Pictures – Page 37 – MagicShow.Tips

FISM day 3

After hitting the snooze button three times, I managed to make it to the venue just in time for the stage contests to begin at 8am!

About halfway through the stage contest, I had a family emergency (everyone is OK) at home in Seattle happen and I had to step away to deal with it. I need to find a quiet spot to do some paper work and make some calls, so I walked a couple of blocks and found a great coffee shop, Café félin Chats-Nous!

Having cats do cat stuff while I talked to insurance companies definitely reduces my stress, and after little while I headed back to the stage competition, just in time to catch the end of Ding Yang’s incredible act!

I’d heard a lot about her act, and it was cool to see her do dove productions with her feet! I wish I was able to see the whole thing. Unfortunately she didn’t get first place in her category, so I didn’t get to see her perform at the Winner’s Gala.

It was a quick bite to eat (aka another egg salad sandwich) and off to the close up contest. It was at the contest today that I had a major revelation. I had noticed that there was a lot of flashing on some technical and not so technical sleight of hand moves. I realized that the judges were about 4 feet lower than the camera was. In theory the close up magic contestants were playing to the judges eye, not the camera’s eye. The different points of view are probably why the audience was seeing soo much flashing, where (hopefully) the judges weren’t.

After the contest I got a text from Chris Hanowell who wanted to get some poutine while in Canada, so we ran up the block for the Canadian dish!

louie foxx and chris hanowell — Louie Foxx and Chris Hanowell

We also decided it was time for us to see the pope, as he’s been the talk of Quebec! You’d think having 2,000 magicians in town would be, but we got overshadowed by The Holy See. We decided there was enough gap in the schedule to walk up the hill to try to get a pope peek. Unfortunately it wasn’t in the cards, and when we arrived, everyone was leaving and we had missed him by about 15 minutes!

The evening gala was getting ready to start, and this was the FISM TV SHOW aka a magic show pretending to be a television show.

They had a duo as a host and their MC bits and chemistry weren’t very good, but this is the show were most of us learned that Topas has a couple of music albums in Germany (you can find them on spotify), and were introduced to his earworm “one more” during his stage act where he produced speakers and finally a lady! The FISM TV SHOW ended with Shawn Farquhar doing his Shape of My Heart routine to a live band!

After the show, I had enough energy to hand out in the Jam Room, which was a lobby like area in the convention center.

And I finally got to see Jeffrey Wong do the coin work that my buddy Clive wouldn’t shut up about.

Jeffery didn’t disappoint! He was doing some very technical stuff and he did it very well!! Before I knew it, it was 4am and it was way past my bedtime, so I took the walk back to my room, as tomorrow is another early contest morning!
-Louie

FISM day 2

It felt great getting some sleep on a bed after sleeping in my car the night before my flight so that I could make it to FISM. I also got to see how amazing Quebec City looked in the daylight!

In the picture above you’ll notice the barricades on the streets, that’s due to the pope being in town, and his route was on the same street as my hotel’s front door!

I’m up early today as the contest start at 8:15am, which is rough as I’m running on west coast time, which is 3 hours earlier!

After registering, you have to walk along the hall of masters or whatever they call it. I had to stop and take a pic with Michael Ammar‘s portrait! I’m convinced he’s a genius, of all the portraits, his is the only one that anyone talked about!

I had decided for this convention I was going to make attending the contests my priority and not lectures. Little did I know how much of a commitment this would be. I used to tell people I could watch magic shows all day…turns out I can’t…even with top level magicians!

The stage contest had multiple competitors have to cancel due to “flight delays, luggage delays, or visa issues“, so the contest ended early. This was great as I got to see Jim Steinmeyer‘s lecture! The room was pretty full, but I found a seat and got to watch about half of it. There were two people sitting behind me and they had the gnarliest coughs. Even if it wasn’t COVID, I didn’t want what it was, so I got up, but unfortunately by that point the room was packed, and there was nowhere to sit or stand, so I had to bail on his lecture.

On a side note, I decided for my personal health, I was going to wear a mask while at the shows and contests. I took a week off work to go to FISM, so that means a week of my busy season that I wasn’t working, I can’t afford to lose two weeks of work by getting sick with anything.

I ran into some people I knew and we sat down for lunch!

fism magicians — Left to Right: Louie, Topher, Payne, Mitch, Gwyn, Elliott, and Billy

For lunch today, I ate the convention center’s prepackaged egg salad sandwich, that was probably 93% bread and a beer, which is also essentially 93%bread as well. Then it was time to go to the other theater to see the close up contest!

This room was giant (for close up) and there was also a satellite room that had a live stream playing of the contest. There were a lot of acts, and most today were just OK.

I did get to see Dom Chambers who I had built some props for to use on AGT perform. I missed him a couple years ago in New York when he was performing with the Illusionists, so it was nice to get to see him live. He did a very funny and energetic card to mouth!

Between the close up contest and the evening show, I swung by the dealers room.

Jeff prace magic — Jeff Prace demonstrates the Penrose Pendant

I was a bit underwhelmed by the amount of dealers, half of the room had empty booths. I had heard various reasons as to why it was empty, cancelled flights, inventory not showing up, etc. The quantity of dealers at FISM was probably the only thing that disappointed me. Sure, I’d rather have a small amount of quality dealers than a lot of lame ones, however I’ve been to local conventions that had more.

The evening show a ton of fun, it was great to see Greg Frewin do the dove act he did in the 1990’s on The Worlds Greatest Magic! The show was 90% solid, and there was a perfectly timed tech problem that occurred right after Greg praised the tech team for running the show flawlessly!

After the show I ran into Bob Fitch, who changed my life when I went to the first performance boot camp he put on about 25 years ago! He’s been one of my hero’s ever since!

Bob has always been insanely generous with his time and FISM was no exception! He would talk to anyone that approached him, and would hang out fairly late into the evenings. Fitch was also a fixture in Jeff McBride’s Magic and Mystery School room (more on that tomorrow).

I was a good kid tonight and walked back to my hotel not too long after the last show, as I knew I needed some sleep.

-Louie

FISM day 1

I’m working my way home to Seattle from FISM, and writing this during a 5 hour layover in Chicago. My plan heading there was for me to write these blog posts every morning, but the reality of the schedule there, that just wasn’t possible if I wanted to sleep. The schedule there ran from 8am to 11pm, most days, and some days the official schedule went to 1:30am, with your starting again at 8am the next day!

When I landed in Quebec City, it was 10pm and after a cab ride and loading into my hotel it was about 11pm when I began my 10 minute walk to the venue.

Quebec City is gorgeous and I want to be able to return sometime to explore the city. The picture above was taken from the door of my hotel!

Unfortunately, since I got in after registration had closed, I couldn’t attend the late night FISM events, but my buddy Clive who was already in Quebec City was willing to hang out with me! After a few attempts at finding a place still open that served food, we found Ninkasi, which turned out to be a place we be at almost every night. The staff there was super cool, and I think it was the closest place that had beer to the convention center.

While we were there, I had Clive show me some of the stuff he’s working on. One of which used a single sponge ball, and that caught the eyes of Pere Rafart and his friend whose name I don’t remember.

FISM magic: clive hayward and pere rafart

This convention is soo big compared to any other magic convention I’ve ever, there are people who I know were there, but never saw. Then Pere, who it felt like I was constantly passing in the halls. I later learned was a competing in the close up competition (he took 2nd place in close up card magic!)

Staying up way later than I should have, I said goodnight to everyone and took the short walk to my hotel.

I needed some sleep as it was going to be an early morning the next day!
-Louie

Gilbertino’s Master Silk Tube

One of the fun things about acquiring collections of magic, is that you don’t always know what you have. Sometimes you’ll find parts and have to figure out what goes with what.

In a recent box of magic I found a tube with two end caps (and a gimmick). To me it was obvious what it was supposed to do, however I didn’t know what it was. After some research I found out it was a Gilbertino Master Silk Tube!

I still didn’t have any instructions, but the description of the effect I found online confirmed how I thought it worked. Here’s a quick demo of the first trick I thought of for it when I found it in the box:

I have a lot more ideas for it, but unfortunately it’s really not a trick for my show, so I sold it. It’s a great trick for someone show!

-Louie

The Flea Pitch

For years I have done the “flea pitch” after my show. This is where I offer to show people a giant flea for a small payment. I use one of Doug Higley’s fleas, and I love it!

Here’s the box I’ve kept the flea in forever:

I was never a huge fan of the box, and had been thinking of replacing it for years. I finally found a box that would work for it, and that fits the story in my pitch.

This box held an old electrical thermometer, but I removed that, it’s perfect for the flea! I can’t wait to try it out!

-Louie

Another Shell Game Set!

I remember a long time ago chatting with Dr. Lloyd Cripe who was a brain doctor and now retired and he said, “everyone collects something” and at the time I didn’t realize it, but I was starting to collect Three Shell Game sets. Currently I have a giant collection of shells, and it getting harder to find shell sets that I don’t already have.

I found this lot at a magic auction site:

I don’t have the upper set of gold shells. I can’t tell what they are made from, it could be plastic or metal, I won’t know until they show up. It looks like I was the only bidder, so I got them for the opening bid price, which is nice!

I’ve had the Dr. Beaumont Shell Game book in the past, and it’s been a while since I’ve read it. I’ll give it a reread when it arrives with the shells and probably sell it with the Vernet Shells which come with this lot.

If you’ve got a unique or uncommon set of shells, send me a note, I’d love to see a pic of them!

-Louie

Samson Airline Mic

Whenever I work with an act that uses a Samson Airline Microphone, I always know at some point it’s going to give them some trouble. I know tons of performers swear by these microphones, however I’m not convinced. Usually there’s interference or the just plain drop out during the show.

Part of the problem could be that it has a very limited number of channels it can use. If there’s already things on the three frequencies it can use or other things trying to use them, that may be the problem.

It could be that the people who swear by these mics work in small venues that don’t have a lot of other radio frequencies going around. They may work perfectly at a school, but take it out to a busy fairground where there’s a lot more trying to use radio frequencies and from what I’ve seen, you’ll have trouble.

I use a Sennheiser mic pack and it has tons of channels it can scan. Sure it’s more expensive, but it’s never let me down (except for operator error).

-Louie

The Road to FISM

Yesterday was travel day to get to Quebec City for FISM. It’s been quite a journey, I bought tickets when they first when on sale, so I’ve had me ticket for around 4 years! This is a bucket list item for me, and I’m glad I get to attend!

There have been a lot of challenges just to physically get there. I was performing outside of Reno and booked a flight from Reno to Quebec City. That flight got cancelled and the airline moved my departure airport to Sacramento, about 3 hours drive. Then my flight got cancelled again and the only way to get to Quebec City was to drive almost 6 hours at night to San Francisco to get on a 6am flight yesterday!

I finished my shows Sunday and drove into the night and slept a few hours in my car at the airport. I got to the airport and I have a lounge pass, and when I went into the lounge for a cup of coffee, I noticed they had SHOWERS!

I was probably really stinky from doing three shows in the sun, then driving all night and sleeping in my my car. The shower refreshed me!

This is one of the little things that having a luxury like an airline’s lounge pass gets you. I was able to take a shower at the airport and now my travel day was way less depressing! If you travel by airplane frequently, I highly recommend getting a lounge pass. Do some research and figure out which one is best for you. I use the Alaska Plus lounge pass, as my home airport has three Alaska airlines lounges and I can usually use American Airlines lounges as well. they’re not cheap, but I get my value out of them with the amount I fly.

I missed the first day of FISM as it was my travel day, but I’m excited for today!
-Louie

Cut and Restored Rope

Last week I bought some rope on a whim and started playing with cut and restored rope in my show. I used to do this a long time ago when I was starting out in comedy clubs. Technically my routine was a mix of Steve Bedwell‘s and Michael Finney‘s routines. It worked well at the time and served its purpose, but I really haven’t done cut and restored rope in the show in a 15+ years.

I’m having fun with the trick, and pretty much doing it how I used to do it. However, for me to do it in the show, I need to contribute something to the trick. One thing I did today was start to come up with conditions for the routine. The first condition is that I want all of the cuts to happen with the middle of the rope sticking out of the hand and the ends dangling:

I think this is a much more natural and fairer looking way to hold the rope than the standard method where you switch the end for the middle.

Then with further writing I hit on another idea (from the past!)

Using a circle of rope instead of an extra length of rope will allow me to get two cuts without having to add any rope and both cuts can be done from the desired hand position!

The next challenge is figuring out how to get rid of the circle of rope once it’s been cut twice and is two pieces of rope. Once I solve that, I need to start doing some writing on what to say!

-Louie

PS. You’ll notice I have drawing in my notebook. I’m using drawing more and more. I highly recommend getting the book Sketch Notes, it really helped me learn to add drawings.

Learning at Open Mic’s

Last night I went out to an open mic at a bar that’s not too far from where I live. I always say that magicians can learn a lot by going to these, not just performing but by watching comics work.

The acts that did the best were the ones that hopped onstage and got into their material. The acts that got up, mumbled, fussed with the mic stand, then 45 seconds later got into jokes were the ones that didn’t do as well.

One comic got on stage and immediately started making fun of a guy at the bar. It turned the audience really quick on the comic. Without liking the comic, you can’t do “insult humor” or roast anyone before you establish yourself so the audience is with you. It was interesting to watch someone make that choice, especially when you only have 3-5 mins onstage. I guess open mics are about taking risks, and that comic definitely took a risk!

If you’re a magician, especially a “comedy magician” you should pop into these every now and then.

-Louie