Many people during the birth of the blog bitched and complained about me making examples of people doing horrible magic. They say that it is unfair for me to “laugh” at them behind their backs. It is true that I laugh at them for performing magic without proper practice or just plain common sense. It’s like watching this and blaming us, the viewers, for being “insensitive”. the person is just fucking stupid. While I wouldn’t say the person performing bad magic tricks is “stupid” per say, I think they really feel that anything they do because its sleight of hand will never get noticed by the laymen. How wrong they are.
Case in example. The masked magician. You would think he is some kind of bad-ass magician that has gone “rogue” to destroy the very foundation of magic. Watch how amazing he is and he even teaches it on his DVD! Roll Film.
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So here is my question after watching this horrific clip. To all the critics, is it wrong to show this clip? Is it wrong to make a example out of this and show magicians never to do this? Granted he has amazing outs for pulling out the wrong gimmicked deck and fucking up the trick. Although I have NEVER seen anyone fuck up on the indicator card out AFTER they look through the deck to know where the selection is.
Maybe you say that the difference is that someone is just posting it on Youtube and that it didn’t get as much exposure as on TV. I would argue that TV gives you less exposure as it is only locally on a global scale. Youtube is anywhere you have an internet connection.
All I’m saying is that bad magic is BAD MAGIC. I am not personally hateful of the performer. Just like you would call the person trying to jump through a fucking basketball hoop an idiot, if you knew him, I’m sure at that moment you would be thinking about his health more than anything.
Constructive criticism is always hard to take if you are insecure of your ability, but we can not further our Art if we sit around and just say nice things to each other. I try to be as constructive as I can but there are people out there that want to be entertained too.
I guess the only constructive thing I can say about this video is that he has some fucking balls to stick through that trick. Oh, and he is an amazing actor when it comes to dramas. My inner child cries every time I see him act.
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Greg
While it may seem to some that you, “bash performers behind their backs,” that’s absurd. They voluntarily create videos for public criticism, so what if we privately criticize them, if they don’t like it they shouldn’t have posted it.
This clip is a great example of someone who should be laughed at and at the same time we can learn a lot from. Those who post bad youtube videos aren’t necessarily trying to perform faulty sleight of hand and give away effects, but their failures help us expand our thinking.
This video holds many lessons to performers we can use at the expense of his failing, such as being able to tell our different decks apart weather its by marking the card case with a marker, on the uspc sticker, leaving a card sticking out from one of the box flaps, the lessons continue.
Being able to instruct our spectators carefully, which he did, and correctly, which he didn’t.
Having outs that appear to make the effect appear successful rather then just backed up, or just really f***ing lame.
Kevin
You made an excellent point on your blog a while ago that I feel completely justifies whatever alleged ‘magician-bashing’that takes place on this site.
A lot of the people posting up mediocre and/or sub-standard performances on Youtube are, sadly, met with much praise and thumbs-up from their friends and acquaintances who are either being polite or who just don’t know any better.
Instead of telling them that their sloppily executed pass or top change would only work in real life if the spectator were standing at the exact same angle that the camera was, with one hand over their left eye, they instead shower them with ‘5/5!’s and ‘nice thx’. This does nothing to help the art of magic, and instead lowers the standards of good sleight-of-hand and/or presentation.
What we’re left with, then, are the performers in question wrongfully complacent with their level of progress, and the rest of us with our eyes bleeding from their sockets.
So every now and then, someone needs to come along and shake a little sense into these people – the basketball example you provided (ouch, by the way) was a perfect metaphor for the fact that this is not a personal attack against the person in the video, but the actions of that person.
The internet’s a great place with its abundance of information and incredible social networking capability, but sometimes it can just be plain, downright retarded. That’s when you look at video like these and go “alright, time-out… internet’s over for today, everybody go home…”
-Kev, The Virts
Jared
Man i am so annoyed i ordered his Dvd just for this trick but it wasn’t on the damn Dvd!!!
from what i remember from his show his stage illusions were quite well performed his card magic doesn’t seem upto scratch as that trick is a classic trick performed by laymen yet he still managed to screw it up
P.S. Is TV really that lame on the US with advertising other shows in an actual show
Chad Rees
i dont get what you are saying, he found all 4 cards and even after she mixed the deck. He did not even touch the deck.
Pootie tang
That was priceless ….I almost feel bad for the interpreter.
Brice
What an absolute fuckhead…
JeffreyTong
Everyone has thier days, and that day was not his day. He got what he deserved.
Max
If you notice at the end of the video he also says " and theres the 5th card, the 5th ace" <–just for kicks he cant even remember how many aces are in a deck>>