Ye Olde Magick Blogge

Apparently, Bill Malone’s a poet, and I wasn’t aware of that fact.

Even though penetration sequences aren’t really my favourite parts of cups and balls performances, it’s difficult not to respect the fact that he’s basically taken a really cheap set and built a rather robust routine around it. Also, it proves another point about classics in general.

In a different part of teh internets, Lance Pierce had the following to say about “classic” plots in general.

Here’s something that a lot of classics have in common, although I don’t believe this is what defines a classic: Where a good many tricks have a certain mood to them (meaning they inherently lend themselves to dramatic, suspenseful, comedic or other specific presentations), nearly none of the classics do. The Linking Rings, Color-changing Silks, etc….they’re nearly all “blank slates,” on which the performer can impose any mood or persona he wants. (emphasis mine)

I think this is a profound point, and one which Bill Malone actually proves in his own performance (although I don’t know if this is exactly what Lance had in mind, heh). He could have done the trick with fancy cups and a wand, or with borrowed cups and fruit, or with some other accepted motif. Instead, here he is doing the cups and balls to a fun poem with cheap props and final loads that are basically meaningful in the context of the story, and modern in terms of how they’ll be appreciated (yeah, I know the US Open was established in 1895, but you know what I mean). No heavy-handedness or gravitas that often accompanies the cups and balls — it seems just right for the sort of corporate audience you’d expect him to work for.

So yeah, anyway, in addition to being nifty with a deck of cards, Bill Malone also knows his way around the cups and balls and is even a master rhapsodist. Who knew?

Update: …aaaaaand this is why you shouldn’t take anything I say as gospel. Turns out the poem isn’t Malone’s. I guess the weak way out would be to say that a “master rhapsodist” doesn’t necessarily have to be reciting his own verse, but it still creates a conflict with what I wrote earlier. I think the key part still stands, though. The poem, the presentation, the choice in props… the choices made suit Bill, much better than others might, and he was able to use that presentation to imprint his personality on the routine.

Still, to do justice to the original creator, the story of that poem can be read here. Thanks to Kent Gunn for pointing me to that thread, and thanks to Bill Palmer for mentioning in that thread that the poem was by Jack Bateman, and that currently Phil Willmarth owns it.