Tweetable moments from Alex Stone today:
- Returning a watch secretly stolen from audience volunteer: "Magic exploits a wormhole in the mind."
- Kids are the hardest to fool. Adults are good at ignoring peripheral information.
- "We're used to thinking that our decisions are our own."
- "Our mind lags behind reality by a certain finite amount," a fact exploited by magicians. Magic gives us insight into these "continuity errors."
- We're so suggestible: simply imagining an act will implant a memory of that act happening. Magicians know this.
- Magic frames the experience differently and changes the end. We remember what "happens at the end" and the most emotional experiences.
- On doing kids' shows, because kids are so hard to fool: "the ninth circle of hell."
- Magic reconnects us with our eight year old. On aging magician's last request, "I wish someone could fool me one more time."
- On what he's learned: Magic tells us how we see things, how we remember, about our limitations.
- For example, "we're inclined to see patterns where none exist." BUT, perception is reality.
- Magic is a "primitive art;" it taps into our elemental biology. Being fooled is a way of experiencing something deep.
- Having amply demonstrated our frailty, Alex Stone: "Be smart enough to know that you're dumb."
- On magicians be tricked by other magicians: "we're constrained by our assumptions" too
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Stay curious.
Wayne
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