In performance it’s easy to get caught up in the idea of the ideal show.  For magicians, we end up looking at all these awesome props and tricks and think, “I could write a show and put that in it, and that, and this, and it would be so awesome.  I’ll just save up until I get the good stuff before trying to get gigs.”  Then that money never appears, and the show never gets written, and we don’t ever get on the stage.  I imagine musicians do the same thing with instruments or particular skills.  Circus acts have similar pitfalls with equipment or music or skills. 

I’m doing a lot more performance in my life, between Of The Fireflies and my magic.  I’ve got Magic in the Mountains coming up on Saturday (oh god), and Of The Fireflies has gigs arranged throughout this year.  We’re looking at being part of an entertainment package with a friend of ours and we’re networking constantly to find new ways to market ourselves.  I’m having way more success when it comes to performance than finding a ‘real’ job so I keep thinking I should just bowl headlong into it and see what happens.

So I sit down and think of this awesome show.  I write it all out and realize, oh, I’ll need to buy this prop which is $300.  Oh, and this thing will cost another $120.  And this is like $6f’ing00.  Well, I can’t do this show without a thousand dollars to spend so I’ll just put it on the back burner.

No.  Just, no.  I’m realizing that this is just a way for my brain to sabotage my efforts.  If I always have to save more or buy something else, I never have to get on stage and I never have to face that fear. 

So, I’ve decided I’m going to write a show with what I have in my room.  It will be bizarre, and focus on the energy between living creatures.  It won’t be the insane experience I hope to create with my sceance, but I’m pretty sure I can create a good show with what I already have.  And then I’ll get on stage and hopefully it will be good.

Good lord this is terrifying.

The past few weeks have been quite busy.  My partner and I are making big strides in building her performance business.  We’re booking gigs and making some networking contacts that could yield some amazing opportunities.

I’ve gotten the tickets for the show, Magic in the Mountains and begun selling them.  That show is coming up quick so I’m also in the rehearsal phase.  I’ve also begun really structuring my haunted show, which I hope to have written by the Halloween season, though I’m not sure I’ll be able to get it performed by then.  I’ll probably have to wait until at least next year.

I’ve also also done more work on my novel.  And today I was looking over an article on rejection letters and ‘getting past the slush pile’.  It had several examples of writers responding to rejection letters quite negatively.  It has inspired me a bit to do something when I’m to the point of submitting novels.  I think, when I have my own office, I will keep one wall upon which I will hang all the rejection letters.  And opposite that, I will hang any acceptance letters.  I think this will help me keep a modest head on my shoulders in the unlikely case that I become a successful author.

This phrase got stuck in my head the other day and I can’t stop thinking about it.

Much of what’s on the market these days is billed in the ad copy as, “Impossible”.  Some variant of the word impossible is used in seemingly every trick.  “Slowly, impossibly, the card creeps forward” or some such. 

But is that necessarily all that’s required?  Just because something is impossible doesn’t mean it’s magical.  Most of what I see on the market, and most of what I see performed (including much of my own material, I will admit) is not really ‘magical’ so much as it’s merely impossible.

I’m struggling lately to find a comfortable character to play while performing.  I enjoy haunted magic and ghost stories and such, so I was barreling down the path of the haunted/bizarre magician but that means I have to skip over many tricks that I really like and can come up with unique performance options.

Then I think of performers like Eric Mead.  Some of his material has left me in awe.  Simple things like coin productions done beautifully.  Or Teller’s Shadows.  I went to Vegas solely to see that trick and the Trick With a Red Ball in person.  Some things are done so well that they just leave you in awe, and that’s what I really strive for. 

Part of the issue, I’m sure, is that too many magicians are either trying to create a name for themselves in the magic world (by creating something new and revolutionary) or they are trying to pay bills so they have to do commercial material.  A lot of material that is truly amazing isn’t actually commercially viable due to set up times, difficult angles, or any multitude of other issues.  There’s commercial material, and then there’s showpiece bits. 

So I’m looking at my material, and I’m looking at my character and I’m asking myself, “Is this magical, or is merely impossible?”  I think, in the end, I would rather be a magical performer, rather than a commercial success.  I can find a job that pays the bills and magic is there to satisfy my need for expression.

neil-gaiman:

Just watch this.

You can thank me later.

Magic doesn’t have a set path.  It’s a long, meandering maze of trails, garden paths and sepulchers.  I see a lot of people saying that they want to take their magic to the next level by getting paid gigs, and I think that’s missing the point somewhat.  The “level” of one’s magic is not determined by the money one makes from it.  While it’s certainly nice to see some return on the money we spend on magic (which, let’s face, can be a rather large amount), or even making it self-sustaining (for all those who have significant others or family members who balk at yet another hundred and fifty dollars spent on gadgets and doodads and that bottle cost you HOW much?) so that they make as much as they spend, that’s not the goal of magic.

The goal is to create magical moments for people.  To amaze, astonish, inspire, stun … whatever you want your magic to do.  Taking it to the next level means doing that better, or maybe changing directions.  The point is that going pro isn’t the only thing one can do with magic, and not going pro doesn’t make one less of a magician. 

I used to think I had to go pro.  Part of this was the person I was living with when I began learning magic.  She was constantly upset when I’d order magic things, because I seemed to spend a lot and (at first) wasn’t performing it for real people.  She couldn’t accept the idea that I enjoyed learning it, but wasn’t ready to perform yet.  Time moves on and now I enjoy performing as much as learning, but I’ve also realized that I wouldn’t want to be a 100%, I-earn-my-living-performing-magic professional magician.  I’ve talked about this before. 

But I see people asking about how to get gigs in order to make their magic better.  As if getting paid to do magic somehow makes one a legitimate performer.

No.

A performer is one who performs.  Someone who dedicates time and energy to creating the best performances they can is a performer and an artist, whether they are paid or not for their efforts.

Had to do deliveries myself today, as my partner is visiting family.  So I had a lot of time to think (whenever I wasn’t rocking out to the radio, of course … apparently the secret to finding good music on the radio is to listen between 2 and 5 AM).  I’ve come up with a loose plan on how to start doing performances more regularly.

I used to want to be a professional magician.  But then it dawned on me just how much work it is to promote oneself and work that angle in order to make enough to live.  That kind of made me realize that I didn’t really want to do that.  It would turn something I really enjoy into ‘work’.  So I was content with the idea of performing for friends and doing the occasional paid gig.  I hoped that down the line I could get, say, a monthly gig at a theater and do a party here and there.  The extra income would be nice but I wouldn’t have to worry about where my next meal was coming from.

That’s still more or less my intent, but ironically I may end up having to earn most of my income through performance merely because I can’t seem to find anything else right now.  I’ve got applications and resumes out and I keep following up and keeping in touch and making calls, but no one is hiring me. 

So I’ve decided I’m going to push that angle a bit.  Which means I need to get some things.  I need promo videos, a web site of some sort, business cards, performance clothing, etc.  Breaking into the performance world is difficult, but I at least have the advantage of fore knowledge and not having to get a gig to eat. 

I think I will use the Magic in the Mountains show as my spring board.  Which means I need to get some walk around routines worked out, and all the things I mentioned above, before May. 

Woo?

Anyone want to hire a magician?

I spend a lot of time on magic forums and such.  Probably too much time, but that’s another discussion.  Something I see pop up every now and then is the thread that asks, “What would you perform if you didn’t have X?”  As in, “What would you perform if you didn’t have cards on you?”  Or, pretty commonly, “What would you perform if you had no props on you?”  Otherwise known as the desert island scenario.  Inevitably someone will come along and say, “I’m never without something, so this question is moot.” 

How people can so blatantly miss the point always baffles me.  It’s like they read the question and immediately find a way to interpret it as an attack on them.  Or maybe they’re just trying to prove their superiority?  Who knows, I’m not here to figure that out.  Ok, yes I am, but that’s because I obsess. 

The point of these questions is to exercise your creativity.  You know, that thing we’re supposed to be using to create magic?  So by just deflecting the question, one is simply proving that they are not creative.  Inevitably the argument, “A magician is always prepared,” will arise.  Hm, good point.  Or is it?

There’s two kinds of ‘prepared’, really.  On the one hand, someone who always keeps things on him to handle every scenario that may arise is prepared.  On the other hand, did MacGyver carry everything on him?  Who’s more versatile?  Having the tools on you is great, but being able to improvise is a critical skill if you want to appear magical at all times.  We’re talking the 24/7/365 magician.

I always try to find at least three ways to do my work-horse tricks.  Some things I only have one method, but those are usually what I call “Showpiece bits”.  Those are the things I do once a performance or evening, and don’t repeat.  But the sets I have that I plan to do over and over?  I’ll be doing different ways all night.  Being able to pull out different methods you can get one person to cancel out another person’s theories.  “He had a magnet on his wrist,” says one guy, “But he rolled up his sleeves when he did it for me!” says another.  “He just swaps the coins,” .. “But my coin was signed!” .. “Oh.”

So look around.  What can you do with that?  Or that?  What other methods can you use to do your favorite tricks?  How about this:  Figure out three ways to move a can of soda across a table.

Go on YouTube and look up any particular effect that’s currently on the market.  Then start a tally sheet of all the people who use the exact same lines, sleights, corny jokes and camera angles (if applicable).

It never ceases to amaze me that most people who call themselves magicians will simply repeat exactly what the instructions or video say without variation.  It’s like no one thinks, “Ok, now how can I make this unique?”  Those instructions are just the basic idea of how to use the gimmick or do the trick.  They are not the only way they can be used or done. 

I recently purchased a new device which is spawning a lot of ideas in my head.  One was a new version of a Michael Ammar trick.  While delivering papers tonight, my partner and I were tossing ideas back and forth.  But she’d never seen the original trick, so when we got home I found a video of it.  Then I found another, and another, and another … All of them carbon copies of each other.  I was trying to make sure that I wasn’t just repeating someone else’s presentation but no, no worries there.  For a performance ‘art’, magic is suffering from a severe lack of creativity. 

It makes me sad, and frustrated, to try to watch magic these days.  I have this image in my head that magic presents these crazy, unique, individual ideas.  I think of old-school magic where the performer was like this god of the stage and now we just see the same thing over and over.  Gazzo stopped doing his cups and balls (A trick he does amazingly, and is fairly famous for performing) because after he released the video, people copied his act word-for-word.  Kozmo was once accused of copying someone else, but it turns out that guy was doing Kozmo’s act, also word-for-word.  Danny Garcia has commented that he sees people copying his jokes and such from DVDs, when he made those jokes up on the spot while filming.  But people are so uncreative that they just say whatever the guy on the TV says, or do exactly what it says in the book.

Exercise some creativity.  In the very least, write your own script.  Magic is all about creative expression, don’t just copy other people’s acts.  When you see someone on stage do something awesome, the thought should be, “Damn, now I can’t do that,” not, “Oh! I’m going to put that in my act.”  It’s not the trick that gets the reactions, it’s the performer.  If you’re not putting yourself into your work, then it’s not you performing, you’re just channeling someone else.  Why bother?  Just play a video of the person you’re copying, at least then they’ll get credit.

A video we threw together late last night.  A trick for New Year’s Eve, and here’s hoping everyone’s year is full of magic and success.

As the new year approaches far faster than I’d like, I’m thinking of what I plan to do next year.  I’d been planning to work on a haunted show that I hoped would be at least written by the end of 2012.  Now I’m not positive that’s a good goal.

Last year I spent largely in practice and in rebuilding my style to something that is more satisfactory for me to perform.  I’ve been trying to come up with more powerful presentations, more interesting magic.  I’m tired of all the magic I see on YouTube and TV which, to me, seems meaningless and trite.  I read about historical magic and can’t understand why performers in modern times can’t match that depth of performance.

I’ve also realized that I have to learn more performance skills, and more range in my magic.  I need to start working with props I’ve never touched before, concepts I’ve only read about.  I’ve always been a card guy with an interest in mind reading and haunted magic.  Now I need to change to a haunted guy with an interest in card tricks.  I’ve been thinking that I should start trying to do parties more often.  I’ve been performing close up at friends’ parties lately and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it.  Also, teaching a friend of mine has also sparked a new enjoyment in my magic.

The new year is one for reinvention.  It’s time to put all this theory and skill to use and try to be the change I want to see in the magic world.  I’ll still work on writing my show, because it’s something I really want to do.  But I’ll focus on honing my skills first.