Guess What Asshole. Marlo Already Published That.
I'm not really sure what the appeal of trying to advent new moves and ideas is--there are already so many that it would take several lifetimes to got through them all and understand them. I am by no means a card expert--I'm still learning every day, still trying to improve. Anything that I create, in all likelihood, will not be anything worth actually doing.
Maybe it's entirely accidental--I'll be fooling around with a deck of cards and I do "something." I'll play around with that "something" a bit and lo and behold! I have a new move. And now I'll try and figure out just what the hell this move is good for. More often than not, the move is good for (you guesses it) NOTHING. And yet I'll try to force it somewhere where I think it applies as being something useful.
And in the highly unlikely event that I do stumble upon something new and useful, it will become evident to me that it is not, in fact, new at all. In fact, nine times out of ten, Ed Marlo thought of it before me and published it. Way to not do your research, asshole.
For example. I thought up a move where you ribbon spread the cards and slip the selection into the spread; in fact, the selection is slid underneath the spread and then rides along the bottom as the cards are scooped up. Sort of like a Hofzinser spread cull done on the table.
I show this to SR one night and he just stares at me. "Yeah, that's Marlo." Ah, but I have another variation on it, as it turns out, where the card is simply side-jogged during the scoop up of the spread and is then in perfect position to be stolen out. "Nope, that's still Marlo," SR says.
Another time, I accidentally ripped off Harry Lorayne (which probably means I was ripping off some other magician." In Quantum Leaps he has a move in his Invisible Pass Routine which is effectively a midair slip cut with a packet of cards. I figure it out on my own and I think it's a pretty nifty little move. And then of course I was told the horrible truth. Also, Marlo published similar ideas before that as well. Goddamnit.
But my version was different--the deck was in a different grip, the timing was different--there was a different visual flavor. Clearly this was then original.
Not it was not.
See, this is something that really pisses me off--when people claim variations as being original. As "their version." The tiny nuances that make one person's execution of a sleight different from someone else's do not make it original.
Here is a perfect example. Roy Walton's Paintbrush Change. Walton himself had variations. But the change itself is done using another card to "paint" the card being changed. Then we get Marlo who uses the same actions, but does it face up and openly. And thus we get Marlo's Face up Startler. So far so good.
But now we get Mr. Danny "I Came Up with this" Garcia who claims to have created something called "The Airbrush Change," that is based on the Face up Startler. No he did not. There is no "Airbrush Change." It is, in fact, Danny Garcia doing Marlo's Face up Startler. And dammit, the same goes for Bill Goodwin, who at least has the sense to say that he "hasn't really added anything to [the paintbrush change]." It is still Marlo's Face up Startler. If you're not doing anything new with an old move, then it's still old.
Magicians seem so keen to put their names on shit. Just call it what it is.
Fuckin' Hell. Is it Spring Break yet?