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MAGIC
By
MISDIRECTION
CHAPTER EIGHT
We take up the performer's appearance to the spectator first.
In this work we are concerned only with that aspect which will act as a stimulus to the spectator's thought, in connection with the deception the magician is attempting. In the respect that the performer's first appearance will influence the Spectator's anticipation of the character of the former's action—gestures, mannerisms and the like—his general appearance is important.
If this performer is attired in good taste, if he is clean and well-groomed, if he conducts himself in a manner which reflects education, breeding and consideration, the spectator will prepare himself to expect postures, gestures, handling of his properties and general conduct natural to what the performer seems to be.
This establishes the norm, the pattern. Therefore, as long as what the spectator sees conforms to this norm, because it is what the spectator expects and anticipates, the magician will be in character to him.
Departures from this established pattern or standard will catch the spectator's attention.
They will catch the spectator's attention for the same reason that anything unusual will do likewise. Such departures from the usual, similar variations from this norm, become prominent because they disturb the harmony and unity of the whole. They are out of character. There is a jarring note. Dissonance results. This discord must attract specific notice.
The same may be said of any character that the performer may choose to adopt. This character establishes the pattern. The spectator adjusts himself to expect what would be normal to that type of character. As long as what he sees conforms to the normal, natural, unified picture, the spectator, whether he is sympathetic to the character or not, will see a harmonious whole.
But let discord appear in this harmony and the spectator's vigilant attention is immediately attracted. This holds true even though the particular feature itself may be trivial, or even intangible.
This is stressed particularly because such irregularities destroy naturalness and conviction. When naturalness disappears, and when something unnatural is evident, the spectator's attention immediately becomes vigilant and alert. In the normal course of events, this is disastrous to deception.
Here is an example where an unnatural appearance on the part of the performer would awaken the suspicions of his spectators: The magician is smartly groomed. He is polished, refined, confident, poised. It would be natural that his costume be well fitting and smartly cut. But this particular magician desires to produce a large rabbit. He wants to use a rabbit bag under his arm. If the dress suit he wears were to be shaped to his contours, there would be an unsightly bulge. This would be visible. It would act as a stimulus to the minds of the spectators.
Conversely, if the magician were to wear a dress suit somewhat too big for him, in order to accommodate the bulk of the rabbit, again the suit would be a variation from the norm. Attention would be attracted to it again.
Well, what is the solution?
In this case, if you desire a smart appearance, if you want to seem smartly tailored, well groomed, polished, refined and to show all of the other attributes of this type of performer, some concessions must be made. It is fundamental that you appear natural. Part of the essentials of a smart performer, as was stressed repeatedly in SHOWMANSHIP FOR MAGICIANS, is smart tailoring. Since smart tailoring does not permit unnatural bulges or too-large clothing, the body load of the rabbit must be eliminated, unless its bulk can be disposed of on some part of the performer's anatomy where it cannot be seen.
I wish to stress that this advice is not given here now in connection with the magician's desire to sell himself and his personality to the audience. This would be showmanship. But in this work it is
stressed because it is a variation from the norm. It attracts undesirable attention from the viewpoint of the magic. Definitely, it threatens the deceptive feature.
Naturally, another concession is possible for the magician in this example. He may change the slant of his character. He may adopt a character to which bulges or too-large clothing would be natural. Then, because it conforms to the norm, the spectator will assume it to be part of the character and will not suspect it in connection with the deception, providing the magician does not do something else which will cause it to be suspected.
Think of some performer you know. Think of one who habitually wears too-loose clothing—perhaps one who is not meticulous about keeping it carefully pressed. It might be possible that this performer frequently carries about with him, in his clothing, bulky, bulging packages. Now, if he were to appear before you, loaded for the rabbit production, because his appearance would be natural to you, there would be no cause for special attention or suspicion on your part because of the hidden bulk. By the time he produced the rabbit—providing, of course, he did not prepare you as to what to expect—the trick would be over before his natural bulky appearance could attract your special attention.
Now think of the same situation in connection with someone you know, someone who dresses smartly in well-fitted clothing. Would you notice that bulge? Or that too-voluminous coat? Before he started his production, wouldn't you be suspecting that the bulge might represent some load? And when he started in on the preliminaries, wouldn't you watch the bulge? I'm quite certain you would.
Think of this in terms of performers that you have seen, magicians, perhaps, that you don't know so well. Would not that same reaction occur?
This is a splendid example of the performer's appearance being definitely connected with the deception's success. It is connected through its effect in creating detrimental stimuli to the spectator's mind. As a potential creator of thought stimuli, the performer's appearance definitely enters into the psychology of deception.
Another thing that can be seen in connection with the performer is the manner in which he handles his properties. Again, this handling must be natural and in character. If the operation of a certain trick requires that the magician handle it in an uncharacteristic or unnatural manner, this variation from the norm will attract attention. It will attract attention where, in the normal course of events, no special attention would be stimulated.
As an example: Suppose the magician were one who made all movements with .the utmost of economy of motion. During his normal actions there would be no extravagant gestures, no quick motions, no exaggerated postures. Now we arrive at a situation where it is necessary for this man to execute the pass. As is well known, generally there are three ways in which this move may be done.
It may be accomplished through sheer speed in one blindingly deft movement. It may be done deliberately and slowly, while the attention of the spectator is attracted elsewhere, or it may be disguised as some other movement. The third way, naturally, is just to do the sleight as rapidly as possible without any attempt to cover it.
If the performer's normal movements are deliberate, slow and economical, the brilliantly fast move will be noticed. It will be noticed for the same reason that any other quick motion will be noticed. It will be away from the norm. It will be in contrast with other moves the performer makes and it will, therefore, be prominent. On the other hand, if the performer has been making quick pointless motions, generally resembling the character of the pass movement, the particular motions of the pass will not be especially prominent.
However, quick pointless nervous motions are not advisable because usually they denote a nervous person whose behavior would be disturbing to the audience. Notice that I'm not advising against building up a background of such movements because they will lessen the deception. On the contrary, in the case of the fast, uncovered pass, they would be helpful. I'm advising against the cultivation of a nervous manner for a reason entirely outside the scope of this work.
It is completely true that the spectator will be unable to understand the fast pass. But he will see it. Seeing it, although he may not know exactly what its purpose may be, the degree of deception to him will be lessened. To some types of persons this will be completely satisfying. Having seen the movement, they are certain they know how the trick is done. But being unable to follow a card merely because of inability to follow a swift movement, does not mean that the spectator is deceived. Actually he isn't deceived. He knows the deception is accomplished by the sleight. Didn't he see him "doing something with the cards?" So he is not deceived so much as he is confused or perplexed or bewildered.
Good deception requires absolute lack of any ideas as to how the trick is accomplished. If a trick is accomplished through a visible sleight, an undisguised movement, which is seen by the spectator and which is interpreted by the spectator as nothing else but a sleight, that spectator has an idea as to how the trick is made possible. The spectator now has a satisfying physical reason for knowing that the performer has not accomplished the impossible. That is as far as many spectators care to go. And it is sufficient to destroy deception entirely.
What has been said about the fast uncovered pass applies to the pass which is made out in the open, without distracting the spectator's attention, without an attempt at extreme speed.
On the other hand, where the pass has been disguised as some other normal action—even though it may be only the magician apparently riffling the cards—deception is maintained. This is because the pass is not seen as such. At the end of the trick the spectator has no clue as to how the apparently impossible was accomplished.
Where the spectator s attention is drawn away from the hands, during the operation of the pass, the sleight is not seen at all. Because it is not seen it cannot possibly contribute to the spectator's enlightenment. But this is a feature, of course, somewhat removed from the influence of the performer's action upon deception. Here the deception is accomplished through another principle that will be discussed later in this work.
There is an old trick that Thayer's older catalogs listed as Mysto. Recently it has been revived under a variety of names. However, substantially, the effect is that a large die is placed in a frame that encircles four of the six sides. A hole has been drilled through the die. This hole coincides with similar holes on each side of the frame. The magician threads a ribbon through one side of the frame, thence through the die and finally out through the opposite side of the frame. Apparently the die cannot be removed from the frame without carrying the ribbon with it. The final effect is that the magician does remove the die, seemingly pulling it right through the ribbon which remains stretched across the opening in the frame.
This trick is made possible by a thread that is looped around the hole on one side of the frame. From here the thread is carried up the inside edge of the frame, across the top and then down the opposite side to, and through, the hole, Walking Through a Ribbon is accomplished in a similar manner. As the ribbon is being threaded through the frame—apparently being pushed through the hole in the die—a short end emerges on the opposite side. Under the guise of pulling this short end, the magician actually grasps the thread only. When he pulls this thread, the loop tightens on the ribbon and drags it around the die, up one side across the top and down the other. Thus the die is freed from the ribbon, although the latter still appears to be threaded through the block.
The performer's actions are important here. Still assuming that the performer's norm is economical motion, a quick wide sweep of the hand and arm, in the act of pulling the thread and rib bon around the die, would be in contrast with the performer's riormal action. No such broad or extravagant gesture would accompany his mere act of pulling the ribbon through a bit further. Since what we are trying to accomplish is deception, and since diverting special attention away from necessary operations in accomplishing the trick helps deception, the skillful magician would, and should, try to make this special motion resemble the ordinary thing the spectator believes he is doing. If the action doesn't look like the ordinary action, to the spectator it is not an ordinary happening. This attracts his attention.
As a matter of fact, these broad fast moves are not normal. Too often they are seen because the performer is not sufficiently skilled in the fundamentals of deception. As I've said before, these unexplained irregular happenings do not deceive. They merely confuse.
Eugene Laurant did an extremely effective production of a large rabbit. He produced this rabbit from a large mass of paper tape he had just spun from a hat. Actually the rabbit was behind a chair. A broad, sweeping gesture was necessary to reach the load. Mr. Laurant's normal gestures were graceful, economical, and restrained. Getting the rabbit from behind the chair, without the spectators noticing the extravagant motion necessary, was impossible. Such a gesture would not have deceived anyone.
But Mr. Laurant anticipated the necessity of the move. As he unreeled the vari-colored paper tape from the hat, spinning it upon his wand, his arm swept around faster and faster in wider and wider circles. Such broad sweeps were necessary, apparently, in spinning the tape from the hat. During one of these swings Mr. Laurant swept up the rabbit behind the mass of paper. Then he pulled the paper apart to reveal his new production. It was one of the most skillful loads I've ever seen. It was completely deceptive.
This is an excellent example of how preparation may be made to accomplish a move that would normally fail to deceive.
Card men come up against similar handling problems.
The matter of making the hand, containing a palmed card, look natural is a formidable problem in itself. First of all, it must be clearly understood that no normal person holds an empty hand stiffly with the fingers tightly clamped together. An empty hand is relaxed and the fingers look loosely separated.
If the hand does not look empty—and relaxation and looseness are prerequisites—if the hand is supposed to be empty, it will attract vigilant attention. What does one do? Well, the most skillful card men actually can hold a palmed card and keep the hand relaxed so that it appears empty. This is not always possible under all circumstances.
The next best thing to do—or, perhaps, even the best thing to do—is to divert attention from the hand containing the card. This was Max Malini's specialty. His hands were much too small to cover normal size cards adequately. So he depended entirely upon keeping the spectator's attention away from his hands. During the years I saw Malini perform frequently, many times the palmed cards were clearly visible to me—sometimes they even protruded from beyond his hand. But he kept the spectator's attention upon what he was saying. They paid no attention to his hands because the hands did not seem to be doing anything. Often he would locate a card and, without worry or concern or anxiety of any kind, he would hold the break, talking or joking with the spectators, until it suited his purpose to make the side steal. Then, when he did it, it would be diabolically disguised as something else. Perhaps he would just seem to be straightening the pack preliminary to having another card selected.
No one ever caught Malini in a sleight because he never made a move that would attract attention to his hands. He never seemed to be doing anything with his hands that was the least bit suspicious. He was truly a master because he made his necessary moves seem to be normal, natural movements—actions that seemed to have nothing to do with the trick in question. He was deliberate, calculating, disarming and as cunning as the proverbial fox.
These actions of the performer must be carefully planned in connection with his handling of his properties. An empty hat, an empty glass and anything else empty is handled as if it is empty, not full of something. It must not seem to have abnormal weight. It must not be handled with anxiety, as if something might spill. It must not be kept calculatingly turned from the spectator's scrutiny.
Anything that is empty does not weigh more than its normal empty weight. It does not seem to be full of something. It s not handled with anxiety. Nothing can spill from it. There is no reason to the keep the spectators from looking into it.
A simple cylinder is not handled gingerly, unless something is concealed therein, something which the performer desires to keep from the spectator's knowledge. The gingerly handled property is the property that gets the spectators immediate and complete attention. Remember, the spectator expects some chicanery from the performer. He is on the lookout for it. It does not suit the purpose of deception to verify the spectator expectations in this regard.
The performer should be particularly careful that his handling of all of his properties, in every respect, is in keeping with what they are purported to be, at all times. If they are handled as if they are what they seem to be, this contributes to convincingness and conviction. It diverts undue and sometimes disastrous attention. Naturalness is the most powerful weapon at the disposal of the magician when he seeks to deceive. Naturalness is an anesthetic to attention.
If natural handling is impossible, the substitutes are to divert attention away from the property when an unnatural or revealing movement must be made with it, or to disguise the movement as something else.
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