I recognize you have many people to respond to whereas I generally just have you, so perhaps it's just that you haven't gotten to it, but did you not read my latest posts? Including my comments on the Macklemore reading? The one I talked about was a short bit that focused on a vague talk about Macklemore's dad wondering whether or not to pass on his business and then about someone "needing to remove something off the skin."
That bit was completely unconvincing.
I watched one video in its entirety--"Darren Brown fools readers and talks to the dead"--and if your point is there are magicians capable of fooling some people in an easy to work crowd environment while staring directly at the people and making a comical number of false starts, I already know this. (I did enjoy watching it, so thanks for sending).
There is a profound difference between what this magician did picking three receptive people out of a low sophistication crowd, never filling more than a few minutes of air time with each person...
Yes. The difference is that without any prep, the magicians did just as well.
Frank McLaughlin said:
....and what Henry did last night reading the Grammy-nominated Macklemore one-on-one with no false starts, his wife and manager watching and confirming on video from another room with no vague guesses (Brown: "you have lots of hats").
"No false starts?" There were misses. See below. There was also prep time.
Frank McLaughlin said:
I play piano (I'd like to think) exceptionally well. A friend, a musician, came over, sat at my piano and began to noodle around. Noise really--he does not play. My dinner guests got excited. "How long have you been playing?" "You play piano too? Wow." (He's a guitarist).
The fact that some musically challenged friends of mine got fooled by crap noodling does not change the fact that I can play--and he can't. Henry can play; Brown can't. This might not be obvious in the 2 min:40 he spent with each guest before moving on, but it sure would be glaringly obvious during a longer time duration.
This is more relevant than you think, but in exactly the opposite direction you think. You, as a musician, can tell when non-musicians give too much musical credit. By this standard, you must accept that magicians can tell when non-magicians are giving too much credit. You're giving too much credit. In this scenario you are your non-musical friends who have been fooled.
Frank McLaughlin said:
If Darren Brown is setting the bar, I need to re-evaluate Theresa Cupito. What she does is so much better than Brown, maybe she is real after all?
Utter tripe. Pick one thing Caputo does that has comparable constraints and stands up to what Brown does. You can't.
This morning I found another bit of the Macklemore reading which turned out to be about Macklemore's friend Kevin who died from an overdose. It seems convincing at first, but only at first.
Some comments:
- Macklemore specifically asks for messages from a friend who has passed
- Henry starts with generalities, leaving plenty of room to maneuver in case the place he wants this to go isn't where Macklemore wants it to go. He talks about a young man with a "monkey on his back" and about being shown an IV except it might not be an IV it might just mean something put in the body but it might not be that it could be just "some sort of a substance."
- Henry talks about a female presence next to the young man he has been seeing, but only says it is the young man's sister when Macklemore answers the question "Do you know if he had a sister or a girlfriend?" by saying "Sister."
- Henry makes only two specific statements:
(1) The man died of an overdose because he tolerance was lower than it had been since he had been sober for a while
(2) In the months before his overdose someone triggered the overdose by making him think now would be a good time for "him to do this."
For (1) above, Macklemore calls it a hit at the end because the friend had been sober for 7 days prior to the overdose. I'd call it a decent cold read hit but not a great one, though Macklemore thinks it was exceptional
For (2) above, it was a complete miss, never confirmed, and entirely contradictory to #1 which indicates it was not intentional and his later specific comments in which the young man wants his sister to know it was not intentional. This isn't just a miss, this is absolutely perfect tactics in that the reading can go either route -- intentional or accidental overdose -- depending on the reaction of the subject, and Macklemore played right into it, completely missing this part and forgetting it was ever said.
- Then, in response to Henry's question "Does that make some sense" Macklemore tells him about his childhood friend Kevin who fit the reading.
- Note that it is only after Macklemore says the name "Kevin" that Henry goes into his longest bit about the young man wanting something that he didn't finish to be followed through on "that other people will do in his honor, in his legacy, that they will help create some things....my name's [meaning Kevin's] going to be attached to it even though I'm not physically here."
- At the end, Macklemore says "I have a song named after him."
When the reading is done, when Henry isn't there, Macklemore says "All of that was extremely specific. No Googling could have been done to get any of that information whatsoever."
Now let me tell you what I did yesterday before I watched either excerpt of the Macklemore reading. I started with Wikipedia. I used it to Google some people and items listed on the Wikipedia page. I made a list of topics I would try to steer a reading to if I were giving it. Below is the list, but note first that it is incomplete in that I didn't go down rabbit holes too far to find people or businesses (finding his father's business would have been child's play if I actually followed through) and second, if I were actually going to do the reading I would prepare it in much more detail and do much more research:
Just from Wikipedia
- Heritage (Irish), Bill Haggerty and Julie Schott
- Gateways for Incarcerated Youth
From searches spawned by the Wikipedia entries
Now remember what Macklemore said about this not being able to be Googled, and remember that this reading happened in just the past couple of days:
Note the songs it says Macklemore sang at Recovery Fest last November at
this link.
Read the lyrics of the song "
Kevin".
Read
what was posted by Macklemore online in 2015 and which I found with a quick Google search.
Before I say anything else, what are your in depth thoughts on that, Frank?
