From: presto@chopin.udel.edu (Jason Y Nocks)
Subject: Re: How does he fly
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 00:16:43 GMT

Someone mentioned that some dabblers only learn tricks to fool other magicians.
Yet, I know a magician who only uses stooges to try to fool other magicians. As
far as fooling other magicians goes, who cares? That's a totally different area
of magic )ENTERTAINING other magicians would be a better choice of words). IMHO,
I think that lying during a performance is up to the individual. I also belive
that using stooges is a personal choice.
	As far as lying is concerned, I try to avoid it when it is not really
necessary. For instance, do you really need to say, "Here I have an ordinary
deck of cards." I HATE when I hear another magician use the word ordinary. By
calling attention to the item, you may create suspician where there was none. A
lot of people (and I mean a LOT) don't really trust magicians. They won't truly
believe that a deck is ordinary until they can see the entire deck, or better
yet, handle the deck personally (If you feel that you must have a stooge come
up and "inspect" your self-working trick deck, as long as the impact is still
there it's acceptable, but I personally think that there is NO need to
explicitly SAY that the deck is ordinary or to use a stooge - more on stooges
in a sec.). If I were to just grab a deck of cards, preferably one that seems
like a deck I have been using for an entire show (although, I don't do many card
effects), and handle it like an ordinary deck, most people probably will not
assume that it is not an ordinary deck (probably, I don't pretend to know
exactly what the layperson is thinking). I personally don't like to lie, but
when I can't avoid it, I don't seem to have trouble not drawing attention to it.
	As for stooges, I have only used a stooge twice as far as I can
remember. Once, the audience was a bunch of theatre buffs, some of whom had
worked with me on a stage show. I borrowed a book from someone in the audience
that I had given out prior to the effect. I then did a mind-reading effect in
which the audience member chose something that was in the book :) The audience
was convinced that the person who chose the item from the book was the stooge.
I found the whole situation quite amusing. It was a poor choice of material for
that group because I knew just about everybody in the group and it was easy to
assume that the participant was just being a good friend. As I have quoted
earlier, if they even suspect (let me add, even if they suspect wrongly, it is
as bad as if they know exactly how you did the effect. But anyway, how does one
guarantee the openness of the selection of a volunteer without drawing undue
suspicion. DC has tried to do this by throwing an object out into the audience
only to have it thrown one or two more times, having the last person to catch
it come up on stage. IMHO this might help insure to other magicians that the
selection is natural, but might seem quite strange to members of the audience.
The problem is that the process of chosing volunteers doesn't have many other
common occurances (if anyone can think of any, let me know) to immitate besides
other magic shows. Hmmmm..... Shall we set the precedent by drawing suspicion to
the entire process of selecting an audience member with some drawn out process 
of tossing an object around the room? Would a lottery be a good idea? As I am
writing this, every method has a way of obtaining a stooge with the appearance
of being fair by the way. But I ramble. Answer: I think a more skilled magician
can perform effects without a stooge. If the stooge aids in the illusion, there
is no reason not to use one other than wheter or not you can live with yourself
afterwards. In some cases I can, in some cases I don't see justification.
	Last note on DC: He is an incredible magician. No, not all of his work
is purely his own, but he performs 500 shows a year (WOW - check out August's
issue of GENIE if you are a DC fan, btw they mentioned this newsgroup and its
discussion of DC, particularly shortly after his television special). He is a
great stage magician, maybe the best. He will certainly be remembered for quite
some time. His showmanship in this last show was IMHO almost flawless and he
doesn't need to perform incredible sleight of hand to do stage magic. Save that
for the impromptu stuff. Lastly, IMHO he does deserve most of the credit he is
given. His contributors rarely are the sole developers of the effects that they
HELP to develop. And I am sure that much of his work is almost entirely his. He
didn't get where he is purely by chance.
Thanks for everyone's time (including 'the internet'). I had a lot to say
because I feel very strongly (as I'm sure most of you do) about magic.
Enjoy your magic and your audience will too,
-Jason

-- 
| presto@brahms.udel.edu       | A senior E.E. at the U of D with a side order
| presto@freezer.cns.udel.edu  | of stage and close-up magic. The views
| nocks@snow-white.ee.udel.edu | expressed are exclusively my own (etc).