Under the wires...

Hey Google wised up and finally made a Blogger app. This way I can easily update from wherever I am, which in this case is Switzerland.

I have been keeping tabs on the new Theory11 idea that sat dormant for many years. It was such a source of speculation for so long it could have been a photo of two rhinos getting jiggy with it and the kindermagi would have been happy as punch.

Despite what I am pretty sure it was gonna be and what it became is neither here nor there. It is now here... For better or for worse.

This is yet another addition to our instant gratification consumer society. I believe with the ease and speed at which magic effects can now be released for a nominal fee it will drive the value of unpublished material way up.

Something that cannot be easily attained will be that much more clamored for. Along the same vein the low price of much of the glut of current effects released will cheapen the material made available due to the law of supply and demand.

So while any number of vapid 15 year old wannabes who could only amuse their mildly retarded housepets fill our lives with their "new" magic, I think I will just travel the world and spread my creations the old fashioned way...

Like Cain from Kung Fu.

Ear Regular

So a Japanese company has put out a deck of "Irregular" playing cards. My first thought was "Big deal Bicycle cards already come like this sometimes".

You may think that is a joke, but the last deck I opened, one of the joker's back design looked like I was about to do Luke Dancy's "Misprint" trick.

Still kinda cool.

Leaking from the ears...

Today was a strange day on Facebook. Various friends posted three different articles on "creativity". While I disagree with a few of the things they suggest, I found one that amused me and thought relevant to this journal in particular.

And I quote:
"Cohen once showed a card trick to TV magician David Blaine. Blaine loved the trick but hated the presentation, saying it seemed too rehearsed. "People should feel like you're talking to them for the first time," Blaine told Cohen.

Polish your pitches until they're perfect, then add sprezzatura--the Italian concept of studied carelessness. Find ways to come across as organic and accessible, not canned and mechanical.

The poet James Dickey said he prepared 150 drafts of each poem--the first 100 to get it perfect and the last 50 to make it sound spontaneous."

A lot of performers suffer from too practiced. They do something so much it becomes as annoying as whatever phrase restaurants make people who answer the phone say. "Hello my name is so and so, thank you for calling Bob's House of Pork home of the Big Red Monkey Beat Down. How may I begrudgingly help you?"

Don't you hate that? How do you think your audience feels? If you are just going through the motions, stop using those motions... or that script... or that trick. If you are bored with it, they are too.

60,221,211 Italians can't be wrong.