Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Airplane Blogging

Hello from way up in the sky, en route to Minnesota. I'll post this when I hit the hotel room but I'm writing it from seat D-10 on a Northwest Airlines flight. A nice flight attendant lady is prowling the aisle with a bottle of H2O and a stack of nested plastic cups, asking everyone, "Water? Water? Anyone want water?" She makes it sound like we're not likely to get any in Minneapolis so we'd better tank up now.

The flight left right on time and they're saying we'll be in 10-15 minutes early. I like that. If I ran an airline, I think I'd pad the schedule so every flight would get in 10-15 minutes earlier than we say. It might take us just as long as any other airline to get you where you're going (or longer) but when you thought of us, you'd think, "Boy, they're good...they're usually 10-15 minutes early."

Security at LAX was the usual drag, made draggier by a raging debate ahead of me in my line. A lady who looked a lot like Paris Hilton (but wasn't) was refusing to remove her footwear...and getting very loud and strident about it. On one hand, she had a point. They were sandals — and I could have hidden a lot more weaponry or explosives in my wallet, which I did not have to put on the conveyor belt, than she could have secreted in her flip-flops. On the other hand, it was not like she had a prayer of winning the argument and having one lowly Security Agent reverse TSA policy.

"You're required to put your shoes through the x-ray," said a man of steadily-diminishing patience while behind us, we could all hear voices crying out, "My plane leaves in ten minutes" or similar pleas. For some reason, no one thought to move her to one side and debate the issue while others passed on through. Paris kept responding, as if someone was paying her to say it as many times as possible, "But these are not shoes." She was right on some theoretical level but wrong to think she was getting on her plane without complying. By the time she did as ordered, the line behind her was the length of the Nile and at least a few people had probably missed their flights.

The pilot just said we're at 31,000 feet and we'll be starting our descent shortly. He'll "have us on the ground" (isn't there a nicer way to put that?) in about 25 minutes and then there's 5-10 minutes to taxi to our gate. I think the "10-15 minutes early" didn't include taxi time so maybe we're not as far ahead of schedule as they suggested.

I'm going to wrap this up and spend the rest of the flight paging through the in-flight magazine, getting up to speed on the Great Steakhouses of America. How is it that I never get to vote on what gets onto those lists? It couldn't be because they're just a cheap advertising ploy and that the restaurants listed are the ones that paid to be included, could it? If it turns out that's the case, I'm going to stop wagering on these things.

• Posted at 10:33 PM · LINK

Duck Soup

If you're anywhere near Mission Viejo, California, this will be of interest to you: Frank Ferrante, who you're all sick of seeing me rave about on this here blog, will be Grouchoing all over the stage at the Saddleback McKinney Theater this coming Tuesday, July 8. Frank's one-man show as the Magnificent Marx is, like the man he replicates, a treasure. Click the link for more details.

• Posted at 12:27 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Yesterday, I linked to a video from America's Got Talent with The Pendragons performing "Metamorphosis" — a classic illusion but one that they perform better than anyone. As a couple of you wrote me, the show's director broke a fundamental rule by doing cutaways during the trick, showing the audience and the judges.

That's usually a no-no. Even if the home audience sees everything significant that they'd see if they were there watching it live, cutaways disrupt the flow and the sense of "this is actually happening." On magic specials, they often announce during an incredible feat that "the camera will not cut away" because they know it makes viewers suspicious. You can hide a lot of chicanery, and make a trick go much faster than it did in reality, if you cut away. A number of magicians on television (not the Pendragons) have been criticized because though they boast of no camera trickery, they do edit together multiple takes of a trick or edit a six minute act down to three.

It's part of the odd code of Truth Telling in magic. If you say "no camera tricks are being used," then you're lying if the levitation is accomplished by Chromakey. But it's perfectly okay to say, "I'm going to put the three of clubs in my pocket" when in fact, the three of clubs is in your other hand and it's the jack of diamonds you're putting in your pocket. It's dishonest to edit out the moment when you actually snuck your assistant off stage...but if it really takes three minutes to make the elephant "vanish," some think it's okay to edit that down and make it look like they did it in thirty seconds.

Usually, it's injurious to the viewers' appreciation of an illusion to do cutaways. I'm guessing that the director or producers of America's Got Talent know that and decided to do it anyway. Their show is more about the judge's (and audience's) reaction to a performance than it is about the performance...so they felt the cutaways were important. Today's link is Jonathan and Charlotte doing the same feat on another show that didn't cut to reaction shots.

Again, you'll notice that Charlotte changes her outfit in the process. It's the most amazing part of the trick but many people are so dazzled by the main switch that they don't notice it. I asked her once why she why she did it and she smiled and said, "To make the trick more difficult." Good reason.

• Posted at 12:55 AM · LINK