2007-10 Dennis' Deliberations

"Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus"
-Umberto Eco, 'The Name of the Rose'-(1)

The conjuring arts are a fluid, evolving and changing entity. I appeared on one of Chuck Smith's Magic Enigma videos with Bev Bergeron and Fred Moore and the theme of the segment was "How magic has changed in your lifetime". Chuck chose the three of us because of our different ages and generational experiences. I was the guy in the middle of the age bracket. I can say that at this point in magic history I have never seen as we have now such rancor and arguing over how magic has been recently evolving . David Blaine and Criss Angel are not uniformly accepted by most of the old guard of magicians. Let me say upfront, I don't personally enjoy their style or material but I am increasingly forced to admit that I am not happy about it but realize that their approach will dominate the conjuring arts for the rest of my lifetime. The younger generation loves them. I want to spend this month explaining that being a "Magic Fundamentalist" is counterproductive to your magic career.

Fundamentalism is a modern mindset and social pathology that is gripping world culture and pervades almost all current Post-Modern thinking. It is a closed-minded fear and rejection of change . Though it masquerades and calls itself "Conservative", it is really atavistic Reactionaryism. ( an angry desire to go back to an imaginary Golden Age- "Nostalgia on Steroids" ) You are mostly familiar with the use of this word in a religious context where it applies to people who center their Faith in their "perfect book"(or doctrines) : Islamic Fundamentalists wanting to return to the heady years of Muslim world conquest and rule by the Koran or Christian Fundamentalists who are wanting to go back to the worldview of the early 17th or late 19th century and a time before modern science seemed to attack a literal interpretation of many Bible texts.

One could argue that there also exists Political and Economic Fundamentalists, such as the Libertarians, who seem to want to go backwards and live in the confused world of the 1930s-40s with author Ayn Rand and the Economic Darwinism and selfish-personal Bullyism she longed for in her books.

Let me show you how the Fundamentalist mindset has affected magicians. Let's call Magic Fundamentalists: "Tarbellites".

The "Tarbellite" follows the style, premise and philosophy of magic such as you find in the Tarbell Course of Magic. Every magicians alive today should thank Tarbell for the rich legacy he gave us. We should also mention favorably, the last, most complete and latest expression of that style of magic, The Mark Wilson Course in Magic.

Tarbell-Wilson magic moved logically from point A to point B. It uses props: ladies silk handkerchiefs, clean man's white handkerchiefs ( or should I say "man's clean white handkerchiefs? - sorry for stealing your gag line Harry Blackstone!) Hats, canes,Billiards Balls (rarely seen that small!) Metal Rings , Chinese Laundry Tickets.... Okay! You get the idea! Who uses those things anymore? They vanish, they appear, they are torn and restored. The magician keeps a sacred distance. He is out of the world of the audience.

Tarbell-Wilson stage magic used special boxes, many with painted red with gold dragons. Magicians used "foulards". Seen any of those around your house lately?
And there were feather dusters made to look like flowers. Rope could be cut and joined almost instantly. (Can't we do that today with Hot Melt and Crazy Glue?) The Fathers of the style of Tarbell-Wilson illusions were Servais Leroy, P.T. Selbit, Cyril Yettmah and the Maskelynes. Some of the recent creators and innovators have been Robert Harbin,Jim Steinmeyer, Andre Kole, Bev Bergeron, Don Wayne, Paul Osborne and Rand Woodbury.

I hope you are getting the idea of this kind of stage magic. On stage the magicians made pigeons appear and disappear. Frequently he used a Victorian style square cage for the dove vanish. Illusions were usually a girl and a box. Tarbellism was the prevailing magical style from 1910 to 1995. You could call it "20th century magic".

The dawn of the new millennium brought a new style of magic, just as the dawn of the previous 20th century brought the Tarbellism style.

The new magic is bizarre, dark, shocking, dangerous, in-your-face and baptized with technology. It frequently does not go from point A to point B in its effect. The dental floss vanishes and does not reappear in your hands but through the flesh of your stomach skin . Instead of disappearing from a box ,with rainbows painted on it, while on stage and twirled by assistants, you disappear from under a garbage can on the street surrounded by "street people".

Historians advise that we are moving into a "Post-Modern" Age. The shift has been occurring since the mid 1970s. Recall Doug Henning! He was a transitional character in the history of magic. If the magical style of Modernity, "The Modern Age" was captured by Tarbell and Wilson, then the style of Post-Modern magic would be considered heresy and "departing from the faith and truth, once received". Indeed, Henning was not warmly accepted by many older magicians in the 70s. He was "that kid with long hair and blue jeans". Not wearing a tail coat in fill evening dress was considered blasphemy to magic. Following on the heels of Doug Henning was David Copperfield and he also was considered outside of the mainstream. "The kid dances, does musical sketches and vanishes national monuments! Where are the top hats and rabbits?"

But both Henning and Copperfield were still tied to traditional modern magic by their stage presentation styles and use of recognizable props,plots and effects. Most magicians would find it difficult to label them totally outside of magical orthodoxy.

The clean break from orthodoxy began with David Blaine. The stage was gone. The stage clothes were gone. The dancing girls and pop-song sound tracks were gone.
If David Blaine was the John the Baptist of the new covenant of magic then Criss Angel is the Messiah. With his appearing,the old copies of Tarbell and The Mark Wilson texts mentally came off old magician's bookshelves. The Tarbell text-thumping began! "He ain't doing like Tarbell says to do it! How dare he not obey the words of Tarbell and Wilson!". The older guard of magicians became reactionary and longed for the old days (even if the 'old days' was David Copperfield performing to Phil Collins or Pet Shop Boys music tracts).

Well....and here is my whole point: Get with the new way things are done. Tarbell Fundamentalism is doomed. Red and black boxes with spray-painted gold dragons are not coming back in anyone's lifetime.("Niche" shows such as Le Grand David will continue for a while) Neither are black and chrome stage illusions coming back as soon as they leave Branson, MO where time moves on very slowly.

Adapt to video technology. Sony's Final Cut Pro is the new way video magic is going to be produced. No one is going to be making any announcements about trick photography not being used. No one cares. Camera cropping and fast cuts are the way things are done now. If you don't do them the young audience will be bored.
Live shows are going to all use a "Camera Eye" and video screens... it will be possible to do an arena show with nothing but televised close-up!

So, get with the program, magicians:Get some dirty jeans,soiled sneakers, let your hair become long, stringy and bug-infested. Get some body piercings in strange places and a few tattoos. Just carry a deck of cards, folding coin and crushed soda can. Hire two dozen stooges and teach them to fake like they are baffled. Make everyone believe that you are the Magic Messiah. Light yourself on fire as a birthday gift for your mother. The past is gone. This future is inevitable.

"A spectre is haunting magic- -the spectre of Criss Angelism. All the powers of old magic have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre. They will fail! Let the ruling magic classes tremble at the Angelian Revolution. The hip magicians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to fool!"
You can't stop the Revolution.(2)

Dennis Phillips

(1) "Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus" translates literally as "Yesterday's rose endures in its name; we hold empty names". It can also be translated more roughly as "Of the rose of the past, we have only its name".

(2) With a sneer to Karl Marx for my paraphrase of his 1848 Manifesto in the final paragraph.