September 2019 – Page 3 – MagicShow.Tips

End of a Week Off

It’s been a fun week of no gigs, however that’s coming to an end tomorrow. I’m back on the road heading to Arizona in the morning. That means I get to pack up my show and do a lot of prop repairs today…this is the glamorous part of show biz!

Yesterday I got to hang out with magicians and jam and socialize! The cool thing about socializing is that when we’re riffing with ideas, fun things pop up. After yesterday I have three “action items” that I can get to work on and start playing around with.

It’s good to have new stuff to do, and that’s what I live for. In my close up set there’s the meat of it which never really changes. Then there’s the fun experimental stuff. This is the stuff that I love to do. Lately I haven’t had any new stuff in my close up set, and honestly close up isn’t as much fun without it.

This week’s shows I’m doing a stage magic and close up magic, so I’ll get to try out some of these new ideas!

Finally An Answer…

Sometimes I get an idea that pops into my head, but is hard to try out. A while ago I had an idea for a trick that happens over video chat. The effect is that you mail someone a new deck of cards and a note for them to video chat you. You have them shuffle the deck of cards, they remove one card and you tell them what it is. This can be repeated multiple times, and they can keep the deck and examine it all they want.

The idea for this was sparked when I saw someone selling The Dream Deck by John Cornelius. I don’t think it’s a huge secret that is uses a deck that’s marked so that it can be read through a red filter.

The biggest problem with trying out this idea is that the style of marked deck is very expensive. For me it didn’t make financial sense to spend that much on an idea I’ll probably never do.

Then yesterday I was at the Magic Castle swap meet and someone had The Dream Deck for sale and I got it for cheap! I’m happy to report that you can read the marks over video chat…sort of. The whole trick hinges on the quality of the cameras and connection. You need a high resolution camera and connection that will give you a high def streaming image.

I’m glad I got an answer to my idea, and I’m pretty excited about it. I just ordered a marking kit to work on furthering this idea…

Unusual Props…

I’m still reading the fantastic book Be More Funny by Christopher Barnes. One of the things he writes about is using an odd prop on place of a normal one. His example uses sliced cheese in place of cards for a card trick. His routine is great and really well thought out. It got me thinking of a … Continue reading “Unusual Props…”

It got me thinking of a trick that could be done with something unusual. How about using a cracker in place of the coin for coin in ball of yarn? They’d sign the cracker. Then you do the old gag where you do a false transfer and reach into your pocket for magic dust to sprinkle over your hand. The dust is the smashed cracker. This is played for laughs. Then later the signed cracker reappears in the ball of yarn, or impossible location.

I like the idea of this trick because the cracker is destroyed in a gag and people will forget about it. When it reappears, hopefully it will actually be a surprise.

Another idea would be to openly smach and restore it, then eat it before the signature verification as a gag.

Old Style Magic…

I’m a huge supporter of magic clubs. They are very useful for learning magic, as well and giving a sense of community. I made a couple of comments about a few things being an “older style of magic“, unfortunately I don’t recall the specific things I referred to. We also had someone new to magic … Continue reading “Old Style Magic…”

I’m a huge supporter of magic clubs. They are very useful for learning magic, as well and giving a sense of community. I made a couple of comments about a few things being an “older style of magic“, unfortunately I don’t recall the specific things I referred to. We also had someone new to magic at the magic club and they asked what I meant by “older style of magic“.

Like anything people change the way they do things and there are trends that come and go. An example of this is card tricks. More modern card tricks have less work that is tabled, however that’s changing due to the popularity of close up acts for TV. Modern card tricks also tend to have a lot less procedure and higher payoffs than the card tricks in Tarbell.

Stylistically what people are doing is more in your face than it was 20 years ago. I’m not saying that it’s good or bad, but different. Being aware of the styles and trends will keep your magic feeling up to date and fresh.

Building a Better Mouse Trap…

One of my current projects is a utility device for magic. I had a version that worked for me, then I sent out some to other magicians and am learning that not everyone works like I work. That means that I need tweaking the design further than how I’d do it.

That led me to a challenge this week. I hit a roadblock that I didn’t think I’d be able to overcome. I kept thinking about it, and it hit me yesterday while driving, “a mouse trap”! I needed a spring, and the spring in a mousetrap was almost exactly what I needed.

I bought a mousetrap took it apart and it worked perfectly! The next challenge was figuring out how to integrate that spring into the prop. I sat down at the computer and this is what I came up with:

The picture above was used in the first version of the big redesign. In less than 18 hours I’m on design number four and it’s all little things I’m tweaking to make it more efficient and elegant! We’ll see what today has in store for redesigning…

Great Effect for a Bad Trick…

Right now I’m a couple days deep into over a week off, no shows until next Wednesday! While enjoying my time off, I came across a video of Doc Docherty‘s routine for the Gozinta Boxes. The Gozinta Boxes were created by Lubor Fielder and the effect is a red box fits inside a black box, … Continue reading “Great Effect for a Bad Trick…”

Right now I’m a couple days deep into over a week off, no shows until next Wednesday! While enjoying my time off, I came across a video of Doc Docherty‘s routine for the Gozinta Boxes. The Gozinta Boxes were created by Lubor Fielder and the effect is a red box fits inside a black box, then the black box fits inside the red box.

Here’s a video of David Ginn doing the Gozinta Box:

What I don’t like about the trick in it’s purest form, is that it’s more of a puzzle than a magic trick and really lacks a magic moment. Then I think Tenyo put out ParaBox which had the production of sponge balls, which I think took the trick from a puzzle to a magical puzzle!

Here’s Paul Daniels doing Parabox:

Comparing the Parabox to the Gozinta Box, I feel it’s a huge leap. The thing that’s lacking with the Parabox is producing sponge balls isn’t a huge production. You are making something that can be squished down appear. A sponge ball is better than no production, but something solid would be much better. Let’s get back to Doc Docherty, and his version called In Through the Outbox, which you can watch below:

The productions of the solid pieces of metal are great and takes the routine to an impossible level. I think it’s a great addition to the trick and really cool! One thing that I’d change with it is the pacing of the productions and do them one at a time. I think it’s be stronger to produce one block get the reaction, prove it’s solid and then produce the second one. Once you’ve established what the first one is, you don’t need to prove the second one is solid. However as is I think it’s a great magic trick.

If my roving consisted of more than an deck of cards, a few coins and the shell game, this is a trick that I’d do!

Character Mash Up…

Right now I’m reading the book Be More Funny by Christoper T. Magician. When it arrived, I was amazed at how thick of a book it is, most comedy magic books aren’t nearly this heavy. Currently I’m about a hundred pages into it and am liking it! One of the things he says in the … Continue reading “Character Mash Up…”

One of the things he says in the beginning is to find a character, you take two things and put them together. Essentially it’s magician plus something else, so basically a charcater mash up. Once you have that angle everything else starts to get easier.

This got me thinking a little bit about character and one thing that has grown in my performing persona is travelling. I talk a lot more about travelling, so what if my performing character was magician PLUS travel show host? I already talk about many of my adventures in my preshow, and it’s part of the hook in many of my routines, so why not dig deeper?

Travel is something I’m personally very passionate about…I love finding strange things in off the beaten path places. For example a couple weeks ago I was performing in Menlo, WA, and that town has a pioneer buried there under very interesting circumstances. That person is Willie Keil, also known as the “Pickled Pioneer“. Essentially his body was moved cross country in a coffin filled with wiskey to preserve it.

When I travel for shows, I always find things like this and am surprised at how many locals are unaware of it. In my shows try to write little jokes about them. After I told the story about Willie, the joke went:

“Do you know what they call a modern day person that crosses the country full of whiskey? A Delta Airline Pilot!”

It’s great that this book made me realize that this is something that my character on stage has grown into, and I’m going to explore it a little bit more and start seeing what turns up!

Get Them Invested…

For the last seven days I’ve been performing at a fair that’s about an hour from my house. That means I was able to drive to the fair instead of flying and that allowed me to bring some bigger props. One of the bigger things that I brought was my flea circus. The biggest challenge … Continue reading “Get Them Invested…”

The biggest challenge I have doing the flea circus as a roving act is there’s a portion of the crowd that I stop that only wants to know if there are real fleas. That’s it, and the second they learn they are real, they will walk. I personally don’t hold this against them, however I goal is to get them invested, so they don’t walk.

What I started doing last week was a much longer talk up to the first actual circus trick. In this talk up I do the Haunted Deck card trick, which is a “demonstration” of a flea training technique. There is no card picked, the flea simply moves the cards. During this talk up, the crowd builds, that anchors in people, so it’s harder for them to leave.

Another thing I’ve been doing is having the crowd say things. This gets them invested into the show, they’ve put energy into the show. Between the talk up and more participation they amount of people that walk once they realize there are no fleas is much less. I’m happy about that!