The magic of magic

A guest article by Nathan Slake

When I read Nathan Slake’s article about magic (which he refers to below), I was entranced. Whenever I’ve seen somebody do close-up magic, I’ve tried my damnedest to see what they’re doing, with no success at all. Nathan doesn’t give away any secrets, but provides a fascinating glimpse into the world of the magician.

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Photo by Klim Musalimov on Unsplash

How do you write about magic without writing about magic?

Those words have been swirling in my head ever since Terry asked whether I’d be interested in writing this piece. I’ve kept coming back to them, thinking on them, trying to work out what it is that I could say that might offer any interest or intrigue to you, the reader. Hopefully you, the non-magician.

Of course, writing about magic for the non-magician has been covered many times. The American magician Joshua Jay, for example, published How Magicians Think¹, full of many essays and anecdotes about the magical process, as well as interviews with fellow magicians. And there’s even been a book on the neuroscience of illusion²! We could stop there. I could simply say to go read those books. I’m not going to, of course. I want to talk beyond that, to edge closer to what it is that magic means for me. And I’m going to try and do that in a short piece. Of which I’ve already wasted a lot of words with this preamble. (Enough with this persiflage, eh Terry?)

^This isn’t quite the magic I was thinking of…

I suppose I should back up. In March I wrote this post. (If you don’t want to click, here’s the summary: I used to perform a lot of close-up magic. Then I stopped. Then I started again. Recently I performed at a wedding. The end.)

That experience reignited in me some passion I thought had fled. After reading it, Terry invited me to write something for his Substack, along with a few prompts that I’ve used below to help structure things. I hope you enjoy and that some of this elicits its own kind of wonder.

What is magic, and what is the magic of magic?

Magic offers a medium to place everything you know on hold. As a scientist and general sceptic of just about everything, it’s perhaps why I’ve always been drawn to magic. It’s a temporary escape from the rules of the everyday. You might immediately think of grand illusions—David Copperfield flying on stage, for example—but I’d argue the experience of close-up magic carries an intimacy that cannot be found in theatre (unless of course you’re the lady who, rose in hand, Copperfield picked to come fly with him). Close-up magic is where you can truly feel magic happening. It is right there, under your eyes or in your hands. It can give someone an experience they might never have had before, or let them re-enter a childlike state of mind, captured by wonder.

I’m going to talk about close-up, especially card magic, mostly because it’s all I’ve ever known and adored. In thinking about this, I realise trying to define magic even within this sub-genre becomes a difficult task, for herein it is diverse and varied.

Card magic has two extremes: magic through apparent skill, or magic through the apparent impossible. These are separate ends of a blurred spectrum, though some would argue against the former category being magic at all. There are magicians who will tout pure sleight of hand and proceed to demonstrate it. The New York magician Jason Ladanye is a prominent example of this kind of sleight-of-hand magician. Suave, lovably arrogant, his style centres on demonstrating what he can do with cards, often framed around gambling. It’s not my style, but he pulls it off and his body of work goes beyond the table into some hard-hitting walkaround³ pieces, too. Here’s a demonstration of Jason deftly dealing cards from the bottom of the deck, one of the more technically challenging sleights in card magic:

Then we can transition to somewhere in between, with a blend of clear skill and dexterity in handling cards, but with something more. Something out of definition. I think this is perfectly captured by Portuguese magician Helder Guimarães, a modern master of the craft. There aren’t many examples of Helder online, but his own trailer captures the elegance and beauty of his style and his absolute love of card magic. You can see the passion in the way he holds and moves the cards. They are a true and beautiful extension of his being.

If you’ll allow me another short example, let’s move a little further along the spectrum, to German magician Denis Behr. Not only is Denis hilarious and skilled, he also founded The Conjuring Archive⁴, meticulously cataloguing magical literature. The below is a brief glimpse of Denis. One specific moment elicits a “What?! That’s impossible” reaction, and that’s precisely the magic of magic, right there. (And yes, it’s an ordinary deck and ordinary rubber band!)

Then, at the very end of the spectrum, we have magicians hailing from what is called “The Spanish School”, one of its founders the master (and personal hero) Juan Tamariz—an eccentric and wild character—and the contemporary Dani DaOrtiz. Juan played a huge influence on my own style and thoughts about magic, bringing nuanced theory out of Spain several decades ago that forever changed me and many others. To speak of what that is would of course betray some secrets, but it would also dispel the magic. So I’m not going to. But that thing led me down a path of what I and others would describe as jazz magic⁵: impromptu riff and adaptation to fit a scenario around a group of spectators; to be kept on your toes; to draw upon everything you know and be led by the moment. It’s a thrilling thing. Dani DaOrtiz has taken these concepts and built on them, crafting what I believe is some of the best close-up magic in existence, along with a very specific persona and deep deep thoughts on theory. There are plenty of videos of Dani out there, but here’s just one to give you a flavour:

What do you enjoy about doing it?

This is a difficult question. The easy part of this is to say that I love that process of eliciting wonder. It can feel like you become a conduit to let someone experience something that they likely cannot capture via any other medium. Yes, books and films can transport you somewhere and let you feel wonder; video games can do this, too. But I don’t think any of those can achieve what magic can. To take you to a place, albeit for a fleeting moment, where belief is suspended. Where simple rules are challenged.

But there is something more here for me. For whatever reason, I was drawn to cards. When you actually think about it, it seems silly. 52 flat, rectangular pieces of pliable card. That you can hold. That you can arrange in more ways than there are atoms in our galaxy⁶. That you can spread and fan and move and weave and palm and pass and shift and lift … whatever those terms mean, there’s a dexterity and beauty in holding this incongruous packet. It is calming and meditative for me to hold a deck. I receive a sense of stillness in the cards, like it’s grounding me in some strange way. As a teenager, a somewhat shy late-developer exploring who he was, cards became a small something to hide behind, like a tiny lectern positioned between my body and others. I think that sense has largely gone, but maybe there’s still a fragment of that there, a way to focus the attention off of me whilst, ironically, drawing it to me.

The other joy of magic for me is in the many beautiful and detailed books that have been written on the craft. Here’s a small selection of treasured books from my own magic library.

What attributes do you think make a good magician?

It’s probably easier to talk about what attributes make a bad magician. Being fidgety, being arrogant, thinking that you’re the centre of it all and not letting any of the wonder escape from you. Not smiling. Never remembering anyone’s name. A big one, that last one. It can elevate you in any situation if you work to remember names and use them when talking to the person. There’s a power in it, and I’d urge you to try it out in any social setting⁷.

The magician should be the last place that any wonder resides. It should emanate from them to then be held by the spectators. That’s my belief around this.

Overall, magic should be humbling.

What part does patter play?

A lot. There are many layers to any piece of magic, from understanding sleights, to psychology, to audience management, to misdirection, to a whole slew of other theory. Patter is integral to all of that, but it is often overlooked and I have been guilty of that overlooking. For amateur magicians, patter is the thing that is thought of last, if at all. Good patter shouldn’t feel scripted, even if it is⁸. 

Let me return again to Denis Behr and his trained rubber band. Whereas before you had a close-up of Denis’ huge German hands set to Jean Martin’s No. 9 Con moto, here’s Denis in performance with actual spectators at the prestigious Magic Castle in Hollywood (make sure you watch to the end, as this goes beyond the simple demonstration I linked above). Everything Denis says will have been thought on, honed, refined through countless performances, much like in stand-up.

The comedy that shines through is a small wonder in itself, but when layered with a piece of astonishment, it becomes something truly magical.

And that astonishment? That is the magic of magic.

1. https://www.amazon.com/Misdirection-Magicians-Think-Joshua-Jay/dp/1523507438/

2. https://www.amazon.com/Illusionist-Brain-Neuroscience-Magic/dp/0691208441

3. There are many ways that magic can be performed, but within close-up magic you have two main situations: “table magic” done at a table and “walkaround” (or “roving”) done whilst, well, walking. Or mingling. Sauntering, perhaps. I much this option as it offers a lot of freedom that can be used to your advantage. Table magic tends to be more formal and restricted, but that’s not to say it doesn’t have some specific advantages that has been put to devastating use.

4. https://www.conjuringarchive.com/

5. Eric Mead is notable for bringing this term to more general use, in his wondrous book Tangled Web. He has a section titled Jazz Charts and Favourite Licks, which details riffs on several principles including “The trick that cannot be explained”, itself a famous card effect popularised by Canadian magician Dai Vernon.

6. Give or take. Either way, 52! is a stupidly large number.

7. Obviously you need to actually remember the names. There’s a few tricks in this, but one that works for me is to create wild and imaginative links with people’s names and appearances the moment I meet them. For example, I met a guy once who told me his name was Rob. He happened to be balding and tall, so it was an easy and immediate link to think that whenever he walked through a door, the top of his head would rub against the doorframe and little by little his head would be “Robbed” of hair. (I never told him this, of course!) The more you practice this, the easier and faster it becomes. The wackier and weirder the link, the easier it is to remember the name.

8. For anyone wishing to explore this further, the professional scriptwriter Pete McCabe has written a series of eye-opening books on this, though they go through phases of being out of print: https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/magic-books/scripting-magic-volume-1/