If you’re not a magic geek, this may not be for you.

I started doing magic tricks when I was 7, started making money doing shows when I was 11. I’m 41 now… I think. I have booked hundreds of magic acts through Scot Nery’s Boobietrap. I have watched way too many magic acts. All this is not to say that I’m an expert, but to say how many painful experiences I’ve had with magic!

Little peeves

Seeing all these listed out, I’m realizing there are few magicians that don’t present a peeve! Doesn’t mean I don’t like watching those magicians. Doesn’t mean I don’t think they can do better.

What’s the point of magic

I think the point of a magic trick is to make the audience feel wrong just like a joke. A joke leads you down a path, then has a delightful twist that shows you your assumption was wrong.

“The other morning my sister made some eggs. So we cooked them…”
Emo Philips

A great trick delivers an audience from the world they thought they knew into a new world with limitless potential.

According to Christopher Priest, magic tricks come in three acts the pledge, the turn, and the prestige. The prestige is the moment of emotional reward for the turn. Going with this model, the game for the badass magician is to broaden the gap for the magician. How do you make the setup as different from the twist as possible, then make the resolution as different from the twist as possible.

A magician makes the audience feel even more wrong when the audience feels they are an expert then proves they’re way off. For example, I feel like know pretty much everything about a credit card, what its physical properties are etc. It’s a very simple thing to be an expert of. A credit card out of my own pocket — I have more expertise. I know it’s not rigged. That’s why alien props irk me. The setup’s no good.

If the turn is that you can put the credit card in some weird box, and make it look like it’s getting pierced, this isn’t a huge turn. If you take a dollar also from my pocket, roll it up and drive it thru the middle of the card, now you’re breaking my reality.

The big one: no deliverance

My big peeve with a comedian is when they don’t let the audience laugh. My big peeve for magicians is when they don’t let the audience wonder. A great trick has a sharpness. It’s been proven that reality has shifted and the audience is suddenly off the edge of a cliff. Deliver them!!!

Here’s how to step on a laugh…

Here’s how to step on wonder…

Magic in itself is amazing

Unlike other variety arts, you don’t have to be good at magic for people to watch it – and most magicians aren’t. You can be different. You can be better. You can be magical.

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