התמלול המלא של James Lopez - Magic

heart of magic any more than tap dancing defines all of dance. ⁓ Magic is a ⁓ wide open art form that's existed for thousands of years and Yeah, sitting at a bar, true, yeah, so that's fun. But sitting at a bar, and as I recall, there was an actor there, there was an opera singer, and there was a saxophone player. And there's a conversation about the role of magic in society, and I said, okay, see that table over there, the strangers, if I walked over to that table and I said, hey, I have these four performers over here, and for free, one of them will walk over and do some art for you. You can have a magician do a magic trick, you can have the opera singer sing you a little libretto. I think in our era of technological wonders, there's no better time than to just go experience someone making something appear. All right, I hope you had fun. We'll look forward to finding more fun as we try to answer the fun question. We can have the sax player do a little sax solo, or we can have the theater person do a little kind of scene. What would you choose? And I think everyone at the table agreed. Well, of course they'd want to see a magic trick. So what I'm interested in, James, is why is it that magic is so appealing to people, but at the same time it's always given like, well, it's an inferior art. It's not as important as the arts. What's going on with that? James Lopez: Yeah, it's this weird conversation that I feel like we have a lot, even in this scene and industry, lot of it is that magic is trying to become credible again, right? So we have a bunch of TV shows that are accessible for it now. We have a bunch of people who are starting to get famous with it. have Shin Lim, David Blaine, Justin Willman got to work with the Adult Swim guys. Tim and Eric. So there's like legitimacy of going on with it, right? But for years and years and years, it never was seen like that. And it's always been that like, this weird contradiction thing of everybody wants to see magic, but nobody respects magic, right? And so I think really what it comes down to is that because magic is accessible, and I'll explain this kind of more in detail of what it is, but I think it comes down to the fact that magic is accessible because it accesses our childlike wonder. David: Mm-hmm. James Lopez: It gets us ability to experience something for the first time like we did as a kid. gives us that warm fuzzy feeling on the inside, but because everything is hidden in secrecy, people don't understand the skill that's required to actually do it. They see everything on this very surface and shallow level, whereas with opera, all these other things are like, there's a technical prowess and know-how that needs to be done to do this well. Whereas in magic, it's this weird thing where it's Accessible, it isn't accessible and it's fun, but it's also not fun David: Okay, so you're saying, there's a couple things there. You're saying that you think part of the magic is just, it's a childlike kind

of appeal and people want to have, they want it to be like whiskey. They want it to really burn. They want their art to hurt a little bit. Magic doesn't hurt enough. So I think there's one thing there. And then, yeah. James Lopez: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's not as much perceived sacrifice or effort that's being put in for it to hurt, for it to be good. David: Okay, so that's part of it. And you think the other part of it is they can't see the skill or the technique that it takes. So if people go to Phantom of the Opera, probably a very fun thing to go see, they can be like, wow, they have this giant chandelier that falls, or wow, that's really hard to sing like that. And so they kind of appreciate it more. So you think those two things are operating against magic. James Lopez: Correct, yeah. David: So then I would just say as a performer, how do you break through that? Do you just give up on credibility? Do you just run around amusing people, bringing childlike wonder to their lives? James Lopez: Hahaha It's kind of, it's this weird thing. There's this Spanish magician, ⁓ Gaby Paredes, that talks a lot about this, of this idea of like, ⁓ our job as magicians is to basically take someone on a journey, right? So we meet them wherever they're at and we explore what they want to explore. We navigate this conversation and this interaction and weave them down what's called the magical path, right? Our job is simply to be like facilitators and storytellers, narrators that move them into a space where they're willing to believe in the impossible, right? Or to suspend their belief just enough to be able to see the world a little bit differently. So a lot of the times there are different ways to interpret that and there's good magicians and bad magicians to do it. Bad magicians are basically just we want to hit you over the head with as many card tricks as we can, thinking eventually a card trick will impress you as much as it impressed us, right? But what a good magician does is that they try to pivot the world just slightly, right? And make the world David: Mm-hmm. James Lopez: that we exist in, the rules that we know, question those of whether that's actually real or not. So there's, ⁓ David and I talk about it a lot, is that there's a magician that we follow online, an anonymous guy named ⁓ Andy. ⁓ David: Yeah. James Lopez: a website called The Jerks and he talks a lot about this, of casual magic and the idea that like magic exists in the world around it, it's just someone needs to be the one observing it and I think like a good magician is facilitating that observation. So yes, it's about like fooling them, but you can't fool someone until they're ready to be fooled. So that is kind of the initial job is to get them into a space where they're ready to do that. David: So walk me through that. I pick a routine or a trick that you do or maybe one that you've seen and just, don't have to reveal any secrets. Just like, talk about how you unfold the experience for someone and make something meaningful for them. James Lopez: Sure, so ⁓ when I first meet someone, and this won't reveal too much, but like I'll usually, ⁓ if I meet someone for the very first time and I'm doing like a meeting with them, what I'll do is I'll give them an envelope before we even start the conversation. And we just have a conversation. So whether it's a business meeting, a personal meeting, a meeting with someone, we just kind of like sit around and talk and have this whole entire thing together and they are holding onto this little envelope the whole time. And at the end of our conversation, what I like to do is then I have them open the envelope. And when they open the envelope inside of it has the whole entire conversation that we had, or has a note that or a letter that I wrote to them to remind them about the conversation that we had. So there's a letter I wrote before we even started. Right. So in that routine there, whenever I start that it's a way for me just to kind of create memory with them. But what I do is I create a interest and I create curiosity at the beginning, right? Hand them the envelope and create interesting. David: ⁓ the mystery, yeah, yeah. James Lopez: Misery illusion right, but we don't we don't over acknowledge it right we acknowledge that it exists We acknowledge that it's there, but we don't oversell it right It's just something that exists inside the world with us and as the conversation goes it can go into meandered Whatever it wants, but that little thing in their mind will always be itching of like why did he give me this? David: Mm-hmm. James Lopez: What's the importance of this? Where does the value of this come from? And then at the end of the conversation, when the envelope was ripped open and it's a letter that responds to everything that we had talked about that whole entire time, right? That then creates this illusion and wonder of like, did he know what we were gonna talk about? Was he just a really good facilitator of conversation, right? Or did something impossible happen in front of my eyes? David: Right, right. Well, let me talk about that because I think, you know, we live in the age of wonder. Set magic aside, we think about AI. I mean, all of a sudden you talk to this thing that seems to know more about you than you know about yourself. It can do just generate text out of thin air. You know, we have little devices that, you know, give us access to world events on demand. So that kind of sense of surprise. James Lopez: Yeah. I mean, I'm wearing my wearable right now. You know, like I have an aura ring right now. Figuring out like if I'm healthier. David: Yeah, keeping track of everything. So we live in the age of marvels and wonders. So what's the role of magic now where someone's just like, well, it's probably AI, or it's probably a special effect. ⁓ it's probably just a quick cut on a video. Where does magic fit in our world these days? James Lopez: Well, I think

where it fits is that, you know, even though we have access to all of this knowledge and information and that there's tools that we're like starting to now scarily blindly trust, I think what it comes down to is that people want to be fooled, right? It's the idea of like even like, you know, an immersive theater, right? When we talk about this, lot of everything is that people want to be taken away from reality. David: And just real quick, a Mercy Theater, for people that aren't familiar, it's like interactive or audience kind of centric theater. It could be everything from a magic show to Disneyland, just a place that you're very environmentally absorbed, you're a part of the story, so yeah. James Lopez: Yeah. There's something innate in our human DNA and generation that we want to be fooled, right? We want to be deceived and we want that enjoyment. It's like why everybody wants to get scared, right? You enjoy getting scared because of that riot and titillation of the up and the down is that we still want to believe that there's something bigger and better than us, right? This constant search for truth, I think kind of gets mired is that it's parallel to what magic does, right? It's like we're constantly searching for truth and trying to find more of it. And it's the same thing that we're doing in magic, but instead of trying David: Mm-hmm. James Lopez: to it from an analytical perspective, we're trying to do it from like a creative perspective, right? Left brain versus right brain type of thing. It's the same goal. Well, what culture is doing to us is it's making us believe, right, that the logic is where we're supposed to be. But this human innate urge inside of us still is like, no, we want to believe that anything is impossible. David: So I like that because that connects back to this broader concept of fun and without diving too deep into the theory, I think a big part of what makes things fun is there's an opportunity for you to make your own meaning. Rather than you're trying to understand the beauty of some painting, you're saying, hey, what does this mean? I don't know, you have to make decisions. I think when we talk about childlike wonder, I always think of that as being. that moment where anything is possible, therefore I have to make choices, I have to move into the world, which is different than a world where everybody says, be there on time, do this, I want this done by five o'clock, and know, magic's opposite of that because you're experiencing the impossible, right? You see somebody do something you know is impossible, so what does it mean? So I'm curious in that sort of framing, like for you as a magician, what... brought you into the world of magic. I why was that kind of play or that kind of fun appealing to you? James Lopez: It was, what was really interesting was when I first started in Magic, because I loved the puzzle, right? So I used to watch Magic specials all the time online, or I remember one of first Magic shows I ever went to was the Amazing Randy in Las Vegas. Now again, you should not go see that as a 12 year old, right? But it was like a great show to go see. And, ⁓ I really, really liked and was fascinated by the puzzle of how do you do that, right? So for me, it was like really cool to see like the performance of it, but I was like, clearly something else is going on and I want to know what's going on. What is the back and forth that makes that happen, right? Which is really cool. And so ⁓ when I first started reading magic books, that's what really kind of like, wanted to understand like how they got from point A to point B. So like you take the cards in your hand, you put the card in somewhere, you slip the card out, and then you secretly hide the card in another place without anyone able to see that. I was like, that was really cool to me and seeing like the logical structure of how something worked, right? That balanced and scratched the itch in my logical side of my brain, but still allowed me to be creative because of what was presented publicly. After that, once I started to learn that, ⁓ I realized you actually have to learn the technique of it. Because I always thought you could just learn tricks. And that's the difference between a good trick and a bad trick. If somebody learns a trick, that's a bad trick. Because somebody just learns how to do a trick, they don't understand the subtlety of it. A good trick is someone who understands all of the technique that goes inside of it, of how you hold the deck of cards, the pinky count, how you palm a card, all that type of stuff. David: Just show it. Yeah, yeah. James Lopez: So I really started to go and dive deep into technique because there's just a million different ways to hold a deck of cards and move a card from the top or bottom of the deck. And that really started, again, to fascinate me of the complexity of this art form of like, there's a million different ways to accomplish the same thing, to be able to do it. then, yeah, the ballet and the art. David: So this is like the ballet of the art form, you know, just the muscle, the technique. Okay, yeah. James Lopez: Yep, you're learning the technique, you're doing all of that, and then realizing when you put both of those together in front of an audience to perform for it, that's what turned me into a professional, was the excitement of seeing how all of these elements and skills that I worked so hard on to look like I'm doing absolutely nothing creates a moment of impossibility for an audience. Like there's nothing more satisfying than seeing an audience member, like the eyes light up or the brain shut down because they can't logic their way through it. to be able to do it, right? And that to me, there's this thing I always talk about magic, is most magicians that you see are what I call the warm fuzzy feeling chasers, right? And say they saw a magic trick as a kid that gave them a warm fuzzy feeling. And to replicate that feeling for

themselves, they've decided, ⁓ I just need to perform for other people. And that will create the same warm fuzzy feeling as I saw magic, right? That's not how we should be looking at it. I like making that warm fuzzy feeling for people. David: Hehe. James Lopez: That's the difference. I really enjoy giving that experience to people for them just to have joy. David: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, talk to me about that because I know one of the bane's of certain kinds of magic is the fact that the technique is hidden and it does take a level of mastery and that you can become obsessed with the power of knowing the secret. How do you keep from becoming the kind of magician that really does magic because they get to show you how smart and clever they are? It's to be the ballet dancer that shows you how much better in shape they are than you. I mean, how do you... Make sure that you're focused on the audience rather than your own kind of like puzzle solving, secret hoarding kind of magical self. James Lopez: There is, I think there's a moment, and I feel like this is for most performers, when you go from doing the art for the art form's sake versus doing the art for commercialization or making money to be able to do that, is that you realize like, 90 % I'm gonna get in so much trouble for this and I'll even show you because I have a huge library just sitting right out of frame, right, of all these books I have but like 90 % of what we learn is unusable, right? It's all self-indulgent, know, skill showing off kind of like stuff to be able to do it is that you realize is that the technique is not as important as the effect, right? So you learn all of these skills. David: Yeah. Explain that real quick just for people that aren't familiar with the difference in magic between method and effect. James Lopez: Sure, so the effect is what the audience sees and the method is how we achieve that. So if I take a card and put it into the middle of the deck, I lose the card by shuffling it and then your card appears on the top of the deck, right? That's the effect. The method is that there is, I kid you not, actually let me get the book. David: He disappeared from the frame if you're listening. James Lopez: Just to give you context, right? So to give you framing of this is that this is the size of the all this book is about. David: It's a book, it's an inch and a half thick, two inch book, yeah. James Lopez: In-house, two inches thick, right? Book of how to do that, right? So this is the method here, right? And there's a million different ways to be able to do that. The effect is what the audience sees. And you realize that like there are certain methods you have to do for certain scenarios, right? Because of like angles and all those other things. But what you start to realize is that none of that really matters. Because the audience never sees that stuff, right? So you realize like you can do you can make more of an impact with less effort, right? The less I have to think about what I'm doing in my hands, the more I have the ability to be focusing on my audience and make it fun for them, right? If we're talking about fun, the fun is being in the moment. It's being present when you're with a live magician watching an experience. If I'm so focused on the technique of what I'm doing, right? You'll see this in a lot of like newer musicians, right? Or bands and everything is that when they're so focused on the technique, they lose out on the audience engagement. Whereas most of the best shows you ever see is like, David: Go. Mm-mm. James Lopez: Pearl Jam is just like playing the music but then they're bullshitting on stage right with each other. David: Yeah, yeah. So you get to be a part of that whole environment, that bigger feel. Well, I wonder about magic, and I also would like to kind of return to that hesitation that people have, especially adults. I mean, I don't think a kid will think twice if you say you want to see a magic trick. Although I've noticed this, you know, for at a party or an event or something, and I introduced this James, he's a magician, and I say, you want to see a trick? Nobody turns away. They're like, ⁓ show me a trick, right? So I know that inherently there's something like we can't stop watching magic, but what is it? What is that adult hesitation? why, if I'm gonna take a lady out and I say, hey, let's go see a movie, that sounds good. If I say, let's go see a magic show, it might be like, I don't know, like, you know, maybe. James Lopez: There's definitely two things that go on with it. So there is one of people don't want to be made the fool, right? I the big, like, it all comes back down to this, but people don't want to be made the fool. And a lot of the times when they experience magic, the performers or if they experience it with someone who's a beginner and showing just magic tricks and everything is that the audience is set up to be the butt of the joke. David: Okay. James Lopez: Right? Or they're set up to be in a position where they feel less than the performer. And because of that feeling, it makes them uncomfortable because at that point then they're on guard, right? They take a step back and they can't enjoy the experience because the whole entire thing is now focused on them and focused on their inability to either enjoy the experience, to understand what's going on, all right? Or something along those lines. And I think like that... once you experience that once, right, of that negative attention, it's like, well, then I'm turned off because that's how all of that art form is, right? And I think that that's really interesting because we talk a lot about that is that if you go see a bad comedy show, right, or you go see, God forbid, a bad improv show, right, or you see a bad musician or any of these other things, you don't blame the art form for that, right? You blame that artist, right, of not being the best. David: Yeah Mm-hmm. yeah. They haven't mastered their craft. So,

James Lopez: Right, or like this was a bad show, I can go see another show. In magic, if you go see a bad magician, now magic is bad in general, right? And again, it's because of that framing of, well, magic puts me in a bad spot, right? Versus if I go see a bad show, well, they're bad. But if a magician makes fun of me and I'm the butt of the joke and the audience sees me as that. David: Hmm. James Lopez: right, where I go see a bad magic trick where I want to believe in the impossible and I see something terrible happen, well then you've just ruined that whole entire ability for me to believe. David: It seems like it goes back to that kind of method and effect in that the magician's the master of method and it's all secret method and so there's this power differential between ⁓ the audience and the performer, which maybe isn't as much in other art forms. You watch a guitar player and you think, I'm gonna go home and learn the guitar. You watch a comedian and you're like, ⁓ I could do two tight minutes, but you watch Magic and it's just, it does feel like it's a power imbalance and I don't know how you get past that. James Lopez: It does, and it's like, you know, it's kind of like the same thing of Wizard of Oz, right? Like when they see the man behind the wizard, right? Everything falls apart at that point, right? The whole entire thing is like the illusion that we all wanted to believe in completely falls apart, and the whole entire thing is we don't want the wizard to get out and know he's mediocre. David: Yeah, yeah. James Lopez: And yeah, I think like in magic, that's a huge part of it is that they want to trust that this person has put in the effort of the secrets to figure out what it is, right? But the ironic thing is, that when we have these secrets, we're not trying to keep secrets from people. I think that that's a misconception a lot of people have in magic is that we're not trying to keep secrets from you. We keep secrets for you, right? Because if you ever find out that nine out of 10 of my magic tricks are done with double-sided tape, right? David: That's a good line. James Lopez: you would hate that, that would ruin all of magic for you, right? But knowing that it's somehow impossible and somehow I made this happen, right? That's what I want to preserve in my secrecy, right? And my reverence for the idea of secrets to share. David: Right, right. Yeah. Sure, sure. I like that a lot and I think that makes sense because I think if you look at successful magicians, or probably magicians that you and I would have some respect for in different places, they do it in different ways. So David Copperfield, for example, has a giant theater in Vegas and he charges you $300 to see a show and you're basically, you're bought in on, fool me buddy, right? Like I want you to show me things I've never seen before. I came to see a special effects show. Then you flip over to somebody like Penn and Teller and back in the old days, You know, they would

reveal tricks. They never revealed the whole thing, but they would reveal enough to make you feel like you were part of the con, you were part of the joke. And they made the audience feel really involved. And even today, what's the name of their show? Their show's not Fool You, it's Fool Us, right? Like the nominal structure of this magic show is that a magician's gonna fool them. So we all together get to try to figure out the trick and enjoy it. And with that in mind, I would like to hear You know, your ideas about ⁓ magicians, let's start with, that you have a lot of respect for, people that you think are a great gateway drug to watching magic, if they can't all come to one of your shows in Denver, like, you know, what's on TV? Where do you go find good magic? And what do you look for? How do you know good magic before you are in the middle of it? James Lopez: Sure, sure. That's a really good question. Because again, like magic is so broad. Like it's a really, really hard thing. And I think we just now in the last, I'll tell you this, this is a very well-known secret with inside of the magic community. Magic is anywhere between 10 to 20 years behind any other cultural trend. We are always behind. Right? So when you see a magician, right? So like Chris Angel is a really good example, right? He still looks like he's from the nineties, right? That's because in magic, he's relatively still cool. because that's what we're seeing. That's why you're just now seeing a lot of magicians dressed like I am right now with a bunch of tattoos and wearing black, know, and like leather and all that stuff, right? That was cool back in the day. We just figured out that's cool. So it's really hard because we're still trying to like define ourselves as an identity that feels like authentic and real and sharing that with the world that matches culturally with it. But I would say like... David: Okay. ⁓ James Lopez: You know, a big entryway of just like if you want feel good feelings is Justin Willman, right? All of his work that he's done has done a great job. ⁓ making magic feel approachable and presentable to be able to do that. There was the fooling show, ⁓ Michael Carbonaro, ⁓ for a long, long time, he tried to bring magic to the mainstream in a prank-like show. And it didn't work, because nobody knew who he was, so when he would reveal himself, everyone's like, okay. David: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. James Lopez: He brought magic to the forefront, right? Instead of just doing cups and balls, how we've always done it, right? Out of the beginner entry level magic tricks, he turned it into a scenario that felt real. So he's really, really good. If you want to see good magic and the performance of sleight of hand or the art of magic, right? With a capital A, you have magicians like Ossie Wind out of New York, who's really, really good to be able to see. You have the venues like Chicago Magic Lounge or Speakeasy Magic. Smokin' Mirrors down in Nashville, right, which is a really, really good venue to see. The YouTube channel I've been really enjoying watching lately has been Genius and Poison because it's a lot of the best of magicians of our time and era right now, and most magicians who are actually shockingly under the age of 40 on that show doing amazing magic. I would say all of those give the best gamut of what magic is right now and the best it can be. David: And how do you then coach someone to appreciate magic more? mean, think, you know, ⁓ anyone can be like, wow, that was a cool trick, and then they don't think twice about it. But like, what do you look for to be like, you know, watch for this or appreciate that or listen, listen to the narrative or think about how they structure the trick. Do you have some kind of, how do I go about appreciating magic more tips? James Lopez: Don't, the biggest thing that I always tell people is don't try to figure it out. Right, because the minute you figure it out, so in magic, there's this theory ⁓ of what we call false solutions. David: Mm-hmm. James Lopez: And so when we're curating or designing a magic trick, the goal is to remove any idea of any false solution because psychologically what happens in your brain is that the minute you come to this is how something is done, your brain locks into that. And so every single vantage point you see of a magic trick is that you're viewing it from that vantage point. Right? So if you think that I've taken a ball, right, and I've hidden it in my hand like this, now, no matter where this hand goes, you will watch that hand. and watch it and assume that's where the ball goes. So now you can't be fooled because your brain is trying to rationalize and it's going to be wrong, but your brain is gonna rationalize like, he took the ball, he put it into his coat pocket, it fell down a shoe, then went into his pants, right? But then have the ring that popped it into his hand again, like your brain won't let go of that. David: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. James Lopez: So the first thing is never think about the solution. Go in with an open mind. Go with the beginner's mind of anything is impossible. Let it happen. The second thing is that really listen to the magician itself. A lot of the times, scripting of magicians are bad. It's either hack jokes. But a lot of the times, they'll set the conditions of the reality for you. Trust them that they are telling the truth there. They're coming for you, David. They are coming. David: Mm-hmm. It's all, it's only been, it's gonna happen, yeah. James Lopez: ⁓ But the whole entire idea is that the magician, you know, we don't lie to you, we just kind of move the truth a little bit. So when they're telling you the conditions of reality of it's a fully-dumped shuffle deck of cards, right, or there's nothing inside of the box, believe them, right? Allow yourself to believe that that reality is true of whatever they're saying, because then that creates the impact that you want to see in enjoyment,

rather than being all like, well, clearly there's something in the box. No. David: That makes sense. mean, that's the suspension of disbelief. I mean, you go watch the Lord of the Rings. If you spend your whole time trying to figure out how they did the special effects, I mean, that's a fun activity. But when you watch the movie, you just accept that those are hobbits, those are elves, they're fighting orcs. James Lopez: Yeah, and I mean, look at a great example in Game of Thrones with the Starbucks cup. That completely destroyed, and I personally believe that that was the downfall of that series. Because it broke the suspension of disbelief. That became then a film set. And that's kind of the same thing in magic, is that if you have to allow yourself to be there. Now, that being said, this sounds like we're trying to make excuses for the art form of like, ⁓ just let it go. Good magicians will create a scenario and say, David: Yeah, yeah, okay, fair enough. They'll get you there. James Lopez: get you there. ⁓ Mediocre magicians will do a really really good job of entertaining you. Bad magicians, just haven't learned this stuff yet, right, or are unable to learn it. But the whole entire goal of all of them is the same, so if you treat them all the same, you give... the art form becomes more forgiving, right, and it gives you access to be able to go and find better work that will fool you, rather than just disowning it completely when you see something bad or fail. David: Yeah, absolutely. So one last kind of line of questions here, and this is really more for the people that are like, you know, I always thought it'd be fun to learn a trick. And I want you to think about a trick either that you can pick up out of a book or you can go buy at a magic store. They just think it's a great kind of have in your pocket beginner trick. And I'll go first. I think if you're fortunate enough to have a magic shop in your town, walk in, ask for a demonstration of scotch and soda. and if you like it, buy it. It's a great beginner trick, super fooling, it's fun, you You're not gonna get hired to do night clubs, but you'll definitely impress your friends. James Lopez: Yeah, yeah, would say it's scotch and soda or any kind of like easy coin trick, right? There's the nickel and dime case. There's a couple of other things, the cone, a couple of just like entry level tricks where something will like learning a car trick is great, but you have to understand the mechanics of it. Learning an entry level coin trick is that you will, without doing anything, you will see a coin physically change from silver to gold, right, or something along those lines. And to just do that real quick is a very, very impossible feeling of a moment. David: Yeah, it's great. And if you can't get to a magic store, you can always go to an online shop. But I think I would discourage people from seeing a trick and buying it to find out how it's done. think we're back to the, if you want to go to a

shop and ask for a trick that you describe what you want, and then you learn how to do it and then go do it, show it to people and then try to come up with a story. Or what did you say? Create that suspension of disbelief, that moment of unreality, those places where wonder can be experienced. James Lopez: Yeah. And if we ever come back, I mean, we can deep dive down into that when we, know, we have, this is the art of fun, right? So if we talk about like the immersive and experiential, we could go way down that path to be able to do it too. But one of the things that like, for me, when I was growing up, What they always told us for like beginner magic is you would go to the library because the library always has entry level magic books and you can go in there and get like Mark Wilson's Encyclopedia of Magic. can, you know, get ⁓ John Hugh Gard, Great Expert Card Technique. There are like a handful of books that are publicly accessible. And I used to be a big believer in telling people that, but as I get older, I've realized, no, because again, that requires you to learn skill. And I think when people are first starting to learn magic is they need to understand what that feeling of that instant gratification feeling is, right? So one, it's the cleverness of understanding how like a entry level, you know, scotch and soda trick works. You're like, Ooh, that's clever. But to experience that in your hand and to watch someone do that and get that immediate result, that's will lead you down the path to wanting to learn the skill, right? Not the other way around. David: Absolutely. So I think at the end, just to kind of wrap up, I think you're saying the fun of magic really is in the delightful experience of the impossible. And everything should be an input into that. The experience you take away should be that. And that's the fun. The fun is that you get to see something impossible happen right in front of you. James Lopez: Yeah, always. And the fun is seeing a different audience, right? And it's so cool because if you do magic right, you're seeing it for the first time every time. It's one of the few art forms where every time I do a trick, it's for somebody new, so I'm experiencing it for the first time with them. And that will make this art form for me last for forever. David: There you go. All right, so one last thing, lightning round. Short one sentence answers to hard questions. You ready? Okay, the first one is, what's the most overrated thing in magic culture? James Lopez: Go for it. products. David: of like tricks, buying tricks. James Lopez: Yeah, buying tricks. We release on average, I think it's between 150 to 200 tricks a month. David: Okay. Wow, that's a lot. Okay, second question, second of three. What's harder, fooling people or moving them? James Lopez: that's a great question. ⁓ fooling people. It's easy to get people to have an emotional connection with something. It's hard to try to fool someone and keep that fooling going on for forever. David: Okay, great, great. And now, here we go. This is your penultimate short answer question. Not the penultimate, this is the ultimate. If magic had the same prestige as opera, what would change tomorrow? James Lopez: charge really high ticket prices and people would buy tickets to shows. David: There you go. There you go. There you go. Well, thanks a lot, James. Appreciate it. I will put your website in the show notes. And if you're in Denver, look up James. He does shows, he runs events, and we'll get back and we'll talk about immersive the next time.