Thursday, January 31, 2008

Exposure

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Today I want to talk about exposure. This is something that has been on my mind for sometime now and I have thought about it and come to a conclusion that is most likely going to be controversial.

I don't think exposure drastically harms the magic community.

I think that it may for a short period of time cause a few individuals to remember that they know how a trick is done, but a good performer can take the same trick they saw exposed, perform it, and that same person will have no idea how it is done. Laymen simply don't care enough about magic to move past the "I know the secret" stage, and because of that, they cannot remember how a trick is done for long. Think about when you learn a new trick. It takes you forever to remember what goes where and when, and you are a magician! Think if you explained it to a layman. They would forget it in an hour.

But think also of what exposure is: the demonstration or explanation of the secret behind an effect. This means that every book and every video ever published is a form of exposure. The counter-argument is that these materials are not intended for laymen. But still, they are available to anyone who wishes to purchase them. At some point, you were the layman who walked into the store and bought a random book or video and started to learn. Without exposure, there would be no magicians.

So instead of exploding every time we see exposure somewhere, the magic community needs to reconcile it's feelings and realize that exposure is a part of magic. And life goes on.


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