I am often not satisfied with mere manipulation of reality. I wish to add meaning to tricks. Let me give an example, Oil & Water.

The black cards and red cards separate magically. Yes, that can be pretty amazing by itself. However, I don't find it enough. Why do magicians separate the colors? What good does it do?

Thus, I came up with an alternative presentation. I want to present it as turning back time, fixing problems and regrets. Now, I think that's something many wish for. The routine can be more touching than merely a card trick.

However, a spectator commented, "You see, we don't care about meaning. It's fun enough just to see them magically separate." Now, this spectator, being my wife, may be biased because she's been long tortured by my half-rehearsed magic, as she is my quality control officer.

Can more experienced magician advise me on this matter? Does it make a difference? Does the audience appreciate more substance in magic? Or do they just want to see cards changing colors?

Sometimes you have to be careful not to let the story get in the way of the magic or the magic get in the way of the story. They must work together.

Presentations that were perfect 20 years ago may be too long now.

Look into the magic of Jeff McBride, and Michael Ammar, who is fond of quoting the professor, Dai Vernon, as saying "You've got to have an emotional hook!"

So the magic word is "enthalpy" (?) and for the finale you put the packets into a spectator's hands and they say "entropy" and the cards are mixed?

Time travel is a premise that is very easy to misuse or overuse. There are some very good time travel stories from the 1950s and 1960s that might suggest presentations. I have yet to hear of presenting "Everywhere and Nowhere" using the story from Heinlein's All You Zombies. The Bradbury story about a timetraveller squashing a butterfly, or the classic about the repeated efforts to fix a small problem that destabilize reality, or the PKDick stories about...well you get the idea. Good stories can inspire good presentations.

You might be interested in an excellent book on this topic called, oddly enough, Magic and Meaning by Eugene Burger and Robert E. Neale. It is an absolutely EXCELLENT work on just the subject you are seeking. It is an easy, informative, fun and thought provoking read, with many examples, such as a fate routine involving the PATEO force. You will find it addresses your desire most exactly.

Magical regards,
Dave Xanatos

Absolute Magic by Derren Brown may also fit the bill.