Devious Standards

Don't Settle for the Average!
A New Book of Challenging Thoughts about Our Magic…

Jamy Ian Swiss has long been recognized as a force to be dealt with in the world of magic. Intelligent, well-informed, thoughtful, volatile, inspiring, infuriating, articulate, skilled — these are a few of the words used to describe Swiss and his writing. When his first collection of essays on magic, Shattering Illusions, appeared, it received high praise from magicians and trade reviewers alike. This attention broke into public notice with an unprecedented and laudatory review in the Los Angeles Times. Swiss's opinions and evaluations come with the imprimatur of a successful full-time performer who is also a devoted student of the craft and history of conjuring. Among his many credits are appearances on The Today Show, CBS's 48 Hours, PBS's Nova and repeat appearances on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. His clients include Fortune 500 companies and the Smithsonian Institution. He has consulted for such talents as Penn & Teller and Marco Tempest, and has been extensively profiled in The New Yorker. His writings will frustrate those who believe magic theory spills from an ivory tower. Swiss writes from a position of long experience as a performer, and as one who is intimate with many of today's greatest professional magicians.

In Devious Standards, Mr. Swiss has gathered together some of his most recent, insightful, challenging and poignant explorations into the performance of magic and its practitioners. These essays include some of his most trenchant thinking about what constitutes a great magic performance and what hinders it. They include "The Method Is Not the Trick," "Discovering Importance," "Empathy," "A Dissertation on the Double Lift," "The JS Rules of Magic," and "The Last Layman."

Also included are recollective studies — part homage, part analysis — of four of magicís past masters: Martin Nash, Derek Dingle, Bob Read, and Billy McComb.

Devious Standards is a book written for those who aspire to better magic, and for those who love the best in magic. It maps the pathway from craft to art, for those with the courage to take it.

"Mr. Swiss is an astute observer of character, a passionate lover of good magic, and the kind of friend that good people value. … The finished book is as beautiful as it is challenging, informative, stimulating and a genuine pleasure to read."
  —Eric Mead, Genii

"Calling Devious Standards a book on magical performance theory is hard, because what Jamy Ian Swiss writes in its pages are is based on real, tested, workable concepts and strategies. Great books on the subject have been written by Dariel Fitzkee, Henning Nelms, Darwin Ortiz, and Ken Weber, all of which fail to impact a performance the way Devious Standards is bound to. … The title is perfect, because if you take what Swiss lays out for you in its pages and make his suggestions standard operating procedure every time you are building a new routine or show, your magic will be better, stronger, and more enjoyable for your audiences. … Books like Devious Standards are, to coin a phrase "six month books." Every six months they are worth revisiting -- not because you've forgotten the information inside, but as a personal reminder of the things you should be doing with your magic but never quite get around to. … Whether you are a strolling performer or a stage illusionist, reading Devious Standards will help raise your magic and performance to a new level, a huge bargain at $40. Highly recommended."
  —Farrell Dillon, MAGIC

I regard Swiss as a cross between Tom Bowyer, the witty, insightful but often acerbic critic in the early days of The Linking Ring, and S.H. Sharpe, the British magic essayist and polemicist. Swiss surpasses Bowyer and Sharpe, however, with the quality of his ideas, his ability as a performer and his gift as a writer. … collectors and magic historians should consider reading this work to learn about four modern masters who are no longer with us … [in] profiles and appreciations of the post-Houdini, post-Cardini, post-Vernon world of magic. They reminded me of Maurice Zolotow's profile of Cardini that appeared originally in The Saturday Evening Post. The difference is that Swiss's are more insightful because he had a better understanding of the work involved than Zolotow did of Cardini, and he knew his subjects on a more personal level.
  —David Ben, Magicol

"…will set you on a road to ponder your own magic, and the way in which you perform it, and make you a better magician because of it. I highly recommend it."
  —Matthew Field, The Magic Circular

Jamy Ian Swiss takes himself seriously, and I am sure he wants us to take him seriously. But for all the serious work that he put into Devious Standards, his latest book of opinion, scholarship, and reminiscences, the main thing that I take away from it is that this book is just plain fun to read. It's hard to wipe the smile off my face. … "The Last Layman" is a satire worthy of Jonathan Swift in which only one layman is left on the planet.
  —Steve Bryant, Little Egypt Gazette