This week features a "guest" post from my good friend and Elmwood's resident interviewer, Joseph Malkiewicz.  Joe recently sat down to craft this excellent essay on the popular discussion of books versus dvds in the world of magic. Here's the word direct from Joe....

Let’s begin with a couple of centering thoughts.

First, an ancient Japanese Zen tale:

A man was being chased by a ferocious tiger through a field at the edge of which was a cliff. To escape from the tiger, the man grabbed a vine and swung himself over the cliff’s edge. To his dismay though, when he looked down, he saw more tigers below. Furthermore, two little mice were gnawing on the vine to which he clung. In the instant that he knew he would fall to certain death, he noticed a wild strawberry growing from the wall of the cliff. Clutching the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other and put it in his mouth. He never realized how sweet a strawberry could taste.

And second from the 19th century writer, Charles Dickens, who began his novel, “A Tale of Two Cities,” with these now famous words: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”

These two examples illustrate a profound point: extremes, that is to say, polarities, exist and persist over time because 1.) our knowledge changes, 2.) tensions between old and new technologies, and generational knowledge and methods compete, and 3.) our perspectives are modified by our own personal learning styles.

Every now and then, some consternation is expressed regarding the use—perhaps, in the minds of some, overuse—of DVDs as learning tools for neophyte magicians. The superiority of learning through reading, by which the learner creates mental models of what the process of the trick looks like are viewed as the “only” or “right and proper” way to learn how to do a trick. That point is then bolstered by an equally meritorious hypothesis that the learner is compelled to inject his own personality into the trick. DVDs, on the other hand, the advocates of reading only argue, teach learners to merely ape the teacher in the DVD, bypassing the rigors and intellectual process of interpretation and struggles with nuance and ambiguities which flourish in written language.

This, however, is a false dichotomy. When it comes to learning anything—whether it’s magic, personal hygiene, how to meet members of the opposite sex, solve simple math problems, file one’s income tax, acting, etc.,—it can be argued that there really are no either-or, right or wrong approaches. It’s up to each individual to discover what works best. Our brains evolved from cultures that were steeped in oral traditions, that were rich in mentors, guides and sagacious elders who instructed the young in all manner of survival and leisure pursuits. The models for instruction and learning, millennia ago, were built on looking, experiencing, mimicking and memorizing. In fact, the wisest people of antiquity were those who’d committed hundreds of axioms, proverbs and aphorisms to memory. Even Aristotle is supposed to have warned parents not to teach their children to read as it would turn their children’s brains to mush. Teach them to memorize was his advice.

I remember hearing Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist, give a lecture in Buffalo about 45 years ago. Her observation, that “once man created and used the iron axe, he would not go back to the stone axe,” remained with me these four plus decades and has served as a bedrock principle both during my teaching career and in my own personal view about human progress. The last three to four decades witnessed the birth of entirely new technologies by which to learn and advance knowledge. New research in cognition and neuro-science have challenged old models of both teaching and learning. Recognizing multiple intelligences compels us to re-examine the sacred cows that have been passed down to us.

Once upon a time, it was believed that children were simply smaller versions of adults which resulted in teaching practices that, while effective for adults, killed the joy of learning for the young. During the early part of the twentieth century, people like John Dewey and Jean Piaget introduced concepts of child-centered and hands-on learning programs that revolutionized education, altered teaching practices and learning theories. The first half of the twentieth century saw “progressive education” blossom.

The latter part of the last century ushered in a technology revolution, the scope of which was unimaginable. Now, of course, we’re steeped in it, but the full impact of new ways to learn and teach have yet to reveal themselves. Even a quick search on YouTube’s, “magic tricks revealed,” illustrates that DVDs are not the enemy of book learning for magicians. If anything, magic’s professionally produced DVDs are sources of enrichment and edification that, hand-in-glove, make books even more usable. It is imperative that we not tether or limit our thinking to just one way to learn. Consider this: learning an Elmsley, a shuttle pass, a side steal, a Chink-a-Chink, a square or slip knot may possibly be more effectively taught and learned with newer, interactive animation technologies which don’t even utilize a human teacher. DVDs, PDFs, streaming video tutorials, visuals, etc., could actually ameliorate someone’s struggle and frustratation with text.

The task ahead, it seems to me then, over-run by and flooded as we are with a plethora of magical voices and sources, will require a discerning, critical mind to separate the gems from the crap, the great from the trivial. We need to cultivate the critical sharpness and criteria to notice the “sweet strawberries” within reach despite the surrounding polarizing pulls. Every age confronts such issues. That’s why it’s the “best of times and the worst of times” all the time. Magic doesn’t survive solely on dogma, that is to say, one path. Magical arts and crafts rely on creativity, individuality and uniqueness whether one’s a professional or an amateur. We are fortunate to still have our wise elders, our “sacred” books, experienced critics who nurture a bold, pioneering spirit that invite us to think outside of the box, and to peer courageously into the future — which is, after all, where’d we’d all like to take magic.