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> It also gave me a glimpse on how secretive the magician community is. My wife and I are performing magicians. The topic of "exposure" can get downright stupi

> It also gave me a glimpse on how secretive the magician community is. My wife and I are performing magicians. The topic of "exposure" can get downright stupid. Something you hinted at is intellectual property rights. Like you said, a lot of magicians market their inventions. And so if a "peer" of theirs were to explain the method to someone who didn't purchase it then it would be viewed as a dick move since it is affecting the livelihood of a fellow performer. For what it is worth, this is a position that I agree with. I don't market or publish my work but if I did I would be seriously pissed off from an intellectual property point of view if other people were giving it away for free and undercutting my ability to sell a "license" to perform my artistic creation. Where it gets stupid is when it comes to stuff that anyone can find in a book on Amazon or in a kid's magic kit. This is a mentality that I just cannot wrap my head around. Knowing what a thumb tip is, or how it can be used, has not ruined magic for people ... if it did, no one would pay to see a show. You go see a show to be entertained and surprised. The reason we don't "reveal" is purely artistic. When you go a see a movie, you go in willingly suspending your disbelief. But magic is more of an intellectual challenge. The entire point is to cause a jaw-dropping "that can't be possible" moment. To achieve that you go in kind of wanting to have your disbelief suspended for you. A revelation in the moment destroys that[1]. But life is way too short for the average person to give the slightest crap about how something works when they go home and have to worry about getting up in the morning to go to work or getting their kids from the babysitter. And the genuinely curious are often the future generation of magicians. So yeah, the magic community can be utterly illogical when it comes to this. [1] - Unless it doesn't. To bring this back to Penn & Teller, something Penn once said is (paraphrasing) "A trick that has a method that is more interesting than the effect is not a good trick." P&T do more than one routine where they show the effect and then the method. They do this because, artistically, these are cases where knowing the method makes it even more spectacular and amazing because the method itself is genuinely interesting. Their cups & balls routine is probably the most famous example.

firesteelrain 3y ago
To your point, where do you draw the line? Obviously the thumb tip was a secret once.
- gspencley 3y ago
  I think I pretty much summed where my personal line is, at least when it comes to the "ethics" of "exposure." I'm not going to expose something that isn't mine to expose. Less in terms of ethics, every magician gets asked "how did you do that?" And every magician learns at a very early stage that if you answer it, the reaction is almost never interest and joy, it is disappointment. That's because methods are boring and often simple. And when people find out how something is done that truly amazed them, learning the method will just take that amazement and joy away from them. In the worst case they feel stupid for being fooled by it. And that's the exact opposite of what I want. I want people to enjoy a theatrical moment of astonishment. I don't want them to think that I'm trying to make a fool of them. Nor should they feel that way, since magic uses applied psychology that works on every single person ... including magicians before they understood what was happening. And it's a hard lesson for magician to learn because we were the people that HAD to know. We love methods. We're obsessed with them. Which is why I think that so many magicians get stupid about "exposure." Because they fall into that common psychological fallacy of assuming that other people think as they do. That if given the chance everyone is going to rush to find out how a trick is done. Whereas most people just don't care that much. So for me, the only ethics of it is respecting the IP rights of my peers. The rest is theatre. When it comes to widely available knowledge the only reason I have to withhold information is for the above artistic reasons. If someone who wants to get into magic and learn a few tricks to show their friends asks me to share some stuff with them I'm an open book as long as I'm not sharing something that isn't mine to share.
  - edanm 3y ago
    > Which is why I think that so many magicians get stupid about "exposure." Because they fall into that common psychological fallacy of assuming that other people think as they do. That if given the chance everyone is going to rush to find out how a trick is done. Whereas most people just don't care that much. (I' a very amateur magician) That's absolutely the right take IMO. It's amazing to me that people will try to convince me for ten minutes to tell them how something is done. When I mention that they can probably find out in about 2 minutes of searching online, they're often surprised and say they'll do it. Afaik, not once has anyone ever actually gone and looked. People forget about magic two minutes after it's done. Except for our special subset of people that just have to know :)
EMM_386 3y ago
> And so if a "peer" of theirs were to explain the method to someone who didn't purchase it then it would be viewed as a dick move since it is affecting the livelihood of a fellow performer. Yep that's exactly how I interpreted it ... not because people are adhering to some sacred oath given deep in cavern in a secret location ... just that someone invented something new and unique, they are rightfully earning some money from that effort, and you could potentially destroy the whole thing simply by posting too much information about it. As you said, that would certainly be a "dick move", and since a lot of people don't want be that, they don't do that. In the end it seems to be pretty effective. I still want answers to some of the tricks that I've seen on Penn and Teller's show. Some of them do come across as impossible no matter what way I try to think about it. Dani DaOrtiz comes immediatly to mind ... no clue how it's done but he's pretty funny. This particular routine has various elements that each seem to be impossible. And honestly, I don't want to know how it's done. It's magic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE
- Marazan 3y ago
  DaOrtiz is a primal force. I have bought instructional videos from him so I know the fundamentals of that routine. Knowing how it is done makes it _more_ impressive to me. It is incredible skill that truly only very few people could master and DaOrtiz makes it look effortless.
  - EMM_386 3y ago
    Yes, while I "know" that what is going on is a combination of extremely precise, perfectly executed actions with cards combined with psychological stuff, it's the effortlessness many times, this routine in particular, that is incredible. The whole thing comes across as one huge free choice he is never in control of ... "stop where? here, or there?" .... "are you sure? you can change. change?". Apparently, there are ways to maintain control while still saying things like "whatever you want" all the time. Oh, and joking around, because clearly such things don't require any focus!
    - 3y ago
js2 3y ago
> You go see a show to be entertained and surprised. Teller: What’s the end goal for any work of art? The answer is it’s not one thing. In almost every work of art there is on one level—and this is the level at which magic is, I think, the most fundamental—at which you must amaze the audience. When you’re an actor, you must, for the moment you’re there, convince the audience that you are possessed by the spirit of this character. And there is a level in which you go, “Wow, I really thought for that moment, that the character onstage was Hamlet.” That amazement is the bottom line of any work of art. https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/09/penn-and-teller-fool-us-revealing-tricks https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/09/penn-and-teller-f...
RationalDino 3y ago
Don't they also show a trick, show the method, then do the trick again in such a way that they must have been using another method? Or am I thinking of someone else?
- gspencley 3y ago
  Their version of "Buzz Saw" follows that formula. Sawing a person in half is one of the most exposed tricks of all time. So they turn that on its head by exposing several principles employed in the classic method only to pull the rug out from under you with a gory surprise ending. Man I love Penn & Teller so much.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
So a lot of it boils down to an entire industry being predicated entirely on trade secrets. Which does sound like something that would create notably different cultural effects relative to, say, software engineering where open source is an extremely popular model.
- P_I_Staker 3y ago
  I don't know it's so different, while open source may be a popular model, there's lots of closed source software.
sumtechguy 3y ago
That is one the the reasons I really like scam nation. Brushwood does not come at with an air of I am going to deceive you 'ha ha' but 'I am going to teach you how cool this is'. After seeing several hundred you start to see the patterns of how many tricks work. I think he mostly sticks to tricks that are sold in magic books for that.
earthboundkid 3y ago
I saw a P&T live show once where Penn was explaining about juggling dangerous things. He light the torch on fire and then said it was not very dangerous, which he proved by catching the fire end and immediately dropping it. Then he broke a glass bottle and juggled that, which was very dangerous (it would leave a nasty gash on the hand). Then he pointed out we had gasped for the fire but didn't gasp for the broken glass because it doesn't look dangerous.
- automatic6131 3y ago
  I've seen that on Youtube. Pretty cool to have seen it live.
- AaronM 3y ago
  I wonder if the bottle was fake glass. He has said before that they won't do tricks that are dangerous.
  - gspencley 3y ago
    I'm pretty sure they're not fake. Penn has clarified what he means by "dangerous." I don't have a source for this, so take my memory and my word for what it is worth, but their definition of "dangerous" is something that could result in an overnight hospital visit. Cutting yourself is ok, even a stunt gone wrong that breaks a (non-serious) bone. But anything potentially serious they would consider to be unethical. The other reason I don't think that the glass is "fake" is that Penn began his career in entertainment as a juggler. He also eats fire. Juggling knives, fire torches, glass etc. comes with some risk but not serious risk. The worst of all of the above is potentially fire eating and that's only if you accidentally inhale and burn your lungs with hot vapour, which can be serious but avoiding that is everyone's very first lesson. Juggling glass could result in a cut, even one that could potentially require stitches. But it's not a serious injury.
    - AaronM 3y ago
      After reading reddit about the episode in question, most people seemed to think they were actual glass. Several folks also mentioned that his definition of being too dangerous would be having to stay in the hospital.
GauntletWizard 3y ago
One of my favorite Penn and Teller routines is "Lift Off of Love" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PoDhuIp3I0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PoDhuIp3I0 - The first act is a variant of the old sawing a woman in half trick. The second act is the same trick again, but with clear boxes.
edanm 3y ago
> My wife and I are performing magicians. So cool to find magicians here on HN. I'm a (very) amateur magician, or maybe more correctly someone very interested in magic. Do you and your wife perform together? Are there any clips of yours to watch anywhere? > The reason we don't "reveal" is purely artistic. Yes, this is something that Penn also often says, and it's changed my thinking about this topic. In general his morality is very inspiring to me, and especially his moral thinking about magic and performance in general. It's been something that's bothered me over the years - is it really ok to "lie" or "mislead" people for performance reasons? Or to keep secrets from them? I especially appreciate how little tolerance Penn has for people who do any kind of performance that leaves people with an incorrect impression at the end. This actually changed my thinking about all the people doing the "I'm using psychology to manipulate you" bits, which as we both know are usually just magic tricks with different patter.
- gspencley 3y ago
  > Do you and your wife perform together? Are there any clips of yours to watch anywhere? Yes and sort of. We started a YouTube channel where we were starting to do some short videos for promo purposes. We weren't happy with the quality so we haven't put up anything new in a while. We will probably get back to it when we can find a format that is more "us." https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrH03pFg-aahazS2srlxRiA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrH03pFg-aahazS2srlxRiA https://www.facebook.com/garandcar/ https://www.facebook.com/garandcar/ > It's been something that's bothered me over the years - is it really ok to "lie" or "mislead" people for performance reasons? Or to keep secrets from them? Yup, for me magic is theatre and as long as it is presented as such it's not "lying" any more than a film or a play is presenting a piece of fiction or special fx. Magic is fascinating to me because it is the only art-form that I can think of that plays with epistemology ... how do we know what we know? And so the point isn't to deceive people but to show something that our brains know is impossible. That's what I like about magic. It is a very intellectual art-form. In my experience, unintelligent people don't tend to like magic as much. And I think this is because you need to be able to recognize and accept the premise of the trick. Meaning there are natural rules governing reality, and a good magic trick is going to show you something that APPEARS to bend those rules. An active, rational mind is able to quickly understand the rules that are being toyed with. A good trick is one where you go "I know that's impossible ... and I know what I saw ... and I know that magic isn't real ... so WTF? HOW!?!?!" While I don't like entertainment that "preaches", I do like a point of view. And there is a positive implicit message that can come through in a character that communicates: "We as magicians have specialized in how the brain can be misled, and so convincingly that we want to show you this so that the next time someone comes along who is able to offer 'proof' that they can genuinely do something they can't you will remember those tricksters that showed you some shit that you knew was a trick but sure as hell felt like it was real."

firesteelrain 3y ago

To your point, where do you draw the line? Obviously the thumb tip was a secret once.

gspencley 3y ago
I think I pretty much summed where my personal line is, at least when it comes to the "ethics" of "exposure." I'm not going to expose something that isn't mine to expose. Less in terms of ethics, every magician gets asked "how did you do that?" And every magician learns at a very early stage that if you answer it, the reaction is almost never interest and joy, it is disappointment. That's because methods are boring and often simple. And when people find out how something is done that truly amazed them, learning the method will just take that amazement and joy away from them. In the worst case they feel stupid for being fooled by it. And that's the exact opposite of what I want. I want people to enjoy a theatrical moment of astonishment. I don't want them to think that I'm trying to make a fool of them. Nor should they feel that way, since magic uses applied psychology that works on every single person ... including magicians before they understood what was happening. And it's a hard lesson for magician to learn because we were the people that HAD to know. We love methods. We're obsessed with them. Which is why I think that so many magicians get stupid about "exposure." Because they fall into that common psychological fallacy of assuming that other people think as they do. That if given the chance everyone is going to rush to find out how a trick is done. Whereas most people just don't care that much. So for me, the only ethics of it is respecting the IP rights of my peers. The rest is theatre. When it comes to widely available knowledge the only reason I have to withhold information is for the above artistic reasons. If someone who wants to get into magic and learn a few tricks to show their friends asks me to share some stuff with them I'm an open book as long as I'm not sharing something that isn't mine to share.
- edanm 3y ago
  > Which is why I think that so many magicians get stupid about "exposure." Because they fall into that common psychological fallacy of assuming that other people think as they do. That if given the chance everyone is going to rush to find out how a trick is done. Whereas most people just don't care that much. (I' a very amateur magician) That's absolutely the right take IMO. It's amazing to me that people will try to convince me for ten minutes to tell them how something is done. When I mention that they can probably find out in about 2 minutes of searching online, they're often surprised and say they'll do it. Afaik, not once has anyone ever actually gone and looked. People forget about magic two minutes after it's done. Except for our special subset of people that just have to know :)

EMM_386 3y ago

> And so if a "peer" of theirs were to explain the method to someone who didn't purchase it then it would be viewed as a dick move since it is affecting the livelihood of a fellow performer. Yep that's exactly how I interpreted it ... not because people are adhering to some sacred oath given deep in cavern in a secret location ... just that someone invented something new and unique, they are rightfully earning some money from that effort, and you could potentially destroy the whole thing simply by posting too much information about it. As you said, that would certainly be a "dick move", and since a lot of people don't want be that, they don't do that. In the end it seems to be pretty effective. I still want answers to some of the tricks that I've seen on Penn and Teller's show. Some of them do come across as impossible no matter what way I try to think about it. Dani DaOrtiz comes immediatly to mind ... no clue how it's done but he's pretty funny. This particular routine has various elements that each seem to be impossible. And honestly, I don't want to know how it's done. It's magic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE

Marazan 3y ago
DaOrtiz is a primal force. I have bought instructional videos from him so I know the fundamentals of that routine. Knowing how it is done makes it _more_ impressive to me. It is incredible skill that truly only very few people could master and DaOrtiz makes it look effortless.
- EMM_386 3y ago
  Yes, while I "know" that what is going on is a combination of extremely precise, perfectly executed actions with cards combined with psychological stuff, it's the effortlessness many times, this routine in particular, that is incredible. The whole thing comes across as one huge free choice he is never in control of ... "stop where? here, or there?" .... "are you sure? you can change. change?". Apparently, there are ways to maintain control while still saying things like "whatever you want" all the time. Oh, and joking around, because clearly such things don't require any focus!
  - 3y ago

js2 3y ago

> You go see a show to be entertained and surprised. Teller: What’s the end goal for any work of art? The answer is it’s not one thing. In almost every work of art there is on one level—and this is the level at which magic is, I think, the most fundamental—at which you must amaze the audience. When you’re an actor, you must, for the moment you’re there, convince the audience that you are possessed by the spirit of this character. And there is a level in which you go, “Wow, I really thought for that moment, that the character onstage was Hamlet.” That amazement is the bottom line of any work of art. https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/09/penn-and-teller-fool-us-revealing-tricks https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/09/penn-and-teller-f...

RationalDino 3y ago

Don't they also show a trick, show the method, then do the trick again in such a way that they must have been using another method? Or am I thinking of someone else?

gspencley 3y ago
Their version of "Buzz Saw" follows that formula. Sawing a person in half is one of the most exposed tricks of all time. So they turn that on its head by exposing several principles employed in the classic method only to pull the rug out from under you with a gory surprise ending. Man I love Penn & Teller so much.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

So a lot of it boils down to an entire industry being predicated entirely on trade secrets. Which does sound like something that would create notably different cultural effects relative to, say, software engineering where open source is an extremely popular model.

P_I_Staker 3y ago
I don't know it's so different, while open source may be a popular model, there's lots of closed source software.

sumtechguy 3y ago

That is one the the reasons I really like scam nation. Brushwood does not come at with an air of I am going to deceive you 'ha ha' but 'I am going to teach you how cool this is'. After seeing several hundred you start to see the patterns of how many tricks work. I think he mostly sticks to tricks that are sold in magic books for that.

earthboundkid 3y ago

I saw a P&T live show once where Penn was explaining about juggling dangerous things. He light the torch on fire and then said it was not very dangerous, which he proved by catching the fire end and immediately dropping it. Then he broke a glass bottle and juggled that, which was very dangerous (it would leave a nasty gash on the hand). Then he pointed out we had gasped for the fire but didn't gasp for the broken glass because it doesn't look dangerous.

automatic6131 3y ago
I've seen that on Youtube. Pretty cool to have seen it live.
AaronM 3y ago
I wonder if the bottle was fake glass. He has said before that they won't do tricks that are dangerous.
- gspencley 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure they're not fake. Penn has clarified what he means by "dangerous." I don't have a source for this, so take my memory and my word for what it is worth, but their definition of "dangerous" is something that could result in an overnight hospital visit. Cutting yourself is ok, even a stunt gone wrong that breaks a (non-serious) bone. But anything potentially serious they would consider to be unethical. The other reason I don't think that the glass is "fake" is that Penn began his career in entertainment as a juggler. He also eats fire. Juggling knives, fire torches, glass etc. comes with some risk but not serious risk. The worst of all of the above is potentially fire eating and that's only if you accidentally inhale and burn your lungs with hot vapour, which can be serious but avoiding that is everyone's very first lesson. Juggling glass could result in a cut, even one that could potentially require stitches. But it's not a serious injury.
  - AaronM 3y ago
    After reading reddit about the episode in question, most people seemed to think they were actual glass. Several folks also mentioned that his definition of being too dangerous would be having to stay in the hospital.

GauntletWizard 3y ago

One of my favorite Penn and Teller routines is "Lift Off of Love" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PoDhuIp3I0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PoDhuIp3I0 - The first act is a variant of the old sawing a woman in half trick. The second act is the same trick again, but with clear boxes.

edanm 3y ago

> My wife and I are performing magicians. So cool to find magicians here on HN. I'm a (very) amateur magician, or maybe more correctly someone very interested in magic. Do you and your wife perform together? Are there any clips of yours to watch anywhere? > The reason we don't "reveal" is purely artistic. Yes, this is something that Penn also often says, and it's changed my thinking about this topic. In general his morality is very inspiring to me, and especially his moral thinking about magic and performance in general. It's been something that's bothered me over the years - is it really ok to "lie" or "mislead" people for performance reasons? Or to keep secrets from them? I especially appreciate how little tolerance Penn has for people who do any kind of performance that leaves people with an incorrect impression at the end. This actually changed my thinking about all the people doing the "I'm using psychology to manipulate you" bits, which as we both know are usually just magic tricks with different patter.

gspencley 3y ago
> Do you and your wife perform together? Are there any clips of yours to watch anywhere? Yes and sort of. We started a YouTube channel where we were starting to do some short videos for promo purposes. We weren't happy with the quality so we haven't put up anything new in a while. We will probably get back to it when we can find a format that is more "us." https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrH03pFg-aahazS2srlxRiA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrH03pFg-aahazS2srlxRiA https://www.facebook.com/garandcar/ https://www.facebook.com/garandcar/ > It's been something that's bothered me over the years - is it really ok to "lie" or "mislead" people for performance reasons? Or to keep secrets from them? Yup, for me magic is theatre and as long as it is presented as such it's not "lying" any more than a film or a play is presenting a piece of fiction or special fx. Magic is fascinating to me because it is the only art-form that I can think of that plays with epistemology ... how do we know what we know? And so the point isn't to deceive people but to show something that our brains know is impossible. That's what I like about magic. It is a very intellectual art-form. In my experience, unintelligent people don't tend to like magic as much. And I think this is because you need to be able to recognize and accept the premise of the trick. Meaning there are natural rules governing reality, and a good magic trick is going to show you something that APPEARS to bend those rules. An active, rational mind is able to quickly understand the rules that are being toyed with. A good trick is one where you go "I know that's impossible ... and I know what I saw ... and I know that magic isn't real ... so WTF? HOW!?!?!" While I don't like entertainment that "preaches", I do like a point of view. And there is a positive implicit message that can come through in a character that communicates: "We as magicians have specialized in how the brain can be misled, and so convincingly that we want to show you this so that the next time someone comes along who is able to offer 'proof' that they can genuinely do something they can't you will remember those tricksters that showed you some shit that you knew was a trick but sure as hell felt like it was real."