magic show tips – Page 4

More Bar Magic in Reno

I made it to the White Rabbit Theater for a third time last week to check out close up magic by Phoenix Phenomenal in the bar. I went down with Mickey O and Bri to watch the show.

Phoenix does some great magic, and as a younger person doing 4 close up shows a night at the bar will get him a ton of real world flight time under his belt!

That’s one of the keys to performing, stage time. In comedy they say “Stage time is more precious that gold”. In magic, many people don’t see the value in stage time, and more advice you hear is “charge a lot of money” versus “get on stage and get good”.

Oh, I’m not saying Phoenix was bad, so please don’t read it that way. He’s great, he’s just younger. He doesn’t have the miles on him that someone who’s been doing it longer has. I wish I had a nightly bar gig when I was his age, I would have gotten way better sooner!

-Louie

Close Up Magic in Reno

I was at a conference in Reno last week, and the hotel/casino had a magic theater in it! The first night a few of us went to check out Phil Ackerly do some bar magic. Phil makes the boxes for my Applause Please 2.0 trick, but we’d never met in person, so it was great to see him in real life!

The next night I snuck down again to watch Phil for a little bit.

It was cool to watch how Phil handled a guy who was one of the “can I shuffle those cards” types. He did it without belittling the person or with a lame hack quip. He did it in an honest, heartfelt way. It was so effective that when the guy tried to do it again, all his friends told him to shut up so they could enjoy the show.

It was fun to meet Phil and see the show!

-Louie

What’s Wrong With Magicians?

A magician posted these pictures of himself performing as a Chinese person.

Here’s my response to the picture, which I replied to in a private magician’s group, and not on his public, personal FB page:

I really dislike that magicians still think this is an acceptable way to perform. Performing in “yellow face” has a long history in magic and one that needs to end.

Here’s Jack Chanin (I think, and if I’m wrong, let me know) performing in Yellowface (yellowmask?):

These “characters” are outdated stereotypes. Part of the history of yellowface was to portray the Chinese as monsters and to give them frightening physical features. The long mustaches and fingernails, the bright yellow skin color were to make Chinese people look less human.

Why would any performer who knew its history want to continue doing that?

In my opinion, it’s lazy creativity. In both pictures above, the performer is using the Chinese sticks prop; however, that trick isn’t from China! Instead of putting the energy into creating a unique routine, the performer does something that they’ve seen done before. The thinking is that if someone else has done it, then that’s the way to do it.

I’ve personally walked out of several shows when a performer did stereotype material. There is an exception to this, does the performer have a point of view with what they are doing. Is it social commentary, relating an actual experience, or something like that? In all of the exceptions to this that I have seen, the person never put on a costume.

The moral of the story is don’t do stuff like this.

-Louie

Music and Senior Gigs

There are a lot of misconceptions about performing for seniors at retirement communities. One questionable piece of advice is to use big band music. That kind of music is the music that the parents of the people currently in retirement homes listened to. Simple math will show that if someone is 80 now, that means when they were in their 20s, music like the Rolling Stones was popular.

Here’s the music playing in the dining room at a senior gig. Ignore the piano, that’s a resident playing it at the other end of the room.

When the retirement community doesn’t play music from the resident’s childhood, that should tell you something. The community won’t play music they don’t like.

-Louie
PS You can get my book How To Perform For Seniors at:
https://www.magicshow.tips/how-to-perform-for-seniors-book/

Topsy Turvy Cards

There’s a great little card trick that I think is a George Sands thing and more recently popularized by David Williamson. You and the audience have four cards each. They follow along with you, turning cards over, and you always end up with all your cards facing the same way, and theirs don’t.

The instructions that I learned from said to give them the cards to do the last phase. The problem I had with this is that you’re handing them a packet that secretly has a card reversed. Most of the time, the spectator would expose that reversed card. My solution to this was for me to hold the cards in one hand and they perform the action. That keeps the cards squared, and the secretly reversed card a secret!

Here’s what it looks like:

This is a trick that isn’t part of my normal work, but it’s a fun thing you can do for a group that they all get to do. What I don’t like about it is that the spectator doesn’t “win” and I haven’t figured out a way to make that happen. In David Williamson’s version they do win and it’s great!

-Louie

Vintage Magic Props

A little while ago I picked up a magic box with props from the 1960s. Here’s what was in it:

One of the interesting things was the Joseph Silk Gun:

Here’s a video of one of them in action:

The Joseph Silk Gun isn’t something that I’d use in a show, but it’s a very cool prop!

-Louie

Another Vanishing Bottle Idea

Here’s another idea for the Vanishing Bottle.

Effect: You show a bottle and tell a story about a friend paying you back for a beer. You say, “he paid me back with venmo, but as a joke he said it was for an eggplant.” You put the beer bottle into a paper bag. You snap your fingers and bring out an egg plant! You then crumple the bag and toss it over your shoulder to show it’s empty.

That’s it. It’s a simple plot with an easy presentation hook. It is also a non-standard routine for the vanishing bottle.

-Louie

Coke Bottle Routine Idea

The other day I was thinking about the modern routine with a latex coke bottle where you put the empty bottle into a bag and it comes out full. That’s a great quick flash trick, however what if I wanted to give it a bit more meat.

Here’s the routine:

You have a paper bag on your table.

You reach in and remove a full bottle of Coke. The full bottle of Coke goes back into the bag.

You then hold up an imaginary glass, and grab the bag from the bottom. You tip the bag as you pretend to pour from the bag into the imaginary glass. The bag ends up upside down while you pretend to pout pour the last drop.

The bag is turned right side up and you put the imaginary glass into it.

You then reach into the bag and remove a now empty coke bottle!

Then for the kicker you remove a full glass of coke!

The bag is crumpled and tossed over your shoulder as you hold the glass up and cheers the audience!

The working is super easy. Latex bottle, empty bottle, and a production glass. You should be able to work it out from there.

-Louie

More Snake Basket Work

The more I work on this snake basket, the more I want to simplify the wiring in it. The previous versions had an LED to indicate that it was on. I eliminated that using the ESP32’s built in LED, so that took out some wires. Here’s the current wiring:

One thing I have that’s redundant is that each action is triggered by a button press. The first version just had a single button that started all of the actions that would be timed. I didn’t like this as it makes me a slave to the preprogrammed timing. To give me more freedom, I added a second remote control button, and both buttons trigger each action. I could eliminate the wired button, however, I can see a situation where it could come in handy, like if the remote unexpectedly ran out of batteries.

The next tweak will be in the code, and that will be adding some delays after the button press. That will get my hands away from the remote control or the wired button when the action takes place.

I think this is coming along nicely, and I’ve learned a lot about using microprocessors!

-Louie

Prop Management

Recently, I acquired a 60+ year old box of magic tricks. I’m guessing this belonged to Portland, OR magicians Duane Duvall. One of the things I think is interesting is looking inside the working cases of magicians. How did they keep their props in the case during their show?

Here’s a look at the case from the 1960s:

Simple solutions to holding things on the lid and around the inside of the case.

-Louie