Paw Lawton Asks “What the Heck is Going on with Magic?”Inside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

What the heck is going on with magic?

This isn't a status on the current state of tricks or how high prices
are getting. It's just a fair and honest question. What the heck is
going on with magic? Where are the youngsters looking to learn? It used
to be in dusty old shops with cards on the ceiling and faded posters on
the walls.

When I was a young man, I learned at the hands of the Champlaine
Magic Shop. There were no special counters with adult items, no fast
moving crap tricks, no nothing except magic and magicians.To be honest,
I have no idea how they stayed in business. I'd be sitting on a bar
stool — no different than I am now, I guess — all day watching the
magicians that visited town and came in to check out the local color.

I learned how to second deal from a magician based on Florida but on
a short tour that brought him through the Midwest. Ace (I'm leaving out
his last name) was one hell of a manipulator. I couldn't do anything he
could do but he did one hell of a great second deal.

He could do it
'one-handed' or with a mechanic's grip or even how Dai Vernon did it
with the slop push. He took time to show me the mechanics and I
practiced the rest of the day as I listened to him and Mr. Champlaine
talk about their favorite magicians and favorite tricks. At the end of
the day, I was no closer to mastering the seconds.

Ace told me something I'll never forget. "Pete," he said — that's
my Christian name — "don't give up but practice for a half hour before
you fall asleep. Then when you wake up in the morning, don't get out of
bed, just start dealing seconds. Use a brand new deck every other
day."I nodded. "Then one morning you'll get the concept. It will kick
in and you'll never forget it."I did exactly as Ace told me. I never
saw him again.

Champlaine's Magic Shop

He headed to Florida and I went out west to do something that would get
my name in the papers. One morning in a piece of garbage hotel in
Rumatilta, California, I pulled out a new deck — it was an even
numbered day and new decks were used on even numbered days — and I had
it.

I figured it out. I could do it. The sad part, though, was I was
alone. Sitting in a piece of garbage motel, with cards all over my
stained and cig burned covers.

I wanted to show someone so I rushed
down to the Sambos — they don't have those anymore but they were like
"Dennys." I ordered a cup a coffee and asked the waitress if she wanted
to see a trick. I did my seconds for her and she nodded. She wasn't
impressed. I realized I hadn't done a trick, I'd just shown her how I
could deal seconds.

It wasn't the technique that should have amazed her, it was what I
could have done with the technique. I knew then, I'd have to find a
magic shop; some where I could talk to other magicians and get their
feedback and ideas. I found one outside of Sacramento and it was as I
had remembered.

Dirty, dusty, but with a back table where magicians of
all stripes were in doing their stuff and learning. I did my seconds
and got some nice compliments. "Where'd you learn that, Pete?" asked a
young man of perhaps 14 years.

I told him about Ace and how he had taught me and the practice
method he insisted I employ. The boy smiled as if I had told him the
secret to free money. I contrast that experience with the kiosks we see
in the malls and the open-air markets. They've got a margin that will
kill them if you sat around all day doing tricks and talking. You need
to see what you want and move on.

I have no idea how a young man or woman would learn from a kiosk.
Who knows, maybe the Internet is like the back room of a magic shop.

If
that's the case, we need to be a hell of a lot more tolerant of the
"newbies" that come on to ask questions that us smarter/wiser magicians
haven't thought about in decades. We need to be like Ace to the kids
(even if their in their 40's) and help them find the community that we
had growing up in this art.

What the heck is going on with magic?

Champlaine's Magic Shop

I figured it out. I could do it. The sad part, though, was I was
alone. Sitting in a piece of garbage motel, with cards all over my
stained and cig burned covers.