Wow. I’m not sure I’ve ever received such a short email that gave me so much to say. Hi Mark. Thanks for your email. Honestly. Thanks for your email!

Ok, I’ll dive right into it. (Marks email is in BOLD, ITALICS, AND UNDERLINED)

Hearsay and pleurisy…

The subject of your email, Mark, is “Hearsay and pleurisy.” Was that just an “attention grabber” as we call it in the biz? Your email had nothing do with either hearsay or pleurisy. Pleurisy? I thought it was a lung infection. I looked it up. It is, in fact, a lung “inflammation.”  I wondered if there was maybe some hip usage of “pleurisy” that I just hadn’t heard yet. So I went to my ultimate source of hip language, the Urban Dictionary. I was slightly disappointed when I found out that they, too, feel that pleurisy is “an inflammation of the lungs.”

Greetings,

Greetings!

My name is Mark and I hail from the left coast.

Ahh. The “left” coast. I see. Left as in politically? Because the East Coast seems to be leaning to the left lately (I don’t charge extra for a little alliteration.) Please tell me, seriously, that you don’t think that you are “to the left” of New York City.

I stumbled upon your web presence completely by accident. Its a good thing too. I just finished reading (read; wasting much time), much of your treatises.

It’s a good thing what? It’s a good thing that it was an accident? It’s a good thing you stumbled upon it? What’s a good thing, Mr. Ambiguous Mark?

I’m not a big fan of wasting much time. If you had realized that you were wasting time early on, maybe you would’ve stopped reading BEFORE you wasted “much time.” Try harder (read; next time, stop wasting time as soon as you are aware that you are wasting time.)

I was filled with psuedo-emotion…..sadness, pain, anger, etc. I am sure you have gotten many responses similar to mine, especially from the folks you have flamed.

Errrr…. I’m not sure you can be “filled” with pseudo-emotion. You can be filled with REAL emotion. i.e. if you were “sad, pained, angry, etc…” then that was real emotion. Unless you pretend-acted out these emotions to your computer screen as you read my posts? Oh, and Mark, I have never gotten a response quite like yours. Many of the people reviewed on my site have asked for the review. So it’s really not a flame.

My philosphy has been “let bygones be bygones”, but to not necessarily let the bygone have the last word.

That is one amazing philosophy. But Mark, if you don’t let the bygone have the last word, then you really aren’t letting him be a bygone. Really. This philosophy of yours is kinda like saying “a car is a car, except when it’s a tomato.”  There are plenty of philosophies out there to pick from if the one you have doesn’t make sense. Might I recommend THIS ONE to you, to replace your current philosophy?

If you havent already realized my reason for writing you, I am sure it is becoming somewhat evident.

I have not, it is not.

You sir, I hope and pray, are a better musician and magician than you are a critic!

Thank you for your prayers. Did you REALLY pray for me? Cus I’ve found that when most people say they will pray for you, they are just sayin’ it to say it. They don’t really take the time to pray for you. It’s bothersome, I know.

No credentials, all ego = recipe for disaster. Just sayin…Have a great week!

Apparently you haven’t read my post on credentials yet. When you put yourself out there in front of the public, you are granting permission for the public to think and say whatever the public wants to think and say. I don’t need credentials to think and speak.

I’m not ALL ego. There’s some id, and super-ego mixed into every post. Admittedly, there’s a lot of ego. But I really love my ego!

Here we go: DISASTER? If my finger was on the red button, then maybe I could cause a disaster. But I can’t conceivably come up with a single scenario where one magician could use words about another magician and cause anything remotely close to a disaster.

Your mathematical equation is very similar to your philosophy, so at least you’re consistent.

Why do people use the phrase “Just sayin’”? Of course your just sayin’. You already said it by sayin’ it, and now you’re telling me that you’re just sayin’ it??? As opposed to what? “im gonna say this then beat you on the head with a hammer”? And what if you actually did that? When you were done, would you say “Just sayin’ then beatin’ you bloody”?

Thanks Mark, you have a great week too!
Matthew Bennett

I give your email a rating of two penguins and a bathtub (for those who would understand it)

Who0aaaahhhhh horsey!!! I’ve talked about speed before. Here I go again. Dude, they don’t know you have a thumb tip. But if you move your hands that fast, heck, you don’t even need a thumb tip. You can just put the silk in the hand and move it that fast, and they’ll never see it anyways. We use the tip because we can and should go slow with it.

Rating: Two Excedrin Extra Strength Tables (Aspirin, Acetaminophen, Caffeine) for the headache I got watching the blur of your hands.

(Ratings are completely arbitrary. Even with a headache)

Who are you, Matt, to be criticizing magic? Are you an accomplished magician? Are you a famous personality? Are you… Are you… It doesn’t really matter who I am. I could list all of the credentials that would prove I am qualified, but who knows. They could be just “so much fluff”, you know, like your résumé. So instead of making something of myself, and possibly explaining why I am hypothetically qualified to rate your magic, I offer the following perspective:

I am the guy who paid ten bucks to see your show. I’m the guy who took his family out to a restaurant for some peaceful family time. I’m the guy waiting for the bus during your “street” routine, you know, when you were being a David Blaine wannabe and forcing your magic on the lady with two kids, a shopping bag, and a deadline.

I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I can certainly spot the difference between professionalism and arrogance, between your love of magic and your love of hearing yourself talk. I can tell the difference between a rehearsed act and an improvised mess.

Please understand me. I don’t need to be psychic to be able to tell if your magic is all about me, or if it’s all about you.

And when I’m at that table with my family spending my hard earned money to have a great time with the people I love, I don’t have to be an expert to know whether it was a positive or a negative experience. I don’t have to have credentials to understand if I liked you or not. I don’t have to have a bio in the entrainment industry to know if you offended me, swore in front my kids, and hit on my wife.

On the positive side, neither do I need any of these things to know that I liked you as a person. Or that you were thoroughly entertaining even if you couldn’t get a trick right. And remember, when you made my kids giggle and act so cute, you won me over right then and there…because you assisted me in accomplishing my goal, of showing my family a fun time.

This is the answer I wish I had given. It is the answer I will provide from now on.

I rate so many more tricks than are contained in the limited posts on this blog. But there are so many common errors, I don’t want to get dry and dusty. If you’re doing magic on YouTube, I’ve probably seen you. I’ve probably rated you, at least in my mind. What do you think I said about YOUR stuff?

I’m writing today to change that. And keep it exactly the same.

I suggest the following: “if you like them, they will like what you do.”

Allow me to explain:
I recently worked with a street team promotion for a well known fast food restaurant. Part of the job was to hand out cards explaining the details of the current promotion. As I watched my fellow teammates pass the cards out, my eyes were wide with horror as they would run up to a passerby and say something to the effect of: “heyhowyadoin-I just wanna tell you about this promotion we’re doing…”

(just so u can make the connection, this is akin to walking up to a table in your restaurant job and saying “howareyoufolks tonite- like to see some magic?”)

In magic, in sales, in life, DON’T ask how someone is doing and then plow over their answer.

Ask. Pause. Listen. Care.

Relax, you will be able to work your task somewhere in the conversation. In fact, if you are socially adept enough, they may even ask you why you are there. If that’s not a soft sell, I don’t know what is.

I tried hard that day to convince my teammates that they need to pause and wait for an answer, and being a conversation with our “customers.” They looked at me like I was crazy, and like I’m the new guy, so what do I know. Their job, in their minds, was to pass out as many of our promotional cards as possible before going home.  My job, in my mind, was to promote the company and get people to pay attention to the promotion. Just more people who don’t “get it.”

As it turned out, I talked to far fewer people than everyone else, because I talked longer. Sometimes it took two or three minutes before I got to my subject. But, I met a lot of cool people. Oh, and there’s the other thing. I’m confident that the people I talked to will (most of them) take advantage of the special prices we were offering, and go to the restaurant I was promoting.

I’m also confident that the people who got the card shoved into their hands in the first ten seconds took those cards because they were too polite to say no, and that they threw their cards  in the trash at the first available opportunity. Not wanting to hurt our feelings, they probably waited until they turned the corner, so we couldn’t see them throw it away.

Ask. Pause. Listen. Care.

If you are in any magic field where you have to approach people to perform, you need to do this. If they feel like you care about them, they will care about you.  If you ask someone how they are doing, and don’t care about their answer, they will know this, and feel the same about you.

I was lucky enough to have a magic mentor that molded these ideas in my head early, so that they could grow through experience. But part of it is just logic and common sense.

I want to paraphrase my mentor here, to solidify the idea:

“People ask me which trick I start my routine with. I say, I don’t start my routine with a trick. I start by asking people about themselves, making some new friends. If I end up doing magic, I’ll start with whatever seems right to start with at the time. I guarantee one thing, if I do magic at a table, they already like me before I start my ‘routine’.”

and another:

“Novel magic idea of the day: Ask someone if they would like to see a card trick, and then actually listen to their answer. Just my thoughts,
Brent Braun”

“if you like them, they will like what you do.”

’nuff said.

Rating: ***** Five Stars, because I wrote it.

(This rating is not arbitrary at all)

David, I’m going to start off by saying that this effect was entertaining, and that’s really what it’s all about, right? Also, I should thank you for sending me your video and bringing me out of retirement!

You have a lot of energy when you perform this, but it’s kinda scary, like “my-high-school-football-coach-kind-of-energy”.  This make you unique, and I think you would be far better served maintaining the energy, but slowing down…slowing down…SLOW DOWN!!! There is enough going on in this effect already to make it confusing to people, and it’s almost as if you’re worried that they are going to figure out how you did it if you go too slowly. But that’s not true. Really. They won’t figure it out. So make absolutely certain that they see all of your magic moments. As it stands, you are steamrolling over almost every single magic moment.

You make a lot of exaggerated movements, which works well with your character, BUT the audience focus is more on your movements than the magic itself. You have to change this and point out the magic. I could sense times in the video where the audience wanted to applaud, but you wouldn’t let them. You either talked over them, or just kept plowing forward with your hyperspeed bottle conjuring.

One big mistake that I saw in your logic is this: You needed the audience participation in saying “change” to hypothetically make the bottle and cup switch places, but you didn’t need them to say it again, to make them change back? I know this is kind of a “mock trick” for humor, but still, make them say “change” every time. In fact, I think your routine would be funnier if you took this advice. After they say the word “change”, make them all say “CHANGE BACK!” – That’s funny stuff. You can use it!

Changing the bottle and cup back and forth (and I feel like I’m being redundant here but it needs to be said,)  needs to be done slowly. Yup. You heard me. Slowly. Keep your energy, David, but relax, and let the magic happen.

One more time, the faster you go, the less amazing and more confusing the effect becomes. And we all know what Dai Vernon said, right?

This may be a personal thing, but I have never been a big fan of the “slow that down” cliche. It’s old, it’s offensive, and it’s boring.

There’s a lot of potential here, just remember that high-energy doesn’t have to be fast. Your personality and character are high energy enough.

Thanks for submitting your video.

Rating: THREE YIELD SIGNS – Yield to the Magical Moments, Yield to Audience Applause, and Yield to your desire to do everything so fast.

(Ratings are completely arbitrary. How the heck could I use yield signs for a rating system if they weren’t arbitrary?)

Michael, I have to say that I don’t really like this version of a Torn and Restored. I especially don’t like having to post about two T&Rs in a row. All a spectator is going to think is “he never tore the card”, and he will not be able to rewind his brain to a point where he saw two pieces of card (which is what actually fries the brain). But I’m not going to give this effect a rating. I’m going to give the video a rating however. I’m impressed at the nerve you show by posting the video even with your mom yelling in the background, and you yelling back. Nice!

Rating: Two Big Balls

Ratings are completely arbitrary depending upon the amount of leftover stuffing in my fridge, and whether or not it’s still good. And whether or not I ate it anyways.

What can I say? This was incredibly elegant, and a pleasure to watch. Maybe because it’s the holiday season, or the beautiful song, or the fact that it’s dedicated to “Mom” – for whatever reason, when I watched this video it moved me.

That being said, there were a few things in there that could be improved upon. The first ditch had no theatrical reasoning, which means it stands out as something that doesn’t make sense, thereby raising suspicion. This shouldn’t have happened- since you were going to get the marker anyways, you should have just had the marker closer to the edge of the table. This would have given you PERFECT cover for the ditch, with no extra odd-looking motion. I have an even better solution, but bear with me for a minute.

In such a beautiful handling, it seems oddly rustic to put the torn pieces in your mouth. It doesn’t seem to fit the ambiance of the effect. I have a suggestion that would take care of the first ditch and the “card in mouth” issue. Instead of writing “love” on the paper, simply have it written there already. Keep the paper near the edge of the table. Make the first ditch as you grab the paper to pick up and show everyone what is written on it. This way, you also don’t have to put the card in your mouth.

I really like your take on Torched and Restored, although folding the card signature out leaves you with another problem that the original doesn’t have, and that is that you have an extra piece stuck to the part of the card you need to show. Which means you have to ditch that extra piece before the trick is over, when heat is still on it. (In the original, as you know, you can wait until the effect is over and the suspicion is off entirely before you remove the extra piece.) In your video, this removal looks clumsy, and should be cleaned up so as not to look suspicious.

(If you’re going to keep putting the card in your mouth, you don’t really need to gaff a card at all. Just tear a card, ditch all but one piece, put the piece in your mouth, have an extra folded card with YOU and ME written on it hidden with the slip of paper you burn. Then as you reach to your mouth to take out the card, hide the extra piece inside your mouth as you hold up the new card. This would also eliminate having to ditch that last piece.)

Anyway, a really good job. I enjoyed it immensely.

Rating: Three Light Bulbs and a Crying Smiley (It’s a good teardrop!)

(Rating are completely arbitrary. Sniff. Sniff. I gotta go call my mom…)

The 24 page booklet contains detailed instructions on how to perform the effect, a plethora of pics, the history of the effect, and a section called “the work behind it all” which really gets into the down and dirty details of why the effect works so well, and how to make it better. All in all it’s a worthy project that I believe adds value to the magic community as a whole.

The effect is on sale for $20 at Decks, Lies, and Videotape, and it comes with three bonus items that I will discuss in future posts. They are all valuable items. I believe that in this case, twenty dollars buys you thousands worth in knowledge.

Incredible! Like real magic. Even when you know exactly what he’s doing, it still fools your eye.

For those of you who need to know

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A true master of the art. This video would probably have made it into my top ten if it were a presentation sans music. I don’t know if the music was added later, but I don’t like it. I’d have rather heard the speaking! It’s Fred Kaps!