October 2023 – Page 3 – MagicShow.Tips

Trying to Read More

I’m trying to do a lot more reading in my free time. I have a huge stack of things to go through and I just started reading From Witchcraft to Card Tricks by Stephen Minch.

This is a short paper backed book follows the history of card and close up magic and it’s very interesting! Lots of things that became popular 200 years after they were first invented. It’s a real eye opener, ever you wonder who invented the double lift or at least the first place it appeared in print? This book answers that!

I totally recommend it if you’re a magic nerd like me!

-Louie

Commercial Art Supporting Art Art

One of the fun things about performing at fairs is that you work with a bunch of other entertainers. In the green room someone was talking about a friend of theirs that has a very artsy act, but it isn’t getting much work with it. We were trying to come up with advice to be relayed to the artsy person, and here’s what we came up with.

They need a commercial show to support the act, it’s hard to get enough work to pay the bills with just an act (artsy or not). Making a living now with just an act is really hard, there aren’t as many variety shows, etc and enough of them to fill up a calendar. That’s where having a show comes in. There’s a lot more opportunities to do a full show than there are just an act.

If you look into it, while someone like Jeff McBride is known for several acts, he also has a full show to support those acts. Now let’s look at art, someone like Andy Warhol did a lot of commercial art which brought in money to pay the bills until he could make enough doing the art-art.

While it’s not bad to work on a passion project, you do need something that will reliably pay the bills. That’s why you also need a commercial show!

-Louie

UnPlanned Rising Card Routine

A long time ago I had an idea for a rising card routine. Most of the rising card routines that I have seen have either a singular rise, which is the whole routine, or it’s multiple rises. The thing I have against multiple rises is that it’s essentially the same trick over and over, you just may add conditions each time to make it more impossible. I understand it gives it a sense of build, but why wouldn’t you just do it the “hardest” way the first time if you could, the previous ones were wasting the audience’s time?

In the idea for my rising card routine, three cards are selected and the deck is put in a glass. An interesting point is that the cards never leave the glass after they are put in. This is one of the interesting parts of this trick, the hands off nature of the trick. I do touch the cards, but only the top card to show it’s not a selected card. So the deck is in the glass, and first two cards appear one at a time to the front of the pack. Then for the finale the final card rises up from the middle of the pack.

It’s a good one, two, three set of reveals. It’s also done with me solo onstage, so no one physically has to come up on stage and it ends with a nice applause pose.

There are some challenges with the original routine. The placements of the gimmick in the deck and best way to hide the lock that I built into my rising card gimmick are some of the more major challenges. I took my props for this routine to the green room of the fair I’m working at and was showing it to Mickey O’Connor and Bri Crabtree for their thoughts. While messing around with a different idea, I came up with a way to use a someone from the audience as a way to “lock” the rising card in the down position. It was a real “break through” for the routine…also it marked a complete change of the routine. It’s now a two card revelation with someone onstage, and that person does the magic. It is a better routine after the changes, and this is a great example of how bouncing around ideas with other people can make a huge difference!

-Louie

Hocus Pocus Magic in Fresno!

One of the things I like about the two week gig in Fresno that I’m at right now is that I get to hang out at Hocus Pocus magic shop! It’s fun chatting with Max, Paul and Betty, they’ve got a cool shop!

One of the fun things they recently did was release a limited run of “hocus pocus” square circles.

These look great and work great! It’s a fun idea and they say they’re thinking of making releasing a special hocus pocus magic prop every year. That’s a fun idea!

Of course while I was there I visited some of my magic tricks

I think they have the last two of my Slow Poke coin tricks. I don’t think I can get them made anymore.

If you’re in the Fresno area, shoot them and note and arrange a time stop by!

-Louie

Shot Glass Production

I’ve been playing a lot with a shot glass production lately. There’s not much to it, or pretty much any shot glass production. Basically you sneak it into where ever you want to produce it and uncover the shot glass and show it to the audience.

The real challenge is having an airtight seal on your shot glass cover that can still be easily removed. Here’s the idea that I’ve been doing:

@louiefoxx How to cool off instantly! #tequila #drink #magic #tequilashots #nebraska #louiefoxx #magictrick #backstage ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

One of the lesser challenges is what to do with the cover after you’ve removed it from the shot glass. For probably 80% of productions from things like an egg bag, you can simply leave it in the bag. However for a production from something like your shoe, you need to get rid of the cover.

My solution is simple, hide it in plain sight!

This is something that’s working out for me, however I still consider it in the testing phase for me.

-Louie

Three Card Prince

There are some tricks that I’ve always wanted to do and Harry Anderson’s Three Card Prince/Monarch is one of them. It probably comes from me getting the book Wise Guy when I was a teenager and just getting serious into magic.

You can watch the routine here:

There were two version of this put out. The Three Card Monarch and The Three Card Prince. The difference was size, the prince was the smaller size, however both haven’t been made in years.

I recently came across a used set…a very used set.

This set was gross, it very discolored from use. I bought it and hoped I could clean it up. I took a Magic Eraser and started to clean them up. Here’s a before and after of the face of one of the cards:

They now look gently used instead of beat to crap! I’m excited to learn the routine and try it out in a show. I don’t know if it will work in the show, but even if I only do it once, it’ll be good to have done it and gotten it out of my system!

-Louie

Six Steps to Being the Best in the World!

Years ago I broke my first Guinness World Record (I’ve broken two now) and it’s something that has definitely helped my career! When you look at magicians in your market, most are “award winning magicians”, but I’m going to guess very few magicians or other variety performers are Guinness World Record Holders. This is a very unique credit to have that carries a lot of weight with people booking you. According to Guinness, you’re the best in the world at something. It doesn’t have to be magic related, mine aren’t for magic, but it implies a level of quality or skill that you have.

Breaking a record isn’t hard, and recently I helped my several people navigate the Guinness World Record system to break world records. It’s not very hard, but can be daunting if you’ve never done it before. You want to make sure you do everything correctly. The worst case is to have claim rejected on procedural grounds.

Before we go any further, I technical have more than two Guinness World Records, as I’ve been involved in group things, like the “largest toast” with beer. I personally don’t consider those as me having a record as I’m not listed as the record holder, usually the event organizer is listed at the record holder.

OK, so how to you become a Guinness World Record Holder?

Step 1: Find a record to break.
Go to the Guinness World Record website and do a search for things you’re interested in, or good at. You’ll be amazed at how many things are out there!

You can create a new record, however this is usually harder than breaking an existing one. Keep in mind that Guinness won’t accept everything submitted. For example, let’s say someone has the record for running a marathon with a baseball on their head. If you try to create a record for running a marathon with a softball on your head, they’ll probably reject it as it’s basically the same as doing it with a baseball on your head.

Step 2: Contact Guinness to get the rules.
When you contact Guinness, you’ll create an account on their website and file a claim attempt. There’s not much to this, you’re filling out paperwork and then they send you the rules. There are a few ways to do this, you can pay to have it fast tracked, or do it the slower, but free way. I’ve only done the free way.
Once they send you the official rules to the record you’re going to break, now you’re ready to get started.

Step 3: Practice
When you practice, be sure to follow the rules exactly. A good example is a TV show that I was on that read me the rules wrong. They told me I needed to be six feet from the target, when in reality it was two meters (6.6 feet). I had practiced at six feet and when I arrived on set right before my official attempt, the Guinness Adjudicator informed me I was six inches too close. This small detail in conversion cost me a world record on TV!

Step 4: Set up the attempt
This involves notifying Guinness of what you intend to do and when you are going to do it. You will also need to line up your witnesses and physical location. This is also when you write your press releases and start to contact the media about the attempt.

Guinness wants you to break the record in a place that’s open the to the public, so not your basement. They also prefer it to be done at events, as there’s something to promote in the press releases you send out to the media.

Step 5: Nail it!
At your official attempt, do you best and break the record!

Step 6: Submit your evidence
Send all of the evidence (video, witness statements, news reports, etc) to Guinness. Now you wait for them to approve it or deny it.

That’s it…easy peasy.

What are you waiting for, hop onto the Guinness World Record website and start digging around for a record to break!

-Louie

Digging Around at Hocus Pocus!

One of the things that I like about performing in Fresno is getting to visit Hocus Pocus! I love digging through their bins of junk magic looking for things like packet tricks, or strange little props that were never commercial successes.

One of the things I like to do is buy them and try to figure out better ways to do them, or other effects to do with the gimmicks. I should be posting some videos in the next couple of weeks of what I found!

Keep an eye out!

-Louie

Puzzle Coin!

My friend Rolando Medina recently started selling Puzzle Coins! These are coins that he’s cut into a puzzle. These are really interesting, and there’s a ton of puns with the word puzzle that you could use.

“Do you want to see the most puzzling coin trick I do?” Then the coin turns into the puzzle pieces.

Here are a few ideas:

1: Show a half dollar.
This is a trick that takes me hours to figure out
Put the half dollar into your left hand, which makes a fist around it.
I never know if I should start with the edges or the middle…
Open you hand to reveal the puzzle pieces

2: Have a half dollar sitting on the table, you wave your hand over it and it turns into the puzzle half dollar!
– simply use a Raven and a shimmed shell

3: Could use it at a follow up to Karate Coin
After you stab the coin on your finger, you then smash the coin into little bits (not specifically revealing they’re puzzle pieces)

I think these coins are great for making social media videos as the close up video of them can really show off the detail.

I think he’s really underpriced them at $39.99 and they should be a few bucks more…but I’ll take them for cheaper than what I think they’re worth! Aside from using them, they are just cool to have on your shelf!

-Louie

Shipping Notice

Just a heads up that I’ll be out of town from October 1-17, 2023. Any orders placed wont ship until 10/18 when I return. .
You can always order my products at Hocus-Pocus.com, they usually have everything in stock

This blog will still be updated and the daily posts will appear below this notice.

Also if you’re in the Fresno, CA area, you can catch me from October 4th to October 15th at The Big Fresno Fair!

-Louie