Blog of an Auckland Magician

Everyone loves a good old joke.  And to prove it, here are without a doubt the oldest jokes you’ll ever hear in your life.  They come from an ancient Greek jokebook called Philogelos, The Laughter Lover, thought to date back to the fourth century AD.

The book contains 264 jokes and is credited to two authors, Hierocles and Philagrius, about which nothing is known.

Just like the jokes told by modern-day comedians, much of the humour in the collection is topical.  Unlike today’s stock lines concerning technology, the Internet and modern relationships; the subjects Hierocles and Philagrius cover included eunuchs, slaves and scholastikos, a stereotype roughly translating to a book-smart, street-dumb intellectual.  The scholastikos were the ancient world’s version of the Irish or Australian scapegoat character.

One section of the book concerns medical gags that we’d now refer to as ‘Doctor, Doctor’ jokes, and there’s even a prototype version of Monty Python’s iconic Dead Parrot Sketch—a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards.  He complains to the previous owner and is simply told, “Well, he never died when I owned him.”  Other chapters concern drunkards, those with bad breath, misers, women haters and the undernourished.

With that, here are some of the better jokes from Ancient Greece.  I’ve left the verbiage as it is so you get the full effect.

A friend said to a pedant who was going on a journey, “I wish you to purchase for me two slave boys of fifteen years each.”  He replied, “If I do not find such, I shall buy for you one of thirty years.”

A pedant, a bald headed man and a barber were travelling together, and pitching camp in a wild area they agreed that each one should take turns to stay awake on guard.  It fell to the barber to watch first.  Desiring to play a trick, he shaved the head of the sleeping intellectual, and his watch being finished, he woke up the latter.  The intellectual, rubbing his head on awakening and finding himself bare, said, “What a worthless fellow is that barber, he has made a mistake and wakened the bald-headed man instead of myself.”

A certain person coming to a pedant who was a physician said, “Doctor, when I awake from sleep I have a dizziness for half an hour and then I recover.”  The physician replied, “Get up after the half hour.”

A man, just back from a trip abroad, went to an incompetent fortune-teller.  He asked about his family, and the fortune-teller replied: “Everyone is fine, especially your father.”  When the man objected that his father had been dead for ten years, the reply came: “You have no clue who your real father is.”

A pedant whilst swimming almost choked to death.  He made an oath that he would not go into the water again until he had first learned to swim well.

A man with bad breath asked his wife: “Madame, why do you hate me?”  And she said in reply: “Because you love me.”

A pedant seeing his family physician approaching, hid from him.  Upon being asked by one of his companions why he did this, he replied, “I have not been ill for such a long time that I am ashamed to meet him.”

A pedant was on a voyage when a severe storm arose and his slaves were crying out in terror.  “Do not weep,” he said, “For I have given you all your liberty in my will.”

A pedant was quarreling with his father and said to him, “You wicked fellow, do you not understand how much injury you have done to me?  If you had never been born I should have inherited my grandfather’s estate.”

A misogynist was sick, at death’s door.  When his wife said to him, “If anything bad happens to you, I’ll hang myself.”  He looked up at her and said, “Do me the favour while I’m still alive.”

Two parricidal pedants were complaining to each other because their fathers were living.  One of them asked, “What do you wish?  Shall each one strangle his own father?”  “By no means,” replied the other, ‘lest we be called parricides.  But if you are willing, you shall slay my father, and I will kill yours.”

So, next time someone asks to hear a joke, hit them with some humour from Ancient Greece and you’re bound to be the life of the party.

– Mick Peck
An Auckland Magician Whose Jokes Are Typically Less Than 1,600 Years Old
http://www.MickPeckMagic.com

Originally appeared in the May edition of Inside Entertainment, the monthly membership magazine of the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand Inc.

The Four Stages of Learning, or the Conscious Competence Model, is a psychological theory developed in the 1970s.   The concept is that we each go through a series of four stages when learning a new skill.

The good news—and why I think this is relevant and of interest—is that if you’re aware and understand the four stages of learning, it’s much easier to take control of them!  If you know where you are on your path to mastery you can hopefully save yourself some frustration and make your learning more enjoyable and, with any luck, easier.

Think of some examples from your own life as you go through the list.

Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence

Typically learners display excitement, enthusiasm and even over-confidence because they don’t know that they don’t know.  An example would be a guitarist who has learnt a few simple chords and suddenly thinks he’s God’s gift to the guitar.  He might, for instance, know nothing about feel or rhythm, but at this first stage of learning he doesn’t know that he doesn’t know!  A kid might wander into a magic shop, buy a bunch of tricks, and then rush off to get a business card printed saying ‘Experienced magician available for all occasions’.  We’ve all seen the god-awful auditions on American Idol and their shock-horror at being told that they don’t have good voices.

In my younger years I was involved with martial arts, and it was always the newbies that would be out in the carpark after the lesson trying to do flips and show off with flying kicks, despite only coming to one or two classes.  The expression “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” describes the Unconscious Incompetence stage perfectly.

Stage 2: Conscious Incompetence

In the second stage the learner knows that they don’t know.  They recognize that they are out of their comfort zone and that the skill may be more difficult than they originally anticipated.  In other words, they start to see themselves as the rest of the world sees them.  It’s in this stage that the learner may become frustrated or want to give up.  For teachers, it’s important to build confidence with continued mentoring and coaching in this stage.

Making mistakes are integral to the learning process in the Conscious Incompetence stage.  No learning of a skill can happen without passing through this initial frustration, because if you’re not clear on exactly what it is that you want to achieve, you won’t be able to work towards it.

Stage 3: Conscious Competence

The learner knows that they know.  An example would be a young child tying their laces who has to carefully concentrate so that they don’t make a mistake.  In time through experience the task becomes less challenging.  Another example would be playing a piece of music and having to concentrate on what chord changes are coming up, or acting in a play thinking ahead to remember the next line.  Because the task is serviceable at this level, many people chose to stop learning at the Conscious Competence stage.

Stage 4: Unconscious Competence

In this stage of learning, learners don’t know that they know.  The task becomes so automatic that they don’t even accept that they’re doing anything special or something that once challenged them.  Everyday examples would be riding a bike or driving a car, things that are done automatically without thinking, let alone appreciating that they once were challenging.

The masters of their craft have reached the level of Unconscious Competence—picture B.B. King playing a blues solo, or Robin Williams being able to go off on an unrehearsed tangent and make people laugh.  Ironically it’s at this stage that onlookers often think “oh, they’re just a natural” or “they were born with it”.  No, they put in tens of thousands of hours to achieve Unconscious Competence!

It’s in this final stage where the learner may experience the most growth, because they feel creative, intuitive, and are able to think outside of the box.  However, it is also at this stage where major mistakes can occur because there is a greater tendency to take risks, shortcuts, and get lazy.  If you’re stuck in a creative rut, you’re probably in stage four.  There’s also a tendency to undervalue one’s own efforts in this stage because it’s easy to forget about all of the hard work it took to get there!  This is why it’s critical to occasionally take stock of your own skills and talents.  See what other people see in you and accept your own skills as they really are.

We are constantly moving throughout the four stages of learning at any given time in our lives.  We may be in stage four of one aspect of our career, but stage one at another.  Realistically recognising the stages that we are in can help us make informed choices.

The Conscious Competence Model helps us in several ways – it gives us reassurance in the early stages, and helps us avoid complacency in the final ones.  It’s also an invaluable teaching tool as it allows us to see where others are on their own journey through learning.

Good luck on your path.

 – Mick Peck, An Auckland Magician and Entertainer Who is Always Learning
http://www.MickPeckMagic.com

Originally Appeared in the March 2013 edition of Inside Entertainment, the monthly membership magazine of the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand Inc.

Chances are that you’ve heard the Wilhelm Scream dozens of times without even realising it.

The Wilhelm Scream is a sound effect of a male screaming in pain.  It was first used in the relatively obscure 1951 western Distant Drums, starring Gary Cooper.  In the film an unnamed soldier is crossing the Everglades in pursuit of Seminole Indians when he is attacked and dragged underwater by an irritated alligator.  As he goes under he dramatically screams in shock.  Several slightly-different takes of the same scream were also used later in the film as the death cries of Indians.

The sound effect was placed in the effects library at Warner Brothers but wasn’t used again for two years, for The Charge at Feather River.  In this film another solider, one Private Wilhelm, is struck by an arrow and he too lets out the dramatic cry of pain.  It was because of its use in this film, the first by a named character, that the effect would later become affectionately known as the Wilhelm Scream.

Over the next few decades the scream was used in other Warner Brothers films such as Them! (1954), Land of the Pharaohs (1955), The Sea Chase (1955), Sergeant Rutledge (1960), PT-109 (1963) and The Green Berets (1968).  It appears twice in Judy Garland’s A Star is Born (1954).

Motion picture sound designer and aficionado Ben Burtt began to notice the common use of the same distinctive scream in Warner Brothers movies.  He sampled the effect from Distant Drums and began to use it in his own productions.  Several years later he was hired to work on Star Wars (1977), and included the Wilhelm Scream in a memorable scene featuring a Stormtrooper falling to his death in a chasm on the Death Star.  He also used it in each of the Indiana Jones films.  Following this exposure the over-the-top cry started to become somewhat of a cinematic sound in-joke.  Other sound editors picked up on it and it was included in Poltergeist, Spaceballs, Gremlins 2, Reservoir Dogs, Batman Returns, Toy Story, Disney’s Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast, The Fifth Element, Pirates of the Caribbean, Kill Bill and dozens more.

By 2013 the Wilhelm Scream has been included in more than 225 films, television shows and video games.  Given half a chance, prominent directors such as George Lucas, Quentin Tarantino and our own Peter Jackson slip the Wilhelm Scream into just about every one of their productions.

For years the voice-actor who provided the scream was a mystery.  Due to the cult status of the effect Ben Burtt visited the Warner Brothers archives to try and discover the name of the voice behind the scream.  After reviewing a list of actors from Distant Drums and comparing their speaking voices to the scream, the most likely candidate emerged as Sheb Wooley, a musician and character actor who also appeared in the likes of High Noon (1953), Rawhide (1956) and James Dean’s final film Giant (1956).  Wooley is mostly remembered for his 1958 novelty tune “Purple People Eater”.  Which you just started singing in your head.

Here’s a compilation video of nothing but clips of the shriek from various film and television appearances.  Bonus point if you can make it through the entire clip without turning it off.

– Screamin’ Auckland Magician Mick Peck
http://www.MickPeckMagic.com

– Originally Appeared in the May 2013 edition of Inside Entertainment, the monthly membership magazine for the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand Incorporated.

Chances are that you hate rejection.

It’s our nature – we want everyone to like us, accept us and say “YES!” – especially when we make an offer that’s clearly in their best interest.  Unfortunately things don’t always work out according to plan.  If we’re honest, we probably all get a lot more “no’s” than we would like.  But the best idea is to shrug them off and to keep asking.

The model to keep in mind is that icon of business, Colonel Harland Sanders.  At the age of sixty-five, Sanders had an old car, a pension worth $105 a month, and a recipe for chicken that some folks told him was pretty darned tasty.  So he hit the road to propose a deal with restaurants – use his recipe and for each chicken sold pay him five cents.  The first restaurant owner told him no.  The second said no.  As did the third.  The fourth.  The fifth.  And on and on …

Finally, after making 1008 sales calls with his proposal, a restaurant owner finally said yes.  And of course you know the rest of the story.  The lesson is dogged, determined, unreasonable persistence.  He didn’t give up.  He kept on going.  Day after day.  And he did finally make that first sale,  and many more besides – enough to create a fortune.  So a little rejection – well, that’s part of life and business.

Keep going like the Kentucky Colonel, and remember this little article every time you drive past one of his restaurants.

– Mick Peck, Finger-Lickin’ Good Auckland Magician
www.MickPeckMagic.com

– Originally published in Inside Entertainment, the monthly membership magazine of the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand.

The custom of playing pranks on the first of April is observed in not only in British colonies but also in Northern America, France, Germany (where it’s called Narrentag), Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, Russia (where it’s called Dyen Doeraka which means Dunce’s Day), and even in Japan.  In Scotland it’s known as Gowk or Cuckoo Day.

The precise historical origin of April Fools’ Day is unknown.  The earliest mention of an April Fools’ joke was found in a French source from 1508, and there exists a Dutch parody on the custom from 1539.  But these sources indicate that the custom was already well and universally established.

In France today, April 1st is called Poisson d’Avril.  French children fool their friends by taping a paper fish to their backs.  When the victim discovers the trick, the prankster yells Poisson d’Avril! – April Fish!

The traditional symbol of April Fool’s Day is the jester, or fool, who held a special place in medieval history.  They were considered insiders of the court, chosen for their sense of humour to provide entertainment for the king.

Jesters typically wore bright, eccentric clothing and distinctive cloth hats with bells on the end of each of its three points.  The points were a representation of a donkey’s ears and tail.  The jester also carried a sceptre which was a symbolic ornamental staff to represent authority.

Because jesters were given leeway to say anything “in jest”, they were sometimes the only members of the court able to voice an honest opinion about local situations.  While others fawned over the king, the jester was encouraged to speak the truth.  Because of his lower social status he didn’t pose a threat to the king’s power.  And because he was not part of the political intrigue of the court – he was after all considered a fool – the king often felt it safe to confide in his jester.  Because of this the jester had an important and influential role in medieval history.

The unique nature of jesters also contributed to their popularity among the general public.  Some became the subjects of stories and jokes, and some became famous in their own right.  King Henry VIII employed a jester by the name of Will Sommers, who gained such fame that he was the subject of literature and drama almost two centuries after his death.  King Charles I employed a jester named Jeffrey Hudson who gained the nickname “The Royal Dwarf” because of his height.  One of his infamous pranks, made possible by his stature, was to hide himself inside of a giant pie and then leap out, startling the people to whom the pie was presented.

The ancient traditions of the jester continue in modern times with the magician, the clown and the comedian.

Anyone for pie?

– Mick Peck, Full-Time Magician and Occasional Prankster
www.MickPeckMagic.com

– Originally appeared in the April 2013 issue of Inside Entertainment magazine, the monthly membership magazine of the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand Inc.