Chris Jones on How Teller Got His Magic Back
That's the value of a great bit of magic. It offers the pleasure of something plain and ordinary unexpectedly elevated to a marvel. It's a redemptive feeling,
Teller Jim Steinmeyer • Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear
The success of a magician lies in making a human connection to the magic, the precise focus that creates a fully realized illusion in the minds of the audience. The simple explanation is that seldom do the crude gimmicks in a magic show-those mirrors, threads, or rubber bands-deceive people. The audience is taken by the hand and led to deceive them
... See moreTeller Jim Steinmeyer • Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear
Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.
An Unreasonable Amount of Time
Later, Tristan explained to me that this is a core insight of magic—you can manipulate people and they don’t even know it’s happening. They will swear to you that they made their own free choices—as I would have about those cards.
Johann Hari • Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again
He discovered, at this young age, the most important fact about magic. He explained years later: “It’s really about the limits of attention.” The job of a magician is—at heart—to manipulate your focus. That coin didn’t really vanish—but your attention was somewhere else when the magician moved it, so when your focus comes back to the original spot,
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