The Magician: John Clougherty

I met John Clougherty many years ago in the back of a truck. As we flew through East LA he told me his name and a little about the trauma of his past. Since then, he has taken up skills such as magic and gaming as a means of adjusting and succeeding in the midst of a high-stress job and some serious personal setbacks. We recently met for Thai food in a strip mall in Azusa. I had curry chicken, he opted for the broccoli beef. Here is my interview with John.

Q. You are a person who connects people and brings them together through games and magic. Is that correct?

A: Yes.

Q. Before we get into magic, let’s talk about games. How did you become interested in games?

A: I think that even from a young age, my childhood was so rough and I was in such a bad place, games were a really good outlet. I could forget about what was happening or where my dinner was coming from. Whatever problem I was going through at the time, games allowed me to not focus on that and put my energy into something else that was more enjoyable and let me forget about the negative. As a kid you shouldn’t have to be thinking about these things.

Q. It’s interesting how you bring that past as part of the equation of the present. You brought something very negative and made it positive which is kind of a mature approach. What has been the greatest benefit to gaming? Aside from the fact that you have been able to pull ahead from past experiences, what aspect of gaming has benefited your quality of life?

A:  I think it’s allowed me to connect with people I wouldn’t have otherwise connected with and understand different views. In the beginning, I thought gaming was a really good chance to meet people and work with people who cooperate towards a larger goal. Our personal goals may not be the same but people can come together and I felt that building that bridge first, when you cooperate and work on something together then you can get to know that person as an actual person. It allows you to connect with someone and understand them better. I also learned a lot about different cultures. I have played with people from Europe and Australia and China. I’ve seen an 18 year old interact with a 77 year old through games. Not just talk to each other but learn from one another.

Q. I like the concept of bridging cultures and ages through games. If someone wanted to get into gaming, what game should they start with?

A; Let’s start with board games. In general, the game most people start with is Settlers of Catan. It’s a good introduction because you are faced with decisions that impact other players. And it’s also, at its heart, a bartering game. It’s not too analytical so for those wanting to get their feet wet, it’s a good entry level game. As far as video games go, video games have become very complex. It’s very difficult to get someone who is unfamiliar with video games to throw them into Halo 4. The gaming community can be very unforgiving. This is why I have always supported Nintendo. The reason that I think Nintendo has got it so right is that all of their games are technically casual. You can play a Mario game and beat it without too much difficulty but there’s a whole other level to the game where there’s achievements for collecting everything in the game which is a lot more difficult than just, “I beat the game.” So it caters to the casual people to the more serious gamer. Any of the Mario games is a good place to start. They also have Mario Kart where people are less forgiving but Nintendo is still a really good place to start.

Is there a system to your process when introducing games to a group?

The type of games I play are called Eurostyle games which center around board control, work replacement, resource management, and cooperative gameplay. These are the type of themes that run through a lot of the games.so a lot of times I can look at a new game, and think, OK, that’s a work replacement game and I know for sure this particular group will hate it. Because this group despises those type of games. One of my favorite games is called Keyflower. And this particular game requires heavy thinking. A lot of people I play with don’t like this game because it’s too heavy, too over the top. In Keyflower, every decision you make, no matter what it is, impacts the entire game. So if you make one wrong decision, it could throw your whole game away, essentially.

Q. What brought you to the world of magic?

A: I got into magic because in my senior year of high school I knew a guy in math class who did a basic trick that didn’t require any sleight of hand but most of the trick is based on a psychological principle that i didnt understand at the time. It was a standard pick a card trick. But I could not figure it out. This guy was not very good at math and so I agreed to help him with math if he continued to show me the trick. At the end of the year, he slipped up with the trick, and I figured it out. And I felt like a complete idiot. Because at its base, magic is very simple. Magic is not very difficult if you put the time in to understand the concepts behind it. What I want to do with magic is make a better presentation through telling a good story.

Q. How do you tell a good story through magic?

A: Find something that you really love. For me i love sci fi culture. When i was asked once to do Harry Potter magic, it was awesome. I love Harry Potter and incorporating that allowed me to not necessarily tell my own story but tell one that’s already been told. So I think a good place to start is with something you love. With most of the magic stuff I do, it’s already been done. I am just presenting it as Harry Potter or Star Wars or whatever theme that I am working with.

Q. What book would you recommend for somebody exploring magic?

I recommend that you don’t start with the book Expert at the Card Table. That was the first magic book I bought written by an old gambler. A lot of hard tricks, what we call knuckle-busting moves so I don’t recommend it the first time out. I really like a book called Magic in Theory. For the most part it discusses why we do what we do. This book really helped me grow.

Q. If a person had only ten days to learn magic, how would they do it?

I can teach you a trick in ten minutes. The more important piece is the story. Once a person learns how to tell a story they can do magic. Engaging people’s minds with a story makes them so engrossed that the audience cannot piece together how the trick was done.

Recommended books:

Magic in Theory by Peter Lamont and Richard Wiseman: This book is a great way to start thinking from a magician's point of view. The authors demystify magic through terms such as "misdirection," "primary interest" and "off-beat." In fact, I performed a trick on my students this week and was able to explain how I tricked them using some of the principles I learned from this book.

The Magician by Somerset Maugham: You can tell that this is one of Maugham's early works because it doesn't quite reach the powers of idea and character as later in Razor's Edge, Painted Veil and others. And the last few chapters are a bit too mad scientist for my taste. But the main character, Oliver Haddo, based on real-life occultist Aleister Crowley, is fully drawn here and alive with charm, ancient wisdom and absolute madness. The manner in which Haddo uses everything from his strange outfits to flowery speeches and ancient magic to seduce and destroy is terrifically entertaining. This novel also serves in a way as a mini history of ancient books of magic as an added bonus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjmtSkl53h4