The Hot Shot Cut by Daryl is a great flourishy card reveal. In the last few years, I’ve changed how I do it from catching it myself to having people in the audience catch it.
Here’s a video where I do it that way:
I think it adds a fun element when they try to catch the card. They don’t always, and that’s also why it’s not always the best option. When doing things like a cocktail hour at a corporate banquet, I try to keep things off the floor.
-Louie
Personally, I dislike bureaucracy; however, sometimes you need to wade through the red tape. A recent instance of this is that, in Oregon, to work in retirement communities you are supposed to have completed a diversity training that is required by the state. Honestly, I’m all for inclusion and treating people nicely, but do I NEED to have sat through this online class?
Probably not, but I guess there were probably some people at some point who did. When you perform for the public, you need to treat people with respect, especially when performing for seniors. It doesn’t matter if their values aren’t what your values are, judging people isn’t why you were hired to do a magic show.
-Louie
PS: Click here to learn more about performing in retirement communities!
Recently, I was performing at an outdoor harvest festival. It was cold and windy, so I grabbed packet of hand warmer and noticed something:
In a pinch, it may solve a problem if you NEED iron filings for a trick.
-Louie
Splitting dollar bills (like splitting cards) has gained popularity in the last decade. I honestly thought it was a new thing, however I was reading Ansology and in Max Maven’s book Thabbatical from 1994 he casually mentions it!
Unfortunately he doesn’t mention HOW it was done back then, but I can’t imagine its too different from how we do it now. I’m also very curious WHO was doing it back then.
-Louie
Last week when my wife and I went to see the show The Rise of Houdini, the guy I sat next to was a magician. Before the show he turned to me and asked me if I would like to see a trick and of course I said yes!
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of homemade paddles and did a quick paddle routine with two paddles that had spots that disappeared and reappeared.
His paddle design was really cool. It wasn’t just a popsicle stick; he had built little handles for them, which made handling the prop much better, and it made them not look like just popsicle sticks, but something a little bit more special.
His other piece of EDC magic was a hot rod that he had made, but I didn’t get a picture of it. It’s always cool to see what other people are doing. When he found out I was a magician, he asked me to show him something. Unfortunately, with my hand fresh out of surgery, I wasn’t planning on doing anything, especially at someone else’s show.
I did however, do this dollar trick:
It’s always fun running into another magician.
-Louie
If you’re looking for my How To Perform For Seniors book, you can get it from Wacky Zack’s Magic Shop.
You can reach them at:
(602) 548-8667 info@wackyzacksmagic.com
I want to thank them for carrying my book!
-Louie
As I’m working my way through Max Mavens book Ansology, I think my favorite trick in it is called Out of Sorts. This is a trick where a spectator thinks of a card and they never say it out loud, then after a few shuffles, You then tell them what their card is and where it is in the pack.
I’m really liking this trick, it can be done hands off or with the dealing done yourself. I was trying to think of a way to do it so that it wasn’t a card trick and I came up with a way to do it with postcards. The postcards I’m using are national park postcards.
If you are familiar with the trick, you know you need pairs of cards. In the picture above, you’ll see that the postcards are kind of in pairs in columns. Once you know one, it’s pretty easy to know the other. The challenge with this specific set of postcards is that the writing isn’t very big. I think if this is something I was going to pursue, I’d find something with a larger print of the name of the place.
Using these postcards the method doesn’t change. If you have the book, I recommend looking into the trick out of sorts, even with playing cards it’s still great!
-Louie
On Friday, my wife and I went to see the show The Rise of Houdini in Portland, Oregon. This show was part burlesque, part magic show, and part scripted show about a séance. The magician in the show was D.R. Schrieber.
Before the show D.R. did some close up magic for the crowd.
The magic show was good. D.R. does a great job with his character, and the audience was into it. The third act, which was the play about a séance trying to contact Houdini, was interesting. There was a fake heckler, which I think surprised a lot of the audience, that he was part of the show.
There was a point where there was an intermission during the play, but D.R. was on stage as his character in this play, and he was reading a book. That book was used previously as a book of magic spells. From the audience, the book looked really familiar to me. I asked after the show, and it was, in fact, the pocket edition of Expert at the Card Table!
This is a fun show to watch
-Louie
On this episode of the Moisture Festival Podcast, we welcome Lucy Juggles! Lucy shares stories of growing up in rural Georgia, struggling to find her people, and navigating her first jobs. We explore how she developed her talents, the hours of practice behind her skills, and why a cross-country move became a game changer. We also talk about staying true to herself onstage and what’s on the horizon. A wonderful conversation with a fantastic performer!
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With my hand out of commission due to surgery, I’m trying not to let it slow me down too much. On Wednesday night, I went to the Portland Society of American Magicians magic club meeting. It was a lot of fun and I saw a lot of great and fun magic.
That night was the Close Up Magic contest, and congratulations to Mel, who was the winner. Mel did a really cool coin box routine that he said he had been doing since about 1980! What I really liked about this coin box routine was that it wasn’t your standard Okito box routine.
I also tried out a routine I’m playing with. This is the second time I’ve done it, and it’s coming along nicely. This is a routine that I’m working on that only uses one hand, which is another attempt by me to find the silver lining of not being able to use a hand for two to six weeks. I’ll write more about this routine another time.
– louie
