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as and Magic as Show Let's remember how a painting, a poem or a movie that is barely com-
The only goals of certain magic venues are making money and entertain-
ing. The show must be liked by the audience. It's a requirement. If a trick
from the show continuously receives little or no applause, the producer
and the magician himself will agree to remove it from the program, or at
least improve or alter it to please the audience. Only the taste and sensi-
tivity of the performer will dictate the lower limit he will accept to make
a trick be liked. Such limits do exist in these venues and for the dignified
performers working them.
The lower limits defining a minimum level of quality barely exist, or
are very near zero, for television networks, producers and many entertain-
ers on worldwide commercial television.
But the final verdict on whether something can or cannot be in a show
will rest on its entertainment value for a majority of the audience. The
public rules.
That is not the case with movies, theater, painting or music regarded
as "artistic", but it is so with such forms as the so-called ( often wrongly)
"commercial" modes-popcorn movies, music for the masses, hit songs,
etc.-even though these could be dignified works by wonderful perform-
ers worthy of admiration, performers who amuse us and entertain us and
leave us endearing memories.
In those other arts just mentioned-and I believe the same is true in
magic-it is the will, above all, of the author, the creator, the performer,
that transforms, through his wish to express his inner world, a performer
into an artist. (I continue to avoid judging the quality of the final work.)
It will happen in magic just as it happens in movies, music, painting,
sculpture and literature: Although we take into account the reasonable
desire of the artist for his work to reach and move his audience, that will
not be the final arbiter of artistic communication; neither will it be appeal
that determines the permanence of such work in a show, which by now is
an artistic one. The important thing, the essential thing, will be the expres-
sion of the performer through the language specific to magic.
or is a total commercial failure can endure and be exhibited, and
such lasting works continue to b(t created, when they express ( or at 0
least attempt to express) the author. 1
Otherwise, the enriching and marvelous works of Ka:q<:a, Kandinsky,
Monet and Orson Welles-to name a few that are classics today but were
damned in their time-could not have survived.
So a possible approach to a personal criterion as to whether we want
to be artistic performers (I insist yet again, without comparing the worth
of our work as a human activity) would be this: If we agree to include in
our show or performance only those tricks that are liked by the audience,
and we remove all those that are not liked-even if we feel them and they
express our sense of self-then we are not artistic performers.
On the contrary, we are artistic performers if what guides us in the
composition of the show is our desire to express ourselves, even if our
true expression might not appeal to or be liked or understood by some or
all of the spectators.
There is, naturally, no clear division of attitudes; we all, in varying
degrees, have a part of each in us: "artist" and artist.
We can still be, most certainly, good or bad artists, capable or failed
artists. But who is to define and decide?
To continue playing with such themes, we could aim above all for
applause, for the external brilliance, the amusement, the sensationalism,
the glamour or commerciality; or we could be more guided by the attempt
to express ourselves, by the richness and depth of our inner world, by our
way of looking at the external world and conveying our dreams expressly
or symbolically.
We can choose either one set of values or the other, although I believe
and expect that it will almost always be a combination of the two. But
here my concern is with which values end up dictating our priorities, the
essential values of our creative and performing process. We can choose,
I repeat, either harmonic and beautiful construction or the cocktail that
"works"; either the truth and authenticity of what we communicate or
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an acceptance, within limits, of the demands of the audience; either sen-

sitivity in communication or a certain sensationalism; either the quest
for knowing and enriching ourselves or that of the public knowing and
"enriching" us; and, finally, either the desire of feeling and communicating
ourselves through beauty or the concern of I hope they like it.
The answer and the choice lie within each of us.
It's -your turn.

Post Scriptum:
I am very conscious of the danger that lies in big words like culture, art,
graveness, seriousness, and of the disastrous consequences to which they
can lead us, making us rather arrogant at times, paralyzing us at others
and occasionally deceiving us. And I needn't tell you how I find myself in
that continuous quest and choice, often in combination, of values; nor do THE MATERlAL: DREAMS
I want to hide that, in recent times I have become more and more aware
of my most intense desire and my innermost truth. Dreams of Magic
A magician enters a dream.
What prodigies can he conjure up?
What astonishment can he cause?
The universe of dreams
is the kingdom of the prodigy taken for granted
(how to open your eyes in astonishment as you sleep?).
There is no room for "How!"
"Impossible!" has no meaning.
But, in turn, the pleasing, the fascinating, the fantastic and the
wonderful are the very essence of the dream.
The amazement and the astonishment
occur on awakening
with a How is it not possible?
The "reality", during a few moments,
is flat, limited, small,
Somewhat miserable and, needless to say,
and perhaps because of it,