Last week when I was in Columbus, OH my bubby Chris Hanowell visited the fair and caught my show!
The next day Chris and David gave me and Billy Kidd (who was also working at the fair) a tour of the P3 Magic Theater / Magic Shop.
The p3 Magic Theater is a really cool space and looks like a great venue for magic! I mean, it should be since it was designed for that!
-Louie
Well, I’m now done with my summer reading shows at libraries for the season. Here’s my case before the final packing of it.
I really liked my show this year and it was a ton of fun to do it. My show was themed around the colors of the rainbow and the show worked for libraries and summer camps. I think this is a show that I may keep around and for kids events. The rainbow themes is a great segue between tricks and a good frame for the show.
The show also got me to use iQpro for visual elements on a screen in the show. The show was mostly images on the screen, but it also had some video elements. I’m really liking this program for the video projection, however I’m struggling with it for audio. Ideally using one program to run the show would be best, however I’m thinking there may be some advantages to using two. Primarily if something happens to one, like the app freezes, I still have the other running. That means I might not have music, but I’ll still have video or vice versa. Having one is better than none!
The other routine that has come out of this that’s a keeper is my expanding card trick warm up. This is a multiphase card trick for kids. It’s probably doubled in time and effects from how I used to do it!
-Louie
The amount of magicians that give other magicians bad advice about using fire in their shows. The big thing is about getting permission or correct permitting to use fire. Many magicians repeat the old saying: “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission”.
That is totally wrong!
There are many gigs where you absolutely cannot use fire. I worked a gig at a museum where an act got fired (no pun intended) for using a flaming wallet. The gig I was at last week had this sign in all the dressing rooms:
If you showed up to this gig and fire was a part of your show, like burning a dollar bill, you wouldn’t be able to do that routine. If you did fire at this gig, which is two weeks, you wouldn’t last long!
This is why doing fire correctly by asking for permission is KEY! You’d come into this gig knowing you couldn’t use it OR getting the correct permits, etc to be able to do it.
-Louie
All of my shows at the Ohio State Fair had a sign language interpreter. It’s a really cool thing to have and there were a lot of deaf people in my audience because of this. It was great to have my show, which is very verbal to reach people who probably wouldn’t normally watch it.
There were 4 or 5 interpreters who cycled through the 24 shows that I did over 12 days and they got to know my show pretty well. At one point my show got off track and I was trying to bring the routine back so we could wrap up and I totally forgot where I was in the show. I asked the interpreter and she told me what the next part of the routine was!
Everyone from the Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities did a great job, and I even learned to tell a joke in sign language, and I have the sign language interpreter verbally tell it on the mic while I signed it. Not only that, but I learned a lot about sign language!
I really wish more events would offer this, and it does open the show up to more people!
-Louie
It’s always great to see what other magicians think of my show. A magician (who I had never met before) was at one of my shows last week. He texted about my show to another performer who I did know and that performer shared a screen of of the text.
It’s always great when magicians like my show. While they’re not my target audience, they are a group that I try to have something in the show for. My show is fairly non-standard, or at least if something is sorta standard, it has a twist on it. I don’t do this specifically for magician audiences, it’s for me. I honestly couldn’t do an “off the shelf” magic show. It’s the difference between a cover band and a band that does originals. A cover band will have much easier early success, but there’s a limit to the level of success they will have. However a band that does originals will have a harder time at first, but the potential level of success is much higher.
Doing standards IS a part of the learning process. You do need to know standard techniques. I did linking rings for a long time, and if you handed me a set I bet I could still flawlessly do my old routine.
-Louie
When I went to a Gerry McCambridge workshop a few years ago, he talked about how it was important for a mentalist to show the process of how they’re reading a mind. A common process shown by mentalists is reading someone’s body language. In the mentalism I do that’s not presented as a coincidence, I try to show a process that’s believable.
I’ve been playing with unbelievable processes. One idea I had was for someone who it thinking of a work, they whisper it into their fist, then the need to get that idea into my head…so they slap me in the face!
That was just an idea, but it lead to a couple other ideas that were more workable. The idea I think I’m going to go with is to have someone think of a word. Then I hand them a paper roll and they are going to swing it like a baseball bat at my belly in a way that feels like their word.
I think there’s a ton of comedy potential that can happen around how the hit me. They can’t hurt me with the paper roll as it just collapses if they swing it hard.
Then after I verbally reveal the word, I can unroll the paper tube and it says the word they are thinking of!
I think this routine has potential.
-Louie
A while ago I worked with a mentalist and they did a “psychometry” sort of routine where they matched things with the object’s owner. To do that the objects were put in bags then mixed up before the mentalist returned them to the proper owner. This mentalist (and many others that I’ve seen) put glasses on to do the part where they needed to read the marks and removed them after they read the marks.
DON’T DO THAT!
Sure probably 90% of audiences won’t notice that or make the connection, however many do. It’s like casually looking at an Apple Watch to get information, people notice. A friend of mine who isn’t a magician, but books big events had a mentalist and I asked how they were. My friends response was, “they looked at their watch a lot” and that told me all I needed to know.
Audiences do notice these things. Can you come up with a different way of making the prop?
Sew beads into it’s marked by feel?
Or use something that’s easier to see?
Can you wear glasses your whole show?
Think outside of the prop you bought that will work better with your eyesight!
-Louie
I was up in Seattle on Monday last week, so went and performed at Magic Monday! This show happens on the second Monday of the month and has been running for something like 25 years!
Before the show I met up with Chris Beason for a quick drink at Teddy’s. This bar was one of the places where Cliff Gustafson used to perform when I was a teenager (and not old enough to get in to see him)
The performers were Jim, Evan, Payne and me.
Sorry Jim, somehow I didn’t get a picture of you.
It’s not just the show, a lot of magic happens, like Ruben doing some close up magic for the audience after the show.
I look at this show like a magic open mic. It’s a place to try new stuff for a great audience! It’s also like a magic club meeting as we all get together in the pub downstairs and hang out after the show.
If you’re ever in Seattle on the second monday of the month you should come out to the show!
-Louie
A while ago I got a text from a friend who found a vanishing birdcage that was for sale. It was in really rough shape, it was missing a bar, had another bar that was loose and two of the corner bars needed to be fixed.
I bought the cage with an experiment with my bird cage guy to see if he could repair it. It came back and it looks like a totally different cage!
Not only were the bars replaced/fixed he also cleaned the cage. The cage was pretty loose when I got it and he tightened it up a little bit so it’s less like handling a jellyfish!
I’m glad I tried this and it’s good to know that there can be a second life to some of these old broken cages!
-Louie
Frequently, I see people ask in social media groups “what are the best spoons/forks for metal bending?” The answers are all over the place, from ones specifically being sold at magic shops to Walmart. For me, you can’t the the Costco spoons and forks!
The cheap ones less than 31 cents per fork and less than 27 cents per spoon. They’re soft and ready to go out of the package. The normal Costco doesn’t normally stock these but the Business Costco does! A normal Costco membership will get you into the business Costco and walking around you might find other things you need for your show that the normal Costco doesn’t have.
I don’t know if Costco sells them online, but you should be able to search based on the info in the pictures above.
Happy spoon/fork bending!
-Louie
