Discourse in Magic

We’ve been trying to get Tony Chang on the podcast for a long time and it’s finally happened!  Jonah and Tony spent some time together and NYC recently.  But this is the first time we have had the chance to talk to him about his history.  Tony first fell in love with magic when he saw a clown magician as a kid.  He got curious and he went to the public library in Idaho, where he grew up, and found some books.  They were incredibly discouraging.  So he turned to some magic rooms on IRC in the early days of the internet.  He ordered a Hank Lee book and read it repeatedly.  His goal with magic is to create something incredible with imperfect means.  You can create an illusion using blunt mechanics to achieve something impossible. Tony has always worked at his magic to make it look perfect.  He once spent nine months trying to figure out the push-off double lift.  But he thinks that too many people work on improving on a popular move.  That is far to limiting.  You should always look at moves to learn the maneuver – so you know it’s possible.  That’s the only thing you should be learning from someone else. There was a point in Tony’s career when he would try to change a trick.  Trying to brute-force his way to a trick.  He had a very engineering perspective on learning new moves.  Now, he tries to focus on coming up with a unique approach to his tricks.  Achieving a really surreal effect is much more interesting to him. There is a huge glut of new magic on the market.  It’s really difficult to wade through the garbage.  But Tony says you learn more about magic by picking out what is wrong.  And it’s also about being a worker.  You always want to be a student and you always want to keep working.  That may be why magicians are so gullible for the latest and greatest trick. Tony work’s as an editor of TV commercials and he thinks that job and magic have a lot in common.  In ads you have to tell a story in 15 or 30 seconds.  It relies on editing to achieve its effect. What question do you want to ask our audience? Why are there so many versions of the double-lift? Who should we invite on the podcast? Noel Stanko What do you want to tell our audience? Stop learning magic by buying the latest trick.  Think about your magic seriously. What was your favourite part of the episode? Jonah liked the emphasis on making a trick as simple as possible. Tyler enjoyed hearing that Tony started by learning to palm because he didn’t know it was hard. Tony re-emphasized that it’s really important to continue learning. Plugs Be Kind Change with Theory 11 Cherry Control with Ricky Smith The post Making Good Magic Great with Tony Chang appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

Geraint Clark runs one of the most popular magic blogs on the web and we’re super excited to have him on the show this week.  His entrée into the magical was a unique one.  He was early for a job interview one day and wandered into a local bookshop.  The night before he had watched the British magician Dynamo on TV.  It just so happened that Nicholas Einhorn’s book The Practical Encyclopedia of Magic was being sold at the shop for a mere $8.  He bought it and learned an easy trick which he parlayed into impressing the boss at the job interview. Geraint completed a multimedia degree at University and learned the basics of web design and Photoshop.  He landed a job as  a marketer but continued doing magic at night.  Then he started doing some residencies and weddings but eventually grew to hate those kinds of gigs.  Chasing payments and working as a glorified babysitter soured him on that kind of magic.  Eventually, his work gravitated online and he started developing marketing plans and illusions for magicians. Geraint’s advice for a magician who wants to begin to sell illusions depends on what you want to accomplish.  Some people just want to make as much as possible.  But others want to be known and respected for creating quality magic.  Networking with the magic community to create something of value is hugely important.  But, he advises that once you conceive of a trick you should sit on it for a while.  Geraint has created tricks that he perfected over years before bringing to market. Geraint thinks that there is a problem with the flood of magic on the market.  You have to test these illusions in front of a real audience.  A lot of people damage their reputations by rushing a product out that isn’t ready.  People tend to get into magic they become obsessed with it and buy everything they can.  But as they get older they become much more discerning.  If you want to create a best-seller work out all the kinks for a long time before trying to sell it. What was your favourite part of the episode? Jonah liked hearing about the finer details about how something gets accepted on illusionist. Tyler loved the words of encouragement for young people to start performing the magic they know.  Don’t worry about buying the latest new thing Geraint liked hearing the Jonah and Tyler are putting value into their audience before they try and monetize the podcast. Who should be have on the podcast? Lloyd Barnes Gary Jones What do you want to ask our audience? Can you name your five core values? What do you want to tell our audience? Stop performing Omnideck.  The deck does not vanish! Plugs Instagram Blog The post What Makes a Great Magic Product with Geraint Clarke appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

We are long overdue for a catch-up episode!  Tyler has been jamming a lot by himself over the last two months.  His landlord has been giving him nothing but grief and that’s been taking away from his magical mind.   He successfully performed at the Fern Resort and has continues to collect a Noah’s Ark of pets.  Jonah, meanwhile, has been getting a lot of shows for the Christmas season.  He is going to be doing several table shows, which he always enjoys.  Toronto Magic Company continues apace.  That has allowed Jonah to workshop several new effects.  He loves performing and has loved the recent episodes of the podcast, especially the Xavior Spade and Garrett Thomas episodes. Recently we asked our listeners to submit questions for us to answer.  One person asked us: Can magic exist without sleight-of-hand?  Tyler answered emphatically  ‘yes’ because not all tricks require sleights.  Jonah agreed with that answer.  It’s a reminder that there are many methods including mathematical and psychological.  If you’re struggling with technical moves you should remember that there are many other things you can pursue. We had another question from Joel Greenwich who recently released Catalyst, an amazing card colour change.  Joel asked: If magic is an art form and art is intended to inspire and challenge, what does magic challenge the audience to do?  We loved this question.  Tyler thinks that the focus of magic is to make people questions things.  What you want the audience to question is up to you.  Magic is a subjective thing and you can make people question whatever you want.  Jonah thinks that art is meant to make you reflect on the world.  It should affect the way the audience thinks about the world. About five years ago Jonah created a list of questions about magic that were puzzling him.  The first, in a rather lengthy list, was the following:  What is the base requirement to make and effect magical?  Jonah and Tyler struggled to come up with a proper formula for this.  Tyler thinks the audience should have an understanding of what should happen but the proof will be the opposite.  Jonah think it has to do with the confidence in the improbability.  It has to be impossible or highly improbable. The next questions Jonah asked himself all those years ago goes like this:  If everyone knows that it’s the magician causing the magic, is the magician restricted to openly saying he is the puppet master?  Why would people think otherwise?  Jonah and Tyler think the magician has to be the person responsible for the effect.  You can’t fool an audience into thinking this is just happening outside of the magician’s control. Next Jonah asks this question:  If everyone knows that the magician is causing the magic than why should people not feel deceived?  Tyler thinks that people can feel deceived but will not necessarily be made to feel stupid.  If the magician does it right they should feel enlightened and entertained not humiliated and deceived.  Jonah still struggles with this question.  He worries that there is always something inherently deceptive in magic.  It’s really hard to not make people feel stupid. Finally, young Jonah wanted an answer to the following: How is a magician different than a programmer?  Both are doing something that would have been impossible otherwise.  Tyler thinks that they aren’t different.  Both have structure and rules that are pliable.  The general public doesn’t understand it but they accept it.  Jonah thinks that a programmer isn’t trying to deceive.  The magician is intentionally trying to bewilder the audience. We love getting your questions so keep them coming for future episodes!   The post Questions for Your Magic Mind appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

Sean O is a master of cardistry and has achieved a lot at a very young age.  Sean is only twenty years old but has been honing his skills since he was in grade school. He did his first paying gig was when he was nine.  He first saw card magic when he was given The Trilogy by Dan and Dave.   He would also watch XCM battles and was obsessed with it.  Both of Sean’s parents worked in IT and he had many computers in his house growing up.  He has combined his interest in the web and magic from the very beginning. Finding a community online was critical to his early development.  But Sean has started to use the medium to further the live performance element of his career.  Sean recently did a live stream on Facebook where he taught his girlfriend the moves to one of his card tricks.  There is often a lot of judgement about magic tricks and a lot of secrecy in the community.  Sean thinks that the cardistry community is much more open to sharing. There are some people that sell cardistry moves and that has fueled a lively debate in the community.  Should moves be sold?  Sean doesn’t have a problem with it.  It takes a long time to perfect a card move.  It has value and it is completely justified to attach a price tag to that.  We are never going to run out of new and interesting content.  Originality prevails in cardistry – much more than in the general magic community.  There are some moves that have taken a person’s career from 0 to 100 really quickly.  Finding original moves is not easy but those that do will find success. When Sean performs live he doesn’t just perform cardistry for lay people.  But Sean thinks given time cardistry has the potential to become a potent live performance.  It’s incredible that someone could win a major TV talent show using a trick that is 200 years old.  There is a bit of a learning curve with audiences who tend to conflate magic and cardistry.  Anthony Whitford is a close friend of Sean’s.  He has a routine where he explains the entire history of the medium in a highly entertaining routine. Sean loves making things that can make someone think and feel something simultaneously.  It’s that reason that he has gravitated towards Instagram.  A two dimensional image can evoke a visceral emotional reaction and that makes it a perfect pairing with cardistry.  Instagram also allows for the creation of incredible communities by simply using the hashtag. There is, unfortunately, a divide between the magic and cardistry communities.  But Sean says everyone should have a much more open mind.  The division is meaningless.  He can help but lose respect for anyone that dismisses the entire art form.  It’s a community that is going to grow regardless of what Jay Sankey says about it. Sean thinks that cardistry is a culture.  It affects the way you live your life and the way you carry yourself.  It’s a form of pop culture that is participatory – not just something you consume. What did you learn from the episode? Tyler was surprised to learn just how important it is to find your identity online. Jonah liked chatting about the importance of creating great content and sharing that with others. Sean agrees that the need for identity has been hugely aided by the rise of social media. Who should we have next on the podcast? Patrick Varnavas Chase Duncan What do you want to tell our audience? It all boils down to having fun.  It’s all about entertaining yourself and others! What do you want to ask our audience? What is a different way to use social media to open up a new set of opportunities for yourself? Plugs Instagram Facebook Modus Operandi The post Instagram and the Cardistry Subculture with Sean O appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

Xavior Spade is making waves as one of the highest profile YouTube magicians.  He is using live streaming to connect with an every-growing audience.  Xavior found magic as a young person while growing up in Jamaica, Queens in New York City.  But it was magic that helped him to escape the ghetto.  It was incredible eye-opening experience to be treated as an equal in the magic community.  Eventually, Xavior gravitated to new platforms like Twitch and Discord as a gamer.  Some magic discussions took place on those video streaming services and eventually ended up on YouTube. Xavior thinks that just being yourself on YouTube is the best way to gain a following. He makes sure that his channel is not just for tutorials.  He likes to add vlogs and interviews to make the content more diverse.  He thinks that it’s often hard to not feel stupid while recording himself alone.  But to do this you have to get used to being on camera. The hardest part about being in front of the camera is realizing there’s no judgement.  But you don’t have to put on a grand persona on camera.  In fact, if you do that you are going to come off fake.  Editing is your best friend.  The flow of the video is as important as the flow of a show.  The music, lighting and editing all create the effect.  So he always starts by finding the right piece of music and editing to that.  It’s all about creating the right tempo. Magic has the potential to change people’s lives.  Xavior was profoundly moved recently when a fan of his YouTube channel was helped during a rough patch in his life.  That fan drove seven hours to one of Xavior’s lectures to personally thank him for helping him to turn his life around.  You have to care about what you share and that in turn will do incredible things. Xavior thinks the anti-technology bias in the magic community is ridiculous.  But people who think that you aren’t a real magician unless you perform for a live audience are dead wrong in his opinion.  Technology has always been a part of magic and the old guard who refuse to acknowledge that are living in the past.  Some magic deserves to die, Xavior says. Xavior has a lot of success with his business Lost Art Magic.  That said, he thinks the magic industry is, for the most part, a road to nowhere.  There are many people that are trying to start their own magic company but it’s a dangerous idea.  Creating a business is predicated on profit and that demands a certain kind of exploitation.  You have to create a different kind of brand.  It’s not just about chasing sales.  Most people simply don’t understand how important it is to create a great brand.  Strong beliefs and strong ideas are far more important that a great business plan. What was your favourite part of the episode? Jonah loved the discussion about the state of magic online, especially on platforms like YouTube. Tyler liked that this was the first time that we got some tangible YouTube advice – especially Xavior’s admission that it’s hard to get comfortable on camera. Xavior is very passionate about the topic of online magic and loves the opportunity to talk about it. Who should we have on the show? Allen Okawa Xavior’s Challenge. Xavior says that if this episode gets over 3000 downloads he will make everything on Lost Art Magic free for one day. What do you want to ask the audience? Why do you love magic? Plugs https://www.instagram.com/xaviorspade/?hl=en https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Aaysw0-njB9xH8uvNFvvg Lost Art Magic The post Modern Magic and Why it Lives Online with Xavior Spade appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

Garrett Thomas is an incredible magician, an opinion that was confirmed recently when Jonah saw him perform at the Buffalo 52 magic convention.  Garrett first fell in love with magic because of his father.  His dad was a huge fan of magic and was friends with the bar magician Eddie Fechter. Who had a brilliant way of teaching people.  Fechter taught Garret’s dad a few tricks which were then passed on to young Garrett.  That instilled an obsession in him at a very young age.  His family has a history of addiction and Garrett feels that he funneled that addictive personality into magic. Garrett believes magic is the act of shifting a paradigm.  The magic marker got its name because it allowed people to apply ink to materials like glass and metal that wasn’t possible before.  It was like magic.  There is a famous Asimov line that any science sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.  Garrett thinks that’s backwards.  Magic is any advanced skill.  We are all magicians today with our ability to read and write along with a million other modern advancements.  But because those skills are so common place they have lost their magic. Anything that isn’t done for survival or procreation is an act of art, according to Garrett.  Using that definition reveals that magic is obviously an art.  The real question is whether art is an art worth promoting.  Garrett doesn’t have an answer for that.  Because there is a big overlap between magicians and charlatans and common.  These are people that take from society rather than give back.  When you use magic as an abstract performance art it’s wonderful. But when you use it to deceive people that’s no longer the case. Magic is not the act of fooling someone.  It’s the art of astonishment.  Those are two different things, Garrett says.  And he argues that as show like Penn and Teller’s Fool Us puts the focus on the wrong thing.  It’s not about fooling someone.  It’s about allowing people to enjoy something that isn’t real.  Garrett calls it abstract performance art.  He thinks magic is advanced empathy.  A magician understands that the whole performance takes place on the audience’s mind.  You have to appreciate the entire canvas. Garrett believes that the future of magical performance is all about being yourself.  Copperfield and Chris Angel are playing characters.  David Blaine is the first major performer to be himself.  In an age where fake realties are everywhere because of technology, authentic reality is going to be increasingly in demand. What did you like about the episode? Jonah really likes Garrett’s emphasis on magic as the central part of any performance before adding things like comedy or music. Tyler liked Garrett sharing that his dyslexia being a central part of his creative life. Garrett says that combining art forms can be tricky.  But people don’t usually have ability to multitask.  You have to have a cadence to switch between magic and comedy. What do you want to tell our audience? Own it.  Whatever your definition of magic is you have to own it. What do you want to ask our audience? What is your definition of magic? Who should we invite on to the show? Tyler Erickson Plugs Garrett is a columnist at Real Magic Magazine. Much of his products are produced by Cosmo Magic The post Understanding Magic with Garrett Thomas appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

We first came across Allan Hagen on Instagram, which has become a gold mine for finding new magical talent.  Allan grew up in Norway which didn’t have much of a magic community.  At 9 years of age he found a Norwegian language card magic book.  After learning English he discovered magic websites in the early 2000’s and his learning took off. Allan primarily works in card magic.  He quickly came to understand that cards are just 52 pieces of paper and have to imbued with meaning by the people using them.  He thinks of a deck of cards as being full of limitless possibility. He says that young magicians should start out by learning from the masters.  It would be foolish to ignore the classics.  Work your way through Card College by Roberto Giobbi.  There is enough knowledge there to last a lifetime.  Eventually you will discover two or three pieces that resonate with you.  That will then help you discover what your strengths are. In order to make your magic resonate you have to make some decisions.  What is the plot going to be?  Are you going to connect the trick to something in your life?  For example, a disappearing card trick could tie into a story of you returning home.  Magic has to mean something and it can be transformative without being pretentious. Allen believes that the magic shouldn’t detract from the performance but conversely, the performance shouldn’t detract from the magic.  There has to be a balance.  Some pieces can be very story heavy while others can be very magic heavy.  Sometimes a great trick is just a great trick.  But also the story itself can be a trick.  Allen points to Derek DelGaudio’s blockbuster show on Broadway as being a great example of this.  It’s not exactly a magic show but it is magical. If you have an extremely strong calling or you feel compelled to create something Allan says you have to listen to that calling.  No matter what you are doing, whether trying to appeal to the masses or a niche audience you have to be happy with what you are creating.  Allan’s best piece advice for new performers is to be authentic on stage.  Find commonalities with your audience and connect with them on a human level. So how do you know what good magic is?  Allan thinks it really is a matter of taste and is pretty subjective.  Nevertheless, he has a few rules of thumb.  Is the magic deceptive?  That is to say does your trick fool the audience?  If the audience isn’t talking about the trick the next day at breakfast the trick has failed.  Make sure that your magic airtight.  The other questions to ask yourself is whether your trick is entertaining or not.  It takes practice and experience to know whether an audience is enjoying something or not.  Allan knows that when he is working on new material it’s going to be terrible at first.  Every piece takes a while to get the wrinkles ironed out. Allan has a very specific idea about how to practice magic.  Practice is a very original thing.  You have to find a regimen that’s right for you.  How you practice is as much as how much you practice. If you want to read about it you can check out his blog post here. Allan likes to practice late at night with no distractions.  He reads through everything to get an overview of how it should work – usually with cards in hand.  He then refines the trick and tried to shape it to his own style.  Finger placement and angles are usually worked out in this phase.  Then he tried to improve the trick through repetition.  Don’t do those sleights a thousand times in a row.  That’s going to be counterproductive.  You should cycle through multiple sleights rather than just one.  Then you should let the sleight rest for a day.  Let your mind catch-up with the trick.  This is how you program your muscle memory.  Then you have to rehearse the sleight, perform it and then refine it after each performance. The better a magician gets, the more you will be able to more judiciously pick the kind of audience you want to perform for.   What do you want to tell the audience? Magic, genuinely, has the power to change people’s live. What do you want to ask the audience? After, you perform for someone what would you want that person to remember about you a year later? Plugs Allan Hagen has been working a two phase poker system. He has a book called Serendipity about informal card magic. Allanhagen.com Instagram   The post Presentation, Effect Selection, and How to Practice with Allan Hagen appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

Demian Aditya has become world famous because of his insane escape acts.  Demian first became interested in magic because of David Copperfield who was on TV regularly in his native Indonesia.  He loves doing the things other magicians ignore.  The black art of Omar Pasha is one of the styles he first embraced.  Later he moved into escapes because they too were being ignored.  His escapes are incredibly dangerous.  He risks his life because he says it makes him feel alive. Demian feels strongly that the reason his escape act is so powerful is because there is real danger.  The audience knows what he is doing is dangerous.  That engages them and it’s why they can’t look away.  There have been several occasions where he came perilously close to death.  On one occasion while rehearsing a trick his own crew was terrified for his safety.  Demian took a different lesson from that incident than most people.  He thought if he could scare his own crew that much, it would have a huge impact on the audience. While appearing on America’s Got Talent he astonished audience’s with his Buried Alive escape.  The problem with his act, in Demian’s view, is that he keeps pushing the bar.  Every escape has to be bigger and crazier.  He is currently crafting a new escape that includes the use of quick drying cement.  Needless to say, the risk for this new trick is higher than ever. When Demian was growing up in Indonesia finding information about magic was extremely difficult.  The internet was still in its infancy and so finding good information was hard.  Adding to the difficulty was the fact that there were very few working magicians in the country.  While in university he met someone who knew a few card tricks.  It took Demian a while to convince him to show him the secret to the trick.  Then in 2002 he met one of the biggest magicians in the country and he truly began his training.  By 2007 he had his own show on Indonesian TV. Demian has used the internet to promote his career right from the start.  His YouTube channel was initially just used to promote himself to potential clients.  After his first TV show was cancelled he began to use his online presence as his primary ways of communicating with his fans.  After his appearance on AGT his Instagram account exploded in popularity. Escape attempts are intimidating for the rookie magician.  Demian says you should start small with everyday household objects like duct tape.  The audience eventually will need to believe that you are risking your life.  You can’t start at that level.  You will have to train to get that good and that starts with small escapes first. What did you learn from the episode? Jonah loved that Demian encouraged younger magicians to try escapes at home.  Starting small and safely of course. Tyler was impressed with Demian telling young magicians to embrace the fear of failure both on stage and off. Demian says he is trying to do something different than what everyone else is doing. What do you want to tell our audience? Try to think that there is no box.  Don’t think outside the box.  You’ll still be haunted by the box.  Try to think that there is no box at all.  You can explore anything. What do you want to ask the audience? If there was one trick or routine that you could master, what would it be? Plugs Demian says you should listen to Discourse in Magic! The post Becoming a Death Defying Escape Artist with Demian Aditya appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

We’re really excited to welcome Billy Kidd to the podcast this week.  Billy has gone from busking on the streets to performing for sold-out shows around the world.  She trained as an actor in Edmonton and was almost totally disinterested in street performing and magic.  That is until she saw Nick Nickolas performing at the Edmonton Street Performers Festival nine years ago.  She was totally in awe of what he was doing.  He guided her to the right books and soon enough made the transition from actor to magician. Billy was soon performing as a busker and that became her finishing school.  She eventually made contact with Gazzo who took her under his wing.  Billy says he was a hard teacher but he gave her the skills to make money straight away as a street performer.  She now splits her time between performing on the street and performing on stage.  Billy says that street performing is extremely nerve wracking.  Getting a crowd on the street to pay attention to her was the hardest part. She thinks her acting background also gave her a leg up on the competition.  Being comfortable in front a crowd came more naturally to her than for other magicians.  She also filmed her shows for many years which allowed her to study her performance style. Billy eventually made it onto TV starting with the show Wizard Wars.  She calls it the hardest show she has ever had to work on.  Billy new that working with a stranger on-stage was going to be very difficult.  It proved to be just as hard as she expected though she thinks it was a great learning experience.  She also thinks it was the first and only show on TV that showed the creative process of the magician to the viewing audience.  She later appeared on the show Breaking Magic.  It was a science show dressed up as a magic show.  It was a tricky show, she says, because of the balance between those two things.  She thinks one of the reasons she got the gig was because she told the producers how bad she was at science. It never occurred to Billy that being a woman in magic made her unique.  She still doesn’t think about it that much. Billy also think it matters very little to the audience.  She has booked gigs where the agents have been surprised that she was a woman because of her name. Billy added escapes into her act later in her career.  She developed her escapes because she was often performing in the same venues as Gazzo who is the master of more traditional tricks like the cups.  40:56 She thinks the escape routine really emphasizes her personality.  She deliberately left out many of the elements that other escape artists use like the countdown.  It was very much trial and error and many times she was performing for just a handful of people on the street.  Nevertheless, she says she has become tired with her straight-jacket routine. Billy labels herself as a comedy magician.  She started doing it partly because if the magic isn’t impressing people at least they can laugh.  Billy thinks that it is really a category in and of itself.  She has never taken herself super-seriously. What questions do you want to ask the audience? Why don’t you perform your magic? What do you want to tell the audience? Stop making the whole female magician thing even a thing.  Stop asking. What are your takeaways from the episode? Tyler is impressed that Billy started performing magic almost from the very start of her career. Jonah really liked thinking of busking as being about performing and bringing together an audience. Billy reiterated the importance of going out and performing magic as much as possible. Who should we invite onto the podcast? Richard McDougall The post Busking for Magicians & Earning Your Chops with Billy Kidd appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

On today’s episode, Mahdi Gilbert joins us to talk about the state of magic and not making excuses.  He first got into magic as a little kid despite not having much exposure to it.  He didn’t have a TV or internet but he had heard about magicians from other kids at school.  His childhood logic was that if he could learn magic he would be able to do anything.  Everyone told him that he couldn’t do it because he was so small, had a speech impediment and because he was born without hands. When he was 13 he stumbled across a video of Derren Brown in which he said that everything he was doing through psychology and that was a big breakthrough.  Mahdi may not have had hands but he had a mind.  A year later he started to create his own effects based on psychic effects like cold reading.  He didn’t really have access to magic resources growing.  He went to his first magic shop when he was 16.  On his 17th birthday, he decided to learn sleight of hand.  He didn’t think it was possible but set his mind to that goal.  At first he couldn’t cut the cards or do a shuffle or even really pick up a deck. Mahdi didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him so he practised his tricks alone in the dark after everyone else went to bed.  He eventually perfected the art and has now been doing sleight-of-hand for over 10 years.  Mahdi spent many hours at Conjuring Arts and considers himself extremely well read.  Surrounding himself with magic 24-hours a day was critical in his development. Mahdi has gradually started to shift his attention online including posts on Instagram and his regular email updates from his website.  He also recently appeared on Penn and Teller’s Fool Us program.  Years ago Uri Geller told him that if you ever get a chance for publicity take it.  Mahdi has tried to take that advice to heart.  He had been somewhat cautious about TV prior to his appearance.  He realized that TV is a great platform to expose his magic to millions of people. Mahdi feels that there isn’t anyone that has really taken online magic to the next level.  There is no YouTube magician that is a household name.  The internet is big enough that someone could become that.  Nobody has cracked it yet.  Mahdi thinks that more long-form videos are the way to become that household name.  15-second videos on Instagram aren’t good enough.  There isn’t any emotional content where you’re drawn in.  Mahdi hates all the fake magic on the internet.  Many of the videos have people standing at the wrong angles and reacting as if they’re really seeing a great trick.  That said Mahdi does like that there are people doing a lot of high-quality live magic shows like Derek DelGaudio.  Magic has been in a bad place and it’s great to see it being revitalized on the stage.   What do you want to ask the audience? Where are you guys buying your clothes?  Seriously.  What’s going on? PSA For the cost of a coffee each day you can sponsor a magician  Who should we have on? Uri Geller What was your favourite part of the episode? Jonah liked the idea the no one has become a breakthrough online magician. Tyler liked hearing about Mahdi’s journey into magic. Mahdi wanted to emphasize that the future of magic is based on emotional connection.   The post No Hands, No Feet, No Excuses and No Limits with Mahdi Gilbert appeared first on Discourse in Magic.