May 2024 – MagicShow.Tips

Portland SAM Meeting

Last week I was in town for the Portland Society of American Magicians magic club meeting. It was a light turn out with only about 8 people there, but it was fun.

For me, I always love seeing the different styles of magic that people bring to a magic club. It’s not always their polished routines, but things that they are working on or things that they have and want to share. Personally, I’m more interested in things that you don’t do in your show, but interest you more than your A material. That’s the fun of magic clubs!

-Louie

Shell Shocked by Giovanni Livera

A bit ago someone mentioned Giovanni Livera’s three shell game routine. I wasn’t aware of this routine, so I tracked down a his book Confessions of an Italian Magician where his Shell Shocked routine is written up.

His routine has an ending that’s unusual, it ends with three production items. The first two are dice and the third is a plastic P. I have all of the props except the plastic P, but that’s where my 3d printer came in handy.

Within about 15 minutes I had made a plastic letter P and had it printed and can now learn the routine!

I’ll get started working on it later today!
-Louie

Linking Pins and Thumb Tie

I’m still working on the Linking Pin and Thumb Tie routine and it’s slowly making progress. I started this in mid-February, however I’ve only done it about 30 times. For me that’s a pretty fresh routine. I haven’t figured out where all the moments are.

I wrote a couple of new jokes and changed it so there were three magic effects in the routine instead of three and took it out to an open mic the other night. It can be challenging at a bar open mic when it’s in a big room and there are 13 people there and only two of them are actual audience members, the rest are comics waiting to do there time onstage. In my opinion most bar open mics are to figure out how to do something onstage and just work that part out, you’re not there to try to have your set crush. Yes, you should try and ideally it’ll crush, but you should be bringing things that need work, not polished material.

Here’s bad video with bad audio of the trick:

The trick went well, but more importantly the new jokes worked and I added another penetration, so there are four instead of three in the in the routine. There’s actually normally one more at the end that I didn’t do because I “got the light” and had to wrap up.

The intro to the trick I think needs to be tightened up and be a bit more clear. That comes with time and rewriting and reworking. I think by the end of the summer this will be a strong piece in the show!

-Louie
PS If you want to learn more about how I work on my shows, check out my download The 6 R’s To Working On Your Show!

ReUpholstering a Dice Cup

As I get ready to head out on the road to do a week of street style shows, I spent the day cleaning up my props. The dice up that I use for my Cee-Lo dice routine was pretty beat up on the inside.

I’ve been using this particular cup for probably 6 years (or more!) and it’s showing a lot of wear on the inside. I had changed the outer black cover in the 2020’s to a tan leather so that it would show up better for virtual shows.

I carefully removed the old lining on the sides and used that as a template for the new felt that I was going to stick into it. I decided to keep the bottom part as is and just recover it with new felt. I’m not sure this was the best decision…I’ll see how well it holds up over time.

Here’s the finished cup:

It came out alright, I probably should have just made a new cup from scratch. This cup still works great and transferring the leather outer layer or making a new leather covering would have been a pain.

We’ll see how this works this week.

-Louie

Escapes for the Circus

Next month my daughter graduates from College. She had an opportunity pop up to work in a circus this summer where she’ll be doing a 4-7 min act. She’s done solo stuff in my show and she has two different escape acts that she can do. The circus will be fairs and festivals, so she’ll be typically doing three shows a day. We’re working on adding a third escape act so that she can do a different act each show. That will solve the problem of repeating the same act all day. She can do that if she wants, but she’ll have options.

One of the important things is that all of the escapes feel different. They all have a different texture, it’s not just three comedy “in and out” escapes or first she escapes from rope, then the next show chain and the final show handcuffs.

I just finished up making all of the props that she didn’t have her own dedicated set for.

Now the next step is rehearsing it and writing some new jokes.

– Louie

Music Remote Holder

Once again my 3d printer saves me a big headache in getting something made! I need a holder for two Flic Buttons that someone from the audience will use to run a music cue for me during a comedy escape. I spent about 5 minutes designing a simple holder and then hit print!

Here’s what the finished prop looks like:

The piece on the left is the cover, however after putting the Flic Buttons into it, they pressure fit into it, so I don’t need the cover as they won’t fall out.

It’s really worth your time to learn to use basic 3d design software like TinkerCad even if you don’t have a 3d printer. You can design things and then email the file to someone else to print.

-Louie

Performing in Spanish!

One of my biggest regrets is not learning to speak Spanish when I was a teenager. I’m trying, I’m at day 500 on DuoLingo and I can communicate ideas, but not really conversational. I’m always looking for ways to speak it more, especially in the show to hopefully get more confident in speaking Spanish.

That’s where and Emerson and West packet trick comes in!

The trick is Larry West’s Gourmet Mouse. The concept is really simple, it uses three cards and in the trick, one turns blank and one changes. What makes this fun for practicing my Spanish is the trick involves and mouse eating cheese. I know all of those words, and can do the trick in horrible Spanish!

What makes it a great trick is that it shows that I’m trying when I perform close up magic for a Spanish speaking family. It’s really easy to start learning a new language with things like DuoLingo, and there’s no reason for a performer to not know a little bit of another language.

-Louie

Making Spirit Hands!

I was procrastinating recently, so I made a couple of spirit hands!

I made a mold of a vintage spirit hand and make these out of resin.

These are ungimmicked, and if you’re interested in one and want to gimmick it yourself, or use it with an existing board you can get one at:
https://www.magicshow.tips/spirit-hand/

-Louie

Old Magician’s Notebooks

Someone was selling a stack of old magician’s hand written notebooks. These are things I’m fascinated by, I’m very curious what’s going through magicians heads. When the notebooks showed up, they weren’t what I was expecting, they weren’t really notebooks of ideas, but notes of the Abbott’s Magic Magic Get Togethers from the late 1960’s to the early 1980’s!

They have set list that are pretty cryptic, like what Don Alan performed in 1980:

Don Alan at the Abbott's Magic Get Together

Then there’s more detailed acts like this that’s simply labeled “best act” from 1977:

Another interesting find was a description of Al Schneider’s Matrix trick. This notebook was from 1982, and Al didn’t publish Matrix until 1983. Schneider wasn’t listed as a performer at any Abbott’s Magic Get Together, so I’m guessing he was just attending that year, or it could have been something that was moving around the “underground” and someone else showed it that year.

These notebooks are a really interesting look into what was performed 40+ years ago and I’m glad I got to read them!

-Louie

Walmart Sells Bricks of Bicycle Cards

I think the title of this post pretty much sums up the post.

Brick of bicycle playing cards at walmart

At $39.97 for a dozen, it’s not a huge savings over buying decks individually, however when I’m on the road and doing multiple shows, this is a good option to pick up when I’m in the area. I probably wouldn’t rely on them having them in stock, I’d order online and have them shipped to the store in the city that I’m going to.

-Louie