. The pig gets shaked and the audience hears the rattling inside. One coin at a time gets removed from the piggy bank.