Holy smoke, I love magician Steve Spill’s new book.
It is so close to the creative process. It takes leaps. I don’t know how Steve went about writing this book, but I have a suspicion. I think he didn’t know exactly what he wanted to say, but took a creative leap of trust that if he could get sparks started somehow in his overstuffed brain, something magical would come out. Maybe he started with just a premise, a title, a few questions— “How is what I do like a religious experience? If I throw out a couple of words relating to religion, how do those words resonate with regard to magic? What’s for dinner tonight?”
And blam, because he has so much experience performing and doing, and feeding himself with all kinds of creative permission and discipline, the synapses make new connections, and finally with hard work and editing, those connections become more fleshed out and become something special and valuable. While it’s true that Steve has written some great books about magic–you should read every single one if you are in the least interested in performing and creating anything, never mind just magic–but this book, how can I say it, is the book that seems closest to Steve’s subconscious.
If you can see how he has put together this book, the risks he took, the creative leaps he makes, the openness he embraces in the book itself, then you will understand his message about how to be and create for a stage. The medium is the message. Or the massage, as Steve would probably say. Fortune tellers are good for something after all.
Here, for example, is a chapter called Resurrection. Cute, considering the religious theme. But more than cute. Because what that word triggers in Steve is a whole chapter on burn out and how to understand the progress of an artistic intention, its life cycle. How to respect the cycle, and then resurrect oneself artistically. It’s only if one has gone through it many times as Steve has that one understands where and what forms the highs and lows of a creative endeavor occur. Steve writes about how to embrace and take refuge from burnout, how to expect it, and how to move on. I am just a magic hobbyist, so I cannot speak when it comes to performing magic full time, but everything he says about performing magic certainly applies in my experience to writing, acting, and directing. These pages are just some of the most on-point and healing words I’ve read about trying to lead a creative life.
Steve keeps saying that you have to reveal some of your own self to an audience, reveal what makes you tick, and he does it over and over for himself in this book. It is really a gift, and I cannot think of any other magic writer who has come close to what Steve has done in his books.
But…You say you don’t want to hear this artsy-fartsy stuff? You say you want to get down to business? Well, Steve has plenty of commercial advice here, too. In this little package we call a book, wherein the very next chapter is called “Sermon,” Steve has a whole chapter on pitching for commercial gigs. It turns out Dr. Spill for all his artistic inclinations is also highly in favor of eating every day. And so forthwith he delivers the secrets to pulling off a nice paying corporate gig which may well require touting a client’s product (Can you say Francis Ford Coppola Wineries?) And for you disappointed artistes, just know that should you decide to skip this chapter so that you don’t get tomato stains on your immaculate artistic principles, Steve has a description of a wonderful one-in-five prediction effect in this chapter, highly adaptable for other events, commercial or not.
The book’s latter section like his previous books, concludes with a dozen great presentations and effects, with hilarious premises. The methods are sometimes absurdly simple, while others are so devious, you wonder how he came up with them. Clearly, Steve decides what he wants the audience to see, feel, and experience, and then uses his noggin to come up with the best and most do-able method that fulfills the effect.
I won’t go through all the effects—the ad on his website gives a good description of each of them—but I will mention that while I think that Penn & Teller’s “Silver Fish” is the best presentation for The Miser’s Dream I’ve ever seen, if you don’t feel like lugging around a fish bowl and assorted live fish, then Steve’s solution to presenting the Miser’s Dream is my new favorite version. And it’s easy and fits in your pocket.
Really, perusing these descriptions makes me want to book a magic show performance tonight just to try these out for an audience!
Reading this book I kept saying to myself, “Reading a magic book shouldn’t be this fun.” Enough of magic books where you have to slog through yet five more variations of Triumph, or ask your buddy to point out the best tricks in it because the book is otherwise too boring to comb through. Steve Spill has written another wonderful book, and it’s a don’t miss.
