The Stone Effect

My mentor, David Stone the French magician, winner of Micro Magic FISM 2006 Stockholm, gave a stimulating and very entertaining 3 hour long seminar at the Zauberparadies in Zurich which I attended. Having not seen David for 15 years it was interesting to see how our professional lives had both developed separately.

David is promoting his “Gimmicked” card tricks and I am still struggling to get by without them, not to save the expense but to save the embarrassment when I am discovered cheating. It was very interesting to see he is marketing effects I have mastered with little or no gimmick.

I met other local magicians who were impressed with my skills but the underlying question is: Gimmick or no gimmick? The conclusion I came to is: both!

I always used to say: “Why do it the hard way when you can do it the easy way?” The answer is that the easy way should only be performed after you have mastered the hard way, the reason being that only then can you be more confident in your approach. If they are fooled with the gimmick all well and good but gimmicks have their set backs. They can be unreliable and break or become worn which may give away the method. They also take up space in your pocket and require special methods to conceal their existence. At the end of the day you realise that neither way is easy or hard because this is not the reason for performing magic. The art of magic is creating an effect and it shouldn’t make any difference what your method is as long as the effect is strong.