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The Magician's Secret


Magic is my passion and my art form.  As a magician I am constantly looking to improve my magic, and one way I do this is by watching and listening to other magicians.  This way I can expand my knowledge of how to deceive, astonish, and do what I love.  One of my favorite magicians in particular is a man named Francis Menotti. He has a very strange, but at the same time brilliant performing style and personality.  He also has profound insight into the realm of magic that I enjoy listening to.

In the summer of last year Francis did a TEDx talk at the University of Penn titled, “The magician's secret: Why everyone should embrace child-like wonder”.  In his speech he talks about why exactly he does magic, which is to instil child-like wonder into the minds of his audiences.  He is an excellent speaker and conveys his thoughts and ideas very well.  He uses a total of three different effects (tricks) to help demonstrate his points.  For example, while he is talking about misdirection, he performs the cups and balls, which is the oldest effect in the world, and relies heavily on misdirection.

This is a perfect example of Logos, because what better way to explain a point about magic, than allowing the audience to experience the very thing you are explaining to them.  Another mode of persuasion Francis uses is Ethos.  He relies a lot on this because he himself is a magician, so of course he knows what he is talking about.  Overall he is very captivating and knows how to grasp every one's attention and not let it go.  This he does mainly by using Pathos through things such as humor(which he uses quite a lot of).  I highly recommend that you go check out his TED talk, I think you'll find it very interesting.

Comments

  1. I can see it is a very interesting speech through what you talked about. This speaker used Ethos, Pathos and Logos in his speech which I think is very persuasive.

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  2. Since he did some tricks in his speech, I think he had a different but funny and vivid speech. It's true do magic is the best way to explain magic. By the way, you are my favorite magician, not only you are good at it, but why you do it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Personally, I like magic. I can see a lot of logos going on in this video. Now I am very interested in talking to a magician. And I totally agree with you that we should embrace magician.

    ReplyDelete
  4. since i was your first trick i began to return to my hobby that is magic, I can see a lot of logos and pathos in his speech. And now we the people that don't know about magic know why you do it

    ReplyDelete

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