This just popped up in a magic sales group, it’s THE ORIGINAL JERRY BENSON DANCING STICK that was put out by Peter Pit.
The Original Jerry Benson lived in Seattle and I met him when I was a teenager. He was a barber that did magic! His legacy in magic is largely forgotten, but he’s the guy that turned the floating cane into the dancing cane!
He was a cool guy!
-Louie
Years ago I came up with a way to do the silk thru ring trick with a coat hanger where the silk goes from the triangle to the hook of the hanger. My method uses a reel and is a very visual moment. I’m trying to recreate that but using using a rope instead of the silk and reel.
Here’s what I came up with.
@louiefoxx Magic with shapes! #magictrick #magic #shapes #coathanger #trick ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
Using a rope in place of the silk solves a problem but it also makes the trick less visual. I think that trick is fine when you take the trade off, it makes the trick much more practical in an outdoor environment like a fair. I’m not sure that this is a method that I’ll use, but hopefully it’s a step that will get me closer to something better!
-Louie
A few weeks ago before I went out of town I bought a Vanishing Birdcage and it arrived right after I left town. Now that I’m home, I got to open it up and check it out.
As I thought, it’s a Warren Simms vanishing birdcage!
It’s got the “S” stamped on it and the “H” means that it was made for Max Holden’s magic shop. I’ve now got two Simms vanishing bird cages in my collection.
This is my other one that was made for Tannens”
I’m glad to have both of these in my vanishing bird cage collection!!
-Louie
Lately I’m trying to be better about how I use people who come onstage during my show. I want to give them more personality in the show. One way I’m doing that is by asking them questions. Nothing crazy, the two main ones are “where are you from?” and/or “What do you do?“. From those two questions and the situations of the tricks, it’s leading to a lot more comedy possibilities.
These questions also help make the person from the a person, not just a prop. I feel like I was falling into a hole of people on stage being predictable and my show’s interactions with the audience were becoming less natural and more robotic. Asking questions is making me be more present in the show, but also creates a more unique show that the audience is watching.
I had a comedian I was working with recently mention that they were surprised at how much crowd work there was in my magic show!
-Louie
Last month when I was travelling to a ship to perform for a week, I noticed on their app I could see the schedule. It turned out there was another magician performing the same week that I was, and that magician was David Williamson!
It’s kinds stressful heading out to a gig where you’re working with one of your favorite magician and one that’s in almost every magician’s top ten magicians. The silver lining to that stress is that I get to hang out with him!
I’ve seen his show before on a cruise ship back in the mid 2010’s when I was on vacation with my family. He does a solid show with classic Williamson energy, I love his stage persona, it’s great!
If you get a chance to see his show, do it…and if you get a chance to work with him, do it!
-Louie
A performer that I was working with was showing me the iQ pro app that he uses to run the production for his show. It does it all, music, video and it doesn’t need to use any internet to function. All of that lives on your phone, so a laptop isn’t needed. I played with his and then immediately downloaded it!
I’m still learning to use it, but it’s simple to use (so far) and will do what I need it to do. It runs off of a Flic Button, and that’s the only thing that worries me. My friend assures me that he’s never had a problem with the Bluetooth and he works a lot!
It’s now cheap at $14.99 a month or a lifetime subscription for $595. I’m on monthly for now, and if it ends up working how I hope it will, I’ll probably buy the lifetime subscription.
-Louie
Yesterday I posted about using the miracle pad by Mike Giles. In a funny little coincidence I was having breakfast with David Williamson and he brought up Michael Giles! I’m assuming Mike Giles and Michael Giles are the same person. That led me to looking him up, and it looks like he was primarily an illusionist.
Here’s a few video clips of him doing illusions:
It also looks like he had at least one close up magic release:
I always love it when something takes me down a rabbit hole of learning about a magician that I didn’t know anything about!
Sadly Michael Giles died a while ago.
-Louie
In Seattle we have a variety arts festival called The Moisture Festival that happens every year. I’ve performed at this for about a decade and it’s a ton of fun. What makes it fun is that you get a ton of amazing acts together in one show! Each act does 5-8 minutes each, making it a very fast paced show. I performed in three of the shows on the first week.
One of the great things about these shows is just hanging out with everyone! Everyone’s journey to get on stage is different and we all have crazy road stories! This is one of the gigs that I think are good for my soul. I leave them inspired to be better and with new friends!
-Louie
I’m getting old! I used to be able to perform all day, I think one time when I was younger I did 6 birthday parties in one day! Unfortunately age is creeping up on me. The other day I did three shows, I did two shows at different libraries that were forty five minutes each, then did a 90 minute theater show!
Here’s what the 45 minute library show and the 90 minute theater show look like when packed up:
And here’s what the three venues look like when set up:
I don’t know what I was thinking when I scheduled them! I also should have scheduled them with some time between them, not with just travel time between them. I could have used a nap between the libraries and the theater.
I need to be better about not pushing myself, and scheduling some gaps in my day if I’m going to do 180 minutes of performing!
-Louie
Last week when I was hosting a show at the Moisture Festival in Seattle it was the first time I’ve ever worn my reading glasses onstage! While notes in the picture in this post are a reasonable font size, some of the other notes I were given were written in a super tiny font that I wouldn’t be able to accurately read.
It was strange to wear them as they made everything else blurry that was what I would normally look at. I ended up turning it into a bit with my normal stage glasses which have no lenses and my reading glasses.
I can see good enough to do my show with my stage glasses. The reason they don’t have lenses is that I don’t want reflection on the lenses to block my eyes.
-Louie
