If you spend anytime around the Magic and Mystery School, you hear a paraphrase of the Voltaire quote:
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. The better is the enemy of the good.
Many of us struggle with this. How do I know when it's good? How do I know if my improvement is an improvement? Am I adding to or detracting from the magic I wish to co-create?
In the June 2011 Genii, editor Richard Kaufman tells us about an illusionist who improved the effect, Op Art, to the point to where the illusion became an obvious. He writes: "Instead of stopping when the girl has somehow compressed into this incredibly tiny box, (the illusionist) removed the sides of the tiny box to reveal that the girl had vanished completely. But instead of finding myself delighted by the illusion of the girl's body compressed into a tiny box, I was staring at an enormous frame that told me exactly where the lady was hidden."
Seth Godin shared his thoughts on this topic in his post: How do you know when it's done? He admits that it may never be done but it's important that it meets our standards and, perhaps most important is that we ship. For a magician, this means we move from the practice and rehearsal space into the performance space. Change can be made based on reaction or lack thereof.
The thought that Seth leaves us with is this: "If you don't like your definition of 'good enough', then feel free to change that..." But the question behind that thought is: "Have I defined 'good enough'?"
3 comments:
This is something I constantly struggle with. "Good enough" is, by definition, good enough; and yet, somehow, it feels like a failure, sometimes.
Joe Straczynski said, "Art is never finished: only abandoned."
I agree that the notion of "good enough" is a slippery slope and could allow us to fall into complacency. I also agree that we need to have high standards for our work.
At the same time keeping our eye on the need to get out of the rehearsal and practice space into performance. Magic only happens in performance :)
I saw this performance, and sadly, it was the first time that I had seen this illusion. So until I heard the gossip afterwards about how it been "improved" I was under the impression that the illusion wasn't particularly good. That's a shame.
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