September 2023 – Page 2 – MagicShow.Tips

Coin Transposition

I’m working on a coin transpostion, it’s essentially something that I used to do a long time ago. I was inspired to play with it again after getting Craig Petty’s Apparition. This two phase routine uses just the two coins (and a shell).

The effect is a silver dollar and an Asian coin with a hole in it change places. First in your hands and the second time with one in your hand and one in someone from the audience’s hand.

Here’s the routine:

This is my Nana’s coin purse, do you know what’s inside it?

That’s right coins! I had a kid say, “your nana”…That’d be messed up if I just poured out her ashes.

There’s a silver dollar. That’s Dwight Eisenhower, he was a four start general, the 34th president of the United States and he did all of that while bald!

This is an ancient Asian token, it dates back to the Nintendo Dynasty. It says, “Our princess is in another castle”.

The Asian token goes in this hand and like the movie Freaky Friday, they change places!

Here you hang onto the coins. I’m going to take one from your hand…it’s the silver dollar.

Fist bump!

I’ve got the Asian token and you have…

…The silver dollar!

I feel like this needs a third phase. It’s a great two phase routine, but feels unfinished. I might play with adding a one coin routine to the end of it. That may give it a sense of closure.

-Louie

Steven’s Magic Emporium

A couple of weeks ago I was travelling from Nebraska to Arizona and drove a few hours out of my way to visit Steven’s Magic Emporium in Wichita, KS. I’ve gotten their catalog since I was a teenager and attended several of their Desert Magic Seminar conventions in Las Vegas as a teenager.

I think with my visit to Steven’s Magic Emporium I’ve hit all the major magic shops in the USA. I guess the only one that I haven’t been to is Daytona Magic, but I’ve worked their convention, so I feel like that counts.

Unfortunately when I was there, there weren’t any “magicians” working, so I had to tell them what I was looking for. That’s fine, however chatting and then having the person working the counter say, “have you seen…” is very helpful!

I did pick up Craig Petty’s Apparition. When I was in Grand Island, NE, Nate Myers showed it to me and it was similar to something I was working on. I also picked up a couple of other things, like some Hypno Heat for an idea I have.

This is a pretty cool coin transposition using a silver dollar and a Chinese coin. There’s a lot that can be done with the coin set, and I’m excited to start playing with it!

-Louie

The Fog Machine of War by Matt Disero

On a recent flight I read The Fog Machine of War by Matt Disero. This a great book full of short essays / stories by Matt about his career and experience as a full time comedy magician.

There’s a ton of great stories in the book, but the value of the book is the advice. It goes from everything from working with agents, to using production elements, to trying out new material onstage.

There’s tons to learn from Matt’s failures, which he openly shares. Failures are things that magicians don’t talk about enough, especially in print. With magicians and their egos, most put out the facade that they always crush every show and have never bombed. Matt opens up about bad shows and that’s were the learning happens.

I highly recommend The Fog Machine of War if you’re a comedy magician of any level!

-Louie

Junk Magic from a Junk Shop

I was killing time between shows and was walking through a junk shop and they have a briefcase full of magic. They wanted too much for it at $60, so I negotiated a bit and got it for a reasonable price.

Most of the stuff was garbage, but there were a few cool things. There were four sets of Johnson Scotch and Soda sets and I have a buddy who uses that, so he now has a lifetime supply of them!

One of the interesting things was a trick called Space Coins.

It’s essentially a boston box, but it’s got the fake see through bottom that’s “black art” or more like red art. I’m not a fan of the fake see through thing were you needed to put the prop on a specific surface.

I will say I was super surprised when I tried it out of people that it got great reactions, so I’m not always right. It’s always good to be proven wrong.

-Louie

Roving Close Up Magic

In my roving magic shows in Arizona, my set was essentially two parts. The first part coin magic, which is about one third of the close up set. The second part is my card set which in the remaining two thirds of it.

Here’s a little highlight reel of my close up roving magic set:

@louiefoxx Close Up Magic at the Yavapai County Fair! #closeupmagic #cardtrick #cointrick #magician #sleightofhand #louiefoxx #yavapaicountyfair #prescott #arizona ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

Sometimes I will another part to this, and that is the shell game. I don’t do the shell game for every group as it really needs to be the right group for it to play how I want it to play.

Also, I’m really digging Craig Petty’s Apparition coin set! One thing with it is I’m trying to use the purse less. Right now the coin set I’m doing with it has four parts and only the first two use the purse. I’ll probably write a bit more about what I’m doing with the Apparition coin set and why I’m doing it the way I am.

-Louie

Three Phase Card Routine

I’ve been working on a thing that I used to do, which is a three phase card revelation. The premise is that I’m going to find their card three times. The first uses two hands, the second uses one hand and third uses no hands.

It begins with the Piet Forton Pop Out, then Daryl’s Hotshot Cut and the final revelation is Haunted 2.0. When I did this previously I was having trouble with the transition between the last two phases. Essentially there was a strange moment after the hot shot cut where I had to find the gimmicked card for the Haunted 2.0. I hit on the solution, which was for me to use the Hot Shot Cut to throw the card to the person. Them catching the card, or it landing in their lap gives me the few seconds I need to find the gimmick.

Here’s the three phase routine that was recorded by someone by this family:

That was recorded at the end of the life of the Haunted 2.0 gimmick and it needed to rebuilt, so it didn’t have as much action in it as I’d like, however the seemed to like it!

Also in the video is the first half of my main card set.

-Louie

The Moisture Festival Podcast – Eric Haines

On this podcast we welcome in the troubadour himself Eric Haines. We discuss all the disciplines Eric implements into his show, how he came to be so good at all of them and how he found his calling with the One Man Band. We learn why someone would want to play so many instruments at once and all the great opportunities it has granted him. A really great conversation over Zoom with a one man Moisture Fest.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Vanishing Birdcage with Sleeves Rolled Up

Today I was playing with doing the vanishing birdcage with my sleeves rolled up like Tommy Wonder.

I’m using my Take Up Reel, but I’m not using a double action pull like Tommy Wonder used. The double action pull would reduce arm movement a little bit, however I have a lot of stuff happening on my back and I’m worried that adding another line and the bulk associated with that would be asking for trouble!

Honestly, I’m fine doing the vanishing birdcage with my sleeves down, it was fun to play with it today to see if I could!

-Louie

Protecting Your Art

When I was making the sizzle reel for the Incredible Idiom show, I was was realizing that this is a show that I would like to do for a long time. I’m a fan of this show, it was something that I created to create and when I was writing it, I never thought I was going to do it. For me this was “art” and not creating something to make money.

Years ago I did an anti bully school assembly and it was created to make money that’s it. I hated doing the show. My heart wasn’t in it, but it did make a lot of money! I stopped doing it when I realized that I got no joy of performing the show.

The Incredible Idioms is different and I really enjoy the concept of the show. I decided I should protect my idea, so the first step I did was file the federal trademark for the show’s title.

I honestly don’t know why more magicians don’t trademark the titles of their shows when they have a cool one. It cost $250 to file and I did the paper work in about 10 minutes. Now I have to wait about a year for it to get processed, but it’s worth it to me to protect my idea!

-Louie