What Is The Story?
Lessons In Storytelling from Malini The Magician
THE LEGEND OF MAX MALINI
AS TOLD BY DAVID BLAINE
One of my favorite magicians was Max Malini, he was an immigrant from Poland.
He came to America over a hundred years ago with nothing.
He decides that in order to become successful he has to find really powerful people so that he can blow their minds.
So he gets on a train and goes to Washington, D.C. and he finds one of the senators and he runs up to the senator and says,
"CAN I SHOW YOU SOMETHING?"
and he grabs the guy's jacket and he bites a button off of the senator's coat. And he has the button in his mouth and there's just some threads hanging off of the coat.
And Malini says,
"WATCH!"
and he holds the button in his mouth and goes *poof* and he spits it right back on to the guy's jacket and the senator goes crazy.
Eventually he ends up being invited to do magic at the White House, and they prepared a duck, and Malini, as they're about to cut the duck and serve it says,
"WAIT!"
and he walks up to the duck and just snaps his fingers over it.
And the duck jumps up to life and runs off of the table!
...AND THE LEGEND OF MAX MALINI WAS BORN.
And after that he was famous for performing for Kings, and Presidents, and Emperors all over the world.
America is a place where anyone can achieve the impossible.
- DAVID BLAINE
WHAT IS THE STORY?
You MUST ask yourself this question unceasingly.
Magic doesn't only happen in the moment.
The story matters.
People live to be witness.
People want nothing more to be part of a story, to be able to say,
"I WAS THERE!"
The greatest magicians were consumed with spreading their magic and there is no better way to do that than word of mouth.
The key is to create moments that are worth sharing.
PAY CLOSE ATTENTION to the stories you tell and the stories you hear. THINK about the greatest and most fantastic stories in the history of magic and you will find a common thread.
