it is a matter for astonishment, when one comes to think of it, how little use linguistics and other sciences of language are to psychiatrists. When one considers that the psychiatrist spends most of his time listening and talking to patients, one might suppose that there would be such a thing as a basic science of listening-and-talking, as indispensable to psychiatrists as anatomy to surgeons. Surgeons traffic in body structures. Psychiatrists traffic in words.

Lots of stuff going on right now. I’ve promised some notes on conversations that I’ve had with Paul Harris and what follows are them. Please comment and leave your thoughts. This isn’t meant to be dogma but rather a conversation that will, hopefully, give some clarity to the “art” in magic. In that respect, I hope that many of you will find the conversation useful.

First, some context. Paul and I started having this conversation several years ago. I aggressively resisted what he had to say. Other people much smarter and more experienced then me also had the same reaction. For this reason, Paul has been extremely hesitant about sharing his thoughts. It sort of deflates a big balloon of specialness that many of us get out of performing magic. Once you see the truth in what is said, you realize that the balloon that deflates wasn’t a very sturdy or real balloon to begin with.

You see, I thought that Paul was tooting his own horn as a creator of magic. But then, after hours of conversation, debate and sometimes heated arguments I started to crack. I started to get it. Then I took it out to the real world and surprise, surprise, it really did change the whole ball game.

The thoughts that follow are specifically related to close-up magic in a conversational setting.

Make yourself a peanut butter sandwich, pour a glass of milk and settle in for a story from PH (please respond and let me know what you think!)….

PH:My awakening on this issue came to me as a result of a tv news show I did as a kid. I was 18 or 19 working in a magic shop and a local news crew
came down to do a story on the “new hot shot magic guy in town”. So I did
Al Schneiders beautiful “matrix” which had just been released. “Matrix”
completely floored the crew and newscaster. When it aired on tv they even
replayed it a few times because it was such an impossible beautiful thing.
I of course was quite proud of myself for my incredible artistry and
general mastery of the media.

It was years later that it hit me. Fact is that my performance of Matrix
was average. I basically managed to get through the effect without
dropping anything. I performed it exactly as taught by the creator, Al
Schneider. His effect is so beautifully constructed that anyone who spends
the hour or so that it takes to perfect it comes off looking like a
genius. So I realized that all of the hype about me being a great sleight
of hand artist…and my “brilliant” tv performance was really just a
misplaced appreciation for Al’s artistic creation. I could’nt even say
that my stunning personality pushed it over the top…because what was
shown on tv was a close up of the cards and coins.

A few month’s later I sat in on a beginners magic class where someone taught the kids the very same effect. And they all learned to do it in about 15 minutes. With a few more minutes of coaching about timing and handling details these rank beginners learned to perform Matrix just as well as I did on the tv show.

So the bottom line here is that me, and the other kids that learned
Matrix, were presenting a piece of art created by Al Schneider. So what
happens when someone who watched the “great artist” on the news cast sees one of these beginners perform the same effect, more or less just as well?

Everyone know that these beginners (usually kids starting out) are not great artists…so if they can do the same thing the guy on tv did then obviously the guy on tv isn’t a great artist. And since theirs been no focus or mention of the actual artist who created the experience…to the public theirs no artist insight here..just a bunch of people doing an easy trick…with a vague assumption that their’s just a big bucket of these “simple easy tricks” floating around somewhere that have maybe been around forever.

We can’t fake it anymore by keeping the good stuff out of the hands of
“the unworthy”. The world has changed. Information is available to anyone
who has the interest (and or internet).

So again, when you hide the artist in order to artificially pump up the
demonstrator of someone’s else’s art (as I willfully did with Al
Schneider’s art)…then their’s no percieved art…and thus the public’s
perception of “the art of magic” melts away like a cheap brand of
margarine on a hot summer day.

As painful as it might be, mentioning the creator of “this weird
imagination game, piece of strange etc. with a few interesting bits of
historical background about him or her instantly elevates the whole
enterprise to the audience. They suddenly get it. That magic has the same
artistic lineage as music, writing, painting, etc. The performer is deeply
appreciated for sharing this wonderful thing. The burden of pretending to
be superman is off your shoulders so now your audience can relate to you
as an interesting friendly person who’s learned some astonishing stuff,
and the invisible art of magic slowly starts becoming visible.