Tag: New Zealand

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Magician v. Clown Follow-Up

Inside Magic Image of Female Magician Kathleen Lakeland Beating Clown in ContestWe have said it many times and written it here just as often: all magicians need to subscribe to Alan Watson’s weekly newsletter Magic New Zealand® here. It is truly essential reading for anyone interested in magic.  Mr. Watson gives us an update on Inside Magic’s most read article of last week.

Magician v. Clown

Regarding (Cornflake the Clown) Justin Lane and his magic clone Magic Matt for making false and misleading claims on awards for publicity purposes.

The New Zealand Commerce Commission has concluded its investigation into this matter and has issued Cornflakes Magic World (Justin Lane) with a Compliance Advice Letter.

A Compliance Advice Letter informs the trader that the New Zealand Commerce Commission has received complaints, outlines the details of the complaint and informs the trader that the Commission is of
the opinion that they are at risk of breaching the Fair Trading Act 1986.

Justin has now complied with the Commerce Commissions requests and removed from all his websites, social media and promotional material items that were of concern and he also has apologised.

If you have similar problems with dishonest and misleading advertising by performers in your area or country then it is worthwhile looking at what legal channels you can pursue to have these false or misleading advertising claims removed.

Alan Watson

Latest Magic News, Magic News

Magician v. Clown – Magician Wins

Inside Magic Image of Attractive Female Magician Fighting with ClownAs noted by early Irish Magicians, “There are no winners in a career death match between a clown and a magician.” (“Níl aon buaiteoirí i gcluiche bás gairme idir fear grinn agus draoi”).

By attributing this aphorism to people no longer walking this earthly turf, we realize some unenlightened readers of this daily alternative to staring blankly into space may poo-poo the notion as outdated and irrelevant.

However, they poo-poo at their peril.  The truth of this truism is irrefutable; so don’t even try.  Recent studies demonstrate one cannot swing a virtual dead cat in the online academic journals without pinging solidly against scholarly work on just this point.

Our recently published survey on the topic found that while the vast majority of all academic writing said nothing about clowns or magicians, some did.   Most of the literature including the words “clown” and “magician” did not address competition between the two performing arts, but some did.  Of those studies where the words “clown” and “magician” were written and their inherent struggle for predominance was examined, most of the researchers agreed with the old Irish saying – or at least did not disparage the theory.

(See, “Magician v. Clown: A Survey of Scientific Literature from Gutenberg to 2010,” Tim Quinlan, Performance Science Quarterly, 2007, No. 8;  “The Psychology of Conjuring Deceptions,” Norman Triplett, The American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Jul., 1900), pp. 439-510, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1412365; “Madmen as Vaudeville Performers on the Elizabethan Stage,” Louis B. Wright, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Jan., 1931), pp. 48-54, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27703444;  Mitochondrial Dating and Mixed Support for the “2% Rule” in Birds Irby J. Lovette The Auk Vol. 121, No. 1 (Jan., 2004), pp. 1-6, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4090049 (An example of article with mention of “clown” or “magician” but not both).

Given this axiom, therefore, it is difficult to understand how a magician or a clown could willingly enter into battle.
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