I'm professional magician for over 40 years experience in the art of Magic . In this blog I touch on the more personal side of me.
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Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Why do we compete in MAGIC? Why do we compete in sports?
take up the gauntlet To accept or undertake willingly any challenging task; to accept an offer to fight or duel. Similarly, throw down the gauntlet
means to challenge one to a fight or duel. Gauntlets were the armored
gloves worn by knights in medieval times. A knight wishing to joust with
another would cast his gauntlet to the ground as a challenge to combat.
The other knight would pick up the gauntlet to show the challenge was
accepted.
Making a proclamation, that
whosoever would say that King Richard was not lawfully king, he would
fight with him at the utterance, and throw down his gauntlet. (Hall, Chronicles of Richard III, 1548)
I recently posted and idea on the social network on how I think it would be cool to have a reality show where you have a group of magicians and
inventors on teams. You will both be put in a small room full of
miscellaneous props, wood... and the inventor has to concoct magic
effects for the magician to perform and compete against the other.
I find it funny how an innocent post can suddenly turn into a negative thing. It really boils down to insecurity. Some people can take any topic and turn it into their own opinion and belief which is okay as long as you let others express their own opinion. I had one response where they took offense by my post and said something like "Never never thought of magic as a competition. That is why we have sports."
Anotherreplied "Performing for peers helps with presentation motivation and encouragesartists to become better.True artist wouldn't
think to enter a contest or better yet wouldn't bother with magicians, period."
Okay so what does that say for Jeff Mcbride or other inspiring artists who travels around the world working his/her ass off andteaching and passing the art on to others?
Another reply was how in sports you get stats and there is a winner. What are the stats in entertaining an audience?
Well ummmm let me see umm! well the stats could be that your show sucked, was boring, people slept, you were performing the zombie stick instead of the zombie ball. Or you could of got a highscore and when your show was over you received a standing ovation. You might of even got booked for next year. Maybe a producer was in the audience and now you have a shot at being on TV for a commercial or perhaps the Ellene Show. How's that for stats sounds pretty darn good to me. Standing ovations are awesome.
Another post which meant no sense was "They also have murders all over but I aint going to kill anybody!"
Okay back up here a little. WHAT?
In my oppinion magic competitionsare very helpful in our art. I have been in several magic competitions in my life and their is nothing more shocking then performing in front of a room full of magicians. Too me that is where the fun, learning, motivation, growing as well as figuring out who you are lies.
To me it's a great insult to think that others don't look at our art as valuable and as importantand respectful as a sport or any other art. My post was simply a funny thought, although I could see TV networks jumping on that. Regardless, our art takes a lot of time, planning, thinking, dexterity to make our magic happen. Maybe even more so then a complex football play or basketball play. Even sport have MAGIC!
Where is our thinking when we can't even try to joke or show community fun and support when everyone has to jump in right away when we feel that our thoughts and beleifs are being attacked? It's just insane. I find it hard at times to be political and play the business game where everything has to be all nice and proper and "No! you shall not talk about your personnel life, no! you reallyshouldn't now okay!Now let's all be good little magicians okay?"
I was also thinking why should we compete with anything at all? Why don't we just stop competing and then everything will be okay. When we watch sports there will no longer be scores. In fact why did they evencompetein the first place? Just like the one comment "I don't see putting two entertainers against each other." well I don't see why we put sports teams against one another. Why not just have one team. There could be a stadium full of people and the quarterback will just hike the ball and then run a make a touchdown. That would be swell.
Now what about magic competitions, but not competitions where we are competing to win, but we are competing for work? What about that? isn't that even more of a competition? How we try to undercut the next guy or better yet try to take over their birthday party contracts? Too me the real competition is survival.Not some contest where we are competing for a trophy or sometimes a little cash. It's innocent fun and competition where you meet new friends on the way. Maybe we are all in a TV reality show right now. Our reality has become TV and our fantasy has become reality.
I would like to wrap it up by saying that it's all okay to be opinionated, but we also have to listen carefully before we speak because the whole world we live in is a competition. Even animals and insects compete.
Now if you wouldkindly excuse me I have to prepare for battle.
Remember! I'm the Imaginator and although I'm not always right I will at least stand up and challenge anything that seems fit to challenge. For maybe it's not the competition that is bothering you, but the constant denial that you are always competing.
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