Pictures – Page 17 – MagicShow.Tips

Doty Scope

There’s an old magic prop/gag called the Doty Scope. The way I’ve seen it done is the magician has their back to the audience to not see something. Then a periscope with a eye at the end pops up over your shoulder and the eye looks around. I think that’s how its intended to be used, but I’ve never owned one to see the instructions.

I have a use for the gag, but they’re not currently being made. I decided to make my own little one. There’s not much to making a simple one. I used a Eyeball Finger Puppet and a mechanics extendable mirror to make one.

Construction is pretty easy. Cut a slot in the eyeball so the mirror fits into it. Shove the mirror in and then glue it in place.

This will fit in the pocket of my vest. During the trick I turn my back and while my back is towards the audience I extent it and have the eyeball pop over my shoulder. I then rotate the handle a little bit to make some motion to make the the eyeball appear to be looking around.

That’s it, easy to make and do.

-Louie

Sound Booth

There are a lot of things that can take focus away from a show. One of them is having stuff happening behind the performer. Recently I worked an event that’s really well run and attended, however there’s one small thing that I’d change about the event. The sound booth is set up BEHIND the performing area and there is no backwall on the stage.

That means the sound guys are clearly visible behind the performer.

Even the most engaging show for the audience isn’t the best show to watch from behind. That leaves a situation where the sound guys are behind the stage, but essentially in the performing area. They don’t necessarily look like they’re into the show, sure they’re working, so they shouldn’t be dancing, but it’s just not a good look in pictures.

If you are setting up an event or have the a voice in the set up, move the sound booth to the side of the stage, not behind it!

-Louie

Unusual Vanishing Bird Cage

Here’s a new addition to my vanishing bird cage collection!

This one has the ends of the large bars pointed instead of square. In theory that is going to hang up less than having the ends square.

This is something that I have thought about, but never did to any of my cages. First of all, not all the corners would need to be pointed, just the ones that are on the leading side of the cage. Next, I think that IF this one did hang up on your sleeve, it would really hang up and wedge the sleeve into it making any possible continued yank up your sleeve much harder.

This is a fun cage variation to add to my collection!

-Louie

Evidence of a magic trick

One trick I’m not a big fan of is bill to orange/lemon/etc. It’s a overdone trick and usually it’s not a surprise to the audience when the bill is in the fruit. A notable exception to this is Nick Lewin’s Lemon Aid routine.

I do a routine that uses a dollar bill, but the dollar isn’t the focus of the trick. It felt like it had a loose end at the finish of the trick. One day I had the idea to make the bill come out of an orange at the end of the trick. What I like about this routine is that the bill doesn’t disappear, so it’s not obvious it’s in the orange immediately when the orange comes into the play.

Then I had to deal with how to give the wet dollar to the person. I found some Evidence bags, and wrote a gag with them.

Now at the end of the routine when I give the signed dollar to the person, I put it in the bag and let them keep it! It’s a fun way to deal with the wet sticky dollar and gets me a couple of laughs!

-Louie

Dynamite In a Small Package by Doc Dixon

A month of so ago I picked up the book Dynamite In a Small Package by Doc Dixon. It’s lived in my backpack since I bought it and I’ve finally read it. It’s a quick read and a GREAT book!

The book covers five card tricks with a regular deck of cards. Each of the card tricks has a different flavor and are distinctly different tricks. The big thing for this is that each of the tricks was designed for the stage and plays bigger than you average card trick.

The book has a script for the tricks, and Doc does a good job of not only teaching the WHY, but how to apply his thinking to other tricks. I’m a fan of Doc’s stuff, the guy is a worker and has been for years and it shows in his marketed magic stuff.

For $35, this book is a great part of your emergency plan for when the airline loses your luggage!

-Louie

The Magic Shop and More!

Last week I was doing a show in Astoria, OR. Whenever I’m in that area I swing by and visit Seth who owns the shop.

It’s really a pitch shop that sells magic tricks to tourists, however they really well stocked with a lot of magic that’s for non-beginners.

When I was there I picked up a Rainbow Deck and a copy of the reprint of the book Mind Myth & Magick by TA Waters. This book when it first came out in the mid 1990’s sold for $60. When I was a teenager working in the magic shop, we had a couple of copies of this book and they took probably a decade to sell. This book wasn’t a hot item at the time. While it is a giant book, $60 was about double what a magic book sold for at that time. Then over the next few decades this book became harder to find with copies selling for over $300! This reprint at $99.95 is a great deal!

The only thing that I don’t like about the book is that I’m taking it on the road with me, and it’s the size of a phone book and I’ll be lugging it around the country in my backpack!

-Louie

Lucky Penny!

After long wait, I finally got some custom made gimmicks for my penny to keychain trick.

These were worth the wait and way better than what I had been using for the trick. Having been in magic and creating magic for a while, I’ve got a network of magic builders that I can reach out to for custom projects.

I had a few of these made, as the cost to make one is pretty high, but getting a dozen isn’t much more. I’m hoping to write up instructions for these and have a few of them for sale soon!

-Louie

Bad AI Introduction

Here’s one of the problems with AI, it’s that you have to check it. Basically, you are doing the work anyway. A good example of that is from an event that I performed at. Despite having provided them with an introduction and one being available on my website, this event decided to have AI write it.

I worked as a street magician when I was in high school, but wouldn’t say I’ve worked as one in the last almost 30 years. I have never appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brian, which I’m assuming is just a misspelling of Conan O’Brien.

This is why AI isn’t useful, if I need to go back an “fact check” everything it’s more work than actually doing the research correctly, or simply asking someone for their intro.

-Louie

Vanishing Bird Cage from Germany?

The newest addition to my vanishing birdcage is also one of the most interesting to me. This one came from a Potter and Potter auction and there really wasn’t much bidding action on it. I got it for $150 (gavel price) and they simply listed it as from the 1920’s and German.

This cage has some very fine detail work on it. Like the super tiny sleeve guard, there were two, but one is missing. The screws that hold it on are very fine!

This cage is missing a bar and it appears to have been repaired at some point. I also don’t think that the ring that the pull attaches to is original.

Another fun this is that this cage has a perch and this perch is a spring! I guess that is a lot easier to attach than a wooden one, and more flexible!

This is a fun addition to the collection!

-Louie

Magic show at 7:40am!

I must be getting better! I did a show for middle school kids at 7:40am and it went great!

Middle school (grades 6-8) are notoriously one of the hardest age groups to perform for. They don’t really relate to silly humor that I’d use for younger kids or smarter humor that I’d used for older kids. It’s just a small age group that I find really hard to perform for. Then add in the 7:40am when they’re still waking up and it sounds like a rough gig.

The show went well. Whenever I perform for a group of kids I try to aim my material slightly older than younger than the group. I’ve found kids will “age up” much easier than down. If I do material that’s designed for younger kids it will turn them off quickly and they’ll dismiss the show as a “kid show”, which they’re above.

I opened the show with my Any Card at Any Number and that immediately had their attention. I know a lot of magicians think that ACAAN is a boring trick and many are, however for this group, if it was, they’d be asleep by the time we got to the card! ACAAN done correctly, I’m not talking about routine/patter, but method is an amazing and compelling trick. Once you start adding procedure into it like rolling dice or a calculator, then it becomes less amazing. Simply saying, “name a card, name a number” and that’s where their card it without any BS is a great trick!

The moral of the story is sometimes taking a show that you know will be a challenge will help you grow as a performer.

-Louie