Well, after spending some time researching and asking around about different wireless systems, I settled on the Sennheiser AVX system.
Unfortunately Amazon couldn’t deliver to an Amazon Locker, so I’ll have to have it sent hope and it will be there when I get home in a few days.
Hopefully this system will work out for me!
-Louie
Well, after about a decade my Sennheiser EW 100 G3 mic packs stopped working properly. Over the last 10 years I have sent them back to Sennheiser to be repaired and repaired them once myself.
With the help of Mark (the sound tech at my stage this week) I managed to diagnose the problem, it’s my 1/8 audio input that needs to be replaced. If I send it to Sennheiser to be repaired, it’ll cost about $250 or more. I’m thinking that money would be better put into a new wireless system, than into a 10 year old system.
While at the event I luckily had a back up wireless set with me!
These aren’t as nice as the Sennheiser ones, but they are helping me get through the gig. I don’t normally carry a back up wireless set, but for some reason I threw them in with my gear for this gig. I can use a handheld to do my show in an emergency, but prefer not to.
-Louie
One of the things in magic that I collect are reels. Specifically locking reels, not so much plain reels like the Paul Diamond Reel or a P&L Fingertip Reel. I have those, but don’t actively hunt them down.
Recently Mike Caveney sent out an email and one of the things he was selling were some reels. It was a set to two reels, and I jumped on it!
I’m more interested in the locking reel on the left than the reel on the right. These reels were used more to reposition the cage after the vanish that for the actual vanish of a birdcage. I hope it looks a cool in person as it does in the pic!
-Louie
While I was in San Francisco at pier 39, I popped by the magic shop. This is one of the last Houdini’s Magic Shops, and is run by Vanishing Inc now. It’s a pitch shop, so they’re really selling starter magic, but since it’s owned by Vanishing Inc, they sell a lot of their products.
With Vanishing Inc having a large catalog of books, the shop was well stocked with those AND playing cards as well!
Personally I like the older style of magic shop where you can dig and find strange things, but that’s probably because that’s the kind of magic shops that were around when I was a kid. Also I’m very aware that I’m not the target customer for this specific magic shop.
-Louie
Yesterday I made it to Pier 39 in San Francisco and caught the tail end of Fred Anderson’s show.
He ended with card to mouth and what really stood out to me was how slowly he worked. It made me remember that I really need to slow down when I’m performing street style shows.
There’s always a ton you can learn by watching other performers, and I’m glad I got to see a little bit of Fred’s show (and hang out for a bit after).
-Louie
One of the spots that I stop at when I drive down to California is Jerry Andrus’s grave. It’s in the Jefferson Cemetery in Oregon and it’s only a couple of minutes off of Interstage 5. It’s right about when I need to get out of the car and stretch my legs and walk around for a little bit.
I think it’s important to remember the magicians that came before us. Jerry was lightyears ahead of his time! He was a pioneer of cardistry 40 years before it was popular.
@louiefoxx Cemetery Tour! Looking for Jerry Andrus#jeffersoncounty #oregon #cemetery #graveyard#jerryandrus #louiefoxx #findagrave #townhistory #opticalillusion ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
I think it’s important to remember the magicians who came before us.
-Louie
Here’s a great version of the Vanishing Birdcage by Jeki Yoo.
The cool thing about this is that he’s wearing what he normally wears for all of his videos. The downside is this method isn’t practical for a normal stage show presentation. In my opinion any different method for the cage is great, no matter how practical or impractical it is for different venues. The normal stage version of the Vanishing Birdcage is already a very impractical trick due to the set up when compared to pretty much any standard magic trick, so it’s hard to say any method isn’t “practical”.
-Louie
Many, many years ago I saw a video of Daniel Cros doing Coins Thru Glass. You can watch it here. Basically the effect is the coins go thru the bottom of the glass into another glass one at a time, then the final coin uses a spectator’s hand. I never really like the ending of the trick and the switching from a glass to a hand.
Last night in my hotel room I was playing with the trick but added a hat to it. That gave a slightly different frame to the trick and allowed me to have a “kicker” ending that still followed the frame work of the first coins to go thru the glass.
Here’s what I came up with:
While not great, if I put a little bit more time into figuring out the blocking, the trick would flow a lot better and look a lot less like I just thought of it and don’t know where the props should go.
It’s a fun little thing to work thru, but I don’t know if I’ll put much more time into it as I don’t think I’ll ever do it.
-Louie
When I travel I try to pop into the local magic shop and support them. When I was in Astoria, OR recently I swung by The Magic Shop and More and hung out with the owner Seth.
While I was there a couple of people walked in and one guy mentions that when he was a kid his neighbor’s dad was a magician. If you perform for the public, you will frequently hear people tell you that they have relative or a connection to a magician. I always ask who the magician is, and many times they will respond with something like, “they’re from a small town, you’ve never heard of them…“. I would say a lot of the time I have heard of them and most of the time I know or have met that person.
When I asked the guy who the magician was, he said BRUCE CERVON! That was a fun surprise and we got to hear a couple stories about Bruce. You never know who you’ll meet and who they know!
Also while I was there, I picked up the Max Malini book. When you visit a magic shop, support them with a meaningful purchase, not just a deck of cards for three bucks.
-Louie
This episode the Moisture Festival Podcast catches up with magician Ben Nemzer!
We talk about getting started in magic, going to magic camp, running an afterschool program during the pandemic and soo much more! This is a fantastic peek behind the curtain of Ben Nemzer’s life!
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