In a box of old magic that I bought, there were a couple of Die Boxes without the dies. Here’s one of them:
Instead of throwing them away, I tried to 3d print the die and shell. Here’s what I made:
For the inside of the shell, I used black adhesive fabric. Here’s the everything:
The end result was great and works! I’m glad I could give this prop some more life!
-Louie
In my collection of old magic stuff, I had a pack of FAKO cards. This is a deck of gaffed cards and novelty cards.
The pack I had was just the cards without the booklet, so I’m not 100% positive as to what tricks the cards do. One of the cards has a big stop sign on it, and here’s what I’ve been doing with it:
It’s just a second deal until they say stop, and then a timing force for the second time. Every time I do it, the person has a great reaction when they see the card!
-Louie
Yesterday, I posted about the Chefalo Knot and that I created a routine for it. Here’s the routine and a walkthrough of the knots you need to know:
It was fun to put this together and figure out how it all works!
-Louie
One of the tricks in The Bat magic magazine was a description of the Chefalo Knot. This is a series of three knots that are tied into a piece of rope, then dissolve when the ends are pulled. In The Bat it’s mentioned that there are no descriptions of it that are correct. Well, even the description in The Bat wasn’t correct (at least how I read it).
If you ever tried to learn it from Tarbell, the illustrations are incorrect. Here’s the pictures from Tarbell:
In the last picture (fig.51) where the red are is pointing is incorrect. What it should look like is the picture below where the green arrow is pointing:
If you layout the rope with my updated illustration, the trick will actually work.
I put about 90 minutes into figuring out this dissolving knot trick one night and that made me committed to it. I wanted to figure out something to do with it. Since it’s a vanish of three knots, the first logical step was to make them reappear. Then I wanted to add something more, so I added a ring that penetrates onto the middle knot.
I’ll post a video of it when I get a chance.
-Louie
My buddy Glen knows that I love old magic tricks. He brought one to show me in Reno, so here’s The Farmer’s Daughter:
It’s a great little packet trick with a story that’s consistent with the time it was created. Thanks Glen for sharing it with me!
-Louie
I made it to the White Rabbit Theater for a third time last week to check out close up magic by Phoenix Phenomenal in the bar. I went down with Mickey O and Bri to watch the show.
Phoenix does some great magic, and as a younger person doing 4 close up shows a night at the bar will get him a ton of real world flight time under his belt!
That’s one of the keys to performing, stage time. In comedy they say “Stage time is more precious that gold”. In magic, many people don’t see the value in stage time, and more advice you hear is “charge a lot of money” versus “get on stage and get good”.
Oh, I’m not saying Phoenix was bad, so please don’t read it that way. He’s great, he’s just younger. He doesn’t have the miles on him that someone who’s been doing it longer has. I wish I had a nightly bar gig when I was his age, I would have gotten way better sooner!
-Louie
I was at a conference in Reno last week, and the hotel/casino had a magic theater in it! The first night a few of us went to check out Phil Ackerly do some bar magic. Phil makes the boxes for my Applause Please 2.0 trick, but we’d never met in person, so it was great to see him in real life!
The next night I snuck down again to watch Phil for a little bit.
It was cool to watch how Phil handled a guy who was one of the “can I shuffle those cards” types. He did it without belittling the person or with a lame hack quip. He did it in an honest, heartfelt way. It was so effective that when the guy tried to do it again, all his friends told him to shut up so they could enjoy the show.
It was fun to meet Phil and see the show!
-Louie
A magician posted these pictures of himself performing as a Chinese person.
Here’s my response to the picture, which I replied to in a private magician’s group, and not on his public, personal FB page:
I really dislike that magicians still think this is an acceptable way to perform. Performing in “yellow face” has a long history in magic and one that needs to end.
Here’s Jack Chanin (I think, and if I’m wrong, let me know) performing in Yellowface (yellowmask?):
These “characters” are outdated stereotypes. Part of the history of yellowface was to portray the Chinese as monsters and to give them frightening physical features. The long mustaches and fingernails, the bright yellow skin color were to make Chinese people look less human.
Why would any performer who knew its history want to continue doing that?
In my opinion, it’s lazy creativity. In both pictures above, the performer is using the Chinese sticks prop; however, that trick isn’t from China! Instead of putting the energy into creating a unique routine, the performer does something that they’ve seen done before. The thinking is that if someone else has done it, then that’s the way to do it.
I’ve personally walked out of several shows when a performer did stereotype material. There is an exception to this, does the performer have a point of view with what they are doing. Is it social commentary, relating an actual experience, or something like that? In all of the exceptions to this that I have seen, the person never put on a costume.
The moral of the story is don’t do stuff like this.
-Louie
In a couple of months, the Portland Magic Jam is happening. I’m not able to go to many magic conventions due to my performing schedule, but this one I’m currently available for! I just registered for it!
They’ve got a great mix of performers/lecturers for this convention. If you’re in the Portland OR area, or looking for a reason to visit, this is a convention worth checking out!
Details at: www.portlandmagicjam.com
See ya there (unless work comes in)!
-Louie
There are a lot of misconceptions about performing for seniors at retirement communities. One questionable piece of advice is to use big band music. That kind of music is the music that the parents of the people currently in retirement homes listened to. Simple math will show that if someone is 80 now, that means when they were in their 20s, music like the Rolling Stones was popular.
Here’s the music playing in the dining room at a senior gig. Ignore the piano, that’s a resident playing it at the other end of the room.
When the retirement community doesn’t play music from the resident’s childhood, that should tell you something. The community won’t play music they don’t like.
-Louie
PS You can get my book How To Perform For Seniors at:
https://www.magicshow.tips/how-to-perform-for-seniors-book/
