2007-02 Dennis' Deliberations

"The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing - for us, and to us." -Ben Okri
It is sad to think that anyone would compare a magician with a politician!

This also from my old magic friend and critic, Larry Thornton who lives in Calgary, Canada:


The Ten Worst Offenders in Magic


1. The Wandering Street Magician with a Messiah Complex ("Hey, ma'am, wanna see something amazing?")
2. Magic convention misfits who get their kicks pulling pranks on unsuspecting people in the hotel lobby.
3. The kiddy magician who wastes half or more of his show twisting and handing out lame balloon animals.
4. David Copperfield groupies who not only expect free tickets, but annoy attendees in the lobby doing tricks and handing out their business cards.
5. Magicians at the same show who insist on telling everyone around them how the magic is being done.
6. The same idiots who keep whispering loudly, "Nice move!" and "Did you see that steal?" 7. Restaurant magicians "without a clue" that some people go to a public eating establishment -- to eat!
8. Bad (as in Stinkereeno!!) club amateurs who put on an "annual public magic show", just to show how lousy they can really be.
9. Magic addicts who seek out parties in order to bug the guests with 10,000 card tricks
(actually its their favorite twenty card tricks performed 500 times...)
10. Local magic geeks with zero talent and no gigs, who spend their time dumping heaps of criticism on professional magicians they see on TV.

Now that I have malaligned magicians, let me turn to a long overdue tribute to our ring Hospitality leader, Jacki Manna. While Jacki is an excellent magician, she is best known as a professional ventriloquist.

She displayed a bit of her talent at the December Gift Exchange when she opened up her MC role with a cute ventriloquist routine with a Santa Claus dummy. Jacki has been a steady fixture at our ring banquets, shows and ring meetings. Her mentor was the late ventriloquist Howie Olson , a dummy figure maker. Howie had retired in Florida. Jacki has steadily worked as an entertainer and also has had a "day job" as a French and English high-school teacher in Seminole County. She is a gifted children's performer and equally at ease with an adult audience. I am nostalgic for the days in the 50s and 60s when all local TV stations had afternoon children's shows. I often have thought that Jacki would be great on an afternoon children's show.

Near the end of that era , Bev Bergeron tried setting up Jeff McBride with a local children's show TV gig here in town. I wonder if Channel 9's "Cousin Jeff" would have ever made it? Hugh Turley, "Uncle Hubbie" was the last magician in this market with a kid's show on the old channel 35 (WSWB-TV). That station went off the air in the late 70s and came back on a few years later under new ownership from a studio in a converted bank building on the South Orange Blossom Trail. Allan Duckworth, my mascot manufacturing foreman and I used to have fun occasionally helping out Bob Goldberg on his Friday Night Horror Movie show called "The Count"....Bob's show faded to black and Channel 35 moved to its present location on the side of I-4 in Lake Mary and now every Halloween week I do a bit on their Morning news show about costumes and my costume shop.

With video-streaming, video I-Podcasts and You-Tube, how long will it be until some creative people begin a local internet TV station?

Most people are not going to get their TV programming from an over-the-air broadcast signal. With video compression some TV stations are now 4 TV stations! They have an entertainment channel, a news channel, a movie channel and -hold your breath- a local programming channel!

Maybe Rebo will be back on Channel 9c, 1080i and maybe Jacki Manna will be on Channel 6b 720p......?

We can hope!

Speaking of kid's entertainers: I did attend the Barry Mitchell lecture-dealer show. He is a fun guy. He had a lot of creative ideas for the kid's entertainer and the Gospel magician. For a minute I thought he was going to take up an offering and baptize a few converts. I can't fault him for that. He is from under the buckle of the Bible Belt in East Tennessee where even the Episcopalians still handle snakes. But he was gentle with the religion.

I would normally get upset paying 10 bucks to go to a dealer's lecture but he did reveal all the things he was selling and even gave some insights into how he created the routine. His basic concept of "thinking like an entertainer" and "not thinking like a magician" was invaluable. We all know that we often fall into the trap of doing stuff we like rather than what is most entertaining for the audience.

He had one item that all kid's show people should consider making or buying: 12 inch squares of indoor-outdoor carpet with a pair of shoe-prints stenciled on them. He used four carpet-squares spaced on the floor around his table. When the kids come up to help he tells them to "Stand on your spot!". They stand on the square and will not leave it. It was a clever "kid-control" technique.

Dennis Phillips