Ye Olde Magick Blogge

This article was originally published on the old ye olde on October 31, 2008. I figured since I already had a pretty long series dealing specifically with exposure, that I might as well run the topic by Tyler Erickson to get his thoughts on it. He already teaches classes to beginner students, and a big [...]

Any discussion on exposure that’s worth its salt has to come around to the subject of Penn and Teller at some point. It’s the weirdest dichotomy. On the one hand, you’ll see magicians cry out against exposure, saying it’s terrible for magic. On the other, you’ll see them say that Penn and Teller are fantastic, [...]

This article originally appeared on the old ye olde, on January 2, 2008. “It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” — Sherlock Holmes This series of articles about dealing with exposure has sort of evolved… really, in trying to come [...]

This was originally published on the old ye olde on April 3, 2007. One of the tricky things to figure out about exposure is why people are motivated to do it in the first place. It’s possibly unique in this way amongst the performing arts (all of which could be considered fraudulent in their own [...]

This was originally published on the old ye olde on March 22, 2007. When it comes to the magic world, the Internet is a harsh mistress. It’s got so much potential in terms of how it can help magicians come together and learn from each other from all over the world. I’ve been studying magic [...]

This was originally published on the old ye olde on March 14, 2007. Here’s a sobering quote from John Carney’s Carneycopia. It’s in the middle of some commentary aimed at the current magic scene. There also exist collectors of secrets who hoard information, which is never put to use for either bettering their lives, or [...]

This article was originally published on the old Ye Olde Magick Blogge, on March 11, 2007 When in the mood for a little larceny, pickpockets sometimes brought their own signs saying “Beware of Pickpockets” to large gatherings of people. They’d put the signs in a visible place and then stand off to the side, watching [...]

This article was originally published on the old Ye Olde on March 5, 2007. As I previously stated, the more I think about exposure, the more I’m thinking it’s less exposure I’m focused on, and more how it relates to getting busted. I guess it’s because that’s my own personal history — I’ve found that [...]

This article was originally printed on the olde Ye Olde, March 3, 2007 A common sentiment that abounds amongst people starting out in magic who really are interested in magic itself, is that they want to learn skills that don’t involve gimmicks or gaffes. I understand where they’re coming from — it was very important [...]

This article was originally printed on the olde Ye Olde, February 25, 2007 Exposure was a problem for me the moment I got my first professional gig, or what I suppose could be called a professional gig — I was getting paid to do magic shows, but whether or not that makes me a professional [...]