Magic is not about fooling the audience. Magic depends on successful deception, but that is the means, not the end. Of course, the audience should not know how it is done, but this is a basic requirement, not the goal. The goal is not to provoke the experience of not knowing how it is done. The goal is not the experience of ignorance; it is the experience of magic. The audience are not the enemy; they are the people for whom we provide this experience. The goal of the magician is to create the effect that something happens that cannot happen. This is a paradox. It is a source of wonder. This is a profound and worthy goal.
Peter Lamont on “What is magic?”
Non, non, mon ami, we’re not talking “Hello, I’m the house magician” here. We’re talking world literature – great artists with consummate skills, both in commanding their subject-matter and in chiseling their gleaming semantic profile and persona from the gorgeous marble quarry we call language. Ah!
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