The magical blog of Steven Gabriel Warburton

On Wednesdays, I take my son to therapy in a nearby city. While he's there, I go to a local coffee shop where I spend about seven hours on various work or leisure projects. They include journalism (work), creative writing (leisure), and practising magic (work and leisure.) So I sit at my booth, I set up my laptop and my closeup pad, and I go to work. Today, I spent about five hours practising two routines. One of them was the four-coin routine that I recently mentioned on this blog, the other was a very colourful and visual ace assembly. I was mostly ignored, which is kind of odd when you think about it. I mean... there I was, literally making the impossible happen. I was making coins disappear and reappear somewhere else. I was making red-backed aces jump from a blue pile into another a red pile.  But no one cared. They cared more about their coffee and their donuts than they did about the guy who was defying the laws of nature in the booth next to them. And that got me thinking a...

  I have this longstanding theory about magic dealers. I think they prefer dealing with "magic enthusiasts*" more than magicians. At this point, some definitions are in order. A "magic enthusiast" is NOT a professional or even a semi-professional magician. He (or she, but probably a he**) is someone who likes magic tricks and likes the air of mystique they might lend him. Perhaps he wants some magic tricks to pick up girls or entertain the grandchildren or to do a set at the company picnic. And so they go to the magic dealer for a few modestly priced easy-to-do miracles. The magic enthusiast is an easy sell. The professional magician is not. I have spent hours in magic stores, undoubtedly boring the proprietor as I searched for something that "fit my style." I reject most of the magic I see - not because I don't think it's great (for much of it is) but because it doesn't suit my personality. I think most pros (and semi-pros) are imp...