The Lost Discipline of Keeping Secrets

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Today I bemoan the passing of the age when magicians can be trusted to keep the secrets of magic.

In the Philippines, like in many places around the globe, the mysterious world of magic is now an open city.  Just about anybody can enter it, unchallenged. Magic secrets can be had cheaply, sometimes even for free. The practice is even more rampant in the virtual world of the Internet than in stalls at some malls.

On Building Routines

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One of the frequently asked questions by beginning magicians is how to routine one’s magic act.

Let me answer it with an extended metaphor.

Julie Andrews (playing the character Maria in the movie The Sound of Music) said that if you learn the seven notes “that happen to be”, you can use them to write an entire song.

In the same manner, if you know your alphabet, you can write words. If you can write words, you can write sentences, then paragraphs, then a novel.

To take the analogy farther, if you learn the basics of performing magic, you can build not only routines but probably also a whole evening show.

The Practical Application of Magic

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Magic has been my livelihood for many years now. Every so often I find practical applications for it outside of entertaining audiences.

Let me cite one interesting example…

A Pirate’s 8 Sins that Muddle the Conscience

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Anti-piracy movement, like charity, should start in our homes and in ourselves.

Any unauthorized use, distribution, or reproduction of copyrighted/patented material (whether in video, printed, or electronic form) for the purpose of financial or material gain is considered piracy.

Says who?

Says me, of course.

Distractions Can Give You A Less Than Ideal Audience

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In the world of performing magic, many experts and pseudo experts swear by the validity of the conventional wisdom that says, “There are no bad audiences, only bad magicians.”

As in most wisdom bandied about as truth, the truth of this postulation is as porous as a quicksand.  Step into it, and you end up swimming in un-swimable shifting mass of fallacies.

Of course, there are bad audiences. Drunks are bad.  So are talking parents. Or teenagers taking group pictures during your Fraidy Cat Rabbit routine.

Bloopers, Blunders and Bungles

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Sure, we all make mistakes.  We magicians in the Philippines, no matter how experienced, regardless how well we practice our acts, can mess up a trick in front of a live audience.

Nobody is mistake-proof.  Nobody’s exempt from Murphy’s Law. Everybody stumbles, even the best of mortals.

Open Your Show with a Smile

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“The shortest distance between two people is a smile.” ~ Anonymous

I don’t know who Anonymous is. I doubt if anyone does. But I know one certain thing about him. Mr. Anonymous is a darned smart fellow.

He is smart because he knows something important that many dense Filipino magicians are yet to discover. He knows a potent weapon to slay audiences right at the opening cue. It’s not dazzling sleight-of-hand. It’s not elegant patter. It’s not unfathomable illusion. Rather, it’s a smile.

Client Profiling

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The ability to read people’s character and to infer from their idiosyncrasies their paying capability is an ability worth developing if you are a magician in the Philippines like me.

I have saved time and energy focusing my marketing efforts on customers who have the means to pay for my shows rather than on customers who have the desire to hire me but don’t have the money to do it.

Magical Liar, Liar!

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I have a serious outlook on life. As a Filipino magician who employs comedy in his presentation, I even look at comedy seriously.

But I almost fell from my chair (and could have brought my laptop crashing on the floor with me) when I read on one online forum a plea from a magician in distress. He was confused. Pricked by conscience, he wanted advice on how not to to tell a lie when performing magic.

Outsourcing Inspiration

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I have this brilliant notion that when I experience a long drought of great ideas for my show, I turn to other fields of endeavor for inspiration.

To my dismay, like all my other notions, this is not original with me.  Creative people use this technique as well.  In fact, motivational speakers have a pretentious name for this process.  They call it “thinking outside the box.”