IS THE INTERNET KILLING MAGIC?
Salon.com presents a lengthy examination of the impact of the internet upon the state of magic today and discusses the topic with Jamy Ian Swiss. In the article, Jamy is quoted saying:
“Magic has always depended on the control of information,” Swiss told me in an interview. “When I was young, you had to hang around a magic shop, and learn to ask, and ask politely. You would approach a guy and he would tell you, ‘Well, show me what you are working on, kid,’ and you’d show him. And then he might say, ‘Let me help you out with that,’ or ‘Let me show you something different than what you asked.’
“The biggest problem with DVD and YouTube exposure is that it has damaged the skill of learning through asking, and it has created the mistaken assumption, perhaps, that all knowledge and all wisdom is available to buy,” he said. “And there’s so much difference between those two acts, because asking involves a human experience, while buying is just sitting in your coach and passively absorbing countless secrets that you think constitute magic.”
Others cited in the article include David Roth, Harrison Greenbaum, Acar Altinsel and Eric DeCamps.
READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE
In January of 2010, Jamy joined us for an early episode of our magic roundtable, "This Week in Magic" in which he also touched on this topic. In case you missed it, you can listen to it here:LISTEN TO OUR 2010 CONVERSATION WITH JAMY IAN SWISS ::
LISTEN TO PT 1 OF MY 2008 INTERVIEW WITH JAMY ::
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LISTEN TO PT 2 OF MY 2008 INTERVIEW JAMY ::
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