Where You Are

Ten years ago, Tom Stone wrote something on the Genii forum that has stuck with me since (writing about Tommy Wonder):

The repertoire is often a few years behind where you are in your mind. And it is difficult to drop a piece that consistently gets good reactions, even when you've realized that it is crap.

It's something I battle with often: the tricks that I want to create are always stronger in my mind than the ones that I am currently performing in my active repertoire. I'm not so sure they are "crap" (to use Tom's word), but I always want to strive to perform better magic.

And while Tom's quote sounds somewhat negative, I prefer to flip it and think of it positively: the tricks we are currently performing are springboards to a better repertoire of tricks that are more deceptive, relevant, and entertaining. And that doesn't always mean refreshing our repertoires with new routines, but instead fixing current ones, and, as I talk about in my introduction to The Boy Who Cried Magic, making incremental changes until the trick is finally as good as the one in your head.