I’ve always said the easiest way to create new things is to use a holiday. Yesterday was the winter solstice and I made a little trick, that’s based on the myth of balancing an egg on end.
I posted it to TikTok and you can follow me there at https://www.tiktok.com/@louiefoxx
@louiefoxx Winter Solstice Coin Balance #solstice #wintersolstice #balance#juggling #magictrick ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
-Louie
One of the things that I really like is using confetti in my show. I think it’s something that makes a lot of tricks “pop”. It’s an interesting challenge to frequently use in a show. It’s not easy to steal as a pack, unless you’re using a snowstorm packet, which is a lot more than I want to use for most tricks.
The closest solution I’d found was Viktor Voitko’s SnowShot:
It’s got some limitations, and I don’t like that the gimmick ends up on the floor after the trick. While it sorta blends in with the confetti, if it’s in the performing area, you will need to pick it up, or kick it out of the way.
Yesterday I hit another solution. A while ago I picked up one of Jay Scott Berry’s FS2 gimmicks from a junk magic bin. I just happened to see it the other day and realized that it would be a perfect confetti holder!
Here’s the trial run:
I don’t know if Jay Scott Berry has used confetti in it or not, but it’s looking like the solution I need for the confetti production I was trying to add to the end of my ball routine!
This discovery for me is a classic case of having routines never being finished AND having your vision of what the trick will look like and constantly trying to achieve that. Sometimes you won’t get there, other times you figure it out quickly and usually for me it’s a years long journey to hit the solution. The key is sticking with it!
-Louie
Years ago Charlie Frye put out a little gimmick that let you spin a poker chip on your finger tip called Frye’s Chips. Here’s the video of it:
It’s a clever little gimmick that does exactly what’s in the video. I always thought it’d be cool to do it with a coin and not a poker chip. However I think the reason he did it with a poker chip is that it’s easier to gimmick a poker chip than a coin.
The idea has been in my head and a couple months ago I was at Hocus-Pocus digging around in some junk magic bins and found the card and coin for the trick Esoteric Kennedy.
Here’s the demo of Esoteric Kennedy:
The coin from that trick should work for the Frye’s Chips trick. Now I need to make the other half of the gimmick to see if it will actually spin on my finger!
In playing with the Esoteric Kennedy props, I thought that the trick really should be done with a dollar bill, as the coin and card really aren’t connected. I moved the gimmick from the card to a dollar bill:
It looks OK on a video, but I’m going to be 100% honest, the trick isn’t good for actual performance…whether it’s the original version with the card, or my version with the bill. The problem with the trick is that everything is gimmicked and nothing can be examined. You could switch out all of the props, do a Bobo Switch for the coin and top change for the card, but is all that work worth the trick?
I don’t think so…
That said, it’s probably fine for social media.
-Louie
Click here to learn more about building your own magic props!
Sometimes I have ideas and they are works in progress that make slow steps. The Stand Up Cup and Ball routine that I’m working on is still making baby steps towards what will hopefully be a cool routine.
Here’s an early version of the Stand Up Cup and Ball Routine:
What I don’t like about is that I go to the pocket, so that needed to be eliminated. There are also some rules for this routine. It needs to be done solo onstage, done without a table, and my hands don’t openly go into my pockets. I can do steals, use sleeving or things like a topit or holdout.
Here’s the current routine idea I’m playing with:
I’ve eliminated the ball going to the pocket, but I also had to eliminate a phase that I really liked. Where I toss the ball out of the cup, the ball is put in the pocket and it’s immediately reproduced by tossing it out of the cup. If I could come up with a way to vanish the ball without going to the pocket, I could add that phase back in. I haven’t given up on that phase, but it’s not looking good to keep it in.
This trick is a good example of a trick that will probably never be finished. The first version was alright and passible, but not what my vision for the trick is. There’s always things to discover and improve.
-Louie
At the end of November I posted an idea for a trick that was a card split where an 8 turns into two 4’s. Then the next day I posted a routine for the card split. I was able to try out the routine at a magic jam and it played well.
The routine is fairly straight forward, you end up with a problem, then magically solve the problem.
-Louie
In playing with the stand up, cup and ball routine, I came up with this move:
I like it, but it’s a little be angle sensitive. I like the ball going up into the mouth up cup more than I when the ball drops into a mouth up cup and comes out the bottom.
I don’t know if it’ll make it into the final routine, but it’s adding to my move vocabulary for this routine!
-Louie
For years I’ve had an idea of doing a chop cup style routine that doesn’t use a table. The big drawback of a chop cup onstage is the table, it cuts blocks the view of anyone who is sitting below the table top.
Probably 20 years ago I saw Charlie Chaplin’s daughter’s husband do the chop cup in their theater show. I saw it twice, once from the balcony and it was great, and the second time from the floor and couldn’t see much.
Seeing that show really changed how I perform, I don’t have any action that happens on the table top in my parlor or stage shows. If they can’t see it, they can’t enjoy it.
Now, back to the chop cup, I’ve always said creating with rule makes creating much easier. Here are the main conditions:
1: Plays big enough for parlor/stage no table
2: No one from the audience onstage IF their only purpose is to use their hands as a table/surface
3: Quick set up, ideally just grab the cup and go
–I think this is the condition I may have to bend on as when there’s a final load, it’s usually not self contained.
The idea is that this will be something that could be used as an MC spot or a solo piece in a bigger show to break up things where you use people from the audience.
Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:
Here’s what I don’t like about what I have:
1: The steal of the second ball from the sleeve.
-I need to make a ball dropper/hold and steal it from the edge of my coat
2: Don’t like that my hand goes to the pocket.
-It makes the final load production more impossible if you never put your hand in your pocket.
3: It really needs a second kicker after the pool ball appears.
-Not sure how to make this happen…if you have any ideas let me know!
This is definitely something that I’m going to keep working on, I really like the idea. I don’t know if it’ll ever meet all of my conditions and desires for it, but you never know until you try!
-Louie
When magicians get together and have a magic jam playing with tricks they are working on, it’s a ton of fun!
I learn a lot at these magic jams, and get to hang out with some great friends! I don’t think I’ll ever understand magicians that say they don’t hang out with other magicians.
Do you self a favor and make friends within the magic community!
-Louie
Recently I picked up the Card To Wallet from TCC’s Magic Wallet Universe. For my close up magic shows, I use the Real Man’s Wallet and love it. I’m not trying to replace it, but looking for something that’s more of an everyday wallet for me to have in my pocket when I’m not performing.
Here’s the video for the wallet:
Ok, so I watched the video before I bought and am aware that it’s a no palm method. Personally I prefer a palming for card to wallet as I think the physical separation of the deck and wallet makes the trick stronger. Also with something like the Real Man’s Wallet the card is in a sealed spot of the wallet, there’s no way you could slip it in there. The TCC wallet lacks both of those points, the strength for me is that it’s a minimalist wallet and something that I would have on me at all times (outside of a paid show where I would have the Real Man’s Wallet).
Just a note, the card can be loaded into the wallet from a palm, but it’s kinda clunky, but possible.
Overall for $20, it’s a decent Card to Wallet, and it’s nice that I’ll have that option on my all the time.
I’m in a text chat group with some magicians and one shared a “card split” idea. What I’m calling a card split is where you take a card and it becomes two cards…but the two cards value equals the value of the original card. For example a two would become two aces. This idea was popularized (created?) by Paul Harris’s Las Vegas Split in his book Super Magic.
Magicians really love this premise, however I think for a general audience it lack connection (in most cases). Yes, there are times when a presentation can have it make sense, like in a Sam, The Bellhop style card routine. However in the majority of cases if you took a joker and turned it into two signed cards, that would hit much harder!
That said, here’s what I came up with after seeing by buddy’s trick:
I feel like this method has to have been done before, if you’ve seen it before, let me know!
-Louie
