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
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
I was going through a box of old magic and found a membership application for The Brotherhood of Magicians. This was also signed by the founder/president George Closson!
This predates the International Brotherhood of Magicians by many years. It’s a cool historical piece, I just wish it was in better condition.
-Louie
I was performing at an event and they had an exhibit about robots. Part of the exhibit was a timeline of robots on film. The list 1927’s Metropolis as the first robot to appear on film.
I always thought the fun magic fact was that it was Houdini put the first robot in a movie in his The Master Mystery which came out in 1919.
There could be some technicality about this as to why Houdini wasn’t listed. His robot was called an “automaton” and had a brain inside, so more of a cyborg than pure robot and at the end is revealed to not be a robot.
You can see the robot at the end of this clip:
You can find the whole movie in parts on YouTube.
-Louie
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
My town had their Fourth of July festival last night. The event started at 6pm and ended with fireworks that started at 10pm. People set up their chairs at 6pm to get their space to watch the fireworks four hours later.
The fireworks ran about 28 minutes. The fireworks kinda went in four-ish minute cycles. At the end of each cycle was an finale for that cycle and they were all fairly repetitive. The only real variation was the grand finale, but all the previous cycles felt like watching the same thing on a loop.
OK, so what I noticed is once the second cycle happened people started packing up and leaving. These are people who had brought their own chairs and waited four hours to make sure they had a good viewing spot. My guess is that people felt like they had seen something and were ready to leave. This is similar to street performing. Once the audience feels like they’ve seen something, people will leave. In street performing one technique to keep a crowd is having unfinished business. Like a dollar is borrowed early on and that dollar trick isn’t finished till the end of the show. Less people will walk at the end of tricks during the show because the dollar trick hasn’t been finished.
Personally when I’m doing street (found space) shows, I take it personally when people walk. However watching people walk away a few minutes into a $60,000+ firework show that they waited all day to see gives me some perspective on why people walk during my show.
-Louie
Not all media spots are rockstar spots. Here’s one that I did, and it was fine:
I should have cut out the multiple force and maybe just started with the card selected. I was very rushed for the trick, and while I think it played OK, it would have been better if I did it slower.
One thing I did do before we started was that I told the reporter that I was going to ask them to draw something on a card. I wanted them to think of something simple to draw so we didn’t waste time for them thinking of a card.
If you’ve never done a live, on location TV spot, they can be very challenging. You get a general idea of how much time you have, but that can quickly change and change during the media spot while you’re performing and you have no idea. Before live media spots, I always try to come up with a signal for the reporter to give me when I need to wrap it up. There’s usually a producer talking in their ear telling them how much time we have or don’t have left.
These live spots are fun, but also very challenging!
-Louie
One thing that the internet has ruined is the regional styles of performing. When I was a kid, in the USA you would see different styles of performing on the east and west coasts or even different trends/styles within the same state.
Someone shared a video of a magician from India and the style is very different from what’s performed in the USA. For example there was a piece that I’m assuming was a patriotic piece that ended with an enemy impaled on a giant drill while flags were waived by the military.
You can watch full video here:
There are a couple of acts that potentially used without permission of the creators, so there’s that. It is great to see things that look different from what in the USA can be cookie cutter magic shows and magicians. For all I know, this is what a normal theater show looks like in India and it’s a cookie cutter show there.
-Louie
On this episode we welcome aerialist Jessica Perry. Jessica tells us about her early life where she grew up on a sailboat sailing around the world. We learn what prompted her parents to do that and all how her parents used Ariel to keep her busy on long sea days.
We discuss how her mom introduced her to flying trapeze and how eventually she was able to convince her parents to let her go to a circus school. A lovely conversation with one of the best aerialists working today.
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Oh man, I remember when you had to have an OK act to get work. Here’s a post from a comedian group:
Apparently all you need to get a gig is a speaker and a car! Notice the listing also has not mention of pay for the spot on the show OR the use of the PA. It does mention that they are looking for a host, so typically that’s 15 minutes. That means the comic who does the gig gets minimal stage time AND has to be the sound tech!
Gigs like these unless they are paying a market rate are a horrible idea. I get showing up for stage time. If you’re starting out, stage time is worth more than the paycheck, but if you’re providing sound, you should be getting paid for that. You’re not going to bet a better sound tech by loading in gear for a comedy show. That’s very bare bones audio set up and if you own sound equipment, you can already do that.
Say no to gigs like this.
-Louie
