the Way of the Showman
Philosophical and esoteric perspectives from a modern day Showman.
Each season is different in its approach. S1 is essays. S2 is one book length attempt at Understanding Showmanship, S3 is conversations with remarkable Showfolk. The brand new Season 4 explores the relationship between Showmanship and Play.
The host, Captain Frodo, internationally renowned circus performer, director, writer, husband and dad lays out, in great detail, his practical performance philosophy for performers who seek to deepen the conversation with their audiences and themselves. You can find him, and more of his writing at: www.thewayoftheshowman.com
the Way of the Showman
152 - Magic, Originality, and the Burden of Knowledge with Nick Difatte
What separates a technically competent performer from one who creates unforgettable moments? In this captivating conversation between Captain Frodo and comic magician Nick Diffatte, we journey into the heart of showmanship and the complex relationship between originality and tradition.
The performers candidly explore their creative anxieties about using established material versus developing original routines. "The reason I'm putting this in here is that this is a book that would have helped me do what I want to be doing," Nick explains, highlighting the delicate balance between learning from others and finding your unique voice. Their discussion reveals how even seasoned professionals wrestle with questions of authenticity while acknowledging their debt to those who came before them.
At the core of their conversation lies a fascinating revelation about creating "controlled chaos" – performances that appear spontaneous while following carefully orchestrated plans. Both artists have mastered the art of making audiences think "this could go wrong," generating genuine suspense and emotional investment. This skillful deception creates those special moments where spectators leave saying, "I was there when..." – the hallmark of truly memorable performances.
The discussion takes unexpected turns as they reflect on how teaching others has deepened their understanding of their own craft. "You learn about what you do by teaching it to someone, because then you have to actually vocalize what it is that you do," Captain Frodo observes. This process of articulation often reveals unconscious techniques and decisions that elevate performances from merely technical to genuinely artistic.
Whether you're a performer seeking to refine your craft or simply fascinated by the psychology behind great entertainment, this episode offers rare insights into the minds of two masters who continue to examine and evolve their art. Subscribe now and join our exploration of the showman's path – where technical skill meets meaning, and apparent chaos reveals its hidden design.
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Greetings, fellow travelers, and welcome to the Way of the Showman, where we view the world through the lens of showmanship. I am Captain Frodo, and I will be your host and your guide along the way as we dive back into the second part of my conversation with Nick the Fat. And also recently, what's kind of interesting about Nick is not just that he is an his a hysterically comic uh funny comic magician, that he does incredible high-level magic and also he is just very funny. But um he he when I was uh looking into some cups and balls uh stuff when I was in Vegas last that I wanted to um start exploring a little bit for my daughter who I'm using using the cups and balls I'm planning on using that to get her deeper into magic um if it's possible. Um who knows I tried to get her into Star Wars and that failed miserably, so who knows, but at least she's performing now and having a great time. She just is an incredible straitjacket escape here uh recently, and that really, out of all the stuff that we've done, that that she thinks is cool and it changed her attitude towards uh practice and everything. So that might be hope yet. Straight jacket is a gateway uh drug to magic. But anyway, the great thing about uh Nick DeFat is that he's not just on about comedy and has great thoughts about magic. Like you also incredibly just recently released a book on the Sentator, which is a uh mentalism uh magic thing. So it's uh released uh released something called a subgenius sentateur, and it's talents that released it, and it's one of those sort of pamphlet books uh that really just stirs something in me that I love, that there's incredible, cool secret, magical secrets inside these little books that are referencing kind of zine. So that's what it has this feel for me, that it's like really cool, awesome stuff inside, and then but it's got this uh DIY kind of look, although it's of course a very stylish book being published by tannins and everything. And uh what is the content about? Well, Teller, uh the famous man silent uh partner of uh Penn and Teller, uh has given a quote and says that it's elegant, practical, and ingenious, the cleanest, most bulletproof solution to the Santa problem. Teller said that, and that is quite uh something. So um if you are interested in magic and you're interested in Nick Defat and you want to see that he has got some serious chops, not just as a conversationalist and sharer of stories, but also on hardcore development of practical, awesome material, not just for the comedy magician, but also for a serious working mentalist. So uh uh check that out if you're uh at all interested in these kinds of things. But um, yeah, that is the closest we've ever gotten to having an ad on this uh podcast. But um it's because it's totally awesome, worthwhile. And uh anyway, if you because that's that's really all you can get now. His book is still sort of out of print, so unless you're in a brick and mortar bookstore where they happen to have one or two books uh standing in a corner overlooked because it's fallen behind uh Juan Tamaris's uh uh rainbow books or whatnot, then um yeah, this is some where you can uh see his voice and have hearing sheer uh hardcore magic. So let's uh get back to the conversation. But just before we get back to the conversation, just uh click subscribe on this uh podcast. It would make me tremendously happy. Alright, let's uh jump in back into the conversation with Nick DeFat. I think that's one of the things that uh interests me about magic, where so much of it is like everybody or so many like sh standard shtick about the cups and balls is that no magician you would be measured by the fact that you would have this. Whether that's true or not, it's certainly got a grain of truth to it or so. Yeah, like it becomes the sort of litmus test of gong. Have you been into magic? Because if you have been into magic, then you probably have a routine or whatever. What is what is this? And you have this as a sort of little test or whatever. But um, I lost my thread there. But basically, that each trick that that exists out there, they're in this enormous space of the general public which don't know anything. Yeah, so that's also why it's cool that we're sharing, because that's increasing, and the amount of stuff that's written about magic, yeah, the amount of people that have an encyclopedic knowledge of what was written when is great because there are people who and a lot of those people who have that encyclopedic knowledge don't necessarily perform it well. But then there's people like Max Maven or or yourself that just have that are both have the chops, but also really has an encyclopedic knowledge of methods and everything, and that I think is lifting the art of magic, like at least in potential, because there's always this like and there's always this like even though so I think just to circle back a tiny bit, the difference between Jared and a guy that just does cups, like buys Gazo's routine and does cups, right?
SPEAKER_01:That's always the classic example for me, is like you you almost see less people do the classic, like the Vernon routine now than you see do Gazo's routine. Yeah, that's huge. All the bits. Like, even at Magic Camp this year, it was kind of funny to see kids doing Gazo's routine. But um that's also good though.
SPEAKER_02:If you learn and you have that routine in your bones, and then at some point, like they see the price that's bestowed upon the guy who does not just two coins, but a washer and a thing, and talks about his dad, and hopefully they will see that what that is, rather than wow, you did that joke from Gazo's manuscript really well, or like, oh, you should like yeah, that that uh that you you you want that thing, and it you that you want to find your own original take on it. But it is, of course, there's two meanings to the original is that did you actually invent it, or are you presenting it so that it becomes an original experience for the audience? And that's like that's also valuable. And but when you then are in uh in uh covent garden and you're watching, and then you see two guys hot on the trot coming out and doing magic, and both of them do the same routine, you go, This is really weird. Like, did they learn from each other, or why is this a it's people who go or the juggling on a tall unicycle or whatever? But there are things that just work, and once you go out and you become a worker, it's very difficult to break from those things because the thing actually is so hard to start from scratch, and I guess that's it too, with your ring and everything. You did a thousand shows before you came on the radar or whatever, and I'm doing the rackets, and I'm it was all developed in just doing shows, doing shows, doing shows, and then at some point that like becomes its own thing. But I almost have this feeling like I don't have time to do material that starts out as sketchily as that was when I first very, very first did it, when it literally was on the wig.
SPEAKER_01:That's funny.
SPEAKER_02:That's a good point, and I now need more it needs material to be better immediately because I'm being paid as being even when I'm in my in Norway and uh you know whatever, it's Captain Frodo, and he has a certain reputation and certain expectation, and I can't come in and have a whole half-baked show just trying some stuff out because it's original. I need to have stuff that kills, so then you go, oh well, then standing on the shoulders of the giants who did those 500 shows and then put it in a book, yeah, with like you say in your book, well, I don't put all of my jokes in because that's how the nature of this game is. Like, and some some of those routines, like you mentioned in the in in the in the brochure, it's one page of tightly written uh typewriter that says the method of how to build it, how to do it, and so there's no kind of structure to it. You all have to come up with that yourself.
SPEAKER_01:And I think that that's yeah, that's its own thing too, right? Where some people buy those books. I really should circle back to the before I completely forget the even though there's those guys and girls that uh crush for people that have never seen Magic with a coloring book or Linking Rings or whatever, and doing just the standard hat, there's a big difference. I think it's also like a you know, people can feel it that you the man, Joel Hodgson has a great I don't know if it's his, but I he said it and I'm gonna attribute it to him. But like the difference between an amateur and a professional is the number of decisions that they make.
SPEAKER_02:Good point. Huge part of Jay's thing, taking making choices.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you have to put constraints on it. So so like in my hour, I don't do a card trick. And that's not just because I'm like, I'm different than other magicians, it's just that it doesn't fit in that show. And so, and I don't want people to ever like my girlfriend, uh if you pull out a deck of cards and go into a close-up shed, her brain just turns off, you know, and I very understandably, because she know works in an environment where she sees a lot of that stuff, and a lot of it is just total, you know, fart in the wind card magic. Like so I so there's a lot of those things where it's like I want plots to be bigger and have scope and scale and and things like this. So the sanitizer thing where this is an interesting project to me because X, Y, and Z, because of constraints that I put on myself in the show, whatever. But yes, I and I don't know how to I don't know if there is anything wrong about doing a show with standard stuff in it, or if there's anything wrong with the person that annihilates at the mall doing colouring book and linking rate. I don't think I think that's all you know, Eugene's thing of like there's many rooms in the house of magic is a super legit.
SPEAKER_02:And I think that's so I think that's I think that's also key. It's if I taught my act to somebody now, for the first first thing, it has to be somebody who would want to or need to act. Yeah, uh, so that's a certain thing. That's its own thing, and it's usually not you, it's not someone who I am currently sharing a bill with that's looking to learn something new and a whole routine from someone. So that also means that you're sort of giving somebody a leg up or whatever to do something, and they will invariably have to. Yeah, they do, and that's where also but also like so you can go to I'm just gonna end up by juggling on you on tall unicycle or whatever, and uh that's uh that you know so that that's that that can be your your thing to start with, because I do think that no matter what you do, you will change what you do along the way. What you find interesting when you're 10 and what you find interesting when you're 20 and 30 will hopefully change, and that that will then find itself reflected in your in your choice of material.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I think there is like if you talk to somebody like Mac or any act that we vibe with Charlie Fry, anybody they it's in their bones that they just they don't want to be doing those standard things out of books or whatever. They're not buying something and putting it in the show right away. That's just not it's almost like a I have this mental thing. I mean, God, you could ask Tyler about the million times I've called him and been like, I love this trick, I think. I just feel dumb because it's not whatever. It's like some trick from a book from the 60s fits me, I could do it, and I have something completely different to say about it. Maybe the prop is even different, but it works, and and it's like, he's like, well, then he's like, no one else is doing it, and that there is no version of that. Some guy wanted to pass it on in a fucking book in the 60s, no one else jumped on it, and now you're benefiting years later. And it's like I literally wrote about that in the introduction to my book, where I was like, the reason I'm putting this in here is that this is a book that would have helped me do what I want to be doing. Yeah, and I also don't do the material anymore. So it's like there's a weird thing there, weird disconnect where you know I uh yeah, I have some like deep-seated aversion to doing things that I think are standard fair, and yet I still get a big kick out of like the the that trick, yeah. Working on that thing, pointing at something, sorry for the listeners, but like that's a standard prop. But the thing with it is so different, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and uh yeah, I think uh absolutely and I and it still makes me we are basically now, I think we're zeroing in that we're both neurotic about that kind of thing, or rambling, and yeah, well, a bit of both, but it's also like I am I'm definitely like conflicted about doing that sort of stuff, but I also don't think that it's wrong, and we've mentioned music and we mentioned all the and the fact that no one else is doing it, and no one else is like, and then there's levels of there too, like colouring book is on one end of the spectrum, yeah, and doing uh the invisible egg is on another end of my spectrum.
SPEAKER_01:It's no one else is touching that routine, I bet.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know, yeah, exactly. But then every now and then that's the thing though, you go, like what you're saying about oh, I I changed the prop and I did this, and I'm like, oh well, I actually I have that. Oh, I have this thing too. And right you use in there for to demonstrate that the invisible egg actually is levitating, you use a uh linking ring or just a hoot, you take over it. And in my magic act where I used the necktie that goes up and down, I also use linking rings because I do it over the that's what I do to prove that the necktie bird is actually floating. So I had those props in my bag, but they're all like so so it's like it fitted me with because the concept of it is so silly, there is obviously no egg, sure, it is and and getting that going, and that fitted me well to be that idiotic together with a kid. Uh but my twist on it is is sort of completely my own. And anyway, I'm starting immediately as I say it, I start to justify it again of why. But we but it's but it's great. You are basically this is not something that you can this is something that you have to grapple with. How original uh can you be at any given moment or whatever, and what is stolen, and if you take three moves from three different routines, does that make you all that more better? Or the fact that you thought of this yourself and then somebody told you that that's actually from the Jinx uh issue 60, or whatever, like that you so all all in all, I guess it doesn't matter, but that doesn't mean that when you're when authenticity and originality is one of the things that you genuinely care about, and when you see it in others and in yourself, then you're going to feel neurotic about it, because we both do them.
SPEAKER_01:Which is such an odd because it I mean, I mean again, this is just repeating, but like somebody else put it out because they wanted you to benefit from it, yeah, and then we are still saying, like, I don't want to do this because it's hack, because it's in a book.
SPEAKER_02:But it's true. Like the amount of work that you did on your book to with every word that's scrutinized, with the drawings, with the pictures, with all of those things and all of that work, and you go, it is now, finally, and with this editors and copywriters and everything, then you get to a point where going now is ready out there, and you've considered everything and you put it out, and then the fact that somebody is actually doing it or is asking you questions about it is just awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it's unreal. And it's like I so I've even run so the two two great scenarios to mention here. One is that people who are lazy dickheads use I think the reason that I'm so gun shy of it is that lazy dickheads will use those things against us, so they'll say, Oh, well, like, okay, so great example is Rudy Kobe's act, who Rudy's a hero and a friend, and people Rudy came up with his uh Nicky Terminator table, legs table thing, which is a huge evolution over the trick in a book that it's based on, right? And it's become this like lifelong battle where you know he added wheels and he added this design to the table that's genius, and he added the top part, you know, he added all this stuff to make it a deceptive trick, and people just go, oh well it's in a book, so I can do it, just like he did. It's in a book, so don't try to tell me that whatever. And it's like, but see, that's and I think that that stuff is in the back of my head about how people can burn me. Like somebody, some asshole uh was like went off on me about how the opening the phone number gag in my act, he's like, Well, look, it's in this book, and it's literally like some assholes how to flirt with women, you know, magic trick book that came out after I started doing the trick. And he's like, Well, look, it's kind of published, and it's not the same gag, even, but he's like, Look, it's published. And so I think it uh part of my neuroses is that I've gotten burned by it.
SPEAKER_02:Yep. Uh also, though, it it I think it's part of the neurosis. I also think when you're a thoughtful person, then this is not one of those things that is clear-cut. Yeah. It's it is a murky area of uh and it's it's particularly murky within magic because there people do actually publish their routines. So it's a little bit, it can be less murky within other like within music, it's not murky. If you say you wrote the song and it's the Beatles that did it, then it's it's a clear cut sort of thing. But uh I don't even know if but if that's uh helps it, but it's but what but this but or or within like when you uh because I can't because I'm trying then I tried to the reason why I'm now stuck is because I tried to come up with something that's like completely original. But sure, that's why um uh everything is a remix, which Steel Like an Artist stole from and Steel Like an Artist, the book by Aston Cleon became big, and I can't now remember the name of who of the guy who did Everything is a Remix, which is a totally awesome series on YouTube you should check out. And uh and there is almost nothing that you find, or like Funny Bones, if you know that movie, where there's like this about the Mr. Originality, but he just went to another country and did the routines that he knew from a different continent. So he was known as the original guy, but then he stole material. What happened then? Or not even, yeah. So it's not that this is not the question that we will solve.
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, we're all big. I mean, I wouldn't be here, I just smashed the microphone with my finger. But sorry to all the listeners. No, boom, they love it, but like uh they love it, they love a little it's like 4D. Yeah. You go watch Jurassic Park and they squirt water in your face, that kind of thing. Um but the it I wouldn't be here without seeing Tom Mullika, and I wouldn't be here without seeing Mac a million times, and all I could list all the guys where it's like that's the reason that I'm doing the the making the choices that I'm making is based off of choices that they made or things that they published or things that I just witnessed them do that change the way that I think about it. So it's it's and and this is the second I was gonna say this earlier, but the second scenario is that I so I read these books, I see a trick I like, and I go, I should do that trick or fuck with it or whatever. They that guy put it in a book on purpose, obviously, Animan, published all these genius things, and then I go, Well, other people have access to it and whatever. So I my friend Reed Nessbaum, who is a Tannins camper who works at Tannins now and does a very funny guy with great chops, he was we're talking about one of the tricks in my book. There's a card trick in my book that I'm kind of proud of the structure of, and took one of my favorite close-up tricks and like turned it into a stand-up thing, and with potential to have like a really strong mentalism hit uh right off the bat, that if not, just ends in a gag and whatever, right? With a strong ending, there's a whatever card trick I like. And he was like a little apprehensive about wanting to do it, and it's like, no, I'm so happy that you want to do this thing that I put in a book, but he has the same neuroses about some of that stuff that we do, you know. He and he does tricks, he's like one of he I think he's you know as close to being like David Williamson's student as you can get, and he's fucking nailing it, and he's so he does some of Dave's tricks, but he does a lot of original stuff too. And so to see, but I think Dave wants him doing those tricks, and so we've even talked about, you know, I there's a couple tricks that I did for years and years and years that were very derivative of my teachers and whatever, but I still kind of do close up, maybe. Um but it's like that's the point. You need those things, yeah. And also, like, he gets to carry on some of those tricks, you know, maybe in 30 years, you know. Maybe a lot of guys do Dave's torn restored transport or something, but he's gonna be the guy that's like got work on it and does it and carries it on.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. There's a lot of things like that. I think it's great. I mean, oh yeah. And I think you're like even in a routine, whether you have made the bones of it yourself or not, that's not really what it then comes about. So, my whole, you know, I'm writing this book, and the whole idea there is that the reason why what the showman does, like he doesn't do juggling, he doesn't do uh magic or acrobatics, he is dealing with the attention of the audience. Yeah, so that's like the fundamental level of what we do, and when I believe in that, then I also go, well, it doesn't matter. And that is the thinking that has gotten me to use lots of different things that I'm doing. And when I'm doing my family shows and they're in Norwegian and it's in Norway, and it's and I have a different need for producing new material, also. I'm doing now that for the fifth time, I'm doing the same festival, and I need new material each time. So I'm doing some of my old stuff each time, some of my killing routines. Yeah, yeah. But I also want to have, like, I'm doing like two sets of half hour or whatever, and I want to have at least one new major thing, if not two uh new major things that gives a theme to what's going on. And then you have like, okay, but you can go out there, and then you I did a hydrostatic uh glass uh routine and it's like I like that thing, but I what didn't know how to do it, and then I found in uh in um silly Billy's uh what's his compendium, he's got this thick book, yeah. Yeah, the big one there where there is a routine, and I used that combined with my own, and then and then got some great feedback from Matt from the routine I did, or like how I've talked about the third of elements of the show, because by then I'd had fire and I'd had because I put something like I had all the elements throughout the show, and then I tied it together in an end with in the end, and it was a strong ending. Uh so sometimes the fact that you need to do something new and you pull together these three different routines, and all of a sudden you go, Well, there was that time when I did that hydrostatic class, and then next time you bring it out, each time you find a new little detail to it that can make me justify it to myself for why I'm doing it. But also, what I was gonna say, doing it there, I'm doing it kind of under the radar, because there's nobody there. So you can No magicians are gonna say anything, no magicians are gonna say anything, or no one's gonna say see, and and then when I do it, everyone is having a good time. So I'm running when I'm not being chased. Sure. But at some point, then when I take that family show and you saw me working a shopping center or whatever in uh Denmark there, and you do a laning in the shopping center. Well, there was a funny uh situation, really. But uh that you then that then it's like it does it, like the material holds up because it seems like a cohesive hole, like the the tricks that you I do or whatever. So I don't know. I guess it's uh just the an ongoing neurosis exploring this kind of stuff. It's uh almost impossible. But it also comes down then to what uh we're taking it back to Magic Camp. Sure. The whole social aspect of this, where you're getting together with other people who are passionate about the particular branch of performing that you're also into. Yeah. All these kids coming together, and so many of them saying, I don't know any other magicians or whatever. And then you get together with these other people who either knocks you off your peg if you think you're the bomb, and whether you compare yourself to the other kids your age, or you compare yourself to Suzanne who does the cups and balls, and you thought you knew what you were doing, and then you go, Oh, okay, she's done it 10,000 times, and and she is only scratching the surface or whatever. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So and you learn through teachings. I learned so much shit.
SPEAKER_02:This is great, and this is one of the things I wrote down here because it's one about the development of the kids, and the other one is like, because you learn so much. I learned so much out of it. And to to then think about what kind of material do you because you teach you mainly now talked about you were teaching a move, but then you also you did teach a trick as well. But you talk to them about like, yeah, so so what's uh what's some examples of something that happened this uh this camp where you go, ah, that's I didn't know that I was doing that though.
SPEAKER_01:Uh well, so I I get I'm I'm gonna use Susanna as an example. So she was teaching cups and teaching like you know later on in the week. So we've learned a transfer, right? And then the kids are like, okay, we've seen you do cups. Now show us this phase or whatever, right? They want to ask about specifics of it. And then she's explaining it, but she's explaining it in a group setting for the first time, which is unbelievably cool. Because now she's learning little things about it too, yeah, which is like huge for me. I know that you know, I so I taught the transfer the first year that I went there, uh, kind of as like I use this as a building block move, I use it all the time, I use it in a lot of stuff. I think it would be beneficial to you. You learn a lot about small object stuff when you learn that transfer. Um, I think especially through his systems. I sound like I'm in a cult, but I no, no, no.
SPEAKER_02:No, you like we like the work of Al Schneider, and you have managed to get me onto him by lending me his uh massive book. Yeah. Big fanboy.
SPEAKER_01:I'd like to be his editor. I'd like to pay John Lovick to be his editor, is actually what I mean. But like, uh yeah, I love, love, love, love, love his work. And but so so I learned a lot about palming, and I learned a lot about motivated transfers, I learned a lot about tons of stuff through just that transfer, right? I think it's like small object meat and potatoes, real stuff. And so the first year I was like, that's what I'm gonna do. Instead of teaching jumping matches or you know, a four-ac thing, let's do this transfer for a day. And it was fantastic, right? Because I went back, I got to go, oh my god, here's what I've been doing wrong for a decade immediately, you know, but just by doing it for kids and then and then through trying to explain and justifying.
SPEAKER_02:And it's very different when you do one fake pass where you take one coin and put it into the other hand and it's not there in the show. It's such a small kind of thing. But when you're doing it there for two hours, you start to scrutinize every single thing. It's like you take this thing that used to be one event, you put the coin into the hand, or apparently put the coin into the hand, and now you break it down to To how does this right hand turn that has the point? How far does it move across when you put it in? What am I thinking? Yeah, and all these little things.
SPEAKER_01:And I know the talking points. That's the fucked up part, right? So I can totally like, if you were to almost quiz me on his book, I could tell you like the drills and and these fingers touch these fingers here, here, or this is how you meet in the center line, and this is how you motivate the transfer. But like when your boots on the ground trying to show to somebody else, you go, oh shit. You know, I can do a false transfer, but if I tweak this little part now, it looks better. Because I I can tell them that. You know, I'm seeing my mistakes in them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, near. Yes, you're tweaking them, but you're also tweaking what you realize. You just show them something and then they start to mirror you as they should, and then you immediately will start to see ways to improve it, which is also seeing improvements in yourself. Yeah. And of course, then you were talking about one other thing that's something you learn is learning how to talk to people about the craft and being sensitive about it, because it's all of a sudden you have to talk to kids or something.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, which is out of my wheelhouse.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So then you need to look at yourself as a teacher. And I mean, when you're teaching, I guess you're teaching the past, you also have the benefit of knowing his book so well, or or whatever, knowing his technique so well that it actually transfers into when you're teaching them too. You can teach following his style, yeah. But when you're teaching other things, you need to approach how what's the best way in terms of pedagogy to make it easy for them to grasp this. Yeah. Do you encounter some when you're teaching teaching the matches, or you do it? Are you all teaching stuff that you already knew how to teach, or when you're trying to teach something new?
SPEAKER_01:I ran into so many issues with so I did the show. Are we able to pause for a second? Yeah, I was gonna use the rest real quick because that's cool. Live before, you know, maybe however many of them know who I am, but those chunks of the act really aren't on the internet or whatever. And so it was a lot of like why was that guy so bad at listening to directions, or was that a difficult night, or you know, do you always trip over the guy like this, or what about this thing? And so Derek Hughes kind of had this great idea to pivot into he was kind of guiding questioning into stage queuing and stuff. And so I've never taught, I've really never taught stage queuing to anybody before. I've d I did a talk about it at Magic Live, kind of out of my own ego or something, because I hated that people would come up to me at conventions and accuse me of using like a stooge, and I would go, have you ever seen me like in a club or anything? You know, that this the same stuff happens every night, but it's because I'm stage queuing the guy, or I'm I'm doing this, or I'm doing that technique. You know, as I set the guy down, I go, that's great, do it again. Or, you know, the classic it's carney shit. Yeah, but you know, it's the Dr. Q hypnosis act. I'm telling the guy.
SPEAKER_02:Blackstone did it when it did the pan and the kid putting the ribbon into the broken egg and all that, getting the kid to act so weird was done by telling the kid funny things to do.
SPEAKER_01:Dude, the committee, that's all that was. You know, to say you're a police officer. What do you do for a living, sir? Like, ridiculous. But it but then so I and I don't I think I do a pretty tame version of that, honestly. But I but Derek was like, you know, by the end of it, I was doing the cues for my act, not with any intent that they'd do them, but I kind of said, like, hey, I'm this is like I feel like I'm naked here. I'm talking about these are things I've never vocalized. I did a 30-minute talk of magic live about it uh twice, right? So we one year did it two times in a row. Loved it, felt good about it, didn't reveal too much of my own stuff. And those people had seen me do the act earlier in the convention, which was kind of like the bit. And I have compiled stuff with the hopes of someday uh I don't think there's any really great resources on that technique, so I always wanted to compile. I I have a shitload of stuff here on that, every marketed thing, every stupid I've asked a million people about it. This guy who knew this guy knew Bobby Baxter, and so I asked about this technique he would do, whatever. You know, was it always like this? Whatever. So I gave a talk about it, uh, but I never had any intent on teaching anybody any version of it. And so these kids are like now 50 minutes of that class because of the questions Derek and the kids started asking, became a stage queuing lecture. And it's like, I didn't really want to talk about it, but I I learned a lot about what I do through talking about it. It felt weird. Yeah, and I kept going, I kept stopping for better or worse, and going, is anybody getting anything out of this? Is this really what the 40 of us want to spend time on? And it's like they do, even though they don't know or think or whatever, they don't they're not going in into it with the intent of doing it.
SPEAKER_02:They just benefit from seeing stage craps, and it's great to see this stuff is and when you're sharing that too, they're going, this is the stuff that I am actually doing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And what I find as well when I'm sharing or talking about what I actually do in the rackets and why the different things happen or whatever, there's like people can't steal it. I know from how unbelievably hard it was to teach it to someone. Of course. When I really tried to teach them, so you can just tell really freely about it, and what you hope is that the interest that they have in it is going to um translate into something in their own acting on, oh, that's what he was talking about there and then, or the fact that they now know about the concept of stage queuing, yeah, which is basically just telling people on or off the mic, but maybe off the mic or whatever that to do stuff. Yeah. And then and the the bad thing would be to go say you picked a five diamond. Yeah. Or like that's like okay, so that's one little different. But but it's to to get funny situations or to create enhanced audience interactions that where you where the sum of it is that the audience is rolling around on the floor with laughter because you because you're your of your interactions with the person on on stage.
SPEAKER_01:And that's always the the goal is the and this came from watching Mac and Mullica and all these guys, where you the the audience goes away saying, I was there the night where XYZ happened. And we don't need to get way into the stage queuing thing on this. No, I mean I obviously I'm I'm diverting a little bit, but but it that whole like you're learning when you're telling them about it. They're just skipping on the other side.
SPEAKER_02:I learned tons of details about that.
SPEAKER_01:But it's it's it's huge for me to be like this is the thing that when I go to work at Met Apple or whatever, and I'm walking around in the pre-show, and a guy comes up to me and he goes, Holy shit, I I've seen you before. I was here the night where the guy kept saying this and he couldn't blow into the whistle, and then he did this thing, and then he pulled his hearing aid off. Like, yeah, it's when that works, yeah, it's like another. And I think some of those kids are just uh the reason that it was so interesting was that they didn't understand the layers that went into it.
SPEAKER_02:So just to be able to show artifice or show whatever layer, level layers of deception, because this is the sort of stuff as well with me as well, where my actors also filled with deception, where people go, I was there the day you fell off the stage. It was like it's one of the one of the frequently asked questions is did you mean to fall off the stage? Because they don't kind of Which means you did it right. Yeah. Which means to me, because I was saying yesterday to Adam and we were talking about the same stuff I referenced before. Sure. Like uh I grew up doing magic. So then there's magic elements in most of the stuff that I do, yep. Where I have pushed it one level further, whether it is the arm twisting illusion or it is that you think you're watching a guy that genuinely don't care or know what they're doing, and I fall over and all that goes, but that isn't actually what's going on. I know exactly what I'm doing, down to every little breath. And if the fall comes this turn, then I have to have I fall over like this way, then I gotta pause to before I do the line, or depending on so anyway, this so this is that thing, what they see then. They see stagecraft, and even to them, they're going like this. They're worried about the all right, so they you got a ring, it disappears, they it it comes back in an impossible location. Yeah, that's like the outline of it, and that's what their first interest is. How did you make the ring disappear, or all that? But like when what you're doing is you're working on the level of crafting the actual performance to another level where they just think I was there and he was just so funny, he came up with that thing in the moment, and you go, no, no, I engineered that situation to happen so that it is as close as possible to stuff where I have killer material. Even though it's right, even though it's improvised.
SPEAKER_01:Well, like we're hired guns, right? So we need to function at a certain level every night. Yeah. Where it's like, okay, you have 15 minutes to get from A to B and bring them to this level. And so if I I think a lot of those kids, at least the ones I talked to, that were like, you know, I knew you did something, but I didn't know that it was this drastic or whatever. Like I think that I okay, so there were kids there that were saying, I saw you at Magi Fest when I was 10, and I've seen you a million times, and I know that the same things happened, but I didn't know that it was planned to this level of blank. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, great, that's the intended thing. And so they were just inter, you know, I learned a lot about my own shit, but they saw that there's at least layers to because I think my show can uh most nights, hopefully, it feels like it's really going off the rails, like in a in a non-controlled way. Control it's controlled chaos, but in a in a way that like they genuinely don't know if we are fucked.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they have the feeling like this could go wrong. Somebody said that to you. I wasn't sure if you were gonna manage to do this, and that's also perfect because they feel like when I get through the rackets, they feel like, oh, we're at some kind of sports moment. They were a try. Oh god, it actually happened. That's great. Oh, yeah. And with you as well. You get to the end, and then it actually happens, and nobody got injured, and nobody got punched in the face, and all the whatever it is. Yeah, like all that stuff means that it is like we are watching a genuine unfolding in the moment event. Yeah. Like, and they will go, I was there when the guy did this.
SPEAKER_01:I just saw that great example of that last night, that kind of like sports, sports mode kind of thing. I was walking down the strip after meeting up with people, and I just was like randomly, you know, I was at the win, I'm getting a coffee, which is very close to just walking to Circus Circus. So I walked to Circus Circus and I go see the show, and it was a hand balance gal who was great, and she was, you know, she's gonna kick the ball into the hoop or whatever, basketball hoop. And the audience was just ass for the first, you know, clown great clown comes out, does his thing, they're just a horrible audience. It's a Thursday night at six. I get like, you know, they're not they're there to see a free thing, they're just they happen to be playing in the arcades. He comes out, has a hard time. She comes out, throws the first thing, you know, does her whole great act, but with very little applause. Kicks the ball into the thing, misses. And everybody now gives a shit. Like I saw this genuine shift in it in 80 people standing around that bizarre circus circus, you know, uh arena thing. And it's like, and you know, they kind of go like it's a free show, I'm not that committed. My kid's at the IC machine sticking his head under this kid, yeah, everybody else on their phone. The second that she missed it, everybody kind of gave a shit. And she kind of shrugged, gave a nod, picked it up again, nailed it. The first time that they burst into applause was that moment where it felt real. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was weird. Um, but it's like to me, that was just for further proof of everything that we're doing in a weird way.
SPEAKER_02:And it's interesting too, like that we're doing filling in the same spot, and we are doing the same. There's something similar about it. Your thing feels like it's going off the rails, and my thing too feels like it's going off the rails. Yeah. I start saying, Oh, I'm gonna go through the rackets and it's gonna do this, and it seems pretty straightforward. Yeah. And you come out and you're doing safe magic, here's a trick, here's those gags and stuff, and it's like, oh, here's a trick with the sports thing. Immediate fail. And then you go, and then and they're going, oh that's great. And then by the time you get the person up, and that like we get into the meat of that bit, it really shakes people up, and they're going, like, oh my god, this isn't it, like nothing is going right here. Even though it keeps being funny, which is the same thing as I'm doing. Like, it's everything is going wrong, but you keep laughing because it's not bad wrong.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And but also like it starts with clean, concise, I'm a magician, you come out, I'm going to do this task, and then immediately the task is fucked up. Like I right, so I say, is this your you know, I do a full mentalism buildup, and the first thing that a person says is no. And then I do the football. So and it's like, well, but what we are in that show, I think, are pattern breakers, right? So they've watched fuck 50 minutes of like tight, concise circus stuff. And and the song is going and this thing is moving at the right time, and then we come out and breaks that pattern. And we're a pattern break, a hard record skip in that show. And it's I think that's why our shit works there, is because we aren't. I think if you were like, and now the magician, and you do a clean, concise, beautiful thing, it's a it's not the same vibe in that chunk of the show. Later on in the show. I think it's important, uh, or the reason that the that our sets work in that thing is that it is like a hard record skill. Something completely different than kind of a break.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I always tell them to do that it's a really bad time to leave and take a piss. Yeah. Because they all have to pee at that point in the show. I go, there's a part coming up where it's dark and music, you can pee whenever you want when I leave.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's funny.
SPEAKER_02:But yeah, but it's interesting. Whenever you do talk about your act in detail, I do learn something because you just have to vocalize it and you become aware. That's why I'm doing it. And that's yeah, it's almost like the difference between actually doing something and then when you're writing the book about what you did. Because when you're doing that, there comes in all sorts of theory and stuff. Because there's um people go, What are you how like well, Jay asked me and at some point, and and well, I'm going, yeah, because I don't understand it. Like, what is it about when you're doing the sword or you're doing this thing with the ropes, or you're doing the spoon, and I just I connect to it, and you're doing it's it's good. Like I like it, and what is that? And I'm going, well, I think it is like, and then that's what my whole theory stuff I try to think is about. Yeah, it's it and what I'm doing, and then in in 200 pages or whatever, is is to give you a sensibility of how to approach things, how to approach the audience, how to approach the material, how to approach, and that that's the best way to get at those things. Yeah. But but then I give you the the abstract framework of the theory or whatever. Sure. But uh that doesn't mean that when I sit down, I go, now I'm gonna look at this aspect, and now I'm gonna do because when I'm jamming with you, or I'm jamming, I'm jamming as organically as anyone, yeah, but it's still informed by a certain way of understanding what I what I do, and and uh like I'd uh I've put the quote now in the beginning of my book from Eugene Berger, which I can't remember, but he basically goes, Um uh whatever magic trick that you do has an underlying theory in it, whether you know it or not. If you're aware of the theory, you can utilize that to maximize what it is that you're actually doing. Yeah, because there is a thinking behind the trick, even if it was just a one-page thing that you read in a pamphlet from the 60s, and then you do it and you say the gags from the 60s, and you do it exactly as it says there, there is a whole layer of thinking in there or unrelated. You look at a quote from the Bible or like from or something, and then you go, it's it's just an image, but then you can take that image, and in a sermon, the preacher would unpack that, and all of a sudden it would make sense to you of why this is, even though it's a kind of strange thing about sheeps and sheep herders or whatever, all of a sudden that thing is about you and the current day, uh, or like a great novel or whatever will be more true or so. So I think that's like taking one thing and then unpacking it uh to understand what it actually is. And that's what happens when you're teaching, I think. You sort of you you you question yourself and then you say the thing, and then immediately as you say it, you've got to justify why it is like that, and then you go, oh my god, this is why it is, and that's how it is. And I think that's one of the aspects. It's you you learn more about you learn about what you do by teaching it to someone, because then you have to actually vocalize what it is that you do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I benefited massively from writing a book. I mean the first book, I think. I really and and the pamphlet and whatever, other lecture notes. Every time I've ever had to like teach something, I learned a lot about it. Uh even just construction-wise. Like I taught uh we shot a thing for Tannins a few months ago where it's like a trick that I love a lot, but I never did it uh with any large regularity. Like I've maybe done it 50 times or a hundred times for people, and I really like it as a trick, but it just doesn't fit my normal means of doing performing, whatever. Um but in teaching it, I was like, oh shit, finding little ways of like na I I fell back in love with this thing in a weird way and found economized ride with it, which is weird. Um but I don't know. Yeah, there's tons tons and tons of things that have developed out of me having to talk about stuff, I think, with somebody. Like I I you know, when I was first was doing the spoons routine, I was talking through it with a friend, and then talking through it with a couple friends who worked in the show, and then talking through it with, you know, just like my trusted little core group of people or whatever, but then most of it was just doing it. And then I but I wasn't vocalizing what I was doing at all for years because I was just performing it and it was developing. And now going back to camp and doing that stage queuing talk comedy workshop thing, it's like, damn, I put a lot of safeties in there and I put a lot of like things to make sure that I'm effective every night, like we're talking about, like uh how we both have struggled with putting new material in because we're not in a position where like we can't go to Circ and go, yeah, I'm gonna do a different first five, I think. I'm just gonna jam something out. I'm just gonna jam it out, and then 20 shows in, it'll be good. No, you need to kill each night because those people paid a hundred bucks to get in. Right. And it's just like it's not fair to you, it's not fair to the job, it's not fair to the audience. But I will say, and somebody was just giving me shit, they're like, it's such fucking bullshit that magicians would go to the magic castle and work on a new piece. Oh yeah. And then I'm like, uh not defending myself, but I'm like, I'm totally that guy. Like I go in and you know, I do the stuff that people want to see. Because there are magicians that like go there. I think the castle is important in that way. Like there, you know, there's a magician from Spain that when I go see him there, I'm like, I I do really want to see him do the color changing knives. Like, I hope he does his, you know, play I hope he plays the first album kind of thing, right? And so I fulfill that need and I do strong stuff when I go there. I do act as known and I do hit the right points to make it a strong set. But also like where else am I doing 21 sets in a week in the best environment? And you know, I'm not going and doing something of the first time, but I'll go there like the sanitizer thing. Yeah, 100%. I'm gonna do that in September.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because it's I think that's a great and I think it's like I have this thing of like if you're doing more than one thing, you have the three-quarters mark of it. If I'm just doing rackets, and then then you go there, you can put in something new, or to do yeah, you do your killer opening, or depending on how long that is, if it's just just 15-20 minutes, you do your killer opening and your stuff so you know you have them and deliver everything and you got your ending. Oh, yeah, then you have this thing in the middle where they now have bought into you, and that thing that you do, as we have spoken about, that needs to be at a certain level before you do it. There, you're not going out and just jamming it. Right. Like the amount of times that we've spoken about this thing and talked about it. And even if each jam we come up with two verbal things that like it all is there in the bank, so that when you go out, you have spoken and and worked on this for hours. You've done it.
SPEAKER_01:You've like, I think the you know, I've gone back and watched the video. Right? I know what beats I want to hit, I know what things in that first performance I completely missed. I know how I want to end it now, I know you know, at least loosely. I'm I'm 80% there, maybe. I've got the land. But that's what you think.
SPEAKER_02:But then we remember Delgadio as well. Derek's 100 shows in. And now you go, finally, I'm starting to get somewhere with this. And then your 200 shows and 400 shows in. And you go, ah, now I know what this is. So as much as we you now say, because to me, this this new thing of yours with a hand sanitizer is a huge thing. Because it's not just connected to this, what you're doing now, it's the everything. Like it could be could be a thing that can be a running gag, a through line, a through line that they don't even know has started. Where you use a for the like all of this stuff, it's so potent to actually be like the next level of the act, because it's see it has to me the connective tissue that it can be one thing in the beginning, transform in the act, be a callback, and be so many things as it goes on, which like we're like we've spoken about, there's so many, all those, all the different people that you've spoken to have had different inputs. I go in the act itself, there could be one thing from me, one from Charlie, one from Mac, one from and and the rest, all of it, the rest of it is yours. Sure. But then all the gags that I came up with when we were like, oh, this would be funny, I'd like to see this. Yeah. And then and everything that that whole line of reasoning that Charlie was thinking of, all of those things can now find their place within the act, because this is a utility object, which so many things. So that's like that's really, really fun. And then you're going, oh well, I have so you have this unbelievably original kind of thing, which is taking the concept from the ancient times and like last scene by Mike Kavany at a conference in an unrecognizable shape to what you're doing. Where he was bringing it back. Where he was bringing it back from 1900. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like so 70 years prior. 80 years prior.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So to take that in and to make it revolutionizing, and then the fact that it has such a big potential to spread all across, uh like to be a flavor of a seasoning for the rest of your show.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. The way I've been writing it or writing about it is it's the closest thing to a puppet sidekick that I think I could feasibly get to. So great. Right.
SPEAKER_02:It's like so I totally agree with this though, like to go back to the writing and learning from teaching. Because when I'm writing, then I am essentially teaching. You're organizing your thoughts into a way so that you can talk about it. And this podcast has been that. Oh, I'm a second season, or first, second, and fourth season, which is now when there's only like four or five episodes left of this 30-hour 30 episode thing about play and showmanship. And I have learned so much about it. Stuff like when I'm writing it, um, I am, of course, the reason why I'm sitting down to write about it is that I think that I have a lot to say about it. Of course. So then you start to write. But a lot of the time, even now, when I'm working with Jay Gilligan as an editor on this other book, not about play, but the but what basically what I was talking about in the second season, yeah, it is so much more evolved now. And it's so much more I'm boiling it down and I'm seeing more interconnections. And as we have moved, I moved 40 pages out of that document myself. And then with him, we're hitting another 40. So it'll go from being just over 300 to being about 200. So by the end of this, I think we'll have like a 200-page manuscript. But not because we have lost anything of the original thread that was in there, but because we go, oh, actually, this is a repetition. This is all the but anyway, sure. I am learning so much more, and I'm being so much more concise in what it is that I am actually saying. Yeah. So expressing yourself clearly on on the word on writing is like hard.
SPEAKER_01:It's an it's it's similar to trying to teach you would be doing somebody a disservice. If you if there's somebody you really wanted to learn and their first exposure is this book that you're writing, if it could have been a 200 page thing and you give them something that's 260, you're doing them a disservice. Yeah, right. If I put too much exactly, pointed to a phenomenal example, but like it is that's almost 300 pages, I think.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01:But it's like it is if I and I say this in the class too, I go, listen, I if we if all we did was tricks all week, and I just showed you 50 million tricks, you'd be fucked. Like it happened to me, right? I go when I was a young magician, this happens to every magician, I think. Tyler talks about this. This is like one of his big talking points. But the you we all have too much magic already, and this is a Eugene thing, too. Yeah, yeah. We all have too much magic already, we know too much, whatever. Well, it to the point where like if if you asked me when I was eight to show you something, I oh, you probably have to go to the show. Um but it be it's to the point where it's doing us a disservice, right? Where when I was eight and you said do a trick, it's like uh ooh, fuck, okay. Well, I've got this thing, I've got this thing, and I've got this thing, and to the point where like you can't even do a thing. You don't have a trick that you can do. Yeah. You what's your show? Well, I know a hundred things. I guess I could come up with ten of those hundred that I want to do.
SPEAKER_02:That's not it's also like what you were we were talking about, how the kids then are watching you talk about your act, and they realize that there is like 40 more minutes where you're talking and that's just scratching the surface because it doesn't give them any techniques of how to actually learn, just to try to talk about what's going on in the in that 10-minute bit of yours or whatever, it is is a huge thing. Whilst to when you first start out, and I remember this for myself, but like then you go, Yeah, to do what do you got to show us? Well, here's the thing well, pick a card, and oh my god, here's the two jacks on top, and now your card is in between those two. Yep. Cool, done. That was to me like, well, I know a lot of things. I know that trick, for instance. Right. But it is just a sequence of mechanical moves and stuff. Yeah. It doesn't have anyone rolling on the floor with laughter. It doesn't have the huge gasps or the like. So you you think that that could be the thing. You know, it could. Sure, sure, sure. But when I first did it, or did five minutes of me with linking uh safety pins, yeah, but without having anything to say about it. Yeah. And one of the other magicians going, So what are you thinking of doing for uh script here? Yeah. And it just devastating me because I sort of realized that I'm just sitting here fiddling with pins on uh on a close-up mat. And it is stuff is happening, impossible things are happening. But to me, that was like as far as I gotten with that, at least at that point. And yeah, why should I do that?
SPEAKER_01:Wouldn't they give a shit about you fiddling with pins?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly. Right. So that's that's also that thing of going, you you get this idea you keep re-in reaching new plateaus. Yeah, and the plateaus never ends. The details might change and what what it is that you aim to achieve with it. Yep. Because a lot of the stuff that I'm thinking of now, which as much as I'm finishing season two and I'm doing all the writing, the thinking that I'm doing is now about making meaning. Like, that's the like how do you do the what I'm doing? Squeezing through the racket and doing that whole thing and it just being jokes, yeah, but to have it mean something more, like when you're putting it in a context, and what is there, and what can I leverage after that to say specifically or not? Like, so you're I'm now looking at the whole piece of the thing and going like in the show, what does that mean? And where does that leave the audience at? And where can I what can I use then afterwards to take them to new heights or have a transcendent experience or whatever?
SPEAKER_01:This is probably a dumb question, but do you think that I mean obviously you're you're about to do a 50-hour deep dive into this, I feel like, but can you do you think that you can add meaning to anything? Like if some kid goes, hey, I have this thing with a washer. Yeah, I mean he just did. I mean he did.
SPEAKER_02:I guess that's a bad example, but but I I I think that you do, but you can't no, it is difficult to add limitless meaning to anything. If I force it, it's it feels forced every time. Yeah, so you so it needs to come out of something genuine, and sometimes it can just be a little line or whatever, but sometimes it is like we just walked Suzanne do the thing about uh a journey through life and she's doing the the cups and balls, and that's great. And I'm talking about the nature of reality whilst doing magic on the ropes, uh and in there there are meaning, but there's there's only a certain amount that you can do, and if you yeah, so so but yeah, but there's also not a reason why you aren't talking on a deep level for every trick, sure, as well. Like you can, and then that just becomes the flavor of it, and they will go, I didn't know it, but this guy is a bit of a preacher, or this guy is a poet, or so if you just use that language like Jared did, you sort of go, This is a whole thing. Remember, we saw Jared Koff doing it. So you get like everything that he says and does in that thing has that same kind of layer of meaning where you go, it is about the cup and balls, but there's something more going on here. He's pointed to you by his opening speech, he places you in a certain state of mind so that everything else that comes after it, now you're looking at it with eyes looking for meaning because you kind of expect that it's there. Right. Whilst a lot of the time when a magician or a person comes out and haven't thought it much through, then what you see is actually what you get. And there isn't necessarily anything more in there. There might be more for you to find as a sensitive viewer, audience member, you can see things in it, but you but they might not be placed there. So by being more and more aware of the themes and the material that you do and what doing what you do points at, you can make those things obvious so that they start to think it in the same way that they go, I was there that night and I thought this when you said this, yeah. And you are saying it like that. It's like I'm going back to this thing where I often say David White, the poet saying when he's reciting his poems, and or when you're even when you're writing poems or so, it's that you're but speaking poetry, as he's saying the poem, like it's as you speak it, it's like you're learning more about what's in the poem than what you that you actually put in there. So you realize that there's more and more. And my book that I'm writing now with Jay is sure it's coming out, is a poem. As usual. So like it it it just I've used that, and then you deepen into it and you look and you can interpret. And that was the reason why that poem of the Illuminated Showman, I am a showman, Faces the Other Way, all that that was written in there to be a speech like the one that Jared used in his opening of his thing. Yep. I want to do something really idiotic first, and then I want to say this thing that lasts about four minutes, yeah, and it speaks about what I am and who I am and what that does, and all that, so that now when I do the next thing after that, which is both silly, but it also keeps having these little pointers to more beautiful or more important issues, then you sort of you go, Oh, I'm training you to see that I am being ridiculous, and I'm mainly I want you to be laughing all the way through, but I also want you to go, oh, that's interesting. Oh wow, that's why am I feeling that?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you thought about this. Yeah. It's all right. Well, I gotta go to work. Thank you. Thank you. Get out of my house. Thanks for thanks for having me. Don't lose that job. Great. I'm not gonna lose that job.
SPEAKER_02:All right, folks, I hope you enjoyed that. I certainly had an excellent time conversing with Nick Defat. And uh it would be really great if you uh took a little bit of time and uh wrote a review on iTunes. It's been ages since uh somebody did that, and of course it is because I don't actually ask for it. Uh my main passion in this thing is just to do the episodes and to get good reasons to have serious uh conversations with uh friends along the way. And somehow when we are putting on the recording, everybody brings out their best selves. And uh I do really love a good conversation and I love getting deeper and somehow you know when you're just having the average conversation and average just a hangout, then it might not always uh go uh go deep and stay onto a topic or whatever, even if this conversation was quite jumping along. But um yeah, I d so I do love it, but it is also great to know that the podcast is reaching new and more people. So uh please uh find it in your heart to go, write a review, or even just go in. The easiest thing is just to click click five stars, that's all I need. Yeah. If there were six, no actually. Because it's based on the die, like you roll it, so it's the so there's the illusive six. But if you come here and you get six on the die and then you put five stars or you get six stars, people think you're taking that piss. So uh five stars is enough. So until next time, take care of yourself and those you love, and I hope to see you along the way.