This was originally published on the old ye olde on April 3, 2007.

One of the tricky things to figure out about exposure is why people are motivated to do it in the first place. It’s possibly unique in this way amongst the performing arts (all of which could be considered fraudulent in their own ways). Imagine three scenarios, if you will.

The first… You’re in the cinema watching a World War 2 movie, and on the battlefield there’s a whole lot of explosions going off, and one heroic character runs through enemy crossfire to grab a wounded friend and drag him to safety. Let’s assume that you’re really moved by the scene. A guy leans over in your ear right when he’s pulling the other guy free and says, “Man, the CGI is really good in this movie, isn’t it?” Annoying, isn’t it? You’ll consider it a distraction.

On the other hand, if you’re at a live performance and the magician is floating a rose for a lady in the front row, and you’re looking at her appreciative reaction and you’re thinking she’s kind of hot, and the magician sort of looks like a regular person. Lets assume that this time, the guy next to you DOESN’T say anything, but you know that he happens to know a little bit about magic. Suddenly, the role is reversed, you might not mind if the guy leans over and tells you how it’s done. In fact, you might even ask him.

Let’s take it one step further. Forget about the World War 2 movie. You’re in a different movie this time, a medieval period piece, and a lowly shepherd with magical talents is trying to woo over a princess, and one day when they cross paths, he presents to her a rose, and makes it float from his hands to hers. Again, you’ve got that twit next to you again who leans over in the ear saying, “Man, the CGI is really good in this movie, isn’t it?” Now the guy’s back to being a distraction again. It’s the same magical effect, and chances are in retrospect it would be less impressive than the live show because this one isn’t being done right before your eyes, but you don’t care about the “how” of it anymore — it’s still magical.

What can we take away from this?

One of the big problems with magic is that we have to dance the line between reality and fantasy. It’s fantasy because obviously magic is impossible. But everything else keeps reminding us of the reality of it. It’s really happening in front of your eyes, and what’s more, the guy who’s doing it really does seem to be a real character — meaning, he acts the same way when he’s not doing magic as he is when he is doing magic. Some even consider your entrance to be your first effect, regardless of whether or not there’s magic involved. What’s more, it’s even common mantra to say that the magic is meant to serve your character, rather than the other way around, but if the magic itself is inherently impressive, isn’t it almost arrogant to think that you are meant to be seen as even GREATER than the impossibilities you’ve just shown? We’re conditioned to see the difference between Tom Cruise and Ethan Hunt. We’re not so clear-headed when it comes to separating Michael Ammar from… well, Michael Ammar.

Step back again. The fictionality of those characters distances us from them, but the heroism of the soldier or the timidity of the shepherd allow us to empathize from that distance. The magician on the stage, however, is right there. There’s no denying that he appears to be doing magic. He’s also possibly trying to spend a lot of time convincing you that he’s just like everybody else — Mentalists often have to deal with the disclaimer dilemma. But doesn’t that claim of equality serve to make the differences between you and him more pronounced? If he’s just like you and you’re just like him, then how is it that he gets to be the guy who’s always finding the damn card and getting all the applause and attention, and you’re the guy who’s supposed to sit there and feed his ego with your clapping?

The actors in the movies become metaphors. We’re divorced from them. They might be, as John Malcovich dryly said, nothing more than millionaires pretending to suffer, but we don’t care. We buy into it because we want to enjoy the show. Hell, we can even hate the characters we see but we still like the show. Now step back into our reality as magicians. We don’t always have this actor/movie duality. We’re not just the star of the show, most of the time we’re pretty much the SHOW (by virtue of lacking co-stars, setting, conflicts that we are not of our own contrivance, etc.). I think this is one thing that mentalists have figured out that not all magicians have yet. It’s a fairly dull thing to reveal someone’s inner-most thought — the entertainment value often comes from the freak-out of the spectator in the middle of confirming it. By broadening the show, they make it about more than just the mentalist. This is also one place where Blaine did it half-correctly in his TV specials — by putting so much emphasis on the spectators in the effect, he made them the show, and made the whole process of watching magic interesting in a way that others weren’t. Even as magicians, I think we have to admit that it’s a great piece of entertainment watching people freak out to tricks regardless of whether or not we know the secret to that trick.

But like I said, he did it half-correctly. The problem was that afterwards, Blaine allowed the emphasis to be put back on himself. Perhaps that’s where it should be, I don’t know, but here’s the thing, in demanding all this attention, you’re basically drawing a line in the sand and saying, “I’m on THIS side of the line, and you’re on THAT side.” All of a sudden people are starting to try to figure out just what makes you so special. And, on the surface, what is it that makes you different? It’s knowing how to do the tricks. That appearance of hubris is going to tempt that little iconoclast in all of us — anybody who tries to elevate themselves above the regular folk is begging to have people bring him back down to reality, and if giving away the magician’s secret will do that, well, that’s what’s going to happen. There’s a reason the Paparazzi thrive, why there’s a market for unflattering pictures of movie stars, and so it shouldn’t be any surprise that when Blaine or Copperfield allow themselves to be deified for their feats of magic, people are going to want to bust that illusion up. You’ll notice Fox isn’t signing up the Masked Magician to expose Tommy Wonder’s act.

The idea that it’s all about the secret is just on the surface, of course. In reality we all know there’s much more to it than that (showmanship and presentation and practice and handling and whatnot), but I think, because so much of art is removing the scaffolding around the statue, we not only don’t see all that extra work, we’re not MEANT to see it. We’re just meant to get caught up in the moment. And I think, if the moment spends a little too much time focusing on the magician and his feats of magic and not on the entertainment value that comes from it, people will start to try to appraise that magic and figure it out. Such a magician has basically given them nothing else to focus on.

Back to the movies. We’re in the middle of that wonderful scene with the shepherd giving the rose to the princess. Do we want to try to dissect how it’s done? No, because in the context of that scene it doesn’t matter. Because the fourth wall isn’t being broken, the comparison between ourselves and the performer isn’t overt. Instead we have something else to watch — the shepherd’s floating rose isn’t a mere feat of magic, it’s a gesture, and it comes with extra entertainment value because of that (the romance of the gesture itself, the interest in watching the princess’s reaction, the tension in wondering if it will win her over, etc.). Similarly, the moment with the World War 2 soldier’s heroism comes with so much intrinsic entertainment value that it doesn’t matter the degree to which we’re immersed in the moment. Paradoxically, it’s one of the reasons that the CGI has to be so good… if the falseness calls attention to itself in any way, strange smoke rising from the battlefield or perhaps the glint of wire holding up the floating rose, the spell is broken. That can cause just as much resentment (if not more) than the guy next to us wanting to spill the beans on how the film’s illusion is being performed. But at the very least the movies, if well done, have enough for you to appreciate that you won’t let yourself focus on all the technical details that make it happen.

Darwin Ortiz talked about the point I’m getting at when he mentioned Fitzkee’s fallacy — namely, when he said that Fitzkee said that magic was a bitter pill to be swallowed and it needed to be dressed up in theatrics and whatnot in order to be entertaining. I think Ortiz’s central point there is a little tangential to this one, since this is a series of articles about exposure, but it’s worth exploring. Ortiz’s main point is this — if the magic is strong enough, it has an inherent entertainment value. The main issue is that if the core of the entertainment comes from the presentation of an impossible feat, people are going to speculate upon the nature of that impossibility, and will be curious to find out how it’s done. If the secret is hidden well enough, you’ve got no problem, and you’ll have an excellent niche for yourself as a performer in that you can seemingly do things that others cannot. If the secret is NOT hidden well enough, on the other hand, then the curiosity about how it’s done can be satisfied, perhaps with nothing more than a quick visit to Metacafe or Youtube or whatnot.
Let’s assume that you haven’t made up an entire act of original material and that your repertoire falls into the latter half. What can we do? Well, the reassuring answer is there’s a lot we can do. Just turn on any magic performance where you as a magician didn’t care how the trick was being done. It’s a natural reflex for us to look for clues to the secret, and so any routine that coaxes those reflexes into a passive state is a GOLDMINE for us to study. Forget regular audiences, if it can make the magician forget about the secret, there must be something there. Why don’t we care where Cardini keeps getting those cards from in that lobby? Why don’t we care how Tommy Wonder gets that watch into the nest of boxes? Why don’t we care how Michael Finney gets those ropes to restore in the Lady Rope Trick? Once you start looking at these performances you realize that the secrets to the tricks mean little compared to the entertainment value in the performance of them. The Cut and Restored Rope hasn’t been as badly exposed as the ACR, but it’s still been exposed, and yet, if some twit next to you wants to point out how Finney’s actually doing it, you’re going to tell him to shut up because you’re having too much fun watching Finney interact with the lady spectator. There is a magic of sorts at work, but it’s the same sort of magic that you find in a good movie, a good bit of stand-up, a nice dance, etc.

And here’s one way that I’m going to part with Ortiz and John Carney, for that matter. Both have stated that a challenging attitude has no place in a magical performance, and so much of what we do in magic is to try to minimize the feeling of the audience being tricked or browbeaten into not being able to solve the puzzle… and yet I can’t help but think that if there is some potential for an audience to be entertained by a challenging attitude, it should be explored. Bill Malone constantly gets confrontational with the spectators next to him, and they LOVE him when he performs. Whit Haydn fools the pants off you with the Pea and Shell game (where the audience always LOSES, where’s the fun in that?), and they LOVE him when he performs. Obviously it’s not as cut and dry as just removing the challenging attitude. We might as well state that villains in movies cannot be sympathetic. Humility isn’t a bad place to start, but being entertaining is a virtue that can trump even that. In our shows we are both the artist and the art, and however flattering humility might be to the artist, art itself has always played by a much more complicated set of rules. A boring artist can hide behind their art. What are we going to hide behind? Ourselves?

That said, it’s an obviously fine line that Haydn and Malone walk that many of us mere mortals haven’t quite figured out yet, but I think a lot of it has to do with study outside the branch of magic to other disciplines that are also entertaining. Bill Malone’s naturally funny and odd-looking — this helps him get away with alot that other magicians could not. Whit Haydn has spent a lifetime figuring out how con men charm people, and a philosophy degree can’t hurt that understanding, either. David Regal fools people immensely, but even if he didn’t, he’d still probably be the success that he is just because of his intelligent writing.

But the problem is this… for every person in our field who understands what it means to entertain, there are dozens (if not hundreds) of those who want to perform more than they want to entertain. Many people fantasize about singing for a stadium full of adoring fans, but we confine our indulgences of that fantasy to the shower where it belongs, because deep down we know that there’s little entertainment value in listening to someone who can’t sing very well. Magic, unfortunately, doesn’t have this same shame filter, and what that means is that some people misinterpret the shocked reaction to an impossibility as signs of an entertained audience. What’s more, it can even happen at the highest level — there are a lot of magicians who use magic as their crutch, their best and only means of negotiating with the audience, what makes the spectators patiently sit through the most tired and worn out of jokes and presentations. If their magic is good enough, they’ll survive and possibly do quite well.

But the danger lies in whether the audience is led to believe that the only difference between themselves and the magician is the effect itself, because if they do, then it follows that the audience would believe that in knowing how to make the effect happen, that they would equalize things somewhat between themselves and the performer. Rub their nose in it enough, make too much money, hang out with celebrities and date supermodels, and people will want to expose you, just as they exposed Blaine and Copperfield. Don’t get me wrong, I think they’re both good magicians, but I think we have to take a look at their iconic status as part of the reason for the blatant exposure of their effects, especially considering that the feats they’re being lauded for are relatively unimportant when compared to solving world hunger or curing cancer — you know, productive ways of using supposedly magical talents.

If, on the other hand, you’re a capable entertainer without doing a single bit of magic, suddenly you’ve got an extra defense against exposure — people, even non-magicians, will believe that it’s more than just magic that is entertaining about you, and they’ll resist any twit who tries to bust you because he’s getting in the way of that entertainment. That’s not to knock guys who make the magic the focal point of their performances, but guys who don’t let the magic define them too much are going to have it a little bit easier when dealing with the problems of exposure.

This was originally published on the old ye olde on March 22, 2007.

When it comes to the magic world, the Internet is a harsh mistress. It’s got so much potential in terms of how it can help magicians come together and learn from each other from all over the world. I’ve been studying magic for a while but have only had the pleasure of actually socializing with magicians a couple of times. It was fantastic — if you’ve not had the pleasure of sessioning with another magician, I highly recommend it. Otherwise, though, the forums can be a more-than-adequate surrogate. You can share news, ideas, criticisms, encouragement, business leads… consider the cost and nuisance that would be required to set up weekly (let alone daily) meetings with magicians in your area, and compare it to the cost of an internet connection and the fact that it opens you up to magicians around the world that you can chat with every day. While there’s something about a real-life meetup that the Internet can’t quite duplicate (yet), there are plenty of aspects of the Internet that beat the real-life meetups hands down.

If you’ve got a webcam and some worries about your latest routine, you can upload videos to magicvideodepot.com and get feedback from others about everything from technique and handling to more abstract considerations like routine structure and showmanship. It’s a great way for newcomers to the magic community to cut their chops, get a feel for how people around the world approach magic, and with less of a language barrier than most forums you can even appreciate submissions from East and Central Asia, South America, Continental Europe, and even, dare I say it, parts of Scotland.

It’s also a great way to keep your supplies stocked, particularly when you get that situation when the local magic store seems to have everything except for what you need for your next show. Combined with relatively cheap postage, you now don’t have to settle for less than exactly what you want. If it weren’t for the ability to do internet purchases, I can guarantee there wouldn’t be many reviews up on this blog.

If the website gets enough clout, such as the Magic Cafe or the Magic Woods has, it might be able to attract a few big names to drop in and field questions. Imagine being able to get direct feedback to the questions you’ve been dying to ask your idol — at no charge, no less. For people who can’t make a convention or live outside of the lecture circuit, this is a dream come true.

And then there’s Youtube, Metacafe and Google Video.

It’s a harsh mistress, alright. For every FISM act, promotional video or stage performance bootleg, there’s some twit fumbling through his DLs or trying to pass off Wayne Houchin’s Indecent as his own. For everybody wanting to share the joy of that selected card twice turning blue, there’s some guy wanting to take that joy and grind it into a pathetic mess of what it should have been. And the techniques that are being bandied about… Non-magicians should never be allowed to suspect that we can force cards onto them, but with the HSF up there for everyone to see, that’s no longer a gimme. Yahoo has started putting up videos in its portal section, and by keeping comments enabled and not monitoring them people are often falling all over each other to be the first to proudly announce to the rest of the readership how it’s done.

And even if you’re not giving away the secrets, you’re still at risk. It’s age-old mantra that we should never repeat tricks, and yet the very nature of performance videos on the internet lets a viewer repeat it as many times as they want until they can see those little handling tells that explain when the key move must have happened, and from there it’s only a matter of time and research to figure out what that move was — assuming some twit isn’t giving it away in the comments section.

People have argued before that this is the same as all exposure what’s come before it, that it’s just a natural evolution and that it’ll pass — it’s just computers are involved now whereas libraries and bookstores were involved before. On a conceptual level I agree, but on a practical level I think it’s a bit more sinister than that. Think of all the roadblocks one had to go through in order to expose another magician in the past. If one magician shares with another magician a trade secret, I have to somehow get in the same geographical location as that magician, find a way to intercept it, make off with it, and copy it for myself, and then get each copy to a friend. And that’s assuming there’s something written down to steal — sometimes you’d have to watch performance after performance and hope to figure it out through your schema or intuition, which in itself was complicated by the fact that some performers wouldn’t even do certain routines if they thought a magician was in the audience. That cloak-and-dagger espionage in The Prestige isn’t just artificial romance, as some real-life performers have shown paranoia when it comes to not just keeping their methods secret, but even their effects.

These days, the Internet means that geography’s no longer an issue. Thieving the secret is academic — I suppose out of a feeling of gratitude to your fellow pirates or exposers you could legitimately obtain one product and spill it for the rest of the world, but whatever initial piracy needed to happen to get stuff out there has already happened, and with a huge library of DVDs. As for exposers, I get the feeling that they’re motivated more by feedback from their audience than anything. The digital nature of the files means that duplication a low-cost, low-effort, and high-speed enterprise. What’s more, the speed with which the exposure itself can happen is practically instantaneous — just wait for the download, and maybe do something else in your free time. At least the guys photocopying the magazines had to actually actively stand there and turn the pages between scans — now exposure’s facilitated by the mere push of a button. The penetration of the internet means that you don’t even need to make the trip to the library anymore. You can sit on your ass in front of the computer with the playing cards at your side, and download the latest thing off Limewire, give it a quick watch, and then grab your cards, turn on the webcam and show your friends how it’s done, all without actually leaving the seat. As for the distribution of any such material, geography makes no difference — you can send it to a buddy halfway down the street or halfway around the world with equal ease.

Don’t think that instant gratification doesn’t have an impact. In the old days, there were naturally-occuring barriers that helped prevent the spread of trade secrets. Penn Gilette (who I’m on the fence about when it comes to his own act’s exposure) made the great point of saying that, if a spectator asks you how it’s done, you can literally tell them exactly where the local magic store is and what the name of the item is that they want to buy, and 9 out of 10 won’t even consider doing it. But that comment was made before Youtube. These days, though, the Internet has removed practically ALL effort from the process — all it takes is the touch of a button. You’re one mouse click from figuring out the secret behind a video that pops up on the Yahoo portal page. Think the number of dissuaded individuals is still going to stay at 9 out of 10?

In this environment, I don’t think we’re going to be able to stay passive forever. The barriers that were there in the past aren’t around anymore, which means that we have to invent new ones. To a certain extent it’s already started. Certain magic-related forums no longer have open registration but are invitation-only or require an application process, and at least one I’ve recently visited doesn’t even let Google index its posts, meaning you can’t even use the Google cache to see what’s being said by those inside. Other forums have application processes to go through in order to get to relaxed areas where you can talk methodology — The Magic Cafe, unfortunately, only has an arbitrary 50 post requirement for that secret area. Even Youtube, for all its faults, does allow for video-makers to limit privileges on videos, including disabling comments and even restricting viewership to people on a preferred list. Marketed effects are starting to come around to the idea of not putting up complete videos of routines or, in some cases, ANY videos at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if limited runs of products became more popular, with their rarity allowing the producer to demand a higher price to offset whatever losses are gained by limiting the production. I think these are great examples to follow, so if you’re looking for more advice on how to limit exposure, follow the lead of those above.

And here’s one more thought to chew on. This last idea might be going against the grain a little bit, but there’s merit. A brief prelude — I used to complain whenever guys like David Blaine and Criss Angel used editing or stooges in their videos. A lot of magicians do, and say that video editing does a lot to ruin the perception of magic in the eyes of the public. I don’t anymore. I say, the more cheating they can do, the better. Use the camera angles, splice in the necessary footage, make everyone in the damn video your stooge, whatever, just keep the method a secret. You can be ostentatious like Blaine was with his levitation or Angel is with just about every close up effect he does, or you can be practical about it like Greg Rostami is in his promotional video for Cosmos, where he basically edits out the moment where the move or moves happen, and (in what I consider to be a classy move) explicitly warns you about this deletion beforehand. Or you can forego that nicety and just let them find out the bad news for themselves about extra handling requirements after they order the product. Whatever. Just keep the secrets out of plain view. And if you’re going to put the video up there for everybody to see, at the very least monitor or outright disable the comments, or put it up somewhere like MVD where exposure in the comments section isn’t tolerated.

I’m also beginning to think that John Born had the right idea when he did Matrix God’s Way — a performance-only video file with all the instructions and explanations in the book. That way you get the best of both worlds — you can see the timing and presentational aspects needed from a performance you can watch, but you can’t actually see the sleights, and because of the work requirement for performing the effect, few people are going to want to expose their hard work. Video explanations of effects are of tremendous value for visual learners who are having difficulty figuring out how a sleight is supposed to go, but the digital nature of modern DVDs means that they’re easily duplicated, and even if we can keep them off Youtube et al by flagging copyright violations, we won’t be able to keep them off the P2P networks, and while I do think piracy and exposure are two separate issues, I’m willing to bet that the P2P networks are lousy with those transitional magicians I was talking about in Part 5. Perhaps it can’t be done with every video, but I’m willing to bet it can be done with quite a few.

And if, with all of these measures, it gets to the point that keeping up my hobby becomes cost or labour prohibitive, if I have to make a few bad purchases because the demo wasn’t able to tell me everything I needed to know, if I can’t just join into any conversation between magicians that I want, if I have to give up the Video section for this blog, even, I think it’ll be a good thing in the long run. The Internet has erased many barriers. It’s time to start throwing some back up.

Phew! It’s all done.

As you can imagine, there are plenty of other videos besides the ones that got featured on their own days this month. I don’t know if everybody will agree with my choices… and if not, well, hopefully this will assuage some criticism.

Here’s Al Schneider performing a relatively abbreviated version of the Cups and Balls. One thing I love is that sequence that starts at 0:35 where the balls transpose from one cup to the other, one at a time. It’s a great idea, and aside from Schneider and Suzanne I don’t see many people doing it.

If you’re as interested in trying to find different 2 cup routines as I am, you might like this one from Tilman Andris…

Here’s Larry Jennings doing his one cup routine on Japanese TV…

And here’s few more conventional 3 cup routines for you… Here’s Michael Vincent doing his version.

And here’s Bebel…

And here’s Lance Burton…

And in this promotional video for the L&L DVD series devoted to the Cups and Balls, there are performances from both John Mendoza (different from the one done last week) and Marc DeSouza…

There’s a Shawn Farquhar clip out there somewhere showing his cups and balls performance for FISM. Searches on his name yielded no results, unfortunately — maybe you’ll have better luck. The climax is interesting, where the cups are shown to be solid steel with no opening.

Doug Atkinson, who runs a website devoted to the table of contents for magic books, has this page devoted specifically to references for the cups and balls. Also, Denis Behr manages an archive of various magic-related subjects (tricks and sleights, for the most part), and there are some entries there on the cups and balls (click on the arrow next to “Cups & Balls” to expand the menu).

Lance Pierce, in further communication, had this to say about the importance of the wand. I think there are some good thoughts here…

This is purely personal opinion, but I think the wand is crucial for several reasons. I’ve seen very, very, very few routines that didn’t use a wand that still looked good. Part of the reason for this, I believe, is that nearly every time, someone took what they knew of cups and balls and stripped it down to a routine that didn’t have a wand. This is directly opposed to starting with nothing and building a great no-wand routine from the ground up.

But that’s just me.

Finally, here’s Kieran show-casing his impressive sleight of hand skills.

Some regrets for this month… Not being able to get a clip of David Regal’s “Cups and Balls and Cups and Balls”, not being able to get performance clips of some Vancouver buddies of mine, not being able to coerce either Lance Pierce or Tyler Erickson to get behind the camera, not finding performance footage of Bob Read, not getting a clip up of John Ramsay’s work, and heck, not getting behind the camera myself, if only to show that I can do more than just talk about the plot. I would have liked to get more product reviews up as well, especially since L&L has that sweet three volume series devoted to the plot. Still, I think, all in all, it wasn’t a bad month, and maybe some of that can be talked about next year…?

Here’s Gazzo. Got 40 minutes?

I know instinctively that this video will not be to everybody’s tastes. Regardless, the only thing I can say is this: this video is important. It’s similar to Penn and Teller — you can like it or hate, but you can’t ignore it, because in all likelihood more people have seen this performance than they have seen your preferred magic show. It’s worth watching, if only to see what you’re competing with. You’ll have to wait more than 20 minutes to see the cups and balls, but if you care about magic, you’ll watch. You might not like what you’re watching, that’s fine, but you’ll watch anyway.

If nothing else, look at the crowd. They don’t go away. They watch the entire thing. And they get the cups and balls. And they get a better climax than Vernon gave them.

Perhaps, more than any other entry this month, this video shows what it means to perform the cups and balls for people, since it’s directly tied into the history of it all — a guy on the street, his table, a random crowd, and his props.

Given all this, where do you fit in?

So much study has been done on this routine that only an arrogant twit would attempt to add to it.

Thus, without further ado…

There are so many specific lessons that can be taken away from this routine. Granted, some of these lessons could be taken away from any thorough study of the cups and balls as a whole, but Vernon seems to have so many of them in here. Here are a few…

The role of the climax: Many performers have stated before that the Cups and Balls is all about the final loads — without the final loads, there’s almost no reason to do the trick. However, in the Revelations DVD series, it’s mentioned that it’s a bad idea to do card-to-wallet or card-to-sealed-envelope with the last ace as a climax to the Travellers (in which four Aces travel to four different pockets). This seems to suggest that there needs to be a differentiation between gratuitous climaxes and climaxes that are worth sacrificing opening effects for. We’ve seen examples of this in magic history — the coin flurry which ends with a Jumbo coin production, the Benson Bowl or one-cup routine that ends with a bill-to-lemon, or the Ambitious Card trick that ends with card-to-wallet. I suspect that many people who’ve performed these sorts of tricks in real life will attest to the idea that, even if the preliminary phases are entertaining, it’s that climax that they’ll remember. I also suspect that many people who’ve performed tricks with this strategy, rather than just rushing to the climax, will attest to the effectiveness in using these preliminary phases to set up the ebb and flow of the routine, the timing and mental misdirection, which can help heighten the surprise of that climax.

Which brings us to what Vernon’s structure allows us to do. We’ve got balls jumping all over the place. They disappear, reappear, gather, penetrate, etc. But then he starts to go to the pockets in the complex elimination sequence, and at one point, prior to the reveal of the first final load, we get a pretty good surprise in the reappearance of all three balls under the center cup (don’t let the lack of response in the Vernon video fool you, watch the other videos this month that use it and you’ll see that it plays well). This moment, I think, is key. We’ve got gradual escalation, leading to an all-at-once assembly from the pocket, which is a moment worth pausing and punctuating, before we reveal the first surprise kicker. If they care even a little bit about the silly adventures of those little balls, then that moment has some strength to it, and it’s only going to get better from there. It’s really worthwhile understanding how it is that routines can gradually escalate. From the moment the sophisticated elimination sequence begins, to the moment it (and the routine itself) ends, we’ve got four levels of escalation — first, a ball returns, then all the balls return, then there’s a jumbo ball, and then there’s a whole bunch of jumbo balls. This sort of effect construction actually has tangible application in other genres — I use it in my Ambitious Card Routine to great effect, and I’ve seen others do so as well.

The 2-0-2 sequence: This is where the magician makes a ball jump from the one cup to another cup of the audience’s choice. I’m not a big fan of this phase, I think in large part because it takes too long to do what it’s meant to do (specifically, show a ball travel), and in my view the follow-up undermines the specialness of that audience-dictated travel. Still, the fact that Vernon kept it in, in my mind, highlights the importance of interaction in this otherwise watch-the-magician-show-off routine. Are there other ways to involve the audience? Or, are there ways to heighten the effectiveness of that so as to really impress the importance of the spectator’s role? I think Master Payne in his routine really nailed it, milking that one moment for all its worth. In any case, I think this is one of those phases that, if you’re going to use it, really take advantage of what it accomplishes — specifically, the involvement in the audience in the way the magic unfolds. If you’re not going to do that, why bother?

The red herring: Yeah, as magicians we’re not supposed to expose, but Vernon does it in his routine. Let’s set aside the lazy rationalization that because he’s Vernon he can do whatever he wants, and try to break this down. Quickly, for those adamant souls who don’t want to expose even the tiniest method in their routine, there’s a pretty simple answer — just handle that sequence the same way Ricky Jay does in his own cups and balls (ie: “Other magicians do this, but I do no such thing”). Still, is there any merit to actually giving away that bit of business? Again, keep in mind that, in some people’s minds, the trick is all about the final loads. In deliberately tempting them with this bit of exposure, the audience is naturally put on guard to try to see it for themselves and catch it in action. That little bit of exposure might explain how the second ball comes back, but while we’re concentrating on that, we’re not only misdirected away from the set-up for the climax (which is a good thing), but we’re also misdirected away from the mini-climax (the three balls returning under the second cup) which is also arguably a good thing, since it helps set up the final climax. While, on the whole, it might not be in everybody’s best interest to give away this sort of information, for those who can deal with the ramifications of it, it’s possible to get some misdirection mileage from making that tiny confession.

Motivation: Let me tell you something about my girlfriend. When it comes to magic, she’s no dummy. She loved it, and was the sort who enjoyed it with her brain turned off, and I gradually ruined that aspect of her after showing her one too many tricks and asking her if I flashed or whatever. Forgetting for a moment that there’s probably a level in Hell for magicians like me, this evolution on her part has proven interesting — I was watching several routines in a row by a notable mentalism performer, and she saw through the method of each of them. This was surprising given that the mentalist is highly regarded, but there’s another really funny aspect to this — she’s seen a bunch of cups and balls routines this month, and she still doesn’t know how the final loads end up under the cups. It’s absolutely amazing what motivating all that ball traffic can do throughout the routine, and particularly in the latter stages. It cannot be overstated what motivation can do, as there is no logical reason for why we should be allowed to get away with some of the methods at work here.

The wand: Not everybody likes it, but just remember that it offers you some great advantages, and conversely, eliminating it can create some obstacles. As Michael Ammar said pretty eloquently in his DVD set, it’s useful not just for theatrically establishing a source of the magician’s power and the cause for the magic they see, but also to conceal key things and rationalize flows of traffic. Effective wand use can really help with cover, and you don’t need to use a wand — it could be a marker, another cup, even another ball. It can also help motivate the arrangement and rearrangement of props, but again, it doesn’t have to be a wand — it could be the reveal of a magic effect, or the repositioning of a cup so that they’re spaced out better, or making sure that both the spectators on your left and right get a good look at the ball, etc. Personally, while I don’t think that a lack of a wand spells the death of a cups and balls routine, I think spending a great deal of time studying the purpose of a wand allows you to identify more opportunities to use wand-like strategies elsewhere. So, consider the placement of the wand throughout this routine, and see what lessons can be drawn from it, how that can be used to cut down on moves, what it helps cover, and so on.

Punctuating moments: Jay Sankey and others have lately argued that a lot of what magic is about is creating images that spectators remember after the fact. There’s this one moment in Vernon’s routine that always stuck with me, and which I didn’t like for the longest time — it’s where the cups are tilted back, the balls are placed right beneath the rims so that the cups remain tilted back, and then the cups are pushed forward with the wand so that they cover the ball. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out what I didn’t like about it, until I realized later on that perhaps the key thing is the fact that the image is remembered. The Vernon routine is littered with moments like this. The cups are frequently “capped” by the balls, which sets up a nice contrasting image at the final post-climax display. The wand is frequently waved about whilst gesturing mid-patter, and used to nudge and tilt back cups, even when it’s not doing double-duty as a deceptive aid. Also, that first trip from the pocket allows you to show a clean hand (which arguably Vernon could have milked a little more), and this can help make all those trips to the pocket feel more innocent.

And, possibly one of the most important images established throughout the routine is the fact that the cups are frequently shown empty — the cup-through-cup gag, the cup-is-deeper-on-the-inside gag, and the reveal after the first vanishes, the reveal after the 2-0-2 sequences, and the 0-3-0 assembly when the cups are fully tilted back. With all of those empty shows, and taking into account the effectiveness of motivation (discussed earlier), it becomes evident why the appearance of those final loads hits so hard. It’s also worth pointing out that some magicians will use some of those displays which strongly imply emptiness to conceal something special, and some will even go to gaffed cups just to get that really great moment where you lift the cup and nothing comes out. Perhaps what’s greatest, though, is that this image of empty cups is done subtly throughout the routine.

One other benefit of punctuation is that the pauses can also help create start-stop gaps between the sleight-of-hand and the effects. Consider the following… you’ve just shown all three balls you just vanished have returned under the cups, and you place each of them back under the cup. You pause to let that fact sink in. You then say that you’re going to make a ball move from the middle cup to one of the side cups. If an audience member is going to be on-guard for you to do something sleighty to make that happen, they’re going to be in trouble, because at this point you can accomplish it without making a bad move. Similarly, if you’ve just shown the three balls have returned to the center cup from the pocket, and you pause, consider what the audience is about to see — the cups were all shown to have small balls under them, the fact sinks in, and you then do no bad moves as you show that now there are huge balls underneath them. This technique, using a key pause to show something magical without having to resort to a move at a bad time, is in my mind the essence of effective sleight-of-hand — it’s sleight-of-hand that looks so moveless that it practically disproves its own existence. Certain moments have natural pauses and moments for this sort of punctuation built into them, but consider that it’s possible for you to construct those moments into your routine, if you apply some thought to it.

The cancelling of methods: The early phase of this routine, in which Vernon vanishes the three balls before they appear under the cups, involves two different ways to vanish the balls. The first two are FT-based, and the last is a steal-based method. Very quickly… cancelling methods, when employed well, allow you to use more than one method to accomplish a given effect, and to use the strengths of one method to offset the weaknesses of the other method. It might sound needlessly abstract, but that simple sequence shows just how easy it is to incorporate cancelling methods, and keep in mind what it allows the performer to do — if you’ve got somebody trying to bust you on your magic (as is wont to happen from time to time) it’s worthwhile being able to switch up the methodology. Going FT-based a couple of times, and then really putting the ball over in the other hand the third time, allows you a minor moment of surprise when the hand opens to show it’s still there, if the audience is getting hip to the FT. It might even be worth throwing a feint in there — pretending to FT while actually dropping it off — so that you can heighten the tension. There are varying degrees of subtlety you can employ to set up that moment, but the key is, steal-based methods are usually harder and less clean to execute, and are arguably the intuitive solution that an audience would be on guard for, and so that moment where the audience is surprised to actually see the ball is where it’s supposed to be, if you fostered some tension, sets up a pretty good moment of relaxation as the tension is released, that can allow for a better temporary atmosphere to do the bolder technique. In the long run, it really helps when you’re doing sleight-of-hand to keep them off-guard, and cancelling methods allows you to do this.

The false solution: This is also related to the cancelling methods strategy, in that both were really brought to the larger magic world’s attention by Juan Tamariz. In the case, though, you’re not varying your methods. If you look at the middle penetration sequence, when the balls penetrate and assemble between the nested cups, you’ll notice that he pauses to show that the ball isn’t already there. That display, though, to show it’s not already there, actually sets up the motivation to get into position, and yet it looks like he’s done the same thing twice in a row — he nested all three, he displayed nothing had happened, and then he nested all three again, and this time, when he displayed, there’s another ball there. What makes it work, though, is allowing the idea to get out there that the state is somehow unfair. It’s similar to doing a feint prior to the coin travelling in Tenkai Pennies — suspicion that something might have happened, if you acknowledge it, gives you motivation to show all is fair… and in the process, do something else sneaky, even the same method you’ve been using all along. And, of course, in both the case of this and with cancelling methods, when the audience is having trouble figuring out what you’re doing, you can make a greater case for the wand being the causative agent, since it’s the only thing that seems to be consistently making the magic happen.

Built-in misdirection in a multiple-phase routine: It seems obvious because it’s an integral part of just about every cups and balls routine, but it’s something that Michael Ammar pointed out in the Revelations DVD series in reference to the cups and balls, and it’s something that Vernon uses to great effect. Specifically, the principle is this — a magic effect is great misdirection away from a secret move. Examples of this have already been talked about already — just look at the elimination phase at the end which sets up the final climax. This principle is extremely portable to all sorts of magic routines, and it’s why a magician, if he starts one-ahead, is usually able to keep one-ahead of the audience throughout the routine. This can be used with coin flurries, assembly plots like the Travelling Marbles or various versions of matrix, or even stage manipulations. Misdirection is usually weak, and risks being exposed for what it is, if the audience feels like they were forced to look away from something. Misdirection is usually strong if the audience feels like they were looking at something important, and what can be more important than a magic effect? It’s why they’re there, after all, to watch magic effects, isn’t it?

I’m sure there’s so much more, and I’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg here, but this is one of those reasons why I firmly believe that the cups and balls is such an important routine to study from a technical point of view. Analyzing this specific routine, and everything it accomplishes, can not only improve one’s own cups and balls routine, and not only provide strategies that are useful in cups and balls variants like the chop cup or the Benson Bowl routine, but other branches of magic, including cards and coins, and I’ve even had success applying much of the above to mentalism — wand cover, punctuating displays, and motivation, to name three. There are obvious benefits to studying the cups and balls (it’s amazing what you can do with a good false transfer) but I hope you’ll agree that some of the intangibles are valuable as well.

And, if you’re going to have to study one, you could do much worse than to study Vernon’s.

Update: Lance Pierce sent me a PM regarding my comment on the Red Herring, above. He generously allowed me to quote him here…

While I can’t put this forth with absolute certainty, I believe Vernon’s reason for doing this is different. He does it also in his routine with the linking rings and in some card tricks, and I believe that it’s with a very specific intent.

We went back and forth on this point a little bit, but rather than include that, I’m going to leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out for themselves what they think of Vernon’s patter at that point in the routine. Much thanks goes out to Lance for his comments, though.

If you are at all curious about performing the cups and balls, then you’ve probably got some interest in the props that are available to you, and if this is the case, then you absolutely need to be acquainted with Bill Palmer, as in addition to being an award-winning performer, he is also both a noted writer and historian on the genre, as well as the curator of the Cups And Balls Museum. Bill, based in Houston, Texas, has spent more time than a sane person should in amassing everything he can on the cups and balls, including historical information, prints, literature, and the most ridiculous collection of cups, balls and wands you could imagine.

There are sections on art and history, the cup sets of famous magicians, cups of miniature and jumbo size, cups found in magic sets, unusual cups and “found” cups (cups that were never intended for magic but are usably nonetheless), interesting wands and loads, and even sets for some variations on the plot, such as the shell game and the Benson bowl routine. The photographs of each item are great — large, clear and with the subjects nicely arranged, including when necessary a view of the cup’s interior through the opening — and there’s great information in the captions for each entry, both historical and editorial. There’s even a comprehensive interface to search the database.

The breadth here is staggering, ranging from relatively old sets to ones that have just been put on the market. Curious about what Gazzo, Don Alan, or your average ancient Roman street performer used? Wondering who might have successfully performed magic with Starbucks cups? Wondering what common (and funny) household item Pete Biro successfully converted into a chop cup? Wondering which jumbo shells routine to buy and which to stay away from? Answers to these questions and more are found within.

Even if your intent isn’t to research specific cups, you could easily spend a good portion of an afternoon just browsing around. If you’re brainstorming ideas for a presentation that fits you, the value of this website simply cannot be overstated. What’s more, people hunting throughout the website will also discover Bill’s update to the Cups and Balls section from Hocus Pocus Jr., as well as plans for a beautiful busking table.

Bill was both kind and encouraging when I approached him about this particular project, and when I mentioned that I would like to feature his museum at some point during the month, he wanted it mentioned that membership to the museum is free, and a password is available simply by emailing him, which you can do at curator@cupsandballsmuseum.com.

Honestly, modern magic suffers from many things, but one big one is a lack of appreciation amongst magicians for its history. Granted, the secretive nature of magic has made it difficult to track down and research its history, but if we had for the entire art form what Bill Palmer has given to us for the cups and balls, there would be no excuse. It is, quite simply, a treasure.

Thanks so much, Bill.

This is an absolute treat. Master Payne (known as “Payne” on the Magic Cafe) is here performing a really robust cups and balls routine. Payne’s a master at presentation — aside from the gift of gab that you can see in the video here, and the wide array of motifs he’s able to adapt his magic to (including the Wild West and Harry Potter universe) he’s also given lectures on the topic of presentation, including a great one here for the Mystery School on the subject of six card repeat (it’s the third one down).

But, thankfully, Payne’s not indulged himself in the false dichotomy of favouring presentation over method. The routine construction here is really good, and there are several phases here which took in both myself and a fellow Seymour Street Conjuring Society member Travis Bernhardt, who’s been around the block when it comes to sleight of hand. I’ve long maintained that not everybody comes to a magic show with the same mindset. Some want to be entertained, others want to be fooled — or, to put it another way, they are disappointed if they can see their way through to the method. The key thing to remember is that it’s possible to do both at the same time, and anybody who tells you otherwise is probably betraying their bias (at best) or lack of ability (at worst) in one of those two departments.

In any case, here’s Payne making that case himself. I don’t know which one he consciously spends more time working on, but I’m a proof-is-in-the-pudding kind of guy, and I think there’s something here for everybody. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have put him so close to Vernon. Enjoy.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Well, try as I could, I was unable to pester the ever-elusive Lance Pierce into getting his performance video up of his take on the Benson Bowl plot, so here’s Earl South (a member of Lance’s forum) doing it for a competition in Atlanta, Georgia. This is a commercially available routine which you can purchase here, and like John Carney’s Fruit Cup, it seeks to combine the best of two different plots. I personally think it does a great job, as does Earl in the video, seeing as how, despite going over the time limit, still managed to come in second place.

And I promise from the bottom of my heart that this is the last routine I’ll be showcasing that isn’t a proper three-cup Cups and Balls routine.

Sorry that these haven’t been coming out exactly at the end of their respective weeks. This has proven to be a bit more difficult to keep up-to-date on than I had expected.

When Bill Palmer heard that I had a Benson Bowl routine that was going to be featured soon, he got in touch with me to point out a routine by the late Werner Seitz. Here it is…

Tom G mentioned that I ought to get a clip up of Antonio Romero’s transparent cups routine. I believe this is the one…? Some neat stuff going on here.

“Magic Researcher” pointed out the following routine from Doug Gorman, involving some non-traditional props and a drinking theme.

A couple of people mentioned that they thought Dominique Duvivier’s routine was good. Here it is… People interested in various penetration sequence ideas might want to check it out.

Finally, as I mentioned last week, Pablo (aka “pabloinus”) had said I should get John Mendoza up here. Here’s the only one I was able to find online. A quick look at the contents of his “My Best” DVD set says that there’s a chop cup routine, a Benson Bowl routine, and three different cups and balls routines. I’m beginning to see why Michael Ammar referenced him on his Complete Cups and Balls DVD set.

This sort of thing humbles me, if only because it reminds me of my ignorance when it comes to magic outside of the Western world. There’s an amazingly rich culture of street magic performance in India, for instance, and a recent Magic Cafe thread highlighted some great cups and balls videos and the background of some of the performers. One of the key clips talked about has been removed by the user, unfortunately, but I was able to scrounge up some more footage.

This one is from a guy (called “Ali”?) with some of the best English you’ll hear from a guy apologizing for it. He’s performing for some tourists, and the patter involving balls travelling to different countries seems to be pretty popular.

Here’s some footage that Bill Palmer linked to of a Rajasthani kid. I have no clue what’s being said, but from the sounds of it he’s not taking any crap from his elders.

Here’s some funny documentary footage, but you’ll have to wait until around the 7 minute mark to see some cups and balls. It’s not a full performance, unfortunately. The narration, however, is priceless.

On the Cafe thread, a magician by the name of Sherif Mayika pointed out this particular clip, showing a magician he claims is using some of the techniques applicable to the cups and balls for a slightly different routine.

Finally, here’s another guy who uses the cups and balls in the middle of his set. I especially like the byplay that seems to be going on prior to the final effect. Also, the use of multiplying coins — sort of like a Miser’s Dream without the bucket — seems to be popular as well.

Some interesting similarities throughout. In pretty much every case that I’ve seen, the magician is sitting cross-legged. While the wand is used in the usual manner, the bag and even clothing also appear to be useful for various acquitments. Not every magician makes use of the flute, but as is the case with most Western magician buskers, noisemaking in general is prevalent. That load from the CP appears to be extremely popular, and that specific technique would seem to be very magician-friendly when it comes to angles. They don’t have the fascination with the final loads that the Western world seems to, but if the last video is indicative of performance on the larger scale, they don’t necessarily use the cups and balls as a closer anyway.

In any case, some interesting stuff.