When I was going through a box of old magic stuff, I found this envelope and 1/3 page flyer from Dell O’Dell. What I love about this is how fun it is. There’s little jokes, like having someone pull off the stamp.
Then in the lower left corner it says to touch the bell with a cigarette. When held up to to the light you can see that her signature it attached to the bell. I’m guessing that the when heated the signature will burn or become darker.
It’s a fun piece of promo to find!
-Louie
Last spring I picked up a Porter Case. This is carry on luggage that converts to a luggage dolly. I haven’t needed to use it, until my recent trip to Canada to get on a cruise ship.
Here’s the case in its three positions:
After using it to get from home to the airport, the airport to the hotel, and the hotel to the cruise ship, I’ve decided I like it! Since they haven’t made these in a long time, the challenge will be to find another one as a backup.
-Louie
I was playing around with some cards the other night and came up with a very 1980’s feeling packet trick. The effect is you show four aces. The ace of diamonds changes to a two of diamonds. Then the ace of clubs changes to the three of clubs. For the finale, the ace of hearts turns into the four of hearts, giving you a one (ace), two, three and four.
This trick uses a series of Ascanio Spreads. I’m not going to go teach that move here, but you can look it up and find a tutorial for it online.
Here’s the starting order of the cards:
Hold them face up in your left hand in dealing grip. Do an Ascanio Spread to show four aces, putting the four card block on top of the packet .
Do a second Ascanio Spread to show that the ace of diamonds is now a two. Put the four card block top of the spread.
Next do a third Ascanio Spread to show that the ace of clubs is now a three. This time, you will switch places of the middle two cards. I openly displace them, and then put the four card block on top.
Finally, do a fourth Ascenio Spread to show that the ace of hearts is now the four!
That’s it, there’s really not much to this trick, and it feels like it needs an ending. I have played with having the backs change colors and have a method for that, but I’m not really happy with it.
Additionally, I’d be surprised if this sequence had not been created before. It seems fairly obvious that this result can be achieved with just Ascenio Spreads.
-Louie
After a summer of performing, I was doing some prop maintenance and noticed how gross the ropes I use have gotten!
Going through your props a couple times a year to clean them up or replace things that get worn out is a good thing to do. It’ll keep your show looking fresh and not beat up.
-Louie
The final day at the Pacific Coast Association of Magicians (PCAM) convention was a show day for me. I skipped the card clinic in the morning to prep my show for the afternoon. Here’s what I look like before showtime (I’ll add the after later in this post)!
The show went well, it took a few minutes to warm up the audience, but they were great!
A lot of magicians are nervous about performing for magicians. One way to look at it is that they are just people, and in theory, if they’re at a magic convention, they are magic fans. That should give you a head start, as they’ll likely appreciate what you’re doing, unlike a dentist convention.
Here I am after the show, a sweaty mess!
After my show, it was a dinner break, then wrapping up the evening was the One Handed Cut A Thon and the Bag of Tricks contest.
The One-Handed Cut-A-Thon was for whoever could do the most charlier cuts in a minute for the first round and the most in 90 seconds for the final round.
I made it to the final round, but unfortunately, I didn’t win. I did win the Slickest One-Hand Cut award!
Then it was the Bag of Tricks contest. In this contest you get a paper bag with about 14 items and you have to come up with an routine using only those items. You have to use all 14 items or you get a deduction. All the bags were the same, except that each bag had one wild card item, that was different in each bag.
I entered as a team with Mike Norden. Our wildcard item was a tiny smock.
We ended up getting second place, but it was a ton of fun!
The PCAM convention was a ton of fun, and it’s really a family there. Everyone is cool and open to hang out with anyone! I highly recommend this convention to anyone!
-Louie
The third day of the Pacific Coast Association of Magicians Convention started with the Teach a Trick workshops.
These are hands on workshops which ran about 20 minutes each. There were several stations that the magicians rotated through. It was a lot of fun and a great way to make sure everyone took away something new!
After lunch we had the contest awards presentation. You can see the full list with pictures on the PCAM’s facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/pcam.magic/permalink/10162386689637266/
The next event was one of the things I was really looking forward to, and that was Peter Samelson’s show. I’ve heard a lot about him, read his book Theatrical Close Up.
His show wasn’t what I was expecting. That’s not bad, in fact, I really loved his show. I thought it was going to be a more “artsy” show, but his show was amazing and FUN! I chatted with him about this, and he said that he used to do a more artsy show, but wanted to do a more fun show, and he definitely succeeded in that!
After the show it was a happy hour magic jam in one of the ship’s bars.
Later that night we had Peter Samelson’s lecture. It’s a great lecture on a 12 minute act that has a lot of texture to it. His Ashes on Palm stuff is amazing!
The evening wrapped up with some late night BS’ing and magic jam
It was a super fun day! Tomorrow, the ship stops at Santa Barbara, CA, which is the ship’s only stop on this short run. Tomorrow is also my show day; I have an afternoon show at 3:30 pm, so I need to go through my gear and make sure I have everything I need for it.
-Louie
The second day of the Pacific Coast Association of Magicians convention started out with James Cielen’s talk about performing on cruise ships.
James’s talk was a great insight into what it takes to consistantly be working on cruise ships.
Then it was a break for lunch, which was hosted by Henry Tom.
After lunch was the stage contest. I was recruited to be a judge, so I couldn’t watch for fun, I had to watch for “work”. Lots of great acts! One of the acts produced two live fish! These weren’t gold fish, they were about 10ish inches long and were FISH!
You can see pictures of the contestants on the PCAM’s social media at;
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17cjxmZPLH/
That night was the night of my lecture:
You can order notes from me at: https://www.magicshow.tips/lecture-notes-2025/
And thanks to Brian Cook for my post lecture beer!
Tomorrow has Peter Samelson’s show and lecture, which I’m really looking forward to!
-Louie
This week I’m lecturing and performing at the Pacific Coast Association of Magicians (PCAM) convention aboard the Holland America ship, the Eurodam. I got into Canada the day before the cruise. With the extra day in the Vancouver BC area, I went to see Shawn Farquhar’s Hidden Wonders show!
Shawn’s show is great and it’s a really smart format. It’s not a rigid show, and they way it’s presented makes it feel fresh for the audience.
Then a bunch of the magicians who were in town the night before the convention all went out to hang out!
That brings us to day one of the convention. This year’s PCAM convention is on the cruise ship Eurodam. Before I got onto the ship, I had breakfast with Paul Romhany and Peter Samuelson.
Paul isn’t attending the convention, so it was nice to see him.
Boarding the ship was a potential problem for me as I had my show with me, but I wasn’t a guest entertainer hired by the ship. That means they didn’t have to let me bring any props onboard that they objected to. I really lucked out. I have a whip and that’s the prop I was worried about getting taken away.
I got really lucky, the x-ray screener saw the whip and told the person next to her that I had she thought I had a whip. The second person took my case and handed it to a third person and said, “He has a wire“. The third person opened the case and and saw a coiled up power cord and said, “is this the wire?” I said, “yes” and they closed my case and let me proceed.
Now that I was on the ship with all of my gear I could relax a little bit.
The opening event for the convention was James Cielen‘s show.
We were supposed to see his show in the main theater as part of the cruise, but his schedule shifted, so he did a show just for us. The show he did was close up magic that was projected onto a screen. It was a solid choice of material and I it was great to see what a full close up show for a theater looks like.
The next two events were presented by Daniel Garcia.
He performed a close-up show, a Q&A session, and a lecture. His material is great, and he did a great job explaining why he does things the way he does.
I picked up his One Card, which is a great way to do a named card in envelope.
That took us to about 11 pm, and it was time for me to go to bed.
Today is day two, which has the close up and stage contests. James Cielen has a Q&A about working on cruises, and my lecture is tonight. It’ll be a full day, and I’ll probably need to take a nap or two to make it through.
-Louie
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
Years ago when I was out there doing comedy one nighters, I learned that we’re really getting paid for the travel.
For example, when I do local gigs I’ve started to charge more if my travel involves rush hour traffic.
I should say that I try to not be in a rush to a gig. If I have a gig that would involve me sitting in traffic, I’ll actually leave a couple hours early and get close to the gig. Then I’ll work out at a gym, or go to a coffee shop and do some work. These are things that I’d normally do during my day, I’m just taking back the 45 minutes I’d be sitting in traffic.
Trying to never be in a rush has really taken a lot of stress out of my life.
-Louie
