Be Natural and Use Your Head

Now That I'm officially over the hill, I just can't believe how utterly blind I was as a young man. So many things that were hidden from me when I was younger are clear to me now. It is most powerfully true in my spiritual life. But it is also true for my family life, my professional life and even to my return to magic.
For example, I have owned Jean Hugard’s “Expert Card Technique” for 30 years. It is an essential book to be sure. But perhaps the best part is the last 3% of the book. There are several essays on misdirection, humor, presentation and the like that are gold. When the author speaks of the greats of magic he has these words: “…it is not the tricks they perform that are important, so much as the illusion they create about themselves”.


Hugard goes on to instruct the reader on the proper attitude and discipline required to become a respected and well-loved artist rather than just a guy that does tricks. Gold I tell you! As a young man I entirely ignored this section of the book. “Words”, I thought. “The dusty old fashioned words of a dead guy”. Then I’d continue riffling through the pages. “Tricks” I would have thought, “Must find more tricks”.


Another good example is chapter 2 of “The Dai Vernon Book of Magic”. “USE YOUR HEAD” The Professor instructs. Even when someone sat me down and handed wisdom to me on a crystal plate, I quickly forgot what little I listened to.


Case in point, I knew master magician Jim Cellini for a short time. He had great wisdom and advice for me. Unfortunately his gems and pearls bounced right off my knuckleheaded bean and fell to the floor like rejected pixie dust. One day at my job a young lady I worked with told me she was at a club owned by Cellini. She then told me about a visiting guest of the owner. "He was a funny old man with an accent". She said he was standing up on a chair doing a rope trick. “I was afraid he would fall off the chair” she said. “He was really funny, and the best magician I’ve ever seen”! “Dear God in Heaven” I thought, “Was his name…Slydini”?

“Yes” she said, “That’s it”. (Insert foul expletive here). If I had been paying attention to my life I could have spent the night sitting across the table and learning from TONY SLYDINI! One on one with the Grand Master of close up magic! And where was I instead? I was out with my drinking buddies. No doubt dropping tequila shots, releasing many yahoos and chasing women. A waste of time, money and energy on pointless revelry and foolishness. Say the words with me now... “Owha…Tafool…Iyam”…I have a permanent divot in my left buttock from 20 years of kicking myself in the ass!

I’m just grateful that today I have a little more sense. Because of my attention to the “dusty old words of dead (and living) magicians” My present (third) incarnation as a magician has so far been successful. Last week’s presentation of the Page/Cellini color changing handkerchief routine exemplifies my point. I heartily took the advice of Cellini, Hugard, Tarbell, LePaul and countless others including my newest hero Patrick Page. Mr. Page says…”Magic should be a performance. Otherwise it’s just a dry technical demonstration. So learn six tricks, practice them well and go out there and perform them!” I love this guy! So I followed the advice of the masters. My practice and confidence were such that I was able to focus on the audience and my by play with them instead of “pulling off a sleight”. I learned this from “The Importance of the Inconsequential” Hugard (Page 444), and From Dai Vernon, whose battle cry is..."Be Natural". This is new and exciting to me. Instead of watching my hands and worring, I was watching the smiles of the audience. There was joy in what I was doing because I was free perform the routine as though it was really magic. I could focus on my presentation persona like never before. And now that I can see it, I can develop it. The handkerchief routine could stand a bit of polish and refinement, but was very successful. But the bonus is even better. That is, I am now beginning to understand what Jim Cellini was trying to tell me long ago. I now understand how to move beyond the level of one who indulges in hoodwinkeries to the level of “artist”. This is my goal. It’s a lot more work. But the payoff is priceless. Will I ever get to that level? If I don’t, it won’t be for lack of trying.




The Passages on the mystique of magic from Hugard, Tarbell, Vernon or any other quality book on magic are often just as valuable as any of the effects therein. Such essays teach how to turn an ordinary trick into a miracle. They also show ways to influence how an audience responds to and remembers the magician long after the tricks are forgotten. I am taking the time and relishing the words of the Masters. I am learning now what I was not ready to learn as a young man. Be natural and use your head. Great advice for anything worth doing. The masters speak their wisdom. I will continue to listen with enthusiasm.

As with so many aspects of my life, I was blind, and now I see.