3D Printing Magic

I can’t imagine life without my 3D printer! There’s many props that would have neve seen the light of day without it. Right now I’m working on a batch of my Take Up Reels.

These are the the first lock of the Take Up Reel that locks the string long. These would have been impossible to make without a 3D printer, or at least impossible to have at a reasonable price!

If you haven’t played with 3D printing, you can play with design software and try to make something without having a 3d printer. Websites like Tinkercad.com are easy to use. If you’ve never played with making your own designs, go to one of these sight and play with them, you’ll be surprised at what you can make!

-Louie

Familiar Feeling and Crushing It!

What a difference a day makes!

On Saturday and Sunday I was struggling with my show at a venue that was very different from what I perform at. Then on Monday, I was performing at a convention for 550 people and the whole show felt really natural and easy.

magic show for a convention

Honestly, there’s a lot to be said about performing in a venue you’re used to. By venue, I really mean that the audience was seated for a show, versus a transient, standing audience who weren’t planning on watching a show.

You should always challenge yourself and try venues and situations that you don’t normally perform in. It makes you a better performer, or at least a more knowledgeable one. Know why your show doesn’t work is as important as knowing why your show works.

-Louie

Sharing a PA!

One of the things that I do when I share a PA with other performers and there’s no official sound person is take a picture of my settings.

This allows me to turn my channels down when I’m not performing. That way I don’t need to worry about something getting on my mic’s wireless channel or my music getting bumped and playing.

Turning down or muting any active channels you’re using is a courtesy for other acts you’re working with. It’s easy to do and if you take a pic, that pic is reliable to reset you audio.

– Louie

Brent Fiasco

Last weekend I was working at an Oddities Expo with Brent Fiasco. Brent crushed his shows and does a great street style show. He does a solid crowd built, and a great job of uniting the audience.

Brent Fiasco

In his 30 min set, he does four routines. He does three routines in the first 12 minutes and one in the last 18 minutes. The show does a good job of building the crowd in the first three routines and then selling the “big trick” and prolonging it as long as possible in the last 18 minutes.

Brent Fiasco

Brent’s show is a great lesson in how to structure a street show and he also does a great job of living in the moment. If you get the chance, his show work worth checking out!

-Louie

Standing Audience

This weekend I’m working at an oddities expo in Phoenix, AZ. I did one of these last year in Michigan and with this one being my second one, I’m viewing it with a different lens than my first one.

oddities expo

The first challenge is that the audience is standing, there’s no seating for them. Here’s my view from the stage before the expo opened.

oddities expo

With no seating, getting audience members to commit to the show is very different than if they were seated. This is really street performing on a stage, versus a stage show.

In the last year I’ve been transitioning my show to be more of a theater style show, so this was a challenge for me material wise. Each show the first day I made some changes and it’s gotten better, but it’s still got a long way to go to hit hard for this situation.

I’d love to say how hard I killed, but I didn’t, I’m doing OK and treading water. If I did more than one of these events a year, I’d probably get way better at it, but with only one, improving the show for the venue is slow and difficult.

Today I’ll be better than yesterday.

– Louie

Cards for Color Changing Card Backs

When I was buying some props at a Walmart I came across the Nertz game that is put out by Bicycle. It’s got different colors of the rider back cards. These would be great for making color changing card tricks. The only downside is that these appear to only come in jumbo index.

and a funny little thing that I noticed is on the back it lists all the colors and which ones are new. It lists red as a new color?!

Cards for color changing backs magic trick

If you’re working on a color changing card effect, I think it’s worth it to pick up a pack of these!

-Louie

Will Goldston Magic Books

I’m going though stuff that I have and on my shelf I have a really cool set of Will Goldston Magic Books. These are the Locked Book Series where the first three originally came with a leather binding with a lock on it. Unfortunately most of the copies that have their original bindings are in rough condition and usually the lock is unattached.

Will Goldston locked book series

The set I have are numbered first editions and have been rebound and it’s previous owner was John Pomeroy who owned GEM Magic.

I mentioned the previous owner to David Charvet and he said he thinks that Pomeroy put the new covers on them himself!

This is a cool set of books and they’re available as reprints that you can find on Amazon. They’re worth looking into!

– Louie

More Thumb Tie Work

I’m liking the thumb tie routine that I’ve been working on the last two weeks. There’s a lot of big laughs in the routine!

One of the challenges in writing for this routine is that a lot of the “comedy” comes from me and the guy onstage being stuck together. I want to make jokes, but the reason for the joke funny can’t be because it’s “gay”. What I mean by that is if the only reason the joke gets a laugh is because it implies one or both of use is gay, I don’t want it. I personally don’t think anyone’s sexual orientation should be the punchline of a joke. That and I don’t have any sexual content or inuendo in the show.

The jokes have to be about the situation that the guy and myself are in. Writing with rules can be harder, but ultimately I think it will make a better routine.

-Louie

Strange Magic Prop in Real Life!

I was browsing through reddit and came across a post with an picture of an old bread slicer:

I immediately made a connection to a prop that I assumed was simply a strange magic prop. The bread slicer resembles Lester Lake’s Disceto that was put out by Abbott’s Magic!

A quick internet search shows that bread slicing machines were invented in the 1910’s and Disecto was put out in 1942. It’s entirely possibly that the Disecto was trying to mimic a common object.

Crazy.

It’s also interesting that if it’s supposed to be a bread slicer, that people still use a prop that mimics something that used to be something people were familiar with, but hasn’t been common in my lifetime.

This is why it’s important to look at our props or lines and take out things that people aren’t familiar with. A good example of this is when I hear a comedy magician use a line about someone’s picture in the post office. That’s something that really hasn’t existed in my lifetime. I’ve encountered it once in my life about 10 years ago in a small town. I do know the reference from Bugs Bunny cartoons, but those were made decades before I was born. Because of this I don’t find the “post office joke” funny or something I can relate to. Look at your show and remove old references whether they are verbal or physical objects.

-Louie