An excerpt of a conversation with a girl I work with from time to time...

J: Hey what were you doing before magic?

Me: I was playing music.

J: Wah. Play wat?

Me (trying to show off): Guitar and bass and keyboard.

J: So many ah? Fwah.

Me (head swelling): No lah. All half past six wan.

J: Then how come stop to do magic?

Me: Music nothing special mah. Nowadays anyone also can play.

J: But magic also nothing special wat.

Me (ego immediately lau hong): ...

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Make of this what you will. For me, I'm rethinking my entire philosophy towards the 'art'.

edit: Just in case you're wondering, I've never shown J a single magic effect before this conversation. I don't think I ever intend to.

Heh, that's amusing. I think maybe it's cause you said the "music is nothing special" part that she gave you that response? Instead of putting down music, I think her response would have been slightly different, perhaps more positive, if you tried to explain how you thought magic was special. She may then have asked you to show her something.

Music nothing special; magic also nothing special... Really want to say, only working in funeral parlour is something 'special'. And even so, if you talk to the people there, they will also tell you: "Nothing special what..."

It's not the something you're working in that makes you special, it's what you do to make it special to the people who matter. It's how you make your music, how you make your magic something special to the person hearing it/ watching it/ paying for it.

Music/ Magic without soul is indeed nothing special.

"if you tried to explain how you thought magic was special. She may then have asked you to show her something."

Hmm... I agree with this.

Last time, my gf couldn't appreciate football, thinking it's 20 grownups trying to kick a ball into the net and 2 poor fellas trying to stop them. But after seeing my passion in that, and hearing my stories about Man United for the umpteen times, she begins to have some appreciation for The Beautidul game. Of course, it helps that she thinks Edwin Van der Saar ( Man U keeper) looks cute...

I mean, passion is infectious. If you want her to feel the same way as you do towards magic, then show her your own enthusiasm. Of course, not everybody would think the way we do, different people appreciate things differently... it's up to us to sell the story.

Anyway, we always like to say magic is art... but has anybody define what art is, and how magic qualifies to be an art?

People usually have a mentality that aiya no matter how good you are you cannot beat david copperfield.
I guess its really important to work up a portifollo of oneself, like to have a repuatation among friends and to work with confidence.
That alone will make people want to see what you have up your sleeve.

Hi mattlee,
sorry to hear about that your friend is just suffering from a case of magical mediocrity.
As information gets easier to access, magic naturally gets more air time.
So what makes your ACR routine different from that video of ACR your friend saw on youtube ?
It is precisely the Magi that brings out the magic in everything.

Here's a lil excerpt from an essay by Eugene Berger.

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Magic tricks by themselves are just tricks.Magic is what you are going to do from there on. I can do a trick for you and the response that it generates in you is "what a jerk this guy is," because perhaps the whole premise of my presentation is, "I know something that you don't know." That is kind of irritating. Who wants to be around that kind of person for very long? A person who knows things that I don't know and then rubs my nose in it. Very unpleasant.

It seems to me the same magic trick that generates that kind of response can generate a very different kind of response. Why is that? Part of it is people watch magic with two minds. The aim of a magician, if he or she is a good magician, is to upgrade one and downgrade the other. It is to get you out of the analytical frame of mind so that you are able to experience this amazing effect. If I'm a good magician, by my definition, I am trying to get you to suspend your analytic frame of mind. Not for ever and ever, because you need that mind, for instance, when you cross the street, when you sign up for classes, when you take final exams, and so on. It's not a matter of your getting rid of something, rather it's about seeing that the human psyche is more than simply rationality.

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http://www.magicbeard.com/view.php?id=29