Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats. — Howard Aiken
Dear Friends:
This may be the biggest story in the world of magic today!
The BBC picked up on my recent situation with the recent “copy act” and how I handled it gracefully as “a magic teacher.” They picked up on this problem, currently rampant in our magic world – acts, inventions and other intellectual property are being ripped off left and right. Read all about it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21861418
There’s also a ‘webified’ text of the radio story that ran on PRI, but it’s much better if you click the ‘play’ button to listen to the audio of the radio show: http://www.theworld.org/2013/04/magician-jeff-mcbride/
Look at or listen to both of these stories! They are ground-breaking stories on “magic theft,†and intellectual property rights, getting notice by major mainstream media. Many thanks to our new friend, Arun Rath, the reporter who wrote both stories.
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original? —Jean Cocteau
Q: What can you do to encourage originality and fight magic theft?
A: Support our magic school!
Become a Member. Our scholarship programs help many students find a magical education… you can help! Please go to www.magicalwisdom.com and sign up or donate now.
But there are some things, child, that you should steal. That you must steal, if you have enough love and courage in your heart. You must snatch freedom from the hands of the tyrant. You must spirit away innocent lives before they are destroyed. You must hide secret and sacred places. — Lian Tanner
Not only did I get the advice I was looking for, the inspiration from Jeff and Eugene will last a lifetime. — Dan Rodriguez, S.A.M Past National President
He is a living legend of magic. Siegfried is a Grand Master of Illusion. For 2 hours he held court and shared his marvelous teaching stories and wisdom with our class. You just never know who will drop in on our classes! Who would you like to see show up when YOU attend our class?
Here is Siegfried, with Larry Hass and me, opening his personal copy of The Show Doctor! He looks as delighted as a kid on Christmas morning!
Jeff has had such an impact on my show as well as my creativity in life.  I never would have been able to stand toe to toe with Hollywood’s biggest think tanks without the lessons  learned from my mentor and friend Jeff McBride. — Nick Norton
Here is a new character I’ve been developing. His name is “MO -NOPOLY” and he is the “Wizard with Money-Magic”.
Every month we create a NEW show for Wonderground. We are a tribe of artists and rebels, dreamers and rowdy misfits who support each other’s divine madness!
Originality is the best form of rebellion. — Mike Sasso
You are invited to The Biggest Magic Party in Las Vegas! This, and every other third Thursday April 18th at 8PM, at The Olive on Sunset.
Here are highlights from last month’s event edited by Scott Steelfyre:
http://www.vegaswonderground.com/pages/media/videos-live-from-wonderground.php
The Kings of Poker are here: http://virtual.magicalwisdom.com/lessons/view/57
See it now! The finale teaches you how to script a standing ovation into your act.
I will see you in Vegas or on our webTV show, live on Monday nights, but available 24/7 if you can’t make it on Monday: www.mcbridemagic.tv
Enjoy the magic of spring!
Yours in magical community,
Jeff McBride
“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”
— Albert Einstein
Dear Friends:
Today we hear from the Dean of McBride’s Magic & Mystery School, Eugene Burger. Last week while we were all in Las Vegas for the first evern “Magic for Speakers & Presenters†and our first 7-day Master Class of the year, we sat down and figured out Eugene’s book have sold over 25,000 copies over the past twenty years – which means he is probably far and away the best selling contemporary author of books for magicians. Let’s see what he has for us today:
By Eugene Burger
“Slow down, you move too fast / you got to make the morning last…â€
— Paul Simon
These words are from “The 59th Street Bridge Song,†by the American singer, Paul Simon. They were written in the 1960s. In July of 2005, in an article published in MAGIC magazine, Max Maven wrote that, if he were to give a bit of advice to all magicians, it would be to slow down because they speak too fast. It is also something that we see regularly at the Magic School: magicians talking too fast.
What about us? You and me? If we are performers, in our performances are we speaking too fast? How would we know?
The easiest way to find out is to audio record your performance and listen to it with ruthless honesty. Ask a friend to watch it a well and get their feedback. Are you speaking so fast that you are running words together? Is the pacing of your speech much the same? Is there variety in the pacing?
If I do this — really do it! — and I find that I am speaking too fast, what then?
There are several sets of questions here. The first set deals with why this is happening. Why is it that in our performances we speak too fast? What got us on this road? And does understanding the origin of our fast speaking empower us to change? Does this knowledge empower us too stop speaking too fast?
The second set of questions asks about the effects of our fast speaking. What does our rate of speed do to our performances? How does our speaking too fast impact the view our audiences have of us and what we are doing? What price are we paying for our fast talking?
Well, how did this fast talking begin? What got us on this road? A few have gotten on this road because they have consciously chosen the theatrical role of con man (or con woman). Needless to say, this is a perfectly wonderful theatrical choice.
But what about the other magicians who are fast talking? How did they get on this road? I think that our fast talking comes from a variety of sources. To mention only two of them, there is, first, the fear of silence that so many performances exhibit. A second source is the some of the models for our magic have been bad models. We have watched earlier performers, who spoke too fast, and we imitated what we saw. The magicians we watched spoke too fast and now we speak too fast. Bad models for our magic explain a lot.
But does knowing how our fast talking began empower us to end it? While Freud might have said yes, I am less convinced. Frankly, I doubt that our knowledge of origins gives us the power to do something different. In other words, while looking for origins might give us interesting knowledge, the study of origins does not necessarily give us the power to change our actions.
What, then, does give us the power to change our actions?
And this, of course, is a basic human question.
The Indian speaker, J. Krishnamurti, who repeatedly dealt with this question, asked us to look at the dangers that some of our actions can bring to our lives. If we see the danger of something, if we see it deeply, does that very seeing not empower us to change our actions? An example he often gave is this: Imagine you are in the woods and suddenly there is a poisonous snake in your path. What will you do? What will you do then? You might go up to the snake and tease it, torment it — and be bitten! On the other hand, seeing the fact that the snake is poisonous is the new action of getting out of the snake’s way. If I deeply see the danger, that seeing is the beginning of something new.
For many people, seeing the danger of their actions is enough to empower them to stop and make changes. But it does not seem to be true for many others.
For a moment, look at the real dangers of our fast talking in performance. This persona, the fast-talking-con-man-type-of-person, does have consequences for us if we find we are doing it. The biggest consequence, I think, is the loss of importance. We sacrifice the sense that what we are doing really is important. We reduce what we are doing to the status of the trivial and we reduce ourselves to the status of unimportant performers.
And we lose the sense that we are sincere human beings!
At its heart, then, this is a question of value. Is our performance communicating that what we are doing has value and importance for our audiences? Does our performance communicate that, as magicians, we are special — and talented — performers?
Or does our performance communicate that we are simply fast talking — and unimportant — con men?
Thank you, Eugene! One of the great pleasures of teaching at the Magic & Mystery School is getting to listen to one another’s thoughts about our art – and then discussing them together, and with the students. I always come back from Las Vegas feeling inspired and excited about the new directions magic is moving.
Which brings up an interesting thought, and one I know we’ve mentioned before, but which I think is worthy of mentioning once again. In the last two classes, we had no fewer than 4 students with us who had received scholarships in one form or another. All of them were wonderful additions to the class – and people who faced challenges getting there – challenges which the scholarships helped them overcome.
And since we started out this note with a few words from our Dean, it seems appropriate to end it with a few words from Dr. Larry Hass, our Associate Dean, on the subject of the scholarships:
Up above, I mentioned I had just returned from Las Vegas – and I thought you might enjoy this photo of Siegfried with one of our scholarship students, Elizabeth Scalf, whose scholarship was sponsored by the Siegfried and Roy North American Fan Club. We had a wonderful afternoon and evening with Siegfried…a true gentlemen who is just as fascinating one-on-one as he was in the incredible show he and Roy performed for so many years at The Mirage.
Finally: Jeff is currently in Thailand with Jordan, headlining a magic convention in Bangkok. We thought you might enjoy this photo, taken onsite at the festival there, more or less as I am writing this.
Thanks for taking time to read this rather long version of our Muse. I thought about trying to cut it down a bit…but then thought it would be criminal to deprive you of ANY of Eugene’s wisdom, which we feel incredibly blessed to be able to bring you here, without charge. I hope you’ve read this far, and that we’ll see you back here in just a couple of weeks.
Sincerely,
Tobias Beckwith
tobias@yourmagic.com
“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.â€
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Dear Friends:
No one saw it coming! I certainly didn’t… but a strange, magical phenomenon happens when you share time with brilliant minds. The “group mind†is smarter than any single person in the group. That is how magic works, I think. That is the very reason we created Mystery School over 21 years ago. We gathered talented people together to co-create the future of magical education.
We certainly did not see this in the future, but here it is! (read on my friends, read on!)
Mystery School makes history! Read the whole social media story in Beyond the Square Magazine about us, and Penn &Teller too!
http://online.flipbuilder.com/hmtw/hmjl/#p=26
Many years ago, I read lots of magic books. I was 8 years old, and my first stage name was “McBride the Magnificent.” My grandma thought it was “a bit too much,†but my mom and dad printed up little business cards for me. Hey, the name gave me something to shoot for! I would have to give that name up in a few years, though. It was a name that I had to let go of. (Keep reading!)
Today, I still read lots of magic books. I also read Michael Dolan’s blog each week, and he inspires me.  I read this next piece by Michael, just in time for a crucial meeting this week about “letting go of preconceptions!”
Michael writes:
We box with the demon of doubt daily, while at the same time [we] wrestle with our art, fighting to get it just right before we launch, release, publish, ship or produce. The inner dialog is relentless and the process is exhausting.
No one else on earth could possibly understand what you go through to manifest just one inch of acceptable, original work.
However, this is it, this is what it’s like to be an artist, an entrepreneur, and every single day of your life is “Showtime!†And every single day of your life you have a choice; Stick to the same o’l script, or write a new screenplay. Rehash mediocrity, or manifest magnificence.
Bring to the show: Â A finger, pointing in the direction you want to go.
Leave behind: A well thought out plan.
Bring to the show: Your best work—the work you’re afraid to present.
Leave behind: The work that makes you feel safe.
Bring to the show: Gratitude, transparency, genuine humility, and an eagerness to suck up that which you don’t already know.
Leave behind: Your righteous opinions on how things ought to be.
Bring To The show: Your truth.
Leave behind: Everyone else’s.
“Showtime†is different for all of us, and it doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO of a growing corporation, the keyboard player of a rock band, or a songwriter with one aging hit to your credit. Every day when the lights go on and the curtain goes up, it’s your choice to “bring it on or not.
For more of Michael Dolan visit http://www.mike-dolan.com/
I like the phrase Michael uses “Manifest magnificence!â€
“The difficulty lies not in grasping new ideas, but rather escaping old onesâ€
— John Maynard Keynes
Some ideas are hard to let go of for me.
When I was a kid magician, I lived near the Catskill Mountain resort hotels in upstate New York. I used to think that “If I could only do my little magic show in the big Catskill resort hotels, ah! then I would have made it to the big timeâ€â€¦Now, all the Catskill resorts are either torn down, or rotting away.  They no longer exist! I had to let that idea go, and my “McBride the Magnificent†title with it!
Years ago, I had to let go of the idea of being “The Mime Magician.†Hey, talking as much as I do now, I had to let that idea go! I had to let go of the idea having a typical “old fashioned Las Vegas magic show†for something that I feel is much, much better! (Wait for it, here it comes!)
Big changes ahead in Las Vegas
The last few months we have been re-visioning our monthly magic party. Letting go of old ideas and getting together with our Wonderground-crew to dream up some BIG new ideas!
We plan to broadcast a new Wonderground TV project in the coming months. We will also be searching the planet to bring NEW and original acts and ideas to our stages!
See the new “magic mash-up†video created by Scott Steelfyre and Jordan Wright to see this month’s line up!
The Wonderground Players create a new show every month  — and let go of the old ideas!
Our crew at The Wonderground is conspiring to create new ways for the world to interact with us. Watch for us on YouTube or join us live at the show Thursday March 21st at 8pm.
“A man can learn only two ways, one by reading,
& the other by association with smarter people.â€
— Will Rogers
This month I’ll still be reading magic books, and I will be in the company of some of the smartest people I know.
Eugene Burger, Tobias Beckwith, Dr. Larry Hass, Bryce Kuhlman, Abbi and the faculty of Mystery School are hosting 2 weeks of classes here at our Vegas school. Although Magic for Speakers and Presenters is sold out, there is still time to register for the March Master Class, and for our summer school events.
Another great article has appeared on the touring show The Illusionists. I made the cover again this month! Take a look at “the touring life†from our point of view:
http://www.vanishmagazine.com/
If you missed the tour, you can see the incredible clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vl26paBRIE
Late March takes me to Thailand with Jordan Wright. We will be doing shows and reporting back on Monday Night Mystery School.
8pm PST every Monday night! Â Watch it at http://www.mcbridemagic.tv
For my full tour schedule for 2013 go to:
http://www.mcbridemagic.com/pages/calendar.php
See you on the road or here at a class at the Mystery School!
Yours in the art,
Jeff
We continue to add to the fare at the online “virtual†Magic & Mystery School, and now Jeff has just released his own version of a classic card table routine, “Kings of Poker.†It’s a fantastic presentation, and easy to do.  Now available as a download (or you can just see the great trailer that Jordan created for it) here:
http://virtual.magicalwisdom.com/lessons/view/57
Also, we’re considering an East Coast Tour for The McBride Magic Experience in May.  Let me know if you want to sponsor, or know someone you think would!  It’s great fun, and sponsors wind up getting their own private master class in producing and mounting a show.
Tobias Beckwith
tobias@yourmagic.com
When you pass beyond this human form,,
no doubt you will become an angel
and soar through the heavens!
But don’t stop there.
Even heavenly bodies grow old.
Pass again from the heavenly realm
and plunge into the ocean of Consciousness.
Let the drop of water that is you
become a hundred mighty seas.
But do not think that the drop alone
becomes the Ocean —
the Ocean, too, becomes the drop!
— Jelaluddin Rumi
Hello friends,
Abbi here, in the House of Mystery, sipping a cup of tea, and thinking about all of you….
Sometimes, the real magic is right in front of our eyes; all we have to do is slow down enough to notice it. I think about the magic of water, which comprises a large percentage of our bodies and our planet… descending from the sky as a gift from above in the rain, moving through us, keeping us hydrated, enabling us to see, pulsing with the blood in our veins, cleansing and purifying, nourishing all life, flowing toward the ocean in mighty rivers and small streamlets, and rising again to the sky.
How often we take this precious resource for granted. When I moved to Las Vegas, nearly sixteen years ago to be with Jeff, my entire relationship to water changed. I try to make my connection to water a conscious part of “the flow.â€Â I make it a point to stay hydrated, and each time I drink, I think about my part in this great tide, and I strive to be mindful in my use of water.
One of my favorite magic memories is of seeing Just Alan perform the “Sands of the Desert,†with a slideshow accompaniment of a journey to India. You probably already know Jeff’s “Rainmaker†water-bowl routine is my favorite piece of magic that he performs, and one of my regular pieces that I love to perform is a version of “In the News.â€
Our friend, Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque du Soleil, has started a foundation called One Drop, dedicated to ensuring that water is accessible to all, today and forever. It is heartening to see someone working so hard for such a good cause. Check out what they’re up to:
http://www.onedrop.org/en.aspx
So, as the springtime rains bring out the daffodils in the front yard, and the blossoms appear on the apricot tree, I am offering an opportunity to each of you, to drink deeply of the beauty inherent in each moment, and to savor each sip of life. May you never thirst!
Abbi
From Tobias:
If you have visited Abbi and Jeff in their “house of mystery,” you will know they live surrounded by magic every day – and not just the kind that involves decks of playing cards and Kabuki masks. Poetry, music, literature, graphic arts – their home is filled with things that evoke magic and wonder. And of course, one can always sense the magic and artistry in Abbi’s writing.
I’m fortunate to be heading off to Vegas in just another week or so for our two classes in March. First is Magic for Speakers and Presenters – which is completely sold out already, in just the first time we’re offering it. Just after that we have our first full Master Class of the year, from March 18-24, and as I write this, there are still several slots open for that one. We usually see several students at our March class gearing up for competitions at the summer conventions, and I’ve noticed we have at least one of those signed up this year. If you’re looking for a way to assure you make the leaps forward in your performance you need to compete effectively, this is your best chance. Sign up now at www.magicalwisdom.com.
Immediately following the March classes, Jeff and Jordan will be heading off to Asia again – this time to Bangkok – to share magic at a festival there hosted by our new friend Mamada. If you’ll be in Thailand between March 26-29, be sure and see them! That will give Jeff just a few days home before he takes off on two weeks of cruising the Pacific for Holland America…and that takes us nearly to the end of May.
For May, I’m looking for a few good “sponsors†for the McBride Magic Experience. This is Jeff’s signature one-man-magic convention, as only Jeff can provide. Combining show, lecture and workshop in an amazing two-day event not only provides a special treat for the local magicians and magic – but it winds up serving as a master-class in promotion and production for the sponsors. We’ve developed the methods for working with venues, handling press and overall production that, once you’ve learned them with us ‘holding your hand,’ can be applied to events you’ll want to promote for the rest of your lives. A true win-win for all involved, and designed so it actually carries less financial risk for the sponsor that just having another magician come and lecture would. I hope I will hear from several of you in the coming week or two, as now is the time to start promoting for May!
That’s all from me for this week. By the time this Museletter comes out again, we’ll all be sharing time in Las Vegas for the Master Class. Maybe one or two of you reading this will be sharing time with us there, too!
Best wishes.
Sincerely,
Tobias Beckwith
tobias@yourmagic.com