Chabang : This months guest is well known on the UK magic scene, both respected and admired by his peers for his phenomenal technical skills he displays in both cards & coins. With a distinctive laid-back style he blows away magicians executing knuckle-busting slights executed in his own unique way.

A regular "guest" on TV magic programs since the mid 90's magic bunny is proud to present the close-up master Michael Vincent........

Michael Vincent: Thank you for the invitation to present my thoughts on your forum.

Having traveled quite a lot and met magicians from all walks of life it is fascinating to me to see that we are all very much the same. We all have the same desires in life, appreciation and acceptance.

Magic is a wonderful tool for self discovery and for sharing the joy of life with people.

I hope your questions will stimulate me and I can then give you my honesty.

My week on this forum will be as good as the questions posted. I will be posting topics of my own as and when I feel the inspiration.

Mike: I'd like to thank you for taking your valuable time and spending it with us here at MB. I do so hope that you will find this guest spot to be challenging and useful - time well spent.

Thank you, Michael, for this!

Admin: Thank you Michael for taking time from your busy schedule to visit these boards and answer the questions and comments from our members. We really do appreciate the time that professionals, such as yourself, provide to these forums and I would like to publicly thank you for your input to these boards. I know that I shall learn a great deal from these threads.

Thank you!

Graham: Hello Michael,

Let's get started right at the deep end with a controversial question. Hang on tight. Here we go:

Exposure. I am very much against it.

While the internet can be a wonderful tool for people like me to communicate with professional artists like yourself at the other end of the skill spectrum, the 'net makes magical secrets far too accessible. Indeed, forums often expose secrets via ill-worded questions in a public area, rather than confining such enquiries to the "secrets" section.

All too often the argument put forward by such forums is "How can members enquire without referring to method?" or "We're not too bad, others are far worse". Both of which I find to be pathetic line of defense.

What is your view please?

Michael Vincent: Secrets are the life blood of magic.

It appears to me that the one person in today's world who can't keep a secret is the magician. Recent television programs confirmed to me that magicians with no sould have prostituted our art, and for what?

Without respect for our art and for the hard work laid down by the magician who came before us, how on earth are laypeople going to ever have respect for magic and magicians.

In my opinion, the art of magic is very forgiving to the magicians who haven't paid their dues. Classically trained musicians cannot go on the world stage and give performance and screw up; they will be slaughtered by the musical press. However, in magic, we may grumble a little and perhaps express a certain level of unhappiness but in the main it's no big deal.

Magic secrets have become too accessible.

There are more books published today than ever before. Videos, DVD's and of course magic secrets traded on the internet.

I feel if secrets are to be shared on the internet through a forum, then they should be password protected. At least answer three magic questions relating to the history of magic and bingo in you go. (I had something very similar on my website. How pathetic is this; I received e-mails from around the world from magicians who didn't know Dai Vernon's real name or the number of assistants in Ricky Jay's one man show.)

So Graham, your opening question has got me on a soap box.

This issue of exposure is a very important one. I feel there is more harmful exposure done by bad performing magicians than by the blatant work of others. Where do we go from here? Well, we need to look at the quality of our own work and honestly evaluate every aspect of it.

We can then decide if we are fully prepared go out and give a professional presentation. If not, then more work is needed. Every magician around the world will be the barometer by which all of us are judged. If any one of us gives a bad show then it will reflect on the whole fraternity.

So I will leave you with one final thought. Are you going to be the weakest link?

Shaun Robinson: I’m not for exposure, and it is one of those things that I really cant stand, as it is magicians going against something they are supposed to believe in.

But, lets look at this from another point of view. In your IBM competition entry you openly say "I've been practicing my sleight of hand, would you like to see some?" Now this is not exposure, as such. You are letting them know that a method exists, but your not directly showing it to them, your just entertaining them with it. When you ask, there is a reaction from the crowd "yes". Now for me, that would be a great position to be in, an audience actually asked me if they could see some of my sleight of hand.

What’s the point of all this? Honesty. Do you not think that we as magicians, will get an easier time from the lay public in general if we all start being a bit more honest about what we do? Realize that we are entertainers, and we use magic and sleight of hand to entertain?

Michael Vincent: Your point is valid Shaun

Firstly, I have never competed in an IBM competition to date. You are probably confusing that with my competition act I did at the Ron McMillan convention many years ago, which I won.

Your point reminds me of Darwin Ortiz's essay on the showing or hiding of skill which can be found in his new book Scams and Fantasies.

Lay people are not stupid: Let me repeat that: LAY PEOPLE ARE NOT STUPID. The time has come for all magicians to approach laypeople with the thought that their intelligence is at least equal to their own.

Everyone knows there is no such thing as real magic. However, what really does exist are the "emotions" of astonishment and wonder. I agree with Darwin when he says that an audience will applaud skill but still react emotionally to something which looks and feels like real magic. Let's get this point very clear.

The emotions of wonder and astonishment are very real. So your point about me saying "Would you like to to see some pure sleight of hand" is a very subtle ploy on my part to educate the audience. I want them to know that what they are seeing is a real skill which took years to master.

Am I exposing, I don't think so. I am reminding the audience that I am a master of my craft. Even though they cannot see anything, they still react to the magic very powerfully.

I want respect for my art and my talent. In order to earn that respect, I know that the magic I will have to present will need to be of the strongest and highest caliber.

Routines like:

The Conus Aces.
Everywhere and Nowhere
The Ambidextrious Travelers
The Open Travelers
Remember and Forget
The Ladies Looking Glass
The General Card
The Showdown
The Unholy Three
The Sting

I could mention a host of other very powerful routines but I just want to make the point that my magic is very heavy with technique, and a theatrical presentation. I know from first hand experience that after my show, laypeople have come up to me and said. "We never knew magic look so beautiful".

Laypeople's comments and various testimonials from clients have confirmed to me that if we give them our very best effort without compromise, their response will more than justify our hard work.

There is another approach mind you; you can always take the easy road and stick with your Invisible decks or Sevengali decks and trick coins.

If we are going to take the art magic further into this century then I believe more magicians will need to perfect their technique and presentation skills. It's a longer and harder road to follow but much more rewarding.

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