On this zoom episode of the MFP (new term) we welcome in the amazing Felicity Hesed. We discuss her beginnings as an actor, her interest in theatre and how walking by a circus building one afternoon changer her life.
She tells us what she is doing to fuse theatre with circus and the organization she started to help support that vision. A really great conversation with an awesome circus advocate.
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I bought into the hype and picked up a Demi Deck while I was at Hocus-Pocus in Fresno. Here’s a quick review of it.
First of all, it works exactly how I thought it would work. If you think about it, there’s really only one way it can work. I wasn’t buying it to figure out how it works, but it’s an interesting prop.
Let’s get into actually doing the trick. I was doing it for the groups of people who showed up as I was packing up the show. I would tell them when my next show is and then offer to show them a quick trick and would do the Demi Deck. It got good reactions from the people.
Next there’s the angle issues. It’s pretty solid from the front, I probably personally wouldn’t take this out for a roving gig where I’m going to be surrounded. But for a group of 4 or so people in front of me, the angles are pretty solid.
Now here’s what I like and why I bought this trick. This reminds me of old school Tenyo tricks where the method is frequently more interesting than the trick. It’s just a gimmicky trick that’s fun to do!
Personally this will probably never be in my “paid” close up work. Is it something that I’ll show people who are at my house…yes!
-Louie
They’ve been unavailable for awhile, I just finished up a batch of the 16 oz size of Evaporation magic tricks!
This size pops a bit more onstage than the smaller version. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to offer these. They’ve been hard to get since 2020, and whenever I find them, I always buy as many as I can to gimmick!
You can get them at: https://www.magicshow.tips/evaporation-magic-trick-vanishing-liquid/ or your favorite dealer!
-Louie
One of the things I like about the two week gig in Fresno that I’m at right now is that I get to hang out at Hocus Pocus magic shop! It’s fun chatting with Max, Paul and Betty, they’ve got a cool shop!
One of the fun things they recently did was release a limited run of “hocus pocus” square circles.
These look great and work great! It’s a fun idea and they say they’re thinking of making releasing a special hocus pocus magic prop every year. That’s a fun idea!
Of course while I was there I visited some of my magic tricks
I think they have the last two of my Slow Poke coin tricks. I don’t think I can get them made anymore.
If you’re in the Fresno area, shoot them and note and arrange a time stop by!
-Louie
There are some tricks that I’ve always wanted to do and Harry Anderson’s Three Card Prince/Monarch is one of them. It probably comes from me getting the book Wise Guy when I was a teenager and just getting serious into magic.
You can watch the routine here:
There were two version of this put out. The Three Card Monarch and The Three Card Prince. The difference was size, the prince was the smaller size, however both haven’t been made in years.
I recently came across a used set…a very used set.
This set was gross, it very discolored from use. I bought it and hoped I could clean it up. I took a Magic Eraser and started to clean them up. Here’s a before and after of the face of one of the cards:
They now look gently used instead of beat to crap! I’m excited to learn the routine and try it out in a show. I don’t know if it will work in the show, but even if I only do it once, it’ll be good to have done it and gotten it out of my system!
-Louie
One of the things that I like about performing in Fresno is getting to visit Hocus Pocus! I love digging through their bins of junk magic looking for things like packet tricks, or strange little props that were never commercial successes.
One of the things I like to do is buy them and try to figure out better ways to do them, or other effects to do with the gimmicks. I should be posting some videos in the next couple of weeks of what I found!
Keep an eye out!
-Louie
My friend Rolando Medina recently started selling Puzzle Coins! These are coins that he’s cut into a puzzle. These are really interesting, and there’s a ton of puns with the word puzzle that you could use.
“Do you want to see the most puzzling coin trick I do?” Then the coin turns into the puzzle pieces.
Here are a few ideas:
1: Show a half dollar.
This is a trick that takes me hours to figure out
Put the half dollar into your left hand, which makes a fist around it.
I never know if I should start with the edges or the middle…
Open you hand to reveal the puzzle pieces
2: Have a half dollar sitting on the table, you wave your hand over it and it turns into the puzzle half dollar!
– simply use a Raven and a shimmed shell
3: Could use it at a follow up to Karate Coin
After you stab the coin on your finger, you then smash the coin into little bits (not specifically revealing they’re puzzle pieces)
I think these coins are great for making social media videos as the close up video of them can really show off the detail.
I think he’s really underpriced them at $39.99 and they should be a few bucks more…but I’ll take them for cheaper than what I think they’re worth! Aside from using them, they are just cool to have on your shelf!
-Louie
When I was at Stevens Magic Emporium a few weeks ago and picked up Craig Petty’s Apparition coin set, it got me doing coin magic again. For some reason I had stopped doing it in my close up set. One of the reasons that I had stopped was pocket space, there’s not a neat way to keep four silver dollars and a shell in your pocket along with everything else I need in my pockets.
The thing that getting the Apparition set got me to do was use a coin purse. Honestly, I’m against using a coin purse, as it’s not something that people see anymore. It might as well be a change bag, it resembles something older people see.
Think about it, when was the last time you saw someone use a coin purse that wasn’t a magician?
The Apparition coin set is a neat little bundle in my pocket, so I needed to figure out how to justify the coin purse. Then it hit me, it was one simple line, “This is my Nana’s coin purse, can you guess what’s inside?”
That’s it.
That line solved the problem, now it’s not a strange prop.
I will say that as I’ve been using the gaffed coins, I’ve really phased out using the coin purse as a gimmick and it’s simply a holder for the coins. I think I’m going to go out and find a cool, vintage coin purse for my current coin routine to give it a bit more character.
-Louie
ProMystic just put out a new trick called 50/50 and it’s great! It’s basically a location of someone holding a stack of your money.
The base routine is someone out of a group holds some money of yours. You say you’re betting your money that you can find it. You then narrow down the group until you have one person left and they have your money.
What I like about the routine is that it really fills the stage with a few bills. It also has a feeling of a chance of failure and while the method isn’t 100% is is 99.9% surefire. There is a strange scenario that I can imagine where it could fail, but it’s very unlikely.
I’ve done this three times as preshow and it’s worked great! I need to do some writing and hopefully can move it into the show soon!
-Louie
A few months ago I found some Obedient Walnut tricks in a bin of junk magic at a magic shop. This is a version of a classic trick where you have an object with a string running through it, in this case it’s a plastic walnut. As the walnut slides down the string, it stops whenever you want it to.
Honestly, from a magic perspective, it’s not really a good trick, it’s pretty obvious how it works. I did pick up three of them out of the junk bin as I had an idea for a routine with them. The routine is an interesting idea, but still a bad trick.
I did it once, it confirmed it’s not the best idea or trick and now I can throw away the Obedient Walnuts.
-Louie
