Pictures – MagicShow.Tips

Mentalism for Kids…

Years ago, when I was a teenager I saw Lee Earle lecture. He did his gumball prediction and then warned that it’s not a kid show trick and that mentalism doesn’t work for kids. Lee said something like, “before you can read someone’s mind, they must first have a mind”. That’s a great quote, but it’s wrong.

You absolutely can do mentalism for kids, but ultimately it comes down to how you frame it. In my library / summer camp show for this year I do three mentalism tricks.

They aren’t framed as “mind reading” and that’s what makes them work, but they are still 100% mentalism. All three are essentially predictions.

One of them I used a Cootie Catcher / Fortune Teller to determine what I’m going to have for lunch or dinner that day.

Another is a card prediction followed by a series of coincidence effects. The third is a strange happening, which is really a multiple revelation of predictions. All three of them are highlights of the show and frequently mentioned when I ask kids in the autograph line what their favorite tricks were.

Don’t be afraid of mentalism for kids, you just need to make it fun and relatable to them.

-Louie

Night and Day with Library Venues

The differences in venues for library shows can be enormous! In two days I did a library show that had about 75 people in a packed meeting room.

Then the next day I had a library show for over 300 people in an old auditorium!

The skills needed to work in both venues are very different. When you’re standing on the floor a few feet from the audience is easier to control that in a giant theater that’s super echoy and everything in it makes noise from the floorboards to the chairs.

I heard that a previous performer in the auditorium struggled with the echos and crowd control. Being armed with knowledge of this, I really had to keep on top of crowd management and my expectations of the audience. In a giant room with a lot of echo, it’s really easy to lose control and hard to get it back!

-Louie

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

Paper Magic!

There have been several viral videos on social media of a guy doing floating paper at a coffee shop. His name is Arnold Drake World and the coffee shop he’s at is the one attached to Powell’s Books. When I was there over the weekend, I caught him doing his thing!

It was cool to see this live!

You can learn more about him in this news article.

– 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

Doty Scope

There’s an old magic prop/gag called the Doty Scope. The way I’ve seen it done is the magician has their back to the audience to not see something. Then a periscope with a eye at the end pops up over your shoulder and the eye looks around. I think that’s how its intended to be used, but I’ve never owned one to see the instructions.

I have a use for the gag, but they’re not currently being made. I decided to make my own little one. There’s not much to making a simple one. I used a Eyeball Finger Puppet and a mechanics extendable mirror to make one.

Construction is pretty easy. Cut a slot in the eyeball so the mirror fits into it. Shove the mirror in and then glue it in place.

This will fit in the pocket of my vest. During the trick I turn my back and while my back is towards the audience I extent it and have the eyeball pop over my shoulder. I then rotate the handle a little bit to make some motion to make the the eyeball appear to be looking around.

That’s it, easy to make and do.

-Louie

Sound Booth

There are a lot of things that can take focus away from a show. One of them is having stuff happening behind the performer. Recently I worked an event that’s really well run and attended, however there’s one small thing that I’d change about the event. The sound booth is set up BEHIND the performing area and there is no backwall on the stage.

That means the sound guys are clearly visible behind the performer.

Even the most engaging show for the audience isn’t the best show to watch from behind. That leaves a situation where the sound guys are behind the stage, but essentially in the performing area. They don’t necessarily look like they’re into the show, sure they’re working, so they shouldn’t be dancing, but it’s just not a good look in pictures.

If you are setting up an event or have the a voice in the set up, move the sound booth to the side of the stage, not behind it!

-Louie

Unusual Vanishing Bird Cage

Here’s a new addition to my vanishing bird cage collection!

This one has the ends of the large bars pointed instead of square. In theory that is going to hang up less than having the ends square.

This is something that I have thought about, but never did to any of my cages. First of all, not all the corners would need to be pointed, just the ones that are on the leading side of the cage. Next, I think that IF this one did hang up on your sleeve, it would really hang up and wedge the sleeve into it making any possible continued yank up your sleeve much harder.

This is a fun cage variation to add to my collection!

-Louie

Evidence of a magic trick

One trick I’m not a big fan of is bill to orange/lemon/etc. It’s a overdone trick and usually it’s not a surprise to the audience when the bill is in the fruit. A notable exception to this is Nick Lewin’s Lemon Aid routine.

I do a routine that uses a dollar bill, but the dollar isn’t the focus of the trick. It felt like it had a loose end at the finish of the trick. One day I had the idea to make the bill come out of an orange at the end of the trick. What I like about this routine is that the bill doesn’t disappear, so it’s not obvious it’s in the orange immediately when the orange comes into the play.

Then I had to deal with how to give the wet dollar to the person. I found some Evidence bags, and wrote a gag with them.

Now at the end of the routine when I give the signed dollar to the person, I put it in the bag and let them keep it! It’s a fun way to deal with the wet sticky dollar and gets me a couple of laughs!

-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