Simon Lovell Rants

Simon Lovell Rants
By Jeff Stone

If you are a subscriber to Reel Magic Quarterly, you are familiar with the Simon Lovell Rants. If you are not a subscriber, what are you doing to yourself!? Subscribe. It’s only $55 per year and you get 6 DVDs. If you need some convincing as to why you should subscribe, then check out this month’s Gems and Rubble. There is a full review there. By the way, as a tangent, I have not been paid or asked to promote RMQ. I’m just letting you know because it’s an incredible product.

Enough with the digression. Back to the subject at hand… Simon Lovell’s Rant. Last issue of RMQ, his rant was about all the fancy finger flinging and XCM (Extreme Card Magic), etc. He’s not a big fan. His argument was that it’s NOT magic, but rather it’s simply juggling. He asks the question, “Why are you doing it?” Then he immediately responded with “It’s not magic.”

As much as I love Simon, his rants and his work, I must take him to task, slightly, on this one. For all I know he may agree with me. He really didn’t address the piece that I’m about to.

Roots:
Let’s remember our roots. The root is motivation. I would like to take Simon’s question (Why do you do it?) and allow us to examine it before he answers it (It’s not magic!). Many of you reading this do XCM and finger flinging. Here’s my list:

  • Danny Korem’s “The Leaper”
  • One Handed Deal (causes card to fly out of the deck)
  • Paul Harris, et al Butterfly Cut
  • One handed shuffle
  • Several one handed cuts
  • LePaul’s Hop Spread
  • A fancy false cut that I don’t know the name of
  • Gianni Mattiolo’s Illogical Shuffle
  • And a few others that aren’t coming to mind

So should I be doing them or not? Well that’s up to me. Should you be doing them? Well that’s up to you. I would offer that it depends on your motivation. As Simon said, “why are you doing it?” I know why I’m doing it. Why are you doing it? Or are you doing it? Maybe you’re not. That’s ok too. I think that in and of itself, XCM is not a bad thing. It’s the “what” and “why” of it that can be bad. What do you do with the flourishes? Why do you do them?

Are you doing the flourish because you want people to think you’re cool? Because you have low self-esteem? Because it adds to the effect? Because it gets their attention? etc, etc, etc? I submit that there are both good and bad reasons to do fancy moves and flourishes. You must take a good hard look at yourself and ask why you are doing them.

Branches:
Let’s build our branches. I cannot answer the question for you as to whether or not you should be doing them. I can give you advice to help you come up with your own answer, but if I gave you the answer, then this wouldn’t be a very good “branch.” The whole point of the branch is to get you to take a risk, go out on a limb (pun intended) and build, grow, or graft in your own branches.

Take a moment and seriously and honestly assess yourself. Why do you do the fancy moves? Answer that question, and don’t lie! Tell the truth. Nobody else needs to know, but you MUST know. Believe me, whatever your motivation, the audience is not stupid. They know!

So if you’re doing it because you are emotionally three years old and need attention and validation, believe me, they know it, and they feel it, and you are not fooling them. Spectators are NOT stupid.

Once you’ve figured out why, I will let you be the judge as to whether or not it’s a valid reason for doing the flourishes. Here are my reasons, and I feel they are valid, but I could be wrong:

First, the flourishes that cause the cards to fly out of the deck are only used by me when I get a card wrong. It’s a similar psychology to Jay Sankey’s Die Hard Opener. I do a couple of fancy moves, then cause their card (purposely the wrong card) to fly out of the deck. Then they point out that the wrong card flew out. By then I’ve already done a card switch to the actual selection. The flourishes set the stage for flash and show-off-ness, then I fail. Then I succeed.

It’s good theater. Tommy Wonder talked a lot about the concept of having conflict to create interest, and the above technique does just that.

Butterfly cuts and fancy shuffles are things I rarely use. The main usage for them is when I’m somewhere waiting: On a bus, in a doctor’s office, in line at the bank, etc… I do the flourishes but I make a point of not looking at anyone else in the bank when I do. If anyone sees me looking at them while I do the moves, it becomes clear in their mind that I’m seeking validation, even if I’m not.

So I focus intently on the cards as if I’m channeling the spirit of magicians past to master this incredibly difficult move. People always notice, but I make a point of not noticing them. Eventually, someone always asks me if I’m a magician. They NEVER ask me if I’m a juggler.

When they ask, of course I then put the cards away and engage in a conversation. Often ending up with a business card exchange. It’s a great way to get leads.

Occasionally in a close up gig I’ll use the fancy stuff to establish myself as an expert, but I do it in a subtle way with a couple of funny lines. I’ll say something like, “Do you wanna see something ridiculous?” When they say yes, then I do a quick blast of crazy flourishes. When I’m done I say, isn’t that ridiculous. I wasted 10 years of my life learning that. It’s a gag; it’s funny; it builds rapport, and I remain magician, not juggler, and I’ve gained some additional respect and credibility without rubbing it in their noses.

I’m not the first one to do this: for example, Greg Wilson has a great line on his Pyro-Technic Pasteboards DVD. After doing a flourish, he says: “People ask me if I had to go to school to learn all of this… Actually the trick is you have to skip school.”

Petrick of Petrick & Mia has a great gag… He asks the audience if they would like to see a one handed shuffle. He then holds the deck in one hand and quickly riffles the corner of the deck with his thumb. Then he asks, “Wanna see it in slow motion?” Then he proceeds with a very slow and deliberate one handed shuffle. It gets a great reaction and in no way turns him from magician to juggler.

If you’re a stage manipulator, then XCM may be a huge part of your act. Take Jeff McBride for example. He is an incredible card manipulator and has a killer stage act, but one of the things that he’s most famous for is his card skipping where he flings cards and bounces them off of the stage on their way out to the middle of the audience. That’s not magic; it’s card bouncing/skipping/juggling. However, nobody says, “Hey I saw this awesome juggler last night, Jeff McBride…”

No. They say, “I saw this awesome magician last night, Jeff McBride…”

So Why Do You Do It? Make your own decision and go study the classics, and go discover your true magical self.

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