Here’s another good “magic is so hot right now” article to add to the collection. This one comes from Bloomberg reporter Felix Salmon, who posits that, “We’re living in a golden age of magic, with increasingly sophisticated audiences willing to pay real money to see the greatest practitioners of the craft up-close and in person.”
Felix Salmon
To support his thesis, Salmon compares Dani DaOrtiz, who was performing at 69 Atlantic, to Taylor Swift, and also showcases Noah Levine’s Magic After Hours at Tannen’s Magic Shop. Speakeasy Magick also gets a shoutout.
“Close-up magic, when it’s done well, just makes people happy, something that often gets lost in the literature,” the article states at one point. “The thing people get out of a magic show isn’t some kind of profound Shakespearean insight into the human condition. If anything, it’s closer to the laughter you bring out playing peek-a-boo with a baby. Everyone loves that, but no one considers it high art.”
At the end of the piece, however, Salmon realizes that part of his initial thesis was “fading away, the part about sophistication and critical esteem.”
He instead compares magic to TikTok. “By manipulating our attention, magic shows subtly recapitulate, in a positive way, the harmful online dynamics that so many of us are becoming attuned to. Because we pay for it, there’s a beginning and an end, and ultimately it’s honest about what it’s doing—it’s not selling us diet pills while purporting to give us updates on our cousin’s family.”
Ta-da! The full article has more ruminations on close-up magic and is worth reading.