Pictures – Page 48 – MagicShow.Tips

Performing in Spanish!

One of my biggest regrets is not learning to speak Spanish when I was a teenager. I’m trying, I’m at day 500 on DuoLingo and I can communicate ideas, but not really conversational. I’m always looking for ways to speak it more, especially in the show to hopefully get more confident in speaking Spanish.

That’s where and Emerson and West packet trick comes in!

The trick is Larry West’s Gourmet Mouse. The concept is really simple, it uses three cards and in the trick, one turns blank and one changes. What makes this fun for practicing my Spanish is the trick involves and mouse eating cheese. I know all of those words, and can do the trick in horrible Spanish!

What makes it a great trick is that it shows that I’m trying when I perform close up magic for a Spanish speaking family. It’s really easy to start learning a new language with things like DuoLingo, and there’s no reason for a performer to not know a little bit of another language.

-Louie

Making Spirit Hands!

I was procrastinating recently, so I made a couple of spirit hands!

I made a mold of a vintage spirit hand and make these out of resin.

These are ungimmicked, and if you’re interested in one and want to gimmick it yourself, or use it with an existing board you can get one at:
https://www.magicshow.tips/spirit-hand/

-Louie

Old Magician’s Notebooks

Someone was selling a stack of old magician’s hand written notebooks. These are things I’m fascinated by, I’m very curious what’s going through magicians heads. When the notebooks showed up, they weren’t what I was expecting, they weren’t really notebooks of ideas, but notes of the Abbott’s Magic Magic Get Togethers from the late 1960’s to the early 1980’s!

They have set list that are pretty cryptic, like what Don Alan performed in 1980:

Don Alan at the Abbott's Magic Get Together

Then there’s more detailed acts like this that’s simply labeled “best act” from 1977:

Another interesting find was a description of Al Schneider’s Matrix trick. This notebook was from 1982, and Al didn’t publish Matrix until 1983. Schneider wasn’t listed as a performer at any Abbott’s Magic Get Together, so I’m guessing he was just attending that year, or it could have been something that was moving around the “underground” and someone else showed it that year.

These notebooks are a really interesting look into what was performed 40+ years ago and I’m glad I got to read them!

-Louie

Walmart Sells Bricks of Bicycle Cards

I think the title of this post pretty much sums up the post.

Brick of bicycle playing cards at walmart

At $39.97 for a dozen, it’s not a huge savings over buying decks individually, however when I’m on the road and doing multiple shows, this is a good option to pick up when I’m in the area. I probably wouldn’t rely on them having them in stock, I’d order online and have them shipped to the store in the city that I’m going to.

-Louie

What’s In Your Pockets?

I was setting up a school assembly show and was about to put all of the props that I have in my pockets or hidden on my person and decided to take a pic of it!

Here’s the prop list:

Mic pack and microphone
Media Star Remote
Remote control for alarm clock
two sponge ball droppers
two sponge tennis balls
mic holder
silk parakeet
Take up reel

A lot of magicians are afriad of using their costumes for stealing or vanishing props. I use my costume for both! When you start to consider your costume a prop, it opens up a lot of things you can do!

-Louie

Packing The Street Show

Here’s all of my street show props packed into the wagon that they’ll travel in.

This is everything, including the sound system. It’s important that the show is very mobile and sets up quickly! This show will be starting this week, so we’ll see how much the set up and packing changes by the end of the week!

-Louie

Breaking in a New Routine…

Over the weekend my daughter and I had a booth at an arts fair. Sher was there selling her art, and I had my book C is for Conspiracy: The ABC’s of Conspiracy Theories for sale. I was also doing a little bit of magic every now and then.

The routine that I was working on while there was the new ending for my Cee-Lo dice trick where I make a giant metal nut appear under the cup and then an even bigger one appear under my hat!

I’m not doing any body loads for this routine, all of the production items come from my doctor’s bag that hangs on the back of my table.

After doing it a lot over the course of the day, I’m confident that the loads will work in a close up context. The plan is to use it in a half circle style show, so hopefully the loads will translate to that larger audience that’s further back. I head out on the road later this week and will get to try it out!

-Louie

Walnuts to Glass Magic Routine: UPDATE

I’ve been working on a walnut to glass routine for a little while and there’s one challenge I keep hitting: Why walnuts?

Using balls with cups and balls makes sense as it looks like the shell game which people are aware of. Even though it’s cups and balls and the shell game visually are very different to people who do them, to the general public who have never seen them in real life, it’s appears to be the same.

The challenge with using nuts is basically I’m fighting the whole routine being a testicle joke. I can’t call them “nuts” in the routine, they have to be walnuts. However every time I handle them, I think I’m going to be fighting people in the audience making their own jokes. I really just don’t want that.

I’m switching over to using my Cee Lo dice and cup routine and doing the hat load of the giant metal nut. I’m also using a devils hank for a vanish of all three dice instead of doing a two in the one in the pocket sequence. The bits I have planned for the devil’s hank before the vanish will hopefully help the routine play larger!

I’m hitting the road in a few days and I’ll know if it plays or not soon!

-Louie

How I Got Hurt At A Hypnosis Show

Last night I drove an hour to see a magic and hypnotism show. I love seeing magic shows, and supporting people who are out there performing. I never ask for a free ticket, I always buy one. Before I get into what I think of the show, let me tell you how it ended. I walked out of the show and asked for my money back.

Was the show that bad?

The quality of the show isn’t why I left, I love all magic shows, good, bad. I walked out because I got physically injured by a hypnotist during his show and he didn’t seem to give a crap about it. That’s why I left, the performer intentionally hurt me and didn’t seem to care.

OK, so let’s get into the what happened:

The second half of the show is a hypnosis show. He does the some of the standard full audience stuff, like pretend you have a balloon tied to your hand and feel it lift up with your eyes closed. As this is happening, he taps people in the audience on the shoulder and if he tapped you, you’re invited to come onstage. After the audience qualifying bit he askes people who got tapped to come onstage. I didn’t want to go onstage, and since the tapping on the should bit is discreet, no one would know that I’m declining. Four people come up, but one has a cane, so he sends her back to her seat. Then he looks right at me, gestures towards me and says that he tapped me and verbally invites me to the stage. Being a good sport I go up to the stage after I was specifically singled out.

He does his induction, I’m not hypnotized (as far as I know), but following his directions. So I’m doing what I think he’s asking me to do. Then he gets to the bit where people play imaginary instruments and I guess I didn’t start soon enough and he walks over and has me look at him and he starts shaking my arm. Apparently I wasn’t doing it right, so after a few times of me trying to do what he wants and not doing it correctly, he grabs my arm and violently yanks it towards him and says, “sleep”. It was the opposite of making want to sleep, it hurt and I heard my shoulder make a noise.

I told him that it hurt and that I was done onstage. I walked off the stage, grabbed my coat, asked for a refund and left the venue. I really wanted to yell at him on stage about how inappropriate what he did to me was.

The hypnotist was recording the show that night, so he has this on video. I’d love to see this video and to see that I’m over reacting, however my shoulder still being sore this morning almost 12 hours later tells me I’m not.

In my heart, I hope that the hypnotist reviews the video of this show and my interaction with him and realizes how forcefully yanking on someone’s arm with no warning is a horrible idea and a great way to injure someone, someone that paid for a ticket AND drove an hour to see his show.

This should also serve as a reminder that people in the audience are actual people and not props. What you do with them on stage can have lasting effects and can skew how their opinion of future shows like yours. For example if I was the holiday party booker for a company, I’d probably never book a hypnotist in the future based only on this one experience. I used to think it was unfair when people has a bad experience with a magician and won’t book any magician, now I totally understand that position!

-Louie