Atta-Ooops!
by Kenton Knepper

My students know I care about them very much. They also know I do not hand out phony “atta-boys” when they ask for my true opinion.

In this case a fine student wrote me about press he had received. He wanted to share the news story with me. He also wanted to know if there was anything he could have said better. The sloppy press reporting cannot be changed. That is not something he had a part in naturally.

Or did he?

Here is my response. I hope it will help serve many. You may at first think this applies to this student only, and not to you. Keep reading. Stay open-minded and willing to apply these lessons to your own performance, even if it is in a home. Perhaps the “press” you get will be in a school newspaper, or a neighborhood circular. What I say still applies to YOU too.

Dear Student,

Congratulations on the story! It's always great when you get press!

So first of all, congratulations on this story indeed.

Second, I am honored that you are using my Perfected Prediction, and that it helped you get press and credibility with the newspaper. Let me know how it all turns out. Excellent!

Third, we come to the real work and answers to your questions.

I know you are a thoughtful and willing student, so I will respond as such.

The newspaper and online story are equally about your props as it is about you.

The story lumps card tricks and an escape from a straight jacket with eating a light bulb. This is followed by a quote from you about the mind. This quote seems wildly out of place and jarring. It is not however the fault of the writer entirely.

The press needs labels, boxes, or hooks in or on which to place things or hang stories. If you don't give them your own hook, they'll make up one of their own, mischaracterize you, write scattered and unclear descriptions, or just hang you - period.

In your case this is very odd, as the story mentions a simple hook on which all else might be supported. You are a psychology major, interested in the workings of the mind.

So why did the paper not pick up on this? My bet is because you are not clear about you, within yourself. You must be clear within you to be clear with others.

It may seem trite to some novices, but for decades I have been preaching that your act must come from the inside out. Your act must grow out of who you are, rather than your act defining who you are.

Because your act is defining who you are, the paper describes you in scattered and unclear tones. You are a card trickster, a mental ward straightjacket escapee, and a carnival huckster who also eats light bulbs. What a mess of imagery that is. I wouldn't book that act if I liked every bit of it, because it's too confusing to know what act I am booking.

Rather than changing your act, change your focus. You need to create the shift the paper could not make. You need to shift away from the props describing you. You need to define yourself clearly, and then relate the props to that definition of yourself.

Then the press can accurately and excitedly speak about you in tones readers can follow. Right now all I read from this newspaper article is that you are a schoolboy doing tricks. Is that how you want others to view you? I don't think so.

If you talked about your interest in the mind, your studies, then you can relate your props to yourself as you explain the type of performing you do. Cards are Jungian symbolism. You can watch for “tells” or personal twitches people make to find cards. You use the illusion of reality in the mind to create your illusions based on faulty human perception.

You may talk about how studies show that the senses are not reliable, and this allows you to create illusions. You might talk about how long practice with the mind allows you to do super-human things such as eating light bulbs the way some East Indian Masters do.

You might say that escaping from a straight jacket is difficult when the mind is not functioning properly, and thus it has been used as a restraining device in mental asylums. When the mind is functioning normally however, it may be trained to quickly evaluate situations and problem-solve at an incredible rate. This is how you can escape from a straightjacket.

You might say that some believe a well-trained mind can extend out past typical boundaries of time and space, and perhaps even get a glimpse into the future. Some say the data on this is still debatable, but you like to experiment in these realms just the same. This allows for predictions and mind reading. You could also say that you have observed human patterns long enough to predict certain trends in the press. Anyone watching trends in reporting of any kind must confess to an awareness of these likely patterns.

In my experience thus far, when the press makes a misstatement about me it is usually an overly expanded notion of who I am. They see me as some sort of mystic, and so they try to relate that fact to their own slim experiences of such personalities. This means I am asked in interviews to do things such as change the weather, heal someone, make predictions about people at the anchor desk in the studio, or help someone to be more “lucky” in some way.

None of this distracts from the appearance of my performances or me however, even if all I am doing is tricks with cards later that evening.

The props are not the story anymore.

I am.

So the bottom line is the bottom line I have long preached. You are the bottom line. You are what your act should be built upon. You are what the press should be fascinated with, and then the tricks you do, the songs you sing, the art you wish to share.

The press will report accordingly. It is up to us to furnish them with the frame so that they arrange the puzzle pieces the way we intend.

Kenton

P.S. I hope this helps give you a more firm foundation in the future. Don't worry about trying to incorporate all of this overnight. You have work you must perform well right away, and you don't want to change too much in the midst of work already booked. But do move towards this, and I think it will serve you well. Begin to make the shift now without interfering with the current shows you are doing. Use each show as a slight step towards your new direction, so you and your audience can make this transition easily.

But don't delay or put off defining yourself, and then what you do.

You want to be ready for the next opportunity that comes your way!

You might also want to prepare for the next time by writing out the main things you want the press to write. This is not telling them what to write, but is more of a “facts sheet” or “research help” for them. If you make the job of reporters easier, they'll usually not only appreciate this, but also report what you give to them. This is even true in some very scandalous cases, by the way. If you are not involved in extreme controversy, your press aids to save reporters time on their research will be invaluable to you both.

On television most interviewers are given pre-written topics, answers and questions by publicity agents. Look at the famous “talk/chat shows” and you will soon realize that the funny insights and stories have all been supplied ahead of the actual interview by the performer's staff. The performer and interviewer agree what to talk about long before the interview.

So you see, giving a reporter the “facts” that you want them to most report ahead of time is common practice. I suggest you follow this notion yourself.

But to do that, you must first define yourself.

That, as usual, is the catch.

Kenton