Linking Pins on Stage

In my close up set I do the linking safety pins and I love the trick. I’ve even gimmicked a larger set of about 5 inch pins to do the trick with. The 5 inch pins are good for about 30 people, there’s too small for a real stage show.

I found these giant safety pins and I think they’d be great for using on stage!

giant linking pins

The challenge now is figuring out context to do them and getting more than a couple of minutes out of them. In my close up routine I use someone from the audience. Since I’m bringing someone onstage I really need to get at least 4-5 minutes out of the routine to make it worth the time it takes to get someone onstage.

In my writing this morning I had the idea of combining the linking pins with the thumb tie. The idea is the beginning phases will be my normal linking pin routine, then I’ll have my thumbs tied to “eliminate sleight of hand” and then the pins will end up going on and off my arms. That’s the idea, we’ll see how it plays when I get a chance to try it out!

-Louie

Doing a Bar Gig

I don’t do a lot of bar gigs anymore, I’m not opposed to them, but they don’t normally make sense with my schedule. Last week I headlined a comedy show at a speakeasy. It was a fun gig!

One of the skills you need for these gigs is to be able to follow any act. The act before me was a comic that was fairly blue, and I do a “TV clean” show, so there’s contrast and the audience has to shift mental gears from his style to mine. There’s nothing wrong with what he was doing, that’s his art. When there’s contrast like that, you need to come onstage with confidence, you’re bringing the audience into your world.

Before the show I always try to do some close up magic, that will have people in the audience already on your side!

close up magic

The “green room” was in a back corner of the bar and the cool thing was I could watch the show on the TV!

comedy show

Also I don’t normally have merch to sell at bar gigs, but I took some of my faux children’s books C is for Conspiracy: The ABC’s of Conspiracy Theories and pitched them from the stage.

bar magic show

They sold well after the show, so that was a bonus!!

Bar gigs have a lot of challenges, like sight lines, rowdy crowds, challenging stages, however I find them very rewarding as a performer. Because they are typically smaller venues you can connect with people a lot more than in a larger venue.

-Louie

The Unconquered Card!

When I was a teenager I had bought The Unconquered Card by Mike Rogers. This is a three card monte routine that’s similar to Michael Skinner‘s three card monte routine, and there’s some debate as to who was doing it first. The cards for the routine are long gone, but recently I came across the book with the set of cards that was pretty beat up.

The Unconquered Card by Mike Rogers
The Unconquered Card by Mike Rogers

The cards were unusable, however I have a few decks of FAKO Cards and other packs that are full of different gaffs. I was able to find the needed cards for the trick!

The Unconquered Card by Mike Rogers

I’m having fun relearning the trick and I think that I’m going to record a couple of phases and use it in my preshow video.

-Louie

Four Ace Routine

When I was a teenager I put together a four ace routine that I did all the time. I haven’t really done it in probably a decade, but did it the other day and now it’s creeping into my close up set.

There’s not much to the routine, here’s the flow:

1: Deck is shuffled by the spectator and I cut to the four aces

2: The aces are put in the middle and appear on top of the deck

3: The aces are put into the middle of the deck and the deck is given to the spectator. They shake the deck and the four aces jump out.

It’s a nice little three effect trick with a fun, interactive ending. It’s a good trick to have in my brain to use whenever I need to fill a couple of extra minutes when doing close up magic.

I think you should always have some back up material that you can do with the props you already are carrying. I have my main close up set of material, but I have a ton of things that I can do with a regular deck at a moments notice.

-Louie

It’s the Little Things in Videos

While I was working on my promo video, a video of a magician came across my feed. The trick is fine, but there’s a few things about the video that should have been addressed. Here’s the video:

I’m assuming you noticed the fake audio reaction in the video. They never sound quite right and they way most people use them, they’re never proportional to what they’re doing. It’s always too much.

The other thing you may not have noticed was the guy on the left standing on stage like some sort of body guard. At about the 18 – 20 second mark his face pops into frame. The “audience” is going nuts and he looks bored as hell.

Why is that guy even in the video?

Cropping him out would be a super easy job. As long as you’re in there adding audio tracks, might as well crop him out. It’s the small things that you need to notice in the videos you make. I always try to crop out people who look uninterested or people in the background. It’s not always possible, but you gotta try!

-Louie

New 2024 Promo Video

Way back in about January of 2020 I added a task to my To Do List, and that was to remake my promo video as it was about two years old at that point. It was a low priority item, so I didn’t immediately get to work on it. Then the whole “2020 thing” went down and making a stage magic promo video became super low priority!

Well, four years later I finally got around to making a new promo video for my stage magic show.

This one took me about a 20 + hours to make. Most of that time wasn’t the actual editing, but going through 6 years of video to find the videos that I wanted to pull clips from. It’s pretty easy to know right off the bat if a video is useable based on the background and general video quality. That removes about 60%-70% of videos right way, but it’s still a time consuming process!

The other super time consuming thing is watching the final video over and over again to notice small things, correcting them and then making a new final video. Then repeating that until I’m at final video version 12 or so. There is a point when you just need to be done with the video and barring something crazy you didn’t realize, it’s time to put it out into the world!

I’m glad I finally did it and can remove it from my To Do List!

-Louie

The 10 Count

About a month ago I went to Disneyland with a bunch of entertainers after an event we were all at. While not everyone was specifically a magician, everyone there had a magic component in their show. Somehow the “10 Count” with sponge balls came up.

The 10 Count is a little thing where a sponge ball travels from one hand to the other while you count to ten. Each number has a physical action associated with it. It’s a great framing for a quick trick and isn’t limited to sponge balls. I first learned the 10 Count from a sponge ball book when I was a teenager, however it looks like it was probably created by Martin Gardner using matchsticks.

If you don’t know it, it’s worth looking up!

-Louie

The Tommy Wonder Vanishing Birdcage by JM Magic

Way back in 2021 there was some discussion of the Tommy Wonder Vanishing Birdcage by JM Magic on The Magic Cafe. In their advertising they say that it’s exactly like in the book, and I bought one of sets from the first run. The cage wasn’t made right and neither was the pull, and I mentioned this is a thread on The Magic Cafe.

Tommy Wonder Vanishing Birdcage by JM Magic


I probably get an email every couple months about this post and just got one and figured I would share my most recent response with my experience with the cage. Before you read my thoughts and experience on the Tommy Wonder Vanishing Birdcage by JM Magic, I want to be clear that I’ve heard they’ve correct some (possibly all) of the issues below.

The message begins below:

Yes, that’s the TW cage set I was referring to.  I bought one from the first run and when I brought up the issue with the reel not having the second lock, here’s their reply:

MESSAGE FROM THEIR REP IN THE USA:

We are aware of the second lock. It has two functions as described in the book: “They guide the cord as it winds around the reel-drum, and they halt the cord-stop, so that the ratchet arm can lock it in place.”

But we found two problems when we made it according to the book.

The first is that the locking device will produce a certain resistance, hinder the cord to pull back, and will wear the cord, make the cord break very soon. If that happens, we need to replace the cord frequently, and that will increase the risk of breaking the cord during the performance.

The second is that our reel’s pulling force is large enough, the gravity of the cage or other forces will not pull the cord out, only when people pull the cord out. So the lock is dispensable and will produce additional friction.

It’s great for making yourself and repairing yourself but people do not want to “buy” a product that they will constantly have to fix. This was the case with the double lock.

For this reason, we have made the following improvements: In order to reduce the friction between the cord and other parts when the line is pulled back, we made a rubber pad at the opening of the tube, and the inner part of the housing is chamfered.

Therefore, based on the above considerations of friction, service life and functionality, we did not make this locking device

JM Magic USA rep

Their response is 100% BS, first of all it contradicts their marketing that the props are exactly like what’s in the book.  If they made it correctly, there is no issue…AND their reel definitely wasn’t strong enough to resist the force of the vanish without giving out some line.

Then a few days later I got this email from their main email.

MESSAGE FROM JM MAGIC

Thank you very much for your purchase and feedback.

After receiving your feedback, our team studied the problem again and found that the problem is very serious, so we will make a new version of the reel as soon as possible, and add this second lock. Then we will contact our agent, who will contact you to send back the reel and replace it for the new version.

We think you are a person who knows TW’s props very well. Are there any other problems with the vanishing birdcage you received?

And your insight makes us do better. In order to express our gratitude, we will send you another set of props made by our team. Could you provide us with your address?

Hope ur reply

JM Magic (asia)

OK, so they’ve admitted they’ve made it incorrectly. They never sent me a replacement set as they promised two years ago, however here was my reply with the things wrong with it.  I replied with the other issues with the set, like the double action pull being made wrong and parts of the cage being made backwards, so you can’t hold it properly.  The attached pics are what are referenced in the following email:

MY MESSAGE TO JM MAGIC

The “Single action double action” pull that came with my birdcage set was made incorrectly.  I attached a picture titled: pull

Tommy Wonder Vanishing Birdcage by JM Magic

The pull that I received had the cord stop circled in the green placed on the wrong side of the pulley.  It was placed where the red dot is, making it non-functioning. 

Also for the shoulder strap circled in Blue in the picture wasn’t there.  It had a metal pin and loop, that I’m not sure how I was supposed to attach it to my shoulder based on the description in the books.

As for the cage, if you look at the attached picture: cage1  

Tommy Wonder Vanishing Birdcage by JM Magic

In the picture you will see the two circled pieces. The pieces circled in red and blue are different shapes in the books.  The cage I got had two shaped like what I circled in red.  Both of those being the same shape makes it very difficult to hold the cage properly.  You need the one shaped like what is circled in blue.

Now look at the attached picture: cage2

Tommy Wonder Vanishing Birdcage by JM Magic

The rivets in the cage you sent were like what is circled in red.  Tommy made them like what is circled in blue.  The reason for this reduces the chances they could snag and decreases the wear on the cage with use. 

Hope that helps, and I look forward to seeing the this made correctly!

Louie

That’s the end of our correspondence, and I never got a replacement set or even a thank you.  I have no idea if they corrected the issues or not, however I will not buy anything from their TW line as it’s not how they advertise it as being what’s in the books and are cutting corners. 

Silver Rocket Box by Richard Himber

I’m a huge fan of Richard Himber and his magic. One of the things that magicians say is that he had a huge ego and they support that by mentioning that he named his tricks the “himber wallet“, “himber ring” etc. That’s not quite true, those tricks were marketed under different names that didn’t have himber in the titles. Magicians started calling them himber ____.

At a magic auction a while ago ago I picked up a Silver Rocket Box that Richard Himber put out. It’s a super clever trick for producing silks.

@louiefoxx Silver Rocket Box vintage magic trick by Richard Himber! #vintagemagic #antiquemagic #vintage #magic #antique #collectiblemagic #louiefoxx #stagemagic #richardhimber ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

I added the cup production. One thing that most silk productions lack is an ending. Usually they end with one big silk, which I think isn’t a good ending. You need to bunch up the silks and produce a bowling ball or whatever.

-Louie

Card Production

A few nights ago I was dinking around with a deck of cards while watching a movie with my wife and came up with a production of the top card of a face down deck.

It’s not the greatest production, but it’s something. The action of the card reminds me of something in Ernest Earick‘s book By Forces Unseen.

I think the next step to making it better would be a way to have it come out of the center of the deck…but not sure if that’s possible!

-Louie