Below is a transcript of the Interview for your reading pleasure.
Lee Asher: Alright, it's February 11, 2007. My name is Lee Asher. I'm sitting here with my buddy Alain Nu from the East Coast. Actually, he's on the west coast right now on X-elent Series. He worked in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, and Seattle. He worked Eugene today, and he's off to do a gig tomorrow. And then he's got Portland on Thursday. So, hey Alain thanks for coming, I really appreciate it.
Alain Nu: Thanks for having me Lee. It's been fun.
LA: You sound kind of tired, X-elent Series is a pretty grueling tour isn't it?
AN: OOHHHH YES. It sure is. Yes indeed. Its been, it's been non-stop every single day, a different town.
LA: I appreciate you having at least the next fifteen minutes to me – to talk to the people that are listening. Real fast, I want to tell everyone – you sound pretty tired. Let's tell them why you're so tired. You flew in to Seattle, you drove across the border to Vancouver, you got on a plane – this is all in the same day. You got on a plane, flew to Calgary so you could do the lecture that night in Calgary and then you got on a plane the next day to Winnipeg. Did a lecture that night in Winnipeg, and then flew back to Vancouver. Did a lecture in Vancouver, got back in your car, crossed the border back to Seattle, did a lecture that afternoon in Seattle, and then drove all the way from Seattle to Eugene (which is about a five and a half hour drive). Did a lecture today in Eugene, no days off. Now you're working a gig tomorrow. Right? Tomorrow is supposed to be your day off on the X-elent Series, but you've opted to go and perform a professional show. Could you tell us more about that? (1:30)
AN: Well it was actually completely random during the week that I was doing the X-elent Series. A college just happened to see that I was going to be in the Pacific Northwest and called my college agent and asked to book it. So I'll be in a place called Ontario, Oregon. That would be tomorrow at seven pm. I have to leave here at eight o'clock in the morning, first thing – head over there and do a seven pm show. It's an hour long ESP mentalism show for the students, and then from there I fly back and complete the X-elent Series in Portland.
LA: I know a lot listeners know you for being a mentalist, but a lot of people don't realize that you've actually spent a lot of time in the trenches like in restaurants. Working, doing a lot of close-up, a lot of ‘professional mingling' if you will. Can you tell us a little bit about your experiences being a restaurant worker?
AN: Sure, I sure can. Well, first to mention about the fact that I do mentalism – it is just a small amount of props, usually just a board, a marker, maybe a deck of cards, a small table, and some spoons. The restaurant business, I used to perform close-up magic at a restaurants all over (Washington) D.C and was something that I actually think I became quite successful at in the D.C area running up to five different restaurants at a time. Definitely three of them still have performers in the D.C. area right now so its been something I have done for many many years.
LA: Talking about restaurants, working restaurants – it's a pretty hot topic. Guys like David Stone, you mentioned Kirk Charles earlier in your lecture today. There have just been a lot of guys that have discussed the art of working a restaurant, the art if Table hopping. I've also heard you say something to a couple of the guys tonight, and this was not in the lecture, but I would love if you would tell the listeners right now about –Anyone who ever performs always gets asked this question, Can you make my wife disappear? Or my significant other disappear? And your answer was phenomenal, so would you mind sharing that with my listeners? (4:00)
AN: Certainly. I always found that to be an interesting question because it always put people in a strange place. Basically, you're asking them if they'd like to see magic and then usually one person or the other will say something before they get a chance to think and usually it because you're mentioning that you're a magician they are caught off-guard. That thing comes out of their mouth where they say, Can you make her disappear? Or Can you make him disappear? It ends up becoming a weird thing to say because it end up offending one person at the table usually and then it simultaneously causes the first person to realize that they kind of stuck their foot in their mouth before actually thinking about what they said, or not. Regardless, it sends kind of a strange pall over the table and makes it really difficult for performers of the restaurant variety to continue their acts mainly because there are two people in conflict at that point so my feeling is that there are different ways of being able to approach that subject. One is to retort back to the person who said it and say something like, While if you continue speaking like that, eventually she will. And that would be one way of putting it but, my feeling is that unfortunately that end up making the first guy the idiot in the matter and that's not necessarily good either since, as a performer your job is to spread magic and love for people so everyone is there to have a good time, and you're there to make sure there are no conflicts. So my answer to all of that was actually quite simple, something that came to me over many years of just doing it, and that's to simply just pause and look at the person and go, Frankly, I need all the audience I can get. And by saying it that way, if you just say it – it's not a belly buster, its not something that gets a huge laugh, but it does get a laugh and it causes the audience to realize that the comments and all of that stuff aren't nearly as important as what need to be happening right now, and that is the performer needs to start performing. Let's get down to business. So that's basically the line, you just say, I need all the audience I can get. In fact, you're telling them the truth, and if you tell it to them in the most sincere way, you're really telling them something that's necessary because, indeed, you need all the audience you can get as a performer. (6:33)
LA: Yeah, that's so true! You know we never think about things like that and it's the details that really make the person, and I think that's a really classy way to approach something like that. I thank you for sharing that with my people. One more thing, before we go – it rare that I get this opportunity but – You are a television star. You had four of your own television specials. Can you just tell us, give some insights as what it was like to make your own series? (7:00)
AN: Well, it was maybe a little more grueling than the X-elent Series. (Laughter.) We basically had to put together four television specials in a period of three months from the time the contract was signed. On my end, it was a little difficult only because I wasn't nearly as prepared. I was kind of in personal disbelief that I would actually have a television series of my own until the contract was signed. I guess my original thinking was that I would have some time to actually put it together, but I didn't so it was a whole lot of work. I am a person who considers himself an industry professional, and therefore, when I was put to task, and realized that I wasn't as ready as I needed to be, I rounded up a bunch of really close friends of mine and we brainstormed, and jammed, and it became essentially a real long jam session of some really outrageous effects. All I can say is, there are good times, there were bad times, there were ugly times, and there were absolutely majestic times when things that couldn't possibly happen all of a sudden would happen for us. Weather would seem like it wasn't going to be on our side and we would get out there and all of a sudden the weather was perfect. It was pretty magical, all-in-all, doing the entire experience. It was something that I can definitely never forget. (8:42)
LA: I bet... I bet. Having your own television show, that something that you can show your children, and your children's children. On a side note, again one last question because I could talk to basically all day, if you let me – You wrote a book, just finished a book to start off on the X-elent Series and you said it was almost like a right of passage because it allowed you to do things you couldn't do four or five years ago. It allowed you to share secrets with the community that you weren't necessarily comfortable doing. It's what you were talking about a couple of years ago with that and now you're more comfortable, and this book has allowed you to do that. It's been the right of passage, you talk about rites of passages in the book, because I kind of glanced it over a little earlier this afternoon. Could you tell us a little more about this book and this right of passage? (9:32)
AN: As far as having rites of passage, I think what you're really talking about is my feeling behind magicians and their secrets and how the secrets should be passed along, and how the secret should be respected and thought about as actual/personal powers that can help them and potentially help the people around them. If it's played out properly, my feeling is that pre-internet secrets were very much secrets and post-internet secrets have become slightly diluted due to the fact that it's very easy to look up something at the touch of a button by going up to your monitor and seeing something that might interest you. Therefore if you see a card trick that blows your mind and you really want to know something – you can Google it and chances are you'll get something that pops up that will be very similar to what you just saw. What I think that does is it diminishes the power of the secrets, and therefore, I sort of feel that although the internet and the other forms of media, DVD, and so on are excellent ways of being able to teach magic in its many forms. I feel that those particular effects and stuff that are coveted, the true secrets behind the work of what we do, can actually be ‘locked-down' a little bit better by being placed inside of literature, like actual hardcover books that people can hold in their hands and you can not find the actual literature on the internet. Just because, my feeling is that our art is something that is based on the sharing of secrets, and if we think about how we pass down the secrets and stuff, we can consider various different ways of doing that, and I sort of felt that books were one way being able to ‘lock-them-down' (secrets) since you would have to first find the book, then you'd have to actually read the book, and then you'd have to learn and practice the knowledge you acquire from the book for your own personal execution. And then from there, you'd have to figure out how you'd be able to apply that knowledge into your own personal way of doing things, and that in itself is a personal right of passage that, although its not the same as let's say it's not the same thing as an initiation into a secret society, it definitely is an initiation into the secret society within your mental date of information. (12:43)
LA: Magic is a very secretive society. Yeah, you can join the IBM or the SAM and send your money into wherever the dues are due, that doesn't really make you a magician. It's the going to lectures, its going to meetings, hanging out with that group of guys that you want to learn magic from and are hanging out with – that's where the real secrets society is. Just to be able to go to Google and type in information, I don't think it necessarily makes you a magician. Yeah, it gives you access to magic information, but it's how you interpret that information I think is the important part. With the internet, there are a lot more secrets out there, I think. A lot more secrets. It's just deciphering which ones you want to learn. There's only so much time in the day, and there's only so much you want and can learn – there's too much out there. You can spend a year on card magic alone off secrets you can find in Google. But how many years does it take you to decipher which one is actually the good one? It takes you forever, so I like what you're saying about limiting the exclusivity of information – you can only get it in this form. And I like that you've taken some of your material and only put it in book form and only find it if you search for it. Take the journey. Back in the day, you'd have to get into the car and drive to the magic shop, and hopefully they'd let you in. Now you have to go and find the right piece of information in the right book. So I applaud your effort my friend. Alright Alain, it looks like we're coming to the end here. You look pretty tired. My people have to go and do some things, they probably have to go and practice magic (it's what I want them to go and do.) So can you leave them with something influential, something provocative, something iconic? (14:31)
AN: Whether you're a magician, or a mentalist, or a side show artist, or a hypnotist, or anybody within this large mystery-making paradigm – consider that everything that you do is an actual power. Not necessarily a real power or a fake power, but a power. A power that enables you to do the things that you do. It enables you to get done the things that you get done. That power enables you to do just about anything from influence people in many different ways to possibly ‘earn your keep' within a job or just about anything. When you put someone in a state of mind that only this mystery making do can, you're putting people in a state of mind that kind of breaks down their sense of reality and though sometimes they might just be suspending their disbelief when they get put in that state of mind, I think that potentially there's a good place to inject some seed of wisdom, something that will empower them, that will make them a better person. Perhaps if we see out magic as something that enables us to do that – maybe we can evolve more and legitimize our art even more than it ever has.
LA: Excellent. I thank you sir. I appreciate you coming on lecture tour, I appreciate that you've taken the time to speak with my peoples. I thank you guys for listening. I hope you're inspired.
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