It's an interesting thought that "surreal" would be preferable over "unreal". In essence though, you are no longer asking the spectator to suspend their disbelief, you are trying to trick them into thinking it COULD BE real. You are increasing the level of dishonesty from "This is just tomfoolery for your entertainment" to "Look at my supernatural abilities". At that point it becomes about you - I am not so sure that's such a good thing.
I think you have that backward. With the introduction of free agency, the assignment of ability belongs to nobody... especially if it is their free agency. In gambling demonstrations, it most certainly is about the performer, but the mystery is understood as manipulation.
@@thecommonmagician in the interest of full disclosure, I find most gambling demos to be desperately boring even though I tend to gravitate towards very visual magic. The assignment of ability to nobody by giving the audience free agency only holds up (IMHO) to the point where one realizes that the feat still requires the performer. No audience member can reproduce it. At that realization only two options remain. It's a sham, or the performer has special powers. One is a confession, the other is a ruse. Neither one is completely right or completely wrong but I prefer the former over the latter. It also probably serves as an insight why I find (most) gambling routines so terrible. Of course you can get cards into a certain position in the deck, you practiced for a decade... It's mechanical skill without any element of surprise.
@@jayinstandarddefinition at the end of it all, obviously, the performer has credit. But with respect to the mystery, the less that the performer does in the journey to the end, the greater the mystery because the spectator has difficulty in assigning cause. Regarding gambling demos... your feelings on the matter are pretty common among magicians. I bring it up in an effort to encourage magicians to reconsider their worth in light of the experience of the effect for most people.
@@thecommonmagician It's interesting to discuss the philosophy and psychology of magic. I can talk for hours about this but, in the end what makes a strong magic trick is much more personal than we as performers probably care to admit. The question "What is strong magic?" is incomplete. The question should be "What is strong magic for you". I can appreciate the skill of Richard Turner, but it bores me to tears. Matter of fact (unpopular opinion) I think if you take away his visual handicap, there isn't much left there - But that's a story for a different day. While in general I agree that the more hands off the performer can be the more mysterious it becomes, that doesn't explain why I gravitate towards visual magic and you don't. Trying to answer this question in terms of unreal v. surreal is only answering it for you. I think therefore the statement that on Fool Us it's the mentalists who get the highest regard is confirmation bias on your behalf. Also, IMHO opinion it's not a good yardstick. Penn &Teller are not great fans of mentalism, for reasons I wholeheartedly agree with - If you could really read my mind why do you need such a convoluted method to get to the result, couldn't you just... you know, read my mind? So it stands to reason that they are unfamiliar with those methods. Graham Jolley "fooled" them with simple trick he lifted right out of a Simon Aronson book. I guess that goes to show (to a certain degree) that a memorable performance has far more to do with performance style. Case in point, I am not normally drawn to mentalists, I love Derren Brown. Anyway, we agree on the fact that certain routines work better when happening in the participant's hands.
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Carl, fantastic!
It's an interesting thought that "surreal" would be preferable over "unreal". In essence though, you are no longer asking the spectator to suspend their disbelief, you are trying to trick them into thinking it COULD BE real. You are increasing the level of dishonesty from "This is just tomfoolery for your entertainment" to "Look at my supernatural abilities". At that point it becomes about you - I am not so sure that's such a good thing.
I think you have that backward. With the introduction of free agency, the assignment of ability belongs to nobody... especially if it is their free agency. In gambling demonstrations, it most certainly is about the performer, but the mystery is understood as manipulation.
@@thecommonmagician in the interest of full disclosure, I find most gambling demos to be desperately boring even though I tend to gravitate towards very visual magic. The assignment of ability to nobody by giving the audience free agency only holds up (IMHO) to the point where one realizes that the feat still requires the performer. No audience member can reproduce it. At that realization only two options remain. It's a sham, or the performer has special powers. One is a confession, the other is a ruse. Neither one is completely right or completely wrong but I prefer the former over the latter. It also probably serves as an insight why I find (most) gambling routines so terrible. Of course you can get cards into a certain position in the deck, you practiced for a decade... It's mechanical skill without any element of surprise.
@@jayinstandarddefinition at the end of it all, obviously, the performer has credit. But with respect to the mystery, the less that the performer does in the journey to the end, the greater the mystery because the spectator has difficulty in assigning cause. Regarding gambling demos... your feelings on the matter are pretty common among magicians. I bring it up in an effort to encourage magicians to reconsider their worth in light of the experience of the effect for most people.
@@thecommonmagician It's interesting to discuss the philosophy and psychology of magic. I can talk for hours about this but, in the end what makes a strong magic trick is much more personal than we as performers probably care to admit. The question "What is strong magic?" is incomplete. The question should be "What is strong magic for you". I can appreciate the skill of Richard Turner, but it bores me to tears. Matter of fact (unpopular opinion) I think if you take away his visual handicap, there isn't much left there - But that's a story for a different day. While in general I agree that the more hands off the performer can be the more mysterious it becomes, that doesn't explain why I gravitate towards visual magic and you don't. Trying to answer this question in terms of unreal v. surreal is only answering it for you. I think therefore the statement that on Fool Us it's the mentalists who get the highest regard is confirmation bias on your behalf. Also, IMHO opinion it's not a good yardstick. Penn &Teller are not great fans of mentalism, for reasons I wholeheartedly agree with - If you could really read my mind why do you need such a convoluted method to get to the result, couldn't you just... you know, read my mind? So it stands to reason that they are unfamiliar with those methods. Graham Jolley "fooled" them with simple trick he lifted right out of a Simon Aronson book. I guess that goes to show (to a certain degree) that a memorable performance has far more to do with performance style. Case in point, I am not normally drawn to mentalists, I love Derren Brown. Anyway, we agree on the fact that certain routines work better when happening in the participant's hands.