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
Thursday, 22 October 2015
Wednesday, 21 October 2015
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.
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.
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