Yesterday, I told you I liked Penn and Teller. Today, I tell you I like David Copperfield…at to some extent for the same reasons. Both acts took magic to new places. While I have a great respect for someone who can do the linking rings as well as Jonathan Pendragon or the cups-and-balls as well as Johnny "Ace" Palmer, I also like guys who come out on stage and do something you've never seen before. Or at least, it doesn't look like anything you've ever seen before. (A lot of good "new" magic is putting a new facade on an old structure.)
I know people mock Copperfield's poses and the way he portrays himself…and I find that kind of thing funny and/or creepy when it's done by lesser magicians who haven't his skill or credibility. But there's also a "perfectionist" aspect to his work that I admire and a constant desire to do something different, something that the audience (the members of it not on his payroll) will long remember. Someone posted to Google Video a bit from one of his specials that I heard people discussing in the Ralphs Market, days after it first aired on CBS. It's another one of those tricks that you can figure out if you have the slightest common sense but he does it so well that it works anyway. Here it is…
