Half Half Man

So this is something different that I've wanted to do for a while. It's not quite a review but just a project in magic that I'm excited by. That project in case you haven't read the title is Half Half Man. Half Half Man is a team of magicians, that put out products that I think serious magicians should take a real interest in. So far my experience of the products has been in their magazine "Quarterly". This is full of essays on different aspects of magic, from Denis Behr and Pit Hartling's sessions over a beer and an orange juice to Helder's theory on "Contextual Invisibility" (one of my favorite essays I've ever read on magic, may I add), there really is something in here for the serious lover of magic. Aside from all this each copy has the owners name hand written inside as well as its own unique order number, this all comes wrapped up in brown paper, finished with some string. It really is the small details like that, that make a huge difference. Other products include a multiple selection routine from Helder and a notepad that has exercises to help improve yourself throughout. Aside from the products they also run a monthly book club, with people encouraged to email their thoughts which are then emailed out to other readers.

Half Half Man takes a different view on magic compared to the usual latest and greatest downloads. It is something that you will treasure and gain from, much more than the newest trick or sleight (And anyway we all have enough tricks in our library's). You only need to have a look at some of the names that are part of the team to know its quality - Helder Guimaraes, Denis Behr, Pit Hartling, Will Houston and Jared Kopf among others. I'd encourage anybody who is serious about their magic to have a look at what they do, specifically Quarterly. It makes a refreshing change seeing products like this out on the market and the deserve our support.

Half Half Man

Twitter

I made a twitter for folk (all 3 of us) to keep up to date with the blog without having to check back all the time. Hopefully it will make me update the blog more frequently too.

TWITTER

Throw us a follow if you wish.

Rant

Its 1:20am, I'm up in less than 6 hours and I can't sleep, so I thought I'd write another blog post. This time I want to rant about about magicians in general and how the vast majority seem to be no good. Now before I get into this, I don't want to take the high and mighty approach and act like I'm better than them all but so many times I see a video of a magician doing something and it just looks terrible. Like I mean completely unnatural, robotic, flashing etc. I've already wrote a bit about using mirrors and naturalness so I won't go too far into it, but it made me think, why are we like this? Why are so many performances from magicians just plain shit?

I think a great deal of this is due to magicians being all nice to each other. How often have we seen someone do an effect that maybe isn't the greatest or could do with some work or even is completely terrible and the response from other magicians watching is "nice" or "cool" or some other hip phrase. We need to be more honest in our critique of other performances. When I ask for feedback I want someone to tell me what looks shit so I can then work on improving it. Otherwise we go along in a pipe dream thinking everything is fine.

Another reason I think is magicians like justifying stuff. Again how often have you heard folk say "lay folk won't even notice it" or "you only see it cause you know what to look for". Bullshit. If a magician can see it, there's a really high fucking chance that a layperson will spot it at some point. Obviously unnatural movements seem to be justified too. So many actions that I see magicians do are ridiculous yet are so over done. Take this pass for example. Two hands start separate, one hand comes over to square an already square deck while the pass is executed. Why the fuck would you square a deck that's already square. It is a ridiculous scenario.

Ultimately I think it comes down to lack of practice, or at least lack of efficient practice. That combined with getting advice from magicians that you actually respect and actually know what they're talking about is the best way to not be shit. Go out, record your tricks, email that magician that you really respect, watch the video and analyse it and be brutally honest, take that magicians advice on board and ultimately magic as a whole will be better for it.

Show us a trick!

We’ve all been there.  Someone hands you a deck of cards and says “show us a trick” and despite knowing lots, we can’t think of what to do.  This is why I feel every magician should have a few “go-to tricks”.  The ones that can be done with a horrible deck, which is missing some cards, any time when someone shoves some cards into your face. 

By default these should be less sleight heavy than some of your other tricks, I mean you’re unlikely to be given a nice shiny new deck, but that doesn’t mean they need to be one of the same shite self-working tricks we’ve all seen. Tricks that have an elegant, simple method usually work best and allow you to play your part better. This is a great opportunity to work on your audience management and showmanship and just let the magic happen.

For example, a simple card peek can be incredibly effective. Once you are aware of the card they have chosen, there really is no limit to revealing it. From card to pocket, to finding their card plus the other 3 mates, you are only limited by your own creativity. Have a think about different ways to finish this, you really can go anyway. Personally I have a few different ways I like to go, depending on the situation. I am very much a fan of improvising as the situation dictates, as no two situations are alike. Hopefully in the future I’ll blog about my thoughts of improvisational magic.

Mirrors

Every magician has heard it, multiple times, and it really is one of the most useful things a magician can do.  Using a mirror (or webcam etc) while practicing is definitely one of the best ways to improve.  So often a move or effect can look good from our side but until you look at it from another point of view you will never know how bad you can be flashing. Honestly this seems like such a simple tip but it really is often overlooked. Plus the amount of times I’ve fooled myself while practicing something makes it all worthwhile.

In actual fact I personally believe that using a camera to record yourself practicing is better than a mirror.  These days almost everybody has access to some device that records video, and allows it to be shared almost instantly. Taking a video allows you to view it multiple times, slow it down, not have to look for things to improve on while actually performing the move, and best of all you can send it to other magicians for advice.

Getting other magicians honest, and harsh, advice on a move or effect is invaluable.  Of course you then need to take it into consideration and learn from it.  I also believe that you should only take on opinions of magicians that you respect. Now that's not to say that they need to be famous or have sold thousands of DVDs.  But making sure that you ask someone who has good experience in that area of magic and is willing to give you honest feedback, will definitely give you points to improve on.  Make sure that you like what they do or at least respect it. Using them along with practicing in front of a mirror is a sure fire way of improving your magic, providing you put in the time and effort it deserves.

An Update?!?!

So yeah, its been a while since I've posted (over 3 years). In that time I wrote a few articles for the daily deception and then stopped writing altogether basically. The forums I was apart of died and now I'm stuck with the cafe, reddit and genii and hoping to somehow get an invite into TSD. I've started posting on the magic subreddit, which is the main reason I wanted to start this blog again.

Looking back on the old posts, I've decided to leave them up and not delete them. My opinions have mostly stayed the same on the subjects I spoke about, even if my writing style has hopefully gotten better since then and I now hopefully sound less like a dick. I also have a few articles that I never published on the blog that I will be updating and putting up, giving myself a head start (one of which I'll probably post later tonight).

Magic-wise I'm still trying to perfect the DPS, its just such a fun move to practice and admire. I'm constantly amazed by anything Derek Delgaudio does and still trying to track down any copy of his notes. Apart from that I'm still the same as I was, just hopefully slightly better now.

No idea if anybody will actually read this after a 3 year hiatus but thanks to anybody that does and hopefully I can keep the blog active this time.