A while ago I bought a couple of vanishing birdcages and one of them turned out to be a vintage Owen vanishing birdcage. Unfortunately this cage had a bad corner joint.
I sent it up to my birdcage guy in Canada and he fixed the corner and gave it a quick polish and it looks fantastic and works great!
I’m glad I took a gamble on this cage, it’s a great addition to my collection and a good example of an older Owen vanishing birdcage!
-Louie
Happy Halloween, and be safe out there to everyone performing tonight! I won’t be doing any shows tonight and that’s by choice. Years ago I decided I didn’t enjoy Halloween shows, so I don’t really do them. Sure, there are reasons that I would still do them, like an insane paycheck, but for the most part I say no.
I decided I don’t like them because people act strange when they’re in costume. Whether it’s kids or adults. And people aren’t necessarily comfortable when they’re in costume watching a show. The amount of people that will watch a show wearing a giant mask with limited vision is very high. However they won’t take the mask off.
Speaking of masks, that’s a challenge, as an audience you want to see people’s faces. As a performer you want the audience to see the face of anyone onstage and how they react. The amount of times in the past, where I would ask a kid to come onstage specifically because they weren’t wearing a mask, only to have them stand up, put a mask on and walk onstage it staggering! Or people who act the character of how they’re dressed. I don’t want to do a trick for Darth Vader, I want to do it for a human.
I think that having an audience in costume makes my show not be as could as it could be because of elements out of my control. My solution is to turn them down.
I wasn’t having fun, and there’s plenty of other things to do.
-Louie
A couple of days ago I posted about a new vanishing birdcage. It was sold to me as a Sherms Vanishing Bird Cage. It turns out it’s a Warren Simms Vanishing Bird Cage!
Thanks to the super knowledgeable Doug Edwards!
He also informed me that the “T” stamped on mine meant it was sold through Tannen’s Magic in New York.
It’s always great to learn new things!!!
-Louie
Another Vanishing Bird Cage has been added to my collection. This is (probably) a Sherms Vanishing Bird Cage. This is the original design that Milson Worth used for their Silver Meteor Vanishing Bird Cage, but the Milson Worth Cage was smaller.
This has an “S&” stamped on one side near the clip and a “T” on the other side.
The reason I’m not positive that this is a Sherms is that there’s one on eBay listed as a Warren Simms Vanishing Bird Cage and it has the same “S&” stamp on it, and it has brass bars.
No matter who made it, it’s a cool cage!
If you have positive info on the maker, let me know!
-Louie
Ove the weekend my wife and I went out to check out Justin Willman’s Illusionati show in Portland. I’ll start with saying that I think his live show is great! He probably has one of the best opening tricks that I’ve seen. It wins over the audience and sets up his personality perfectly!
The other thing that Justin does really well is his use of the “close up camera”. All of the stuff that he does with it are enhanced by the camera, and not reliant on the camera. It’s all sorta interactive, it’s not just a close up on his hands while he does tricks. It’s all part of larger things. If you’re thinking of using a camera in your show, you really should go see Justin’s show.
The other thing that he does really well is letting spontaneous things happen. He’s the star of the show, but he doesn’t mind sharing that spotlight. That’s a huge contrast from a lot of “comedy magicians” where the second someone from the audience does something funny or interesting, they shut them down. It’s these spontaneous things that make a live show fun!
If Justin Willman in your town, be sure to check him out!
-Louie
Over on TikTok I post a lot of videos of vintage magic trick and a recent one was of my Milson Worth Silk Cabby. There are two ways I do these videos. The first is EXACTLY how the instructions say, then if I don’t have the original instructions, I try to add a little bit to the the basic function of the trick.
Here’s what I came up with for the Silk Cabby:
@louiefoxx A look back at the 1980’s #magic #1980s #magictrick #scarf #silk #milsonworth #vintage #magician #how #what #theend #louiefoxx #illusion #magiciansoftiktok ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
So the trick has a little bit of a routine, besides the standing production. It’s got three vanishes and then the kicker ending. I was trying to maximize how much I could get out of the Silk Cabby beyond just a production of a lot of silks.
I think it came out well.
Also if you’re on TikTok, follow me at: https://www.tiktok.com/@louiefoxx
-Louie
Sometimes when you’re out there performing you get to do “media”. That’s talking or performing for the newspaper or for the TV news.
Here’s a newspaper article from over there summer, I did edit out the name of where I was performing.
Sometimes you just know early on that you want to spend your life doing card tricks.
“I saw a show when I was 5, and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world,” magician Louie Foxx said. “I decided that was going to be my job.”
Foxx was at the (fair name) Fair last week doing three shows a day. He’s been to our fair a few times in the past…
Foxx’s website describes him as the consummate kid who never grew up, and that’s the sort of energy he brings to his show. He does his illusions casually, almost off handedly; no cape, top hat and wand for him. Besides the card tricks – using oversized decks that require a lot of dexterity to handle – several of his illusions involved long pieces of colored paper or strings. One trick had him pouring out what appears to be water from a paper cup, until you realize that it’s a single strip of paper, and the cup disappears with it. He designated one audience member at a Thursday afternoon show as his personal wastebasket, and every time a trick resulted in a large amount of paper left over, he would bestow it on that spectator, who took it with good humor.For all his silliness, Foxx is apparently well respected in the prestidigitation business. He holds two Guinness World Records, and the Society of American Magicians voted him the Best Stage Magician and Best Close-up Magician in Minnesota in 1996, according to his website. He’s also appeared on the TV show “America’s Got Talent,” he told his audience Thursday.
“I was on season six of that show,” Foxx said. “On my last appearance on the show, the judges were Piers Morgan, Sharon Osbourne and Howie Mandel. Piers Morgan said I was an utter waste of time, Sharon Osbourne said I was fantastic, and Howie Mandel said I’d be perfect for (city name). People ask, ‘How far did you make it in the show?’ I’m like, ‘Almost to (city name)!’ So close to my dreams.”
Foxx grew up near Vancouver in the little town of La Center, he said. He does the fair circuit from the end of April through October, and in the off-season works cruise ships, comedy clubs and corporate events.
Foxx’s interest in show business is apparently genetic. His daughter, who’s 20, graduated college in June and promptly ran away with the circus, he said.
“She’s (doing) three shows a day,” he said. “She gets put in a straitjacket, wrapped up in 50 feet of chain, and – in theory – gets out.”
This article is a good example of no matter how clear you are, they will get things wrong. I’m very clear in the show about where I live and grew up, and I didn’t grow up in the town of La Center, it’s where I currently live. I even have a joke about where I’ve lived that lays out the chronology of where I’ve lived.
All in all, it’s not a bad newspaper article, it just got several things wrong.
-Louie
I’m excited that I should have another batch of Applause Please 2: The Encore ready in early November! This is my Object in Lightbulb routine. You get the props for two routines; Liquid in Lightbulb and Silk in Lightbulb, plus a couple of ideas for other routines with it.
The applause boxes are being made by Ackerly Builds (Phil Ackerly) and look great so far! I can’t wait for them to be completely finishes, so that I can add the electronics and a few other parts and start shipping them out!
There are only a dozen available in this batch and you can get them at:
https://www.magicshow.tips/applause-please-2-the-encore/
-Louie
I was chatting with my friend who makes vanishing bird cages and he was showing me picture of his Big 10 vanishing cage. The picture below is a normal full size (Owen) cage on the left and the Big 10 on the right.
What’s crazy is that the Big 10 cage is actually smaller when collapsed!
I use one of his smaller cages in my school assembly show Incredible Idioms® and I love it!! He makes great cages, and if you’re in the market for a vanishing birdcage, shoot me a note and I can get you in touch with him!
-Louie
A little while ago I was helping a friend with her promo video and all of the videos she sent me were wide shots. They had the whole stage, including unusable parts where speakers were. That wide shot makes cropping in the video to get clear footage of what you’re doing or more importantly your face almost impossible, even when recorded in 4k!
Here’s an example of the framing of the video:
The video could have been zoomed into the blue line and that would have gotten all of her props adn set pieces. However it really could have been framed to the red line and that would have gotten 95% of the action in her show and if I needed to crop it, it would still be nice and crisp!
When you’re recording your show on a tripod in the back, record it at 4K as that allows some cropping and you can still end up with a high definition video. Also starting with a tighter shot helps a lot with the cropping!
-Louie
