January 2021 – Page 3 – MagicShow.Tips

Old Set…

Last night Matt Disero posted a video of him performing on a TV show in the early 1990’s. His comments on his set about 25 years later are great and very insightful. Basically he says it’s horrible.

Here it is, you be the judge:

What I like the is commitment to the atomic lightbulb. It’s a lot of props to lug around to light up a lightbulb, but it’s way better than just rubbing it on your sleeve and lighting it up!

I think most performers who create their own material and look back on what they were doing when they were young will have a similar impression to their show as Matt did. It’s because we’re growing and evolving and the person performing isn’t the person you are now. That’s a good thing.

Your Personal Bubble…

One of the coolest things about performing in your home is that you know what’s within reach in your space. For me it allows me to all sorts of gags or surprise productions of items that naturally came up during the show. For example last week at the Mostly Magic Virtual Open Mic someone commented on how large my “nuts” were. They were referring to the walnuts used in my shell game. I knew I had the giant metal nuts within arm’s reach, so I grabbed them and had a fun sight gag.

Then last night I was a guest on a show and the need to bring out an artificial fist presented itself and I had one within reach. Of course I grabbed it.

It something that’s happening in the moment, and it also makes the audience wonder what you have nearby off camera. I’m not necessarily saying having a ton of props around just for gags, but knowing what you have in your space is a huge advantage!

Chop Cup Load…

Sometimes I think younger magicians don’t give old timers enough credit. The other night I was at a magic club meeting over Zoom and we got talking about chop cup. One of the older members showed us a really cool loading technique that I had never seen before. He used to use it when he did magic behind a bar. The best way to describe it was it was like the Sylvester Pitch done into the cup. It was a really great way to load the cup!

I remember being a kid and while I’ve always loved hearing old magicians talk, many times their moves aren’t very good. It’s not that they aren’t good, they’re just older techniques that have been replaced by better methods. It’s easy to have this cloud your judgement and quickly dismiss what they are doing or talking about.

An example of this is when I was a teenager, I could produce single cards from a back palmed stock in the modern way where you keep the stack behind your hand and peel off a single card. I remember talking about back palming with Mickey Hades and him telling me I was doing it wrong. He taught me to do it the old way of moving the whole stock to the front, peeling off a single card, and then reback palming the stock of cards. It’s a way less efficient way of doing it compared to the more modern way. I can still do it that way (not very well anymore), but more importantly it gave me time to chat with Mickey and that was fun!

If you’re a younger magician, or even an older one, don’t immediately dismiss a magician just because they are older.

Flexing an Old Muscle

A couple of nights ago I performed at the Mostly Magicians Virtual Open Mic. It was a lot of fun and Ryan Kane is a great host for it. It’s an open mic, so a great place to work things out.

I was second to last in the show, and I brought two tricks, one that was pretty solid and one that I was working on. Unfortunately I only got to do one trick which wasn’t the one I was working on as I ran out of time.

It wasn’t a total loss as far as working on material goes. I did something I haven’t done in while…wrote some jokes about the other acts. When I MC in person shows I would write jokes about the acts and use them in the transition between acts. I didn’t plan on doing this, it’s something I just did.

One of the interesting things about doing jokes about things happening NOW instead of prepared material is that the audience is aware of that. Your joke doesn’t need to be the best joke, they will give you a lot of leeway. They can instantly relate to your joke, you don’t need to set up a backstory. I think any of the jokes I told, if you took out of context of the show would fall flat…even if you described the act before the joke.

The first half of my show was a stand up set about the show. It was fun, and good to flex that creative muscle.

Test Pickle Matrix

Yesterday I wrote about an idea of doing a matrix with pickles on the bun of a hamburger. I made some mock up bun shapes out of cardboard and gimmicked some pickles and worked out the trick.

Here’s it in its proof concept video:

Obviously it’s still got a long way to go. Figuring out a way to make the bun rigid will be my next challenge. I also need to buy or make some fake pickles that are all uniform in shape. Those are the next two challenges (that I’m aware of).

Pickle Matrix…

One of the things that I love about magic jams is having people improve on your ideas. I had an idea of doing a trick with a hamburger. I’d make 4 pickles disappear and one at a time, they’d reappear under the bun. I mentioned that and the idea quickly grew to “what if you did a matrix with pickles under the bun“.

That idea is way better than what my idea started out as. I’m super lucky to have the magic jam partners that I do have. Today I started playing with the idea. I cut some circle of cardboard to be the hamburger and some cardboard to be the pickles.

I kinda got the sequence worked out, but the trick still needs some work. Mostly it needs to be built into an actual hamburger. This is something that would be better for a social media video than a live show. It’s fun to do, and I can’t wait to actually record it!

Nut Production…

Ever since I was a teenager I’ve been fascinated Don Alan doing his giant nut production. What’s cool about a giant nut, is that it’s a simple object, there’s not much to it. It’s basically a big chunk of metal that you make appear.

Here’s Don doing the nut production:

Now let’s fast forward to a few days ago, a non magician friend of mine posted a picture of a couple of giant nuts he saw at his parent’s antique shop. I gave them a call, made a deal, then drove 90 mins each way to pick them up!

These things are massive! They also need some love, so today I started cleaning them up. Here’s a side by side comparison of one that that’s in the process of being cleaned and the other that hasn’t:

I’ve got an idea for the routine that I will do. It’s going to be a transposition of different colored metal nuts from under a hat. Then a walnut will appear and inside that walnut will be a signed silk (that was used earlier in the show) and end with the production of the giant nut. We’ll see if that works out, but it’s my idea for now.

Fan Art…

It always amazes me that some of the magic tricks that I create end up featured in other magician’s shows. Recently someone posted a picture that their kid drew of them doing a virtual magic show.

The trick that the kid decided to feature was my Snake Wand Surprise! This is a gag that has a magical production of a dozen spring snakes at the end. It’s a lot of fun to do, and something that had sat in a notebook for years before I finally made one. Then a few years after I had started using it myself, I started selling them and it was an instant hit!

I just want to say “THANKS” to any magician that uses anything I’ve invented!

Even More Ring On Rubber Band

Last week I started working on a routine for the Ring on Rubber Band trick. I learned that my initial opening line didn’t play how I wanted it to. I added in a line at the beginning that’s was in a routine I used to do in the show, but don’t do anymore. It kinda works as an opening line, however it really doesn’t answer the “why am I showing you this” question.

“I’ve performed this trick across America, including it’s minor outlying territories, Guam, Puerto Rico and Canada. The ring represents the 18 years I’ve been married and the a rubber band which memorializes the one time I bought broccoli …just to let it rot in the crisper”

Show ring and rubber band. The rubber band is around your left index and thumb. Point to the sides of the rubber band as you say:

“This rubber band has two sides, just like congress…the Senate and the deep state. And this ring also has two sides, a left and a my wife is always right side.”

“The ring will go through each side of the rubber band defying the restraining order I got from the laws of physics.”

Push the ring through the first side of the rubber band

“Through one side, that’s the easy side. It’s the bunny slope of the rubber band. The second side is the most difficult, it’s the Mount Everest of Magic. Three men have died trying this next part, but they all had preexisting conditions…and latex allergies.”

Push the ring through the second side of the rubber band.

“Like Coachella, we’ll take it off one band at a time.”

Pull the ring off the rubber band one side at a time.

“and that’s how I wrote my wedding off on my taxes!”

I also added in a joke about the ring having sides which is a tag on the first joke. The routine is starting to take shape. The current sequence of moves I’m doing makes the routine feel more like filler to me, than a solid, good routine. It’s still lacking a punctuation on the ending.