December, 14
I’ve never been interested in being a conventional person. Even less a conventional magician, and this is probably why.
Recently, I read an article full of great advice for magicians and successful shows.
It was full of excellent advice, thoughtful insights, and practical experience. Yet, as I kept reading, something felt off. Too often, those suggestions sounded less like guidance and more like rigid rules to be followed without question. They had a faint smell of mothballs—useful, perhaps, but a little dated.
Magic is a unique field, and perhaps more than any other art form, it thrives on freedom. While technique and structure matter, magic is not a factory line. It is an expressive language. Treating advice as unbreakable law risks turning creativity into routine and wonder into habit.
Even Dai Vernon, one of the greatest masters of magic, believed this. He acknowledged that rules exist for a reason, but he also understood that they are not sacred. Rules can be bent, adapted, and sometimes broken—provided you understand why they were there in the first place. Innovation is born exactly at that point where respect for tradition meets the courage to step beyond it.
This is where the figure of the unconventional magician comes into play. An unconventional magician may differ in style, attitude, or performance approach. They may choose humor over elegance, intimacy over spectacle, or storytelling over technical display. Their magic may be performed with everyday objects, borrowed items, or tools that lack the classic formality of silks, top hats, and polished apparatus. Yet the absence of tradition does not mean the absence of depth.
Unconventional magic is not lesser magic. It is simply different. Just as there is no single way to write music or paint a masterpiece, there is no absolute “best” or “worst” way to perform magic. There are only styles—different voices expressing wonder in different ways.
In the end, labels matter very little. Conventional or unconventional, classic or modern, formal or casual—the true goal remains the same. What truly matters is doing good magic: magic that is honest, engaging, meaningful, and capable of creating a genuine sense of wonder. Everything else is just a choice of path.
Sooner or later, I’ll talk deeper about what “good magic” really means to me. Stay tuned.