CAMELOT Theatrical Special Effects

I apologize for my protracted absence (about 180 degrees... hahaha!) from this Blog but I've been researching the world of magic on the internet.

Why? Well, stage magic and theatrical special effects are two sides of the same coin and I've been trying to make heads or tails of it all. Hahahaha... okay, I'll settle down now.

There are oodles of magic discussion forums on the world-wide-web where professional magicians, amateur magicians, David Copperfield wannabes and just plain curious, annoying little buggers compare opinions and ideas then spend the rest of the time slagging one another off. Apparently, the most controversial site on the web is The Magic Cafe founded by Steve Brooks three years ago and boasting 15,000 members. It's very tightly policed by aides as far as language, content and a paranoid fear of something called "exposure" where newbies ask how tricks are done and get yelled at for asking or where people are expelled for telling them. The Cafe is divided into rooms and once a user reaches 51 posts he can enter a secret place called "The Banquet Room" where it is allowed to talk about how tricks are done. Natch, this is the place you want to reach because why else would you go to The Magic Cafe? In the Banquet Room is a forum called "Secret Sessions" (moohaha) containing the heart of the entire site: a topic called "Howie Diddits" consisting of 14 pages (at this writing) of extremely useful information for the theatrical special effects designer. It takes a while to post 51 meaningful messages but once you have, the door opens and there you are; shove a ream of paper and a new ink cartridge into your printer and print, print, print until you've got it all.

One would get the impression that a number of people don't like The Magic Cafe by the sheer number of anti-Steve Brooks blogs on the internet. We can assume that these are all maintained by people who've been expelled from The Magic Cafe for writing bad words or slagging off some of the regulars there; the Cafe Police enforce a "Let's all play nice" policy and encourage the 15,000 subscribers to rat on one another when somebody writes "Bullshit" on the blackboard (even though it's a popular Penn & Teller TV show.) The paranoia is a bit overwhelming: posts contain phrases like "st***ed d**k" to fool the Cafe Police into thinking they might not be talking about a deck being stacked. Nonetheless, some of the anti-cafe sites have useful information as well as being refreshingly hilarious, so you might want to check out The Magic Circle Jerk, Magic Rants and The Gunnsight just to keep your scorecard on "who-hates-whom-today" up to date. After all, you wouldn't want to make the mistake of getting too close to anybody on these forums or you might become what Donald Rumsfeld euphemistically calls "collateral damage."

Other interesting and occasionally useful forums, of the dozens I've visited, are:
The Penguin Magic Forum of Penguin Magic Inc.
The Genii Forum of Genii Magazine
Street Magic Revealed
and Ellusionist.

There are lots more; you can make yourself crazy by searching for them all. Of course, you'll notice right away that all of them look exactly alike and have posts by the same people. Sometimes you need to look at your browser address bar to remember which forum you're in.

Now that I'm armed with all of this magic information, I'm ready to tackle the special effects for the upcoming GLAPA production of "Once Upon A Mattress" where I need to teach the "Wizard" how to turn a silk scarf into a cane and how to produce a flower bouquet out of thin air. How will I do that, you ask? Well, I don't want to "expose" any "secret methods" but I just bought one of these and one of these. Shhhh... don't tell the Magic Police or I may be expelled or, worse yet, slagged off!

It's great to be back.

posted by C. J. # 3:19 PM