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Busker Organ

About 10 years ago I worked at an event where there was a Street Organ / Busker Organ. These are hand crank organs that are cranked by an “organ grinder”. I was fascinated by it, and it’s something I’ve thought about doing. I even bought a set of John Smith‘s plans for make my own, but never did.

Then few months ago I was in Mexico City and these street organs were everywhere!

@vintageorgan Street Organ in Mexico City! #streetorgan #mexicocity #busker #buskerorgan #oldetyme #streetperformer #mexico ♬ original sound – vintageorgan

That got me very interested in doing it again and I went out and found a guy who could make me one! Here’s the organ that was made for me:

@vintageorgan Busker Organ! #streetorgan #organgrinder #organ #buskerorgan #vintageinstrument #holland ♬ original sound – vintageorgan

It was custom made in Europe and I should have it in a few days. I have some ideas for what to do with it, and we’ll see what happens when it arrives!

I went ahead and got all the socials for it:

https://www.tiktok.com/@vintageorgan
https://www.instagram.com/vintageorgan
https://www.facebook.com/vintageorgan

Go and give them a follow!

And the website www.vintageorgan.com

-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

Update For Nick Trost’s Mexican Monte

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about Nick Trost’s Mexican Monte packet trick (read it here). I was thinking about it and the end with the card with a different colored back is okay, but I think it needed something a little punchier.

Here’s what I came up with:

@louiefoxx Vintage Magic Trick – Updates for Nick Trost's Mexican Monte #magictrick #packettricks #cardtrick #sleightofhand #louiefoxx #nicktrost #vintagemagic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

The ending doesn’t play well on camera and from the straight down angle as well as in real life if the change is done by rubbing the card on your sleeve. The Tree of Hearts is think is a more visual ending and having the face change is more of a punctuation on the trick, than the original ending of simply turning the last card over.

-Louie

Multiple Parasol Production – Close Up

I’m still playing with using cocktail parasols. Here’s a quick video I made in my hotel room:

@louiefoxx World's Dumbest Magic Trick! #magictrick #cocktailumbrellas #cocktail #parasol #shimada #closeupmagic #louiefoxx #magician #hotelroom ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

I made up three of the self opening cocktail parasols and they easily fit into a thumb tip. I might be able to get one more and still get the thumb tip onto the thumb. However I’m thinking that the thumb tip may not need to fit onto them thumb and it could really just be a holder for the parasols.

I do think it’s fun to produce the little parasols and maybe it’ll be a running gag or something in the show. I’ll keep playing with them, maybe something cooler will come up.

-Louie

Magic and Comedy Show

On Saturday I performed my show for a sold out audience at the Spokane Comedy Club! When I’m performing at on the road at a public show, I always try to reach out to the local magic club. The Spokane Magic Club turned out in force for the show! It was great having them in the audience.

These daytime shows are a lot of fun to do. Years ago when I was in my early 20’s I opened for Brad Upton at a lot of comedy gigs. At the time I was doing a lot of school assemblies during the day. Brad mentioned that being able to get paid to do entertainment during normal people’s workday was like finding gold. At the time, I didn’t realize how correct he was. As I’ve gotten older and when I’m home, I got to bed at 9pm, the later gigs are more work. I still love doing them, however these 4pm shows I’ve been doing at comedy clubs are great, I’m done by dinner time!

Here’s my 55+ minute show from Saturday in 44 seconds:

@louiefoxx
55 minutes of comedy magic in 44 seconds! #magicshow #magician #comedymagic #spokanecomedyclub #spokanemagician
♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

Another thing that’s fun is that these shows put kids into an environment that is normally just for adults. That gives these shows a special energy that you don’t get at a community center gig and leads to amazing shows!

-Louie

Production Cocktail Parasol

After goofing around with the cocktail parasols that I bought, I figured out a way to make them self opening.

To make them self opening, it just takes a little loop of elastic…and a lot of help from my reading glasses!

I’m not sure what to do with a parasol that opens by itself, but it makes the ending of most tricks better than if I had to manually open it.

-Louie

Parasol Magic

When I was 17 years old I won a magic contest at a magic convention. I don’t remember if there was any cash in the prize, but there was a lot of magic donated from the dealers. One of the things that I got was Shimada’s Stevens Greater Magic VHS tape. That tape introduced me to magic Shimada. One of the acts that Shimada was famous for was his parasol act.

I’ve always thought that producing parasols looked great and better than a more modern umbrella. I think that people connect umbrellas with the self opening feature and less so with a more Asian parasol. Yes, I understand that umbrella and parasol mean the same thing, and intentionally using them to refer to different things.

Parasol productions are very cool, visual and fill the stage, however I don’t think most routines pass the “drive home test”. That’s were people in the audience talk about the tricks on the drive home. Parasols pack small and pop open and everyone knows that. That’s the weak spot in parasol productions.

OK, so I’ve wanted to do a parasol magic for years, but is doesn’t really fit my personality (and costuming). Then the other day I was at the store and saw some cocktail parasols. I bought a couple of packs of them and started playing with different ideas of things to do with them.

Let’s see what I come up with…

-Louie

Nick Trost’s Mexican Monte

Here’s a packet trick from the 1980’s that I came across.

I think Nick Trost’s Mexican Monte is a pretty solid routine. Here’s me doing the routine and my thought on how to improve it:

It’s really a small change at the end, and I think Nick really nailed it with this one. I’d change the patter, but it’s good and worth checking out if you find one at a magic swap meet!

-Louie

The Wagon of Whimsy

A few months ago I was performing at an event with Ky Dobson and his Wagon of Whimsy. This is a pedal tractor that pulls a wagon that’s got a buttons that do all sorts of funny things, and he tells jokes and does magic and juggling. Ky is a trained clown, and very personable.

He wanted a something to do with an egg that was dinosaur related. This is what we came up with:

Ky had some dinosaur parts and for me the obvious thing was using the dinosaur head like Bob Farmer’s Little Hand trick. It’s a fun simple little trick that was getting great reactions from the kids!

-Louie

Remembering an Old Seattle Magician

Recently I was hanging out with some magicians working on some new magic and someone looked up and saw the cards on the ceiling and wondered who put them there.

card on ceiling magic trick by cliff gustafson

I immediately knew, it was Cliff!!

I'm here on Wednesdays
A short film about magic cliff gustafson

In the 1990’s I met Cliff Gustafson, he was a Seattle magician who worked a lot of bars in the Seattle area. It feels like he worked 1-2 bars a night seven nights a week! He stood out, he wore a tuxedo with a bowtie and everyone knew him!

Cliff wasn’t the best technical or original magician in the world, don’t get me wrong, all the tricks he did were solid! What he excelled at the hardest part of performing magic, he was likable! When you watched Cliff perform, you instantly liked him!

Cliff was always really cool to me, and you can watch a short documentary about him that has some clips of him performing at: robhanna.com

Cliff passed away in 2016, and Seattle lost it’s hardest working magician!

-Louie