magic books – MagicShow.Tips

Openers – Magic Book

I just started reading the book Openers. This book is a compilation of “openers” for magic shows. The book is mostly close up openers so far, but I’m only about 1/3 into the book.

So far my favorites are:
Virus by John Guastaferro: This is a full deck, all backs routine where one side then turns blank, then to normal playing card faces. It’s not too hard to do. I like the routine, however I think I’d need to find a new theme for it. His theme is great, just not for me.

Contender by Liam Montier: This is a quick trick where you know which card someone is thinking of. I think this is a great “bar bet” style of trick.

I should also mention that I’ve been hunting for chop cup routines that don’t use a table and there’s one in this book called The Gold Cup Con by Carl Royle. It’s a close up routine using a small chop cup that will hold a golf ball. It’s a great routine, just not for what I’m personally trying to do with a chop cup.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the book!

-Louie

NEW Louie Foxx Lecture Notes!

In a week I’m heading out to the 2025 PCAM convention to do my full show and a lecture. If you can’t make it, you can get the lecture notes from me!

2025 Lecture Notes .pdf $25

These are the lecture notes from the lecture that I will present at the 2025 PCAM magic convention. They focus is on stand up/stage magic. They contain seven tricks/routines and five essays.

Introduction
The Opener Card Routine: The five-minute card routine that Louie does as my warm-up for family audiences!
Developing a Unique Show
Louie Foxx’s Take Out Box (Two Versions!): Turn a Chinese food take-out box into a production box!
Moving the Sponge Ball Down the Field
The Fortune Teller: A folded paper fortune teller becomes a self-contained prediction system!
Process in Magic and Mentalism
The Body Language Book Test: A book test plays BIG!
Can I tell that joke?
The Cracker Card Trick: A card trick using crackers! This was performed by Louie TV’s Masters of Illusion!
Fiat Currency: An opening effect that explains what you do.
Why You Should Hang Out With Magicians
The Stand Up Chop Cup: A chop chop routine that uses no table and no one from the audience!

48 pages
These are a .pdf that will be emailed to you within 24 hours of placing your order.

2025 Lecture Notes .pdf $25

Mastering Comedy Magic by Ian Batterbury

On the plane the other day I read Mastering Comedy Magic by Ian Batterbury. This book goes through different techniques and objectives with using comedy in a magic show. The book says it’s intended for beginners at comedy magic. I would say it’s for beginning at adding unique comedy to their magic.

The difference is that there are a lot of comedy magicians out there who have never had an original thought in their life. They are doing Banana Bandana, or whatever using the jokes the trick came with, or worse using the jokes they’ve seen other people do without permission.

This book is a general “theory” of performing comedy magic, without much in the way of tools, like how a joke is structured. If you’ve never created your own original script for a routine, this book will give you some good guidelines to help you out. With it only being about $10 on Amazon, it’s worth looking into.

-Louie
PS Another good book to look into is Ryan Kane’s Out of Stock

Stealing the PreSale?!

I was curious if Dan Harlan’s Masterworks book set had come out yet and a magic site that sells pirated magic effect that are illegal copies had them listed for sale.

The crazy thing to me is that this set hasn’t been released. They’re preselling a pirated copy of a book that doesn’t exist yet!

That’s insane to me. Why would anyone buy a copy of something that hasn’t been put out yet and why would anyone sell it? If I recall from a thread on TheMagicCafe the books are already late in coming out, so as the person selling the illegal copies, it’s gotta be a customer service nightmare to deal with anyone who bought them wanting to know the status of the book.

If you buy direct from Dan at least you can bug him. If you buy an illegal copy, there’s really no one you can be mad at (except yourself).

-Louie

Magic at Powell’s Books

On Sunday I made the drive to Powell’s Books in Portland, OR.

They always have an interesting selection of used magic books. They have a range of beginner stuff to more advanced magic books.

A couple of the more advanced books they had were:

And then my personal favorite book that’s with the magic books:

I picked up a The Magic Catalogue by William Doerflinger for $10.

The Magic Catalogue is an interesting book based on what I’ve seen flipping through it. It’s a brief magic history and then reproductions of older and current (at the time of printing) magic catalog pages. I’m not sure who the market is for this, besides me!

If you’re in Portland, OR it’s totally worth popping by Powell’s!

-Louie

Dynamite In a Small Package by Doc Dixon

A month of so ago I picked up the book Dynamite In a Small Package by Doc Dixon. It’s lived in my backpack since I bought it and I’ve finally read it. It’s a quick read and a GREAT book!

The book covers five card tricks with a regular deck of cards. Each of the card tricks has a different flavor and are distinctly different tricks. The big thing for this is that each of the tricks was designed for the stage and plays bigger than you average card trick.

The book has a script for the tricks, and Doc does a good job of not only teaching the WHY, but how to apply his thinking to other tricks. I’m a fan of Doc’s stuff, the guy is a worker and has been for years and it shows in his marketed magic stuff.

For $35, this book is a great part of your emergency plan for when the airline loses your luggage!

-Louie

The Magic Shop and More!

Last week I was doing a show in Astoria, OR. Whenever I’m in that area I swing by and visit Seth who owns the shop.

It’s really a pitch shop that sells magic tricks to tourists, however they really well stocked with a lot of magic that’s for non-beginners.

When I was there I picked up a Rainbow Deck and a copy of the reprint of the book Mind Myth & Magick by TA Waters. This book when it first came out in the mid 1990’s sold for $60. When I was a teenager working in the magic shop, we had a couple of copies of this book and they took probably a decade to sell. This book wasn’t a hot item at the time. While it is a giant book, $60 was about double what a magic book sold for at that time. Then over the next few decades this book became harder to find with copies selling for over $300! This reprint at $99.95 is a great deal!

The only thing that I don’t like about the book is that I’m taking it on the road with me, and it’s the size of a phone book and I’ll be lugging it around the country in my backpack!

-Louie

Something from the East by Haruhito Hirata

I came across the book Something from the East by Haruhito Hirata in a box of magic stuff that I had bought recently. There wasn’t a lot of stuff that I liked in the book, but one thing did catch my eye. There’s an oil and water trick in there that has a slightly different mixing procedure that most.

Here’s what it looks like as written:

@louiefoxx Card trick from Japan! #cardtrick #magic #japan #magictrick ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

I like the two columns of cards and then mixing them one at a time. I don’t like how much process and how confusing the whole routine is. I also don’t like that you can’t show the second packet at the end.

I tried to streamline the effect to make it less confusing and here’s what I initially came up with:

@louiefoxx Replying to @Voyager Jim ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

It’s not the best, but I think it’s better.

I do have two more versions that are inspired by Haruhito’s routine, and I’ll post about them later. These two version are very different in method, but keep the two columns of cards.

-Louie

Math Magic

A friend gave me the bound version of The Bat magazine that has issues 1-50. The opening trick in the first issue of the magazine is an interesting math trick. Basically if you use the number 142857 and multiply it by 1 through 6 you will get the same number, just “cut” like a deck of cards. The sequence is the same, it’s just the starting point isn’t the one (unless 1 is picked).

The trick in The Bat is OK, it uses two stacks of number cards. One is in that order and you false shuffle them, then lay them out as a “random” number. It’s multiplied by a number 1-6 from the other packet and that’s the audience’s number . The first packet is mixed and dealt out and and it matches the audiences number.

It’s an OK, and mathy feeling trick. I think it can be improved a little bit to hide the method. Here’s my idea, you basically do the same trick, however you give them the option to multiply OR divide the two numbers. That’s asked at the beginning. If they choose to divide, you work backwards. you have the number 1-6 picked first, then you use the number 142857 and cut the packet so that it’s in the right order for that number. Divide them and you end up with 142857.

I think the free choices of multiply and a dice roll add layers to the trick that would make it harder to backtrack. Also the dice has less cards in the trick, and could give it more of a “game” feeling. I guess a coin with an X and ÷ could add another prop to the routine. Also with only six outcomes, a multiple out type prediction could work. If you had six dollar bills in your wallet that had the serials numbers each matching an outcome, that could be a fund ending.

I think it’s an interesting math problem, but the challenge is to make it not feel like math.

-Louie

Circus Rings Around Russia

Somewhere along the road I picked up the book Circus Rings Around Russia and recently started reading it. The book is a history of the circus in Russia.

It’s interesting to hear how political the circus was in Russia. Both state run and with views that were anti-government. Performers were essentially blackballed for how they express their political views through their performances.

It’s also interesting that the big pro-government circuses were flops with audiences. I think those shows took away the “heart” of the circus and left the audiences feeling cold.

The author of this book also relates how magicians and the side show are considered lower entertainment than traditional circus acts like trapeze or eve clowns. In the USA magic is a huge part of the circus!

This is a great read and I’m glad I picked it up!

-Louie