You're not going to believe this, but I just woke up from a coma! I rushed right on to post this and as soon as I'm done I'll watch the tapes I have of the World Series (can't wait to see the Indians win!) and the Super Bowl (I don't know who's even in it, but as long as the Patriots don't win I'll be happy!) because I sure missed sports. Then I've gotta get my phone back so I can hop in the group chat with my close, personal friends John Glenn, Carrie Fisher, George Michael, Alan Thicke, and Florence Henderson so we can talk about what President Clinton's been up to!
I did see the first episode of America's Got Talent yesterday. I rarely have time to watch TV anymore, but I'm still trying to keep up with AGT the best I can. It becomes more bearable when you can skip through all the commercials and talking and just get to the acts.
In the first episode there were two magic acts and even though they both got through (I think, I know one did for sure and I remember them being very positive towards the other) I honestly didn't like either of them.
The first one was Will Tsai doing a coin matrix routine. It looked really cool and "set the internet on fire" according to some emails I got, but is there anybody that doesn't realize the table is doing the work? I think it was the perfect example of a trick being too perfect. I think having the coins appear and disappear with no cover, while being visually awesome, weakens the effect. If you're obviously not doing anything, you don't have magical powers, you're just a guy standing behind a table triggering special effects.
There was an escape artist who did my biggest pet peeve of turning an escape into a magic trick by teleporting at the end of it. He did a buried alive "escape" that I really liked the visual of. He had sand streaming down on top of him in a chamber and it reminded me a lot of old movies where someone would be trapped in an hourglass and it would slowly fill up. But then of course, "something went wrong" and they had to "rush in to save him" and of course he ended up being one of the stage hands the whole time! I was shocked and amazed!
I feel like I've talked about this before but I really hate when escapes end in a magical way. If you're going to do an escape, do the escape. If you want to do a magic trick, do the trick. Don't combine the two.
- Andster
