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What’s In A Name, Magically Speaking?

Walter “Zaney” Blaney is more than a great magic inventor, great magician and incredible supporter of all things good in magic.  He is also a very principled and well-spoken member of our community. 

Mr. Blaney has written a column on a subject many of us have noticed but few have mentioned.  We are honored to have Mr. Blaney on these pages. 

Read On . . .

Dear friends in magic:

I have two very good friends named Gerry and Leonora Frenette in Canada. They have a long established magic business named  ”Magic Makers Inc.” Now there is a company in the USA who also uses the name “Magic Makers Inc.,” established and run by Rob Stiff.

Magicians quite naturally confuse the two. I believe it is unfair for someone to come into our magic field and use the same name of an established business which already had a very good reputation for years.  It would be the same problem if some new company opened up using the name Abbotts, or Owens Magic Supreme.

I understand that Mr. Stiff said he was unaware of the Magic Makers Inc. in Canada. Yet when he learned of its existence, he refused to change the same name he took up.

The Frenettes established their Magic Makers in 1986 and first advertised in the Linking Ring that year. They soon were placing ads in Magic Magazine (colored ads), Genii, MUM, The Illusionist, as well as continuing their ads in The Linking Ring. So it would be difficult for anyone to claim they were unaware of the Magic Makers company already established in our business.

The Frenettes first heard of the new Magic Makers around or after 1999. In that year the  Frenettes had a great deal of good publicity, articles, stories and reviews in most of the magic magazines. They create and build their own proprietary illusions, along with custom design and standard illusions,  and they sell direct-only to their many customers.

This is not meant to be an “ad” for my friends the Frenettes. But the confusion caused by the “other Magic Makers Inc.” is hurtful to them in more ways than one. I only wanted to point out to friends who may be unaware of what I deem to be an unfair situation.

Cheers, Walter Zaney Blaney

Continue reading What’s In A Name, Magically Speaking?

July 16th, 2004 | Category: Magic Stories | Leave a comment

Awkward Moments at Lecture Land

 

On a scale from one to ten, with one being the lowest number and ten being the highest, I so dislike that awkward moment at the end of a lecture when the speaker has to transition from teacher to pitch-man.

 

It is so inelegant. 

 

Many of the lecturers on the circuit today are such great teachers and such wonderful resources that one (that being the lowest number and also an adjectival pronoun for “me”) wishes they had the confidence to simply end the lecture and walk calmly to the sales table.  Nine times out of ten (approximately 90 percent with rounding errors) we would follow the lecturer to the table and buy exactly those things we would have bought with the pitch. 

 

Read On . . .

 

I saw Duane Laflin’s lecture and reviewed it very favorably here.  Now, as we sat in the backroom at the finest shop in these parts, Garden City Magic Shop run by Carlos Blades, we all saw not only the lecture but also the extensive sale table inventory.  The items took up two long tables and half of a third.  There were bins upon bins filled with great stuff.  Silks were flowing, palmo balls were palmo-ing and flags were mis-making before our eyes well-before the end of the show. 

 

But Mr. Laflin, perhaps because of historical precedent or because of genuine insecurity based on real life experience, gave a short sales pitch for the items shown in the lecture.  For me and those around me, the sales pitch was actually an impediment to spending our hard-earned credit limits.  We were ready to spend.  It was ten o’clock and while not all of the magicians surrounding me had to be back for curfew at the half-way house, it was late and any delay seemed interminable.

 

But, you may fire back, “What if they didn’t do the pitch-man shuffle towards the table?  What if they lost one or two customers who expected the transition?  For a lecturer, that is losing a significant portion of their income.”

 

I nod silently, sip my Diet Coke, take another wad of Red Man, scratch my arm to see if I still have a sun burn and nod again.  That’s the problem with age-old traditions.  For most lecturers ? in fact, all that I know…
Continue reading Awkward Moments at Lecture Land

July 16th, 2004 | Category: Magic Stories | Leave a comment