Lately I’m trying to be better about how I use people who come onstage during my show. I want to give them more personality in the show. One way I’m doing that is by asking them questions. Nothing crazy, the two main ones are “where are you from?” and/or “What do you do?“. From those two questions and the situations of the tricks, it’s leading to a lot more comedy possibilities.
These questions also help make the person from the a person, not just a prop. I feel like I was falling into a hole of people on stage being predictable and my show’s interactions with the audience were becoming less natural and more robotic. Asking questions is making me be more present in the show, but also creates a more unique show that the audience is watching.
I had a comedian I was working with recently mention that they were surprised at how much crowd work there was in my magic show!
-Louie
Month: April 2025
Working With Other Magicians!
Last month when I was travelling to a ship to perform for a week, I noticed on their app I could see the schedule. It turned out there was another magician performing the same week that I was, and that magician was David Williamson!
It’s kinds stressful heading out to a gig where you’re working with one of your favorite magician and one that’s in almost every magician’s top ten magicians. The silver lining to that stress is that I get to hang out with him!
I’ve seen his show before on a cruise ship back in the mid 2010’s when I was on vacation with my family. He does a solid show with classic Williamson energy, I love his stage persona, it’s great!
If you get a chance to see his show, do it…and if you get a chance to work with him, do it!
-Louie
Mike Bornstein’s Money Magic!
In the 1980’s and 1990’s Mike Bornstein had ads in magic magazines for his money magic. I found a set of his lecture notes and have been going through them. One of the tricks that I though was interesting was this torn and restored bill:
@louiefoxx The old hundred dollar magic trick! #magictrick #magic #magician #moneymagic #vintagemagictrick ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
While the method now is fairly standard for torn and restored things, what makes his interesting is the tearing sequence. It’s backwards from how most are done. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse, but different!
Finding unexpected things is one the fun thing about all these old lecture notes!
-Louie
iQ Pro app
A performer that I was working with was showing me the iQ pro app that he uses to run the production for his show. It does it all, music, video and it doesn’t need to use any internet to function. All of that lives on your phone, so a laptop isn’t needed. I played with his and then immediately downloaded it!
I’m still learning to use it, but it’s simple to use (so far) and will do what I need it to do. It runs off of a Flic Button, and that’s the only thing that worries me. My friend assures me that he’s never had a problem with the Bluetooth and he works a lot!
It’s now cheap at $14.99 a month or a lifetime subscription for $595. I’m on monthly for now, and if it ends up working how I hope it will, I’ll probably buy the lifetime subscription.
-Louie
Mike Giles!
Yesterday I posted about using the miracle pad by Mike Giles. In a funny little coincidence I was having breakfast with David Williamson and he brought up Michael Giles! I’m assuming Mike Giles and Michael Giles are the same person. That led me to looking him up, and it looks like he was primarily an illusionist.
Here’s a few video clips of him doing illusions:
It also looks like he had at least one close up magic release:
I always love it when something takes me down a rabbit hole of learning about a magician that I didn’t know anything about!
Sadly Michael Giles died a while ago.
-Louie
The Miracle Pad by Mike Giles
A while ago I came across the Miracle Pad that was put out by Mike Giles. I remember being a teenager when this came out. I think in the late 1990’s this was something like $60 or $75, which was a lot of money for a close up pad!
This is a fancy close up pad, and it will facilitate a production of four half dollars and a jumbo coin.
I’m playing with it and the routine that I came up with is a matrix, that ends with a production of four coins and the jumbo coin. My routine isn’t quite at straight forward as you’d expect it to be with this prop. I had to add in an additional think to make it happen.
I never really intended to use the Miracle Pad as a gimmick. I put a table base on it and it’s my close up magic table that I use with projection. Since I had it with me on the ship I’m performing on, I got to playing with it.
Honestly I don’t think I’ll ever use it as a gimmicked pad in my shows, but it’s fun to play with!
-Louie
Paul Daniels and the Story of Magic
My airplane reading is Paul Daniels and the Story of Magic by John Fisher. This is essentially a book on magic history, with Paul Daniels added in.
I think it’s kinda strange how he’s shoehorned into all of the biographies in the book. It’s like, Vernon was good at card tricks, and Paul Daniels also did them. What I feel the book is lacking is Paul Daniels take on the topics of magicians.
One thing the book gets through, but it’s not clear if it’s Paul Daniels or John Fischer’s opinion and that one of them doesn’t like David Copperfield. I think I had read in Wayne Dobson‘s book that there was a bit of a feud between them at some point.
What I do like is that there are some very specific mentions magic history. Like who created the Sucker Silk to Egg routine that’s now a standard routine. I’m betting 99% of magicians who do the routine don’t know who created it.
If you don’t know it was Fred Culpitt, who also created the Doll House Illusion!
The book also attaches some stock lines to specific performers. I find this interesting, as the history of stock lines is very murky. Quite often they get credited to who popularized the line, and not who created the line. I don’t know how accurate the crediting is in the book, however it’s still great to see some of the history of a joke!
I picked this book up at Powell’s Books in Portland OR for $12 and for that price I’m happy with my purchase!
-Louie
The Moisture Festival
In Seattle we have a variety arts festival called The Moisture Festival that happens every year. I’ve performed at this for about a decade and it’s a ton of fun. What makes it fun is that you get a ton of amazing acts together in one show! Each act does 5-8 minutes each, making it a very fast paced show. I performed in three of the shows on the first week.
One of the great things about these shows is just hanging out with everyone! Everyone’s journey to get on stage is different and we all have crazy road stories! This is one of the gigs that I think are good for my soul. I leave them inspired to be better and with new friends!
-Louie
MAK Magic’s Mint Condition
My best guess is in the late 1990’s MAK Magic put out Mint Condition. This is an expanded shell coin that had the back of the coin on the inside. That allows you to show both sides of the shell when it’s empty.
I’ll admit that when it came out I thought it was a dumb idea. It was an improvement that didn’t really improve how a shell coin is used. For most close up magic, I still think it’s not necessary.
The place where this coin is great it for social media videos. Where is someone knows about a shell coin, it removes that when you show both sides of the coin. Social media is a great place for things that correct little details in magic tricks that are overkill for an in person performance.
The other thing is that I don’t think that Mint Condition was a huge seller, as a there’s not a lot of mentions of it when I do a Google Search and I can’t recall seeing one pop up on a used magic site. I guess them being uncommon is good for people who are using them!
-Louie
The Moisture Festival Podcast – Live at the 2025 festival
This episode is LIVE at week one of the 2025 Moisture Festival!
In this episode Louie chats with acts appearing for the first time at the festival. This is a great episode to meet new additions to the Moisture Festival family!
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