Ham Sandwich Crap

In one of my recent posts, Japanese Crap, I incorrectly attributed a quote to Jeff McBride, which I was alerted to when an anonymous reader wrote, "The McBride quote is originally from Henning Nelms' Magic and Showmanship." He's absolutely right.

Actually, the "ham sandwich analogy" is quoted from a lot by many magic bloggers, magic forum users, and magicians in general. (Actually, the people at the Magic Cafe only use it because they really like sandwiches.) So, I'm going to publish verbatim the exact quote from Henning Nelms.

No matter how astonishing a trick may be, it suffers from one major fault - it has no point. Suppose you could work miracles. Suppose that, without coming near me, you simply gestured toward my pocket and told me to put my hand in it. I did so and took out a ham sandwich. This would no doubt amaze me, but after I recovered from my surprise my only feeling would be, "So what?"

But suppose I say, "I'm hungry," and you reply, "I can fix that. Look in your left coat pocket." When I do so, I find a sandwich. This has a point. It makes sense. You cannot work that sort of miracle, but you can add meaning to your conjuring.

Henning Nelms, Magic and Showmanship: A Handbook for Conjurors (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2000) 5-6

So remember, as Henning Nelms wrote so eloquently 36 years ago, "You can add meaning to your conjuring." In fact, it's something you must do if you want to connect to your audience and create real magic.