The thumb tip began being used by magicians in the late 1800’s and it’s actual creator isn’t exactly know, there are two people that clam it’s use. Recently I was at a museum and they had some Egyptian finger and toe caps:
These are essentially thumb tips, but used for decoration, and not for magic. There’s a lot of stuff that exists in the real world, that magicians notice and start to use for magical purposes. I wonder if these could have been the inspiration for the thumb tip?
We’ll never know for sure, but they sure do look usable!
Coming up at the end of the month is WonderBash in Michigan. I was going to go, but a weeklong gig came in that’s keeping me from going. However I did contribute an essay to the WonderBash book:
If you’re free you should check out this convention, Trino the organizer has some great ideas for it!
Last week while performing at the Moisture Festival, I hosted one show. One of your jobs as MC is to read their announcements, which is a pretty long list that has to happen up front before you introduce the first act. The announcements are things like fire exit instructions.
During my MC spot, I took those on right away and did those the first thing out. It really fell flat, and I had to dig out of a hole.
After the show Jamy Ian Swiss pulled me aside and reminded me of something I already knew, but didn’t do. He said, “Never start the show with announcements“. He’s right, and I’m glad he mentioned it to me. It’s something I know, put didn’t put into practice. I’m 1000% glad he mentioned that to me, otherwise this could have been the beginning of starting a bad habit while MCing.
In Seattle we just wrapped up the third week of the Moisture Festival. This is a four week variety arts festival and has tons of amazing acts!
One of the great things about performing in festivals like this is that you get to work with some of the top acts in the world! Plus the audiences at the festival are also some of the best audiences in the world!
On this blog on the 1st and 15th of the month I publish The Moisture Festival Podcast where Matt Baker and I interview all of the performers and people the make the festival happen. There are tons of great insights in the interviews on the podcast.
I started this weekend at the festival and will be performing in it next weekend as well. If you’re ever in Seattle during the festival, this is something you need to check out! -Louie
One of the trends in the county/state fair market is the fair putting the performers up in a house like an Air BnB instead of a hotel. Usually this is a great thing, I haven’t been housed with anyone I don’t get along with…yet.
The camaraderie that’s built hanging out at night BS’ing over a few beers around the table is one of my favorite things. In the carnival world that call it “cutting up jackpots“
This is also where a lot of networking and creative brainstorming happens. I know some performers like a space to themselves, but they are missing out one of my favorite parts of working on the road!
Yesterday I had a full day of driving around town performing at senior living facilities doing my show. They love booking in magic shows for April Fools Day, and you can do shows pretty much from 10 am to about 7 pm if you want to. The main limit is your set up, take down and travel time.
Doing a lot of shows in a short amount of time is a great chance to work on things. I’m working on my Briefcase Magic Show, so not a single piece, but how to get the stuff to gel together as a show.
Everything pictured above (included the applause sign) fits into the case and sets up and packs away in less than 10 mins.
I was able to get 45 minutes out of those props at every show today! I’m working on adding a joke between each trick, that’s adding a time to the show without adding props. The goal is to have 2 minutes of jokes between each trick, that ends up being 12 minutes of the show.
Today’s guest is the fantastic burlesque artist Lily Verlaine. We discuss her career arc which started as a child performing in a cabbage patch commercial and now has her touring around the world performing for delighted audiences.
We Learn about what goes into developing a burlesque act, all the people that can be involved, and a great conversation with one of the world’s best burlesque dancers
Right now I’m reading the book Stolen Focus, it’s about how the bombardment of information we get overwhelms us and the distraction that social media is. I’m not too far into yet, but it’s definitely interesting and is motivating me to make some changes in my life.
When I started doing my morning writing first thing in the morning, I was travelling and would do it in the kitchen of the long term Air BnB that I was staying at. As my travels became more hotel based or I was home more often, I did it at my desk with my computer nearby. Just having the laptop next to me, meant I tended to look up things more often, which isn’t a bad thing, until you realize that sometimes end up on searching for things or visiting websites that aren’t necessary to the task at hand.
I did some searching and found a chrome browser extension called Pause. What it does is you have a list of websites that it pauses before you can access them. You can edit the list of websites and the length of the pause. When you go to the website you get a green page that won’t let you access the website you’re trying to get to for 5 seconds (or whatever you set it at). I find this really helpful to keep me on task. Once I see the screen, I realize I’m mindless clicking or trying to mindlessly scroll around.
Adding the Pause browser extension and going back to doing my morning writing at the kitchen table really have gotten my creative productivity back on track!
For about 4 years I’ve used a Pelican 1615 Air as the main case for my show. I like 97% of the things about this case. The 3% I don’t like is that I think it could be a little bit bigger and still not be oversize for checked luggage.
My case has travelled all across North America, from Panama to Alaska and from Seattle to Florida. I noticed last week that the wheels were getting sluggish. I think the bearings were going bad. I got a set of replacement wheels and in 5 mins I was up and running again!
Moving your gear around is one of the things that will wear you out, and having good wheels that reduce effort is important! Keep up on the maintenance of your gear, your back will thank you! -Louie
