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Comment by gregorygoc | Hacker News Reader

I’ve been doing magic half professionally on and off for almost a decade now. Basically, I don’t do card tricks anymore and the reason is simple - if you were to do real magic, would you do it with playing cards?

On a side note, revealed card tricks on YouTube were my pain in the butt for a long time, but I don’t care anymore.

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I agree that cards are somewhat unnatural for the average random person and I remember seeing a youtube video where a magician did a (not so scientific) test so see what people preferred and I believe he tested cards, sponge balls and elastic bands and most people preferred the sponge balls. I do think that the "tricks with everyday objects", especially if spontaneously obtained (from the spectator if possible!), are the most memorable, but at least pretty much everyone knows what cards are. I've got some pretty great reactions with cards.

There's also the school of thought that its dishonest to pretend you have real magical abilities and therefore you don't have to simulate real magic, instead treating it as the performance art that it is. Most people know its a trick and don't mind that its not totally believable. That said, you're probably right in that your way leaves a more lasting impression.

Re: youtube, magic is a really bad art for video, IF you're the kind of person who only enjoys magic if it baffles you and once you see how its done (even just partially) then it gets boring and with a video, where you can watch it 100 times, in slow motion, of course people will always see something they shouldn't. Sadly these people often see it as a challenge (I find the "pretend to have powers" magicians are largely at fault for this, IMHO) rather than as a performance art. Oh well.

But those are just my thoughts, I'm not a professional and have never performed for money or in front of more than a handful of people, so you know a lot more about it than I do!

There may be a different video but [1] by Steven Bridges is similar to what you describe. It's not very scientific but he interviews several groups about their preferences between a very similar trick being perform with sponge balls vs with casino chips.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puEcPpRqdx8

Ah, maybe this is the one I was thinking of and I misremembered it a little. It certainly looks familiar.

I see some interesting thoughts here. I agree that pretending to have magic powers is not a good way to perform. That being said, I think the concept of doing tricks so powerful that audience has no explanation other than believing in magic is completely orthogonal to an idea that you are supposed to brag about having paranormal abilities.

I think the art of magic is ought to be performed live. There some guys who got it right on the TV, for instance Copperfield. The problem with YouTube on the other hand, is that you can replay the video anytime, so this kills misdirection entirely.

The way I get around this issue in my promotional materials is that I basically only show people’s reactions to my effects, so that people see what they buy. Entertainment, not tricks to figure out.

On a side note, I love how Derren Brown performs. He says up front, he has no psychic powers but provides some basic pseudoscience explanation to his audience which is a trick on its own!

Probably my favorite trick, in terms of not lying to the audience, is a trick Teller does (The Red Ball) which Penn introduces simply as "Now, here's a trick that's done with a piece of thread". And AFAIK that's the truth, and the trick is spectacular because of the things Teller is able to do with just an invisible piece of thread. I only skimmed this article about it but it matches up with what I recall reading before: https://lasvegasweekly.com/news/2008/nov/20/man-ball-hoop-be...

Yes! I completely agree.

> Entertainment, not tricks to figure out.

Exactly. I personally really enjoy figuring out how they work and, for example, I’ve learned how Shin Lim does (parts of) most of his routines (partly through watching them over and over and partly by buying his “52 shades of red” routine instructional — I learned so much from it, even if I’ll never perform his routine!), but it doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of watching him perform, because he is a great showman and has incredible skill. I still enjoy watching him perform 52 shades and in some way even enjoy it more knowing how it’s done. Having said that, I do also enjoy the mystery too, so I don’t try to learn everything either.

Playing cards can be a nexus of strong emotions and violence, and they exemplify the uncertainty of life and the greed/addictive tendencies of living things. From that perspective then seem as much a magical talisman as chicken guts and such.

From the other direction, a card shark might say that doing magic with cards makes it a practical skill and takes away the magic :)

I believe tarot cards started out as simple playing cards. I suppose if one could do "real magic" with cards, divination would probably make more sense then sleight of hand.

If you could actually control probability and make small objects appear and disappear through physical manipulation then there would be much better uses for that then street magic.

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