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The Burnaby Kid writes:
Figured I'd toss this out there, since SN was asking for interesting story submissions. I'm a professional magician working abroad, and I've been indulging in this incredibly geeky performing art for almost two decades. One problem that happens a lot when it comes to magic is that the nature of secrecy means that we don't get open dialogue with the muggles we perform for, and that leads to us getting into this weird sort of insular and incestuous discussion with other magicians, which ends up warping our minds to the extent that we start doing moronic things like... oh, I don't know... referring to our audience members as "muggles". We get into some pretty weird debates, and I've been trying my best to argue for raising the bar, such as by suggesting that we need to be more sensitive about what you guys like, such as by making sure that if we pull out a deck of cards, we've got something to perform that can compete with Card Through Window. And yet... Maybe I've got it wrong? What DO you guys like? If you like watching magicians perform, what do you like about it? If you don't, why not?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by TGV on Sunday March 30 2014, @04:43AM
Since when are magic tricks geeky? And calling your audience muggles, that is such a sign of misplaced superiority. I think you're confusing geeky with lack of social skills.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 30 2014, @04:56AM
I came onto the comments to say exactly this.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by lx on Sunday March 30 2014, @05:25AM
Did you miss how the cringeworthy muggles remark was disarmed in the next sentence? I think that you're supposed to cringe at it. I certainly did.
And yes magic tricks are a very geeky pursuit. Young Richard Feynman is the first example to come to my mind but there are many others.
(Score: 1) by TGV on Sunday March 30 2014, @06:41AM
Yes, that was a very odd attempt, but the incestuous bit did not help. Instead, it looked like a contrived justification for a sneer.
(Score: 1) by The Burnaby Kid on Monday March 31 2014, @09:14PM
Heh heh, yeah, I was going for deliberately cringe-worthy. I personally hate it when magicians call audience-members "muggles" (the usual term is "laymen" and I hate that one as well) and I wanted to pass it along, really as an attempt to illustrate just how disconnected we can be from our audiences' mindsets.
Sorry to anybody annoyed by it if that wasn't clear...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday March 30 2014, @05:32AM
I've heard IT people call users muggles.
As for magic, At it's core, it is an understanding of the limitations of human perception. It may also involve a good understanding of physics. It can get really geeky.
(Score: 1) by pjbgravely on Sunday March 30 2014, @10:40PM
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Sunday March 30 2014, @07:43AM
Personally I don't mind being described as a "muggle". And I don't consider its use of to be an indicator of a lack of social skills or an attitude of superiority. (Nor "cringe-worthy", as someone else suggested.) I just found it amusing. Not exactly ROTFLMAO, but raised a bit of a smile.
Aren't you being over-sensitive?