Side Steal…

At night when I’m hanging out with the family watching TV, usually I’m dinking around with a deck of cards. Frequently I’m working on a fancy cut, I try to be able to do a little bit of the cardistry so the kids at magic conventions think I’m less of a dinosaur. Sometimes I work on new card sleights, or just try to keep the rust off of old ones.

The last week or so I’ve been playing with the side steal. It’s a move I’ve done for a long time and can do it, but I don’t do it exceptionally. When I do it in a live performance, it’s an attitude thing, versus a technique thing. Usually when I do it, I use Scotty York‘s method for the side jog, which automatically side jogs the card.

Sometimes I do the proper side steal technique where you push the card into a squared deck, steal the card and either palm it, or move it to the top. I’ve been working on my technique to get it into full palm using proper technique the last week. It’s starting to look a lot better, I still have a studder between the side jog and full palm. I’m working to smooth that out. It’ll take time…

Magical Mixology…

In a few days I’ll be performing at the Pacific Coast Association of Magicians annual convention which will take place online. When they contacted me,I wanted to do something a little bit different. I pitched them having me teach how to make a cocktail. Basically it’s a magical mixology class.

When I sat down to write up the ingredient list and recipe for the cocktail, I decided I wanted to create that like an old magic magazine ad for a magic trick.

I think it turned out well. I worked way too hard on making this, however I think it adds some fun to the whole thing. My starting point was visiting Ask Alexander going through old magic magazines and looking at the ads. I kinda had an idea in my head as to what I was looking for, it was just a matter of finding an ad to use as a template.


Here’s the ad that was my starting point:


Sometimes the little bit extra is what makes the trick work. I’m hoping the ad gets people excited about the mixology.

See This Show…

A while ago I almost flew to New York on a day I had off between a couple of contracts to see In & Of Itself. Unfortunately, with the flights and the show that I could get tickets to, if my plane was a little bit late, I would have missed the show. I didn’t go.


The show is streaming right now at the IFC Center’s website. You save $3 with the coupon code: ROADTRIP

After watching it, I’m regretting not taking the chance on seeing it in person. The show was AMAZING! That’s just seeing it streamed, I can’t imagine the energy seeing it live.

There’s a lot that makes the show work. First of all it’s now a “magic show” but a show that has magic elements. I think about five tricks in 90 minutes, so not a lot of magic, but what’s there is great!

One of the things that makes the show work is that Derek Delgaudio is a normal guy. He doesn’t have shellac’d hair, dancers, or exaggerated applause poses. He’s an honest guy sharing his life. Sure there are theatrical things that happen, like lighting, or music, but they aren’t overbearing like the how a 1990’s Las Vegas illusionist finishes a trick.

Watching the show, I cried twice. Derek knows how to connect with people in a way I don’t think I’ve ever seen in another show. This style of show is something that other magicians are going to be chasing for years. Derek is soo far ahead of the pack, and it’s such a unique show and venue. You can’t really break in this sort of material at the gravel company’s holiday party.

Do yourself a favor and watch the show. It will inspire you to be better!




15 seconds on TV…

Doing stuff for TV is a lot of waiting, followed by we need stuff in 10 minutes. Recently I contributed to a bit on the news in Seattle, and it’s something that initially contacted me about a week prior. Then the day that it aired, they contacted me a few hours before they needed video. While doing 10-15 seconds isn’t a lot of work to produce, when you only have a few hours to do it, it is.

Here’s the news segment:

I sent them a 15 second bit where I just talked in front of the camera. That’s the audio that was used. Then I sent them a 15 second trick montage, of which they only used one trick. The trick they used was the only one that was beginning, middle and end on the video.

They made a good choice!

The Moisture Festival Podcast – Tim Furst

Moisture Festival founder, Tim Furst, joins the Moisture Festival Podcast. Tim talks about how being a conscientious objector to the war in Vietnam led him to learn to juggle and, subsequently, perform in the famous juggling troupe the Flying Karamazov Brothers.

Tim Furst Juggler

We hear some great stories about Tim’s tours with the Flying Karamazov Brothers across the world, appearing in the movie Jewel of The Nile, and how the Russian government thought they were agents of chaos. Tim also talks about what separates the Moisture Festival from other festivals and why it has been so successful.

Notecard Magic…

It took some work, but the MC videos are finished. These are tricks I was doing for a virtual MC gig. I had to do 7 introductions and wanted to have some magical things to happen while I did them. The thing was I didn’t want to do any full routines. This is an interesting shift from live to prerecorded virtual hosting. There aren’t any stage delays to cover, you really just need to move the show along.

Of the seven tricks I planned on doing, four of them turned out alright. There other ones are just straight intros. Here’s a highlight reel of the four tricks:

I think my favorite is the floating card. I’m not sure how subtle it is, but just letting go if it and it not moving is fun. You’ll notice by gesturing with my hands as I talk, I’m waving them over the top to show “there are no strings” without saying it.

I’m hoping people like that style, I’m having a lot of fun doing things like this. It’s making flex a creative muscle that I don’t normally use. The event happens on Thursday of next week, so we’ll see how it was received then.

Virtual Hosting…

Last night I picked up a last minute gig hosting a showcase. This is for a conference where people go to book acts, I showcased last year and can’t this year. However when I was asked to host their virtual showcase, I agreed as getting face time is always good!

Hosting these is more complex than simply doing material and then announcing acts. The host isn’t supposed to showcase their act. That said, when I accepted the gig, I immediately got started writing down ideas that were fun magical moments. I have seven acts to introduce, which is a lot of material to figure!

How I did this was write down a lot of ideas. Basically I’m just looking for a way to produce the acts name. These have to be quick, and not too involved. After the initial brainstorming, I started to make one of the ideas. One of the acts had a really long introduction. The idea was to have all the text written out, then have all the words change to his name. My first thought was to use black art on the table, but didn’t like that as it’s harder to frame my face. Then I thought about making a flap card. When I first learned to make more modern flap cards, I made an index card that was a flap card. It looks like Blake Vogt is currently selling one called Acro-Index, check his out if you like the idea, and don’t know how to make one.

Once I had the index card trick, I looked at all of my other ideas and started to look at all of the ones that could be adjusted to an index card. I got about 4 of the ideas to work with an index card, and then brainstormed three more.

That gave some options, not every act needs an trick with the introduction. I’m going to record all of them two ways. One as just the introduction and one with the trick. I’ll pick the one that flows better. I’m recording these today, even if they don’t work out, at least it was a fun creative exercise!

Virtual Rehearsals…

Most of us are in a world now where we’re booking virtual shows, instead of converting in person shows to virtual shows. What that means is that instead of trying to save a gig from cancelling, we’re creating a completely new contract.

This has created another new trend, the virtual rehearsal. This is where whoever is hosting your show wants you to video and sound check about a week before your show. I think these now exist for a couple of reasons, the first is whoever is running the show (in house IT, or outside company) for the booker wants to make it look like they’re giving more value. The next is that they’ve been burned by a performer previously. It could have been that the performer had bad internet connection, horrible camera, or a bad mic.

Here’s the big thing, what does this rehearsal fix? Most of us are building our virtual theater’s for shows, and don’t have a dedicated space that stays set up 100% of the time. If someone asks me to move a light, it probably won’t be in the exact same spot on the show day. Also it may get moved for another show.

I’m just unclear what the point of a rehearsal is. They aren’t running any production for me, so why is there a walk through?

Also, doing a full rehearsal (which is what people are starting to ask me for) doubles the time commitment to the show. I’m literally doing two shows. When I mention that, I have yet to have someone be willing to pay for the second show.

Live is Easier…

One thing that I really dislike doing are prerecorded virtual shows. I do my best to avoid them, or talk the person into having my segment live. A prerecord is soo much more work than doing it live. It’s more than just turning the camera on and going for 15 mins. There’s editing, rendering and uploading that needs to happen. I don’t think a lot of people thing about that.

If you’re doing prerecorded shows and not editing, you aren’t taking advantage of the format. You can crop in for tighter shots, or add things that aren’t as easy to do in a live format.

I’m working on a 15 minute prerecorded spot for a variety show and will probably spend 3-4 hours on it. If I did it live, I’d spend about a hour total. Also the live element makes a magic show much more fun to watch for the audience and for me to perform.

Work in Progress…

One of the current projects that I’m working on is a video from my kitchen. It’s a magical video, and I needed to do a trick with a lime. I had written up a bunch of ideas like:

  • Lime that moves out of the way when I try to cut it
  • Lime that cuts itself
  • Bouncing lime
  • Finding something needed later inside the lime

While driving to the store to buy some limes, I hit upon this idea:

That’s just a quick snipped taken out of context, but it’s a lemon that turns into a lime. I originally read this in a book years ago that turned a red apple into a green apple as you ate it. I think the method works better with a lemon / lime due to the texture. Also, in theory it’s changing to a different fruit, not just changing color which may make it a better trick from an effect standpoint.

Ultimately the video above didn’t make it into the final project, an expanded version of the trick did that used two lemons and two limes. I’ll probably post it in the future, once it’s used by the group I’m creating it for.