One of the best things that I ever learned to do was frontload my day with things that I don’t want to do. These are things that if I did later in the day, they’d never get done. The first thing I do every morning in my daily writing, followed by business emails. Then anything else that I don’t want to do.
Here’s me doing my morning writing on a cruise ship:
From a productivity standpoint, I get a lot more done this way. It also frees up most of my day past noon, so it’s great for me from a lifestyle perspective!
Get your hard tasks done first thing in the morning!
Last summer I did a show at a summer camp at a child care center. They said they had a large group asked me if instead of one large show, if I could do five short shows. I declined saying that they one show they booked was 40 mins and that’s all the time I have, so they can chop up that 4o mins however they want, and suggested we do one big show (like we originally agreed on). They said how about two 17 ish mins shows because they were such a large group. I agreed to that.
The first show was about 60 kids ranging in ages from about for years old to about 10 years old. I’ve done this a thousand times, no big deal. Then the second group came in and it was four toddlers.
FOUR TODDLERS!
There’s really nothing I can do for a group like this. When the kids are two years old, I’m a scary stranger, unless they have visual cues from older kids that I’m OK and that this is a fun thing.
When booking these shows I’m very clear that the show is written for ages 4 and up, however younger kids can attend with the older kids. Developmentally a lot happens between two and three years AND between three and four years of age.
Here’s a sample of what happens when a kid turns about four years old:
Those are at four years old, imagine what a two year old doesn’t under stand!!!
Well, since they were there and I was there, I just blew through the show. It was a emotionally very unfulfilling, but I got through it. That was rough and I learned my lesson if this ever comes up again to ask the age groups of each group and specifically remind them that I won’t take a group of kids that are all three and under.
One thing I don’t like about the chop cup is the metal cup that most people use. It looks classy, but that doesn’t fit the aesthetic of my show. When I did the PCAM convention, I was chatting with James Cielen, and he mentioned the metal cup doesn’t fit. He was 100% right, and I didn’t like using a metal chop cup.
I finally found some time to make my own chop cup out of a coffee cup. I started with two matching coffee cups. The reason I started with two was in case I messed one up, I wouldn’t have to start over. If both turned out, I would have a backup.
I glued the magnets into the bottom of the cups and for what I wanted, I glued them off center. Then I poured some resin inside the cups to make a new bottom and to hide the magnet.
In the picture below on the right, you can see the resin about halfway cured.
One of the chop cups I poured too much resin into and the magnet wasn’t quite strong enough to hold the ball like I wanted it to. The other cup turned out perfect!
Now I need to figure out what I’m going to do with the ball. Is it going to stay a ball or something else? At the very least I think I’m going to switch to a rubber ball. For my Stand Up Chop Cup routine from my 2025 lecture notes I need a ball that doesn’t bounce as the ball gets dropped. I just bought a set of yellow Bounce No Bounce Balls and I’m going to try to put a magnet inside of it.
The last few days, I’ve posted about working on a trick with a wavy arm guy. The effect is that I’m handcuffed, and the wavy arm guy is inside the circle created by my arms. A cloth is raised, and when it’s lowered, the wavy arm guy is no longer inside my arms.
One of the things that I want with the trick is a defined effect.
The effect is a penetration, and that needs to be clear. The thing I need to be careful of is not blurring that with an escape. If someone thinks I can get out of the handcuffs, the effect changes, as it is no longer a penetration.
What that means is that at the end of the trick, the person from the audience needs to let me out of the handcuffs. While that’s a slower moment, I think it’s an important moment to make the penetration effect clear.
Yesterday I wrote about working on a trick with a wavy arm guy. I don’t have a routine written yet, I’m just seeing if it works.
Here’s a practice video.
One of the things is the explanation with the mic stand. While it shouldn’t be necessary, I’ve been in the audience where similar penetration tricks are performed and they fall flat because not everyone is really spatially aware.
A good example of this is Andrew Mayne’s Razorwire. Here’s the effect:
Unless you show the audience that you can’t simply walk around the barrier, the trick isn’t going to land. Not everyone will understand that you can’t just by looking.
With my trick, it works, the next step will be writing for it.
In my show, I use an inflatable wavy arm guy as part of a trick. Really, it’s there to add some umph to the ending. It’s a large prop to carry around, but worth it for the trick. It’s only used for like 10 seconds at the end of the trick, but it really makes a difference in audience reaction.
Since I’m already lugging this thing around, I should have something else to do with it, for a second show. I’ve written a lot of ideas down over the years, but never really taken action on them.
I finally started working on one of the ideas that I like the most. The premise is that my arms are handcuffed together with the wavy arm guy inside the circle created by my arms. I then pass through the wavy arm guy, so I’m standing next to him with my arms free from him.
It’s one of those tricks, like walking thru a sheet of steel, where I don’t think it initially hits the audience very hard. It’s a good trick, but it’s more of a thinker, than something visual like popping a balloon and having a wine bottle appear.
One of the challenges with this will be selling the effect. I’m not 100% sure how to do that yet.
Whenever I’m near downtown Portland, OR I try to visit Powell’s Books. They have a huge inventory of used books and many magic books.
If you look at the picture above, it’s a mix of new and used magic books. Frequently, they have a lot of professional magic books, not just standard bookstore stuff. This trip, there wasn’t anything super crazy, but I did pick up these two books:
Both of those books were about $10 and things that I can read when I’m on a plane or whatever.
If you’re ever in the Portland, OR area, you should check out Powell’s Books!
Growing up in magic in the 1990’s there wasn’t a lot of ways to watch performances of magicians. You either had to go to a show, or catch one on a TV show when it aired. That really limited me to watching modern performers, or older performers who were past their prime at a magic convention.
This is a great video from 1978 of many performers who I had read about while they are still in their prime!
This was a lot of fun to watch and I’m glad I stumbled across it!
A while ago, I posted about getting and finally using a Porter Case. I ordered a second one as a backup, and when it arrived, I learned there were two sizes. My second one was a larger size, but still airplane carryon size.
At the end of October I did some senior shows for National Magic Week and to knock the dust off of my second 45 min show that I do on cruise ships. It’s been a while since I’ve done it, so the senior shows were a great chance to perform it as a full show.
I took it as a challenge to see if I could fit the full show into the larger porter case, and it fit! This was a great revelation, as now I have a full show that I can carry onto the plane, and in a way that makes traveling way easier!
Here’s the Porter Case with the show and my sound system (Bose s1 pro) on top of it.
My drop cloth, which is sitting on top of everything, will fit into the case. I didn’t put it in the case because it’s a prop used in two different shows, so when I get home, it’s going into a different case.
I’m really loving the Porter Cases, I wish they still made them.
-Louie PS: If you want to learn more about doing shows for retirement communities, check out my book How To Perform For Seniors.
