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I hate cane magic, not only Appearing but also Vanishing Canes.
Now don’t get me wrong. In the hands of an excellent performer, cane magic can be beautiful.
It is easy to do, too. This must be the reason it is popular among magicians.
Ironically, it is also the reason I have come to hate it of late. Cane magic has suffered from its own success. Because it is so beautiful and easy to perform, every magician who can flip a switch is doing it. Sadly, despite its potential for creating a beautiful effect, it has become a garden-variety magic.
Apart from becoming an everyday, go-to prop of magicians, canes have earned my dislike for the following reasons:
Magic Canes, whether appearing or disappearing, look unnatural. Nobody uses something similar-looking in real life. Oh, yes, the elderly use them, but their canes don’t look as nearly close as the magician’s canes, which are black, striped (red or black and white), extra long, silver, etc.
Magic Canes are noisy. What’s the sharp swoosh sound when it appears? It can be heard even from the back row. People wonder where did that sound emanate from instead of musing over where that cane came from. Not the effect magicians want to produce.
Magic Canes, in their collapsed state, are big for my small hands. They tend to peek through the gaps of my fingers, thus telegraphing their appearance or leaving tell-tale clue of their disappearance.
Magic Canes, even the cheap ones made in China, are expensive for a one-second magic effect. You create only a second-long of magic moment for the amount of money you invest in it. As a result, you don’t get the best bang for your buck from it. That could be the reason that magicians bring tons of cane to their performance, flicking open one after the other, just to kill time on stage.
Magic Canes are difficult to get a handle of when building a routine for it. Except for turning a silk handkerchief into a cane or changing the cane’s color, there is not much one can do about canes.
Magic Canes (oh, the cheap ones and the plastic variety) look flimsy. At a short distance, the audience can observe that the canes are made in spiral. Even someone’s shortsighted grandmother would realize the cane is fake.
Magic Canes have become like Nike. They are everywhere. Every magician performs Magic Canes in their program. In fact most budding magicians go on starvation diet for months to save money to buy appearing canes. Now, most business gurus would tell you that to succeed in business, you must separate yourself from the crowd. In short, strive for uniqueness. Since every magician has canes in his show, one can already separate himself from the herd by not including cane magic in his program. Alas, except for a few savvy magicians in the Philippines, this great business lesson is lost among the great unwashed in the frenzy of hording Magic Canes.
Magic Canes are like a quagmire. Once you start buying them, you can’t get out of them. You are trapped in its ease of performance. And since they cost money, you feel obliged to use them in your program, despite the protests of the public that they have seen them plenty of times in the past and that they don’t want to see anymore of them.
Magic Canes are the unofficial official badges of a magician. I say unofficial because most magicians using canes in their shows are not aware that subconsciously they feel incomplete without the canes.
Clients complain about Magic Canes. One client, during an interview over the phone (she was trying hard to decide if I was the right performer for her child’s birthday party), asked me several questions. One of those questions was whether I’d do in my program “the red handkerchief that becomes a cane.” I said, “No, I don’t perform that trick.” I advised her that if she wanted to see that trick, she’d do well to find another magician. There are lots of them doing the trick. I then heard her sigh a relief. She said, “I’ve seen that trick at every birthday party I attended. I don’t want to see it any more.” She ended hiring me.
Over the years, I have stopped using Magic Canes of all sorts and varieties—appearing, vanishing, color changing, elongating, multiplying, diminishing, splitting and other permutations of them—and I feel liberated. I feel special. I feel unique.
On several occasions, people would come to me to ask if I wanted to buy appearing/vanishing canes. They said they have several in stock. One guy said he bought his collection in Saudi Arabia when he worked there. Am I interested in buying one?
My answer is always a polite “No, I’m not interested.” I have no use for canes in my program.
At other times, some young magicians would drop me emails asking,”Sir, do you have canes for sale? I really would like to have one for my show.”
Again my answer is a polite no. I didn’t have the heart to tell the kid that getting into cane magic would turn him into a sheep in a herd.
So far I’ve been polite in saying no to overtures to buy or sell canes. However, next time somebody asks me if I perform cane magic, I shall scream and pull my hair like this: “Eeeeehhh….”
There’s only one cane I’d love to have: candy cane.
As you may well know, I have a sweet tooth.
Stay magical,
Leodini
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I couldn’t have a better way to say it myself, what a great perception you have there sir Leodini! Cheers!
-Markgician of The Story Circle
Thanks for saying that. Some cane-wielding magicians may not like what I wrote.
Stay magical,
Leodini
Well written Sir Leodini.
This will be in praise of the cane
Fifteen years ago, I remember this magic cane was one stunner. I saw a magician showed a black silk, waved it infront of me, and in a split of a second in the Higgs Boson space, voila! A cane!
That stunned my thinking on how a lanky cloth becomes a black cane. Think about that. I also like the sound it produces. You don’t hear that everyday unless your are at a magic show. I also think that was the reason why I became a magician, the love for canes. Whichever, you are right, there is an ease in presenting the case and I usually have to use a glove because sometime my skin got sliced from it.
How many cane do I present in a show, well, two.
Stay magical!
Hi Prof. Al,
Since you mentioned Higgs Boson, let me bring out my Large Haldron Collider to see if we can produce anti-matter with the collision of our ideas.
In my post, I was, of course, referring to professional magicians performing magic canes, not magicians who perform magic to entertain themselves. Hobbyists may enjoy their magic canes as much as they want, for they get satisfaction not from being paid to perform but merely by showing magic stuff they can do. That would be all right, I guess…but I’m not sure.
Professional magicians, however (and this is what I’m sure of), have other concerns besides gaining self-pleasure from magic. They need also to please a paying public. A magician may love magic canes, but if his public does not care for them, then, pray, why should he include it in his program?
In commercial magic, I believe the overriding consideration in choosing material is not what the performer loves to do but what the audience prefers to see.
The magic-cane-loving magicians may argue, “Oh, the appearing canes are so magical. I have fun doing them. I love to do them.” Fine. But does the audience feel the same way as he does?
Listen to what the audience is saying…
Producing a Bengal Tiger is magical, too. I’m sure it’s fun to do it. I’ll be thrilled to perform it at birthday parties.
But will the birthday mom like it?
Of course not. All the guests will scamper away once the Bengal Tiger appears, roaring ferociously and baring its teeth. Its appearance will end the party prematurely.
So even though I like to perform the Bengal Tiger production, I won’t do it, because the client will not like to see it done in his party inside his living room.
In contrast, many cane-wielding magicians still insist on doing the Appearing Cane even though a great part of the lay populace, as a result of having seen it ad infinitum, has lost taste for it.
Now that I have made my point, let me put the Large Haldron Collider back in my closet…together with the skeletons.
Stay magical,
Leodini