From the Dean, Lawrence Hass, Ph.D.
Is Your Magic “Sticky�
Longtime readers will know I conclude every calendar year with a reflective “visioning†process, during which I articulate my goals and plans for the new year. As one part of this, I state some commitments for the year ahead, and for 2018, this one was at the top of my list:
Spend more time with sticky art.
I came up with this concept—“sticky artâ€â€”last year while watching David Lynch’s extraordinary show, Twin Peaks: The Return. I had enjoyed Twin Peaks when it aired in the early 1990’s, but that was nothing compared to the incredible experience I had while watching The Return from May to September 2017.
It was 18 weekly one-hour episodes—no binging allowed!—and thank heavens for that, because each episode left me thinking, pondering, reflecting for days. Watching this show was an incredibly rich encounter with art—one of the very best I had all last year.
So at the end of 2017, I realized I wanted more of that. I wanted to spend less time and money on superficial, glossy forgettable art-stuff. I wanted to have fewer “potato chips†and less “white bread†in my arts and entertainment diet. I wanted to invest my deeply precious time with entertainment objects that would “stick to my bones.â€
  
Films: The Last Jedi and Black Panther (my wife, daughter, and I dined out for days on these films.)
Art exhibits: Jasper Johns (The Broad) and Richard Diebenkorn (SFMOMA)
Graphic novels: Planetary (by Warren Ellis and John Cassidy) and Watchmen (by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons)
Music: David Bowie’s astonishing final album Blackstar
Short stories by Harlan Ellison and Neil Gaiman
I understand, of course, that what’s sticky for me might not be so for you. As with most aesthetic things, they are inflected with personal interests and tastes. Even so, I believe there are certain qualities all these entertainments share, and I suspect you’ll find at least some of the following qualities in the items on your list.
Next: What pieces of magic or magic shows have you recently experienced that were sticky in this way? (I have a few in my recent experiences, but I don’t want to hijack your process.)
Finally, and perhaps most important of all: since “stickiness†is obviously an extremely fine, powerful quality in entertainment, which pieces of magic in your repertoire have it, or have more of it than others? And can you aim to get more of it in the next piece you create? That is, can you make that routine more memorable, thought-rich, fecund, and unexpected? Can you craft a hooky “mystery box†that will linger for days?
Because I hope by now you see: stickiness isn’t merely an aesthetic quality, it’s also a commercial one.
Question:Â Do I have to be a performing magician to learn magic?
Answer:Â Of course not. You just have to love magic!
Greetings magic lovers!
Did you know that most people who love magic do not perform magic? I often have to explain to friends, that, just as with the opera, most of the people who love the performance of magic are not performers themselves…but they have a deep appreciation for the art.
Many of the people that I teach are what I call “magic lovers†or “magic enthusiasts.â€
Magic enthusiasts come from all walks of life.
Just in the past few years I have shared my magic lessons with many students of magic who are business people, screen writers, actors, truck drivers, housewives, stay at home dads, politicians, government officials and more – all of whom who love magic as a hobby.
Learning Magic is a great way to enrich your life,
7 REASONS TO LEARN MAGIC AS AN ADULT
One of my students, Ming Da, wrote a great article on the life-enriching qualities that studying magic can add to your life! You might enjoy it: http://mformagic.biz/?p=895
Donations to the Eugene Burger Legacy Fund can be made by going to www.magicalwisdom.com/eugene.
A Magical Party
This month we are hosting a very special party honoring The Wonderground All-stars!
We will have special events planned for the opening of all the shows!
Here is the schedule:
7:30 PMÂ Strolling magic Will Bradshaw, Taylor Lloyd & Allen Scott will do tarot readings
8:00 PMÂ Comedy Magic & Variety — Your host Tim Wise
Michael Tetro – From Burning Man to Hollywood
Jeff Lockett — Con Man Confidential
Kevin Hall –Â The Wild Man of Magic
Nick Diffatte –The New Comedy Star of Vegas!
9:00 PM — Your host is Will Bradshaw
Allan Ackerman — The Las Vegas Card Expert
Michael Tetro – Hollywood’s New Magic Sensation
Kevin Hall — Madcap Mayhem
Rocco — Modern Master of Mystery
10:00 PMÂ — Your host is Clyde McBride
Sonny Fontana — An Illusion that Is NOT to be Seen!
Kevin Hall — Comedy Magic as Seen on AGT
Michael Tetro – Magic in “Flow-Motionâ€
Nick Diffatte — The NEW star of Comedy Magic
Jeff McBride — Toast of the Town!
We are now preparing for our upcoming classes on tour, online and here in Las Vegas. Please drop us an email and let us know when you plan to visit!
Your friends in magic,
Jeff and Abbi
Hello friends,
Tonight is a very important night for all of your friends at the Magic &Â Mystery School.
Tonight, Monday, March 5, at 7:00 pm, pacific time, We launch the very first in a new series.
THE MYSTERY SCHOOL MINUTE
Each and every week this year, we will be bringing you golden nuggets of wisdom, from the Faculty of the Magic & Mystery School. Below are just a few examples of the themes we will be exploring on each episode.
Tune in and experience the launch of our new format and new approach for Mystery School Monday. It will be a live, discussion-based class on magic hosted by JEFF MCBRIDE.
Tobias Beckwith will offer his many years of experience in theater and in business.
Lawrence Hass, the Dean of the Magic & Mystery School gives you his insights into the philosophy and art of magic.
You must be a member of the McBride Magic & Mystery School to attend. You can attend this live, online magic class every Monday night, by becoming a member. Please go to:Â www.virtual.magicalwisdom.com/members/signup.
We look forward to seeing you in the classroom, and we thank you for helping to make us the longest-running magic web TV show in history!
Your friends in magic,
Jeff, Tobias and Larry
Dear Friends:
I’m convinced that most performing magicians aren’t fully aware of the very real power of our magic. Far beyond its ability to entertain, magic can help us shift our audiences’ attitudes and beliefs. The lessons we learn when we learn magic can be applied in many different areas of our lives. This month’s Museletter features some profound thoughts of how this works from our good friend David Morey. If you’ve attended Magic & Meaning or one of our Master Classes in Mentalism, you probably already know David and his work. If not, let me enlighten you about some of David’s qualifications.
Chairman and CEO of DMG Global and Vice Chairman of Core Strategy Group, David is one of America’s leading strategic consultants. He is the award-winning co-author of The Underdog Advantage (McGraw Hill), and has helped add hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and value to a wide range of Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Morey has worked with some of the world’s top business leaders—and with five Nobel Peace Prize winners and eighteen winning global presidential campaigns. He is also an accomplished magical performer.
Along with Eugene Burger and former acting head of the CIA, John McLaughlin, David has written a new book, due out next month, about how the lessons we learn from magic can translate to other areas of our lives, and particularly to business. Here is David Morey:
“Explains how thinking like a magician can take you and your endeavors to new heights of success.â€
–from the foreword by David Copperfield.
We three authors have been mixing this magical broth for almost a decade, and the book is dedicated to our dear teacher, mentor, and friend, Eugene Burger, who moved to what he himself called the “ultimate capital M Mystery of life†while this work was nearing completion. But let us be clear: This is not Eugene’s last book or final chapter, because his voice from these pages is as enduring as are his teachings.
All three of us came to write this book through magic—but we all are more than magicians: a political and corporate strategist, a world-renowned magical thinker and philosopher, and the former acting director of the CIA. Our mission: Apply to the strategic innovation of business, everything we know about magic—as we say in the introduction:
“In writing this book, our objective is not to create a new generation of magicians, but to publish in one place and for the first time, the Creating Business Magic strategies of the world’s greatest magicians—to use the force and metaphor of magic to empower boundless imagination, drive leadership, and create success in your business, your career, and your future. At the core of this book is the belief that imagination can make magicians of us all.â€
Over 50 years ago, consulting legend Peter Drucker said: “Business has only two functions: marketing and innovation.†And the magician inside us all brings to marketing and innovation—and to life itself—untapped magical strategies, magical synergies, and magical powers.
The magician’s magical powers include the ability to understand perception, drive aspiration, fuel imagination, anticipate change, direct attention, bolster persuasion, grab the dialogue, and empower belief. Our book shows how using magic as metaphor and applying the principles of conjuring can challenge assumptions and empower imagination to:
“Creating Business Magic” takes the reader along a path of genuinely magical thinking. Beginning with imagination, the authors illuminate the power of perception, ways to innovate, to think out of the box, break down conceptual barriers, and finally bring out the magician inside us all. These are the essential ingredients of every powerful magic performance, and here the authors take you behind the scenes in magic to explain how thinking like a magician can move you into new realms of imagination, creativity, and accomplishment.â€
Our idea of synergizing magic and business is inspired by Albert Einstein’s wonderful quote: “imagination is more important than knowledge.†This, in fact, is fuel that drives our core argument—that imagination is the secret source of all magic and all magicians, and that imagination has driven progress and breakthrough across the ages. Imagination invented the wheel, imagination created the information revolution, and imagination just sent an unmanned spacecraft all the way to Pluto.
We magicians know that the real magic happens well before any show begins—in the way we learn, prepare, practice, rehearse, disrupt, experiment, and strategize. This is the real magic of any magical performance, just as it is the real magic of any innovation, any business, or the conquering of any of life’s challenges.
Our book, then, is a tribute to the magician inside us all—because our inner magician is so very and increasingly important today. As we write:
“For every one of us, the way of magic is the way of slow movement along a path of growing and learning to be a magician. Whatever philosophical beliefs you hold, accept this book as an argument for “fideism,†for empowering your own beliefs. In the case of the authors, these are the beliefs of the magician. Believing in what you do, say, and live is the ultimate calling of your inner magician. “I have something wonderful to show you tonight,†was co- author Eugene Burger’s favorite pre-show mantra. So it should be for all of us. We all have something wonderful to show you tonight.â€
We magicians have so many wonderful things to show you tonight: So many wonderful ways—in and out of business—to help put to work innovation, invention, and imagination. This is our inner magician’s real secret. It is, more than ever, a secret we need today in business and in leadership. This is the secret of the magician inside us all—the remarkable power of our imagination.