I got up early after sleeping in my car, and caught Franz Harary’s lecture. It was more of a Q&A and he shared a lot about how he thinks and how he works.
Then I had a little birdcage jam with Thomas:
We got really nerdy about the cages, it was a lot of fun!
Then I ran into Larry Kahlow from Eagle Magic, which was the shop that I went to when I lived in Minnesota!
It was great to catch up with Larry!
Before the convention, my daughter had made some buttons out of the George Shindler’s beginner’s magic book. I ran into George and gave him one of the buttons!
When I gave him the button, he told me that he does the trick on the button. I told him it was his trick from his book!
It was a fun show and got a deserved standing ovation!
I’m now trying to figure out how to get to Abbott’s next year. It’s pretty unlikely that I’ll be able to go, with me taking time off for FISM next summer.
Yesterday was the first official day of the Abbott’s Magic Get Together. I spent a good chunk of the morning in the dealers room showing people the products that I brought with me. Then I walked (15 mins) into downtown to see the street performer:
People liked him, however he was a little bit too standard for my tastes. All standard tricks, done in the standard way, with standard patter.
Later in the day was Nick Diffate’s lecture.
It was good, he shared some good stuff.
The stage show that night was fun, and it was good to see Stuart Mcdonald’s act.
There are a few choices that performers make that make me scratch my head. The first is when you’re dong a magic convention and in the evening show, why would you do a standard trick in the standard way? I honestly believe that professor’s nightmare has no place in a show at a magic convention.
The other was they had a speed painter who added a mentalism bit to his speed painting. The effect was he was going to paint the person that someone was thinking of. He used an Amazebox to force it, and from the audience I could tell something didn’t look right. The speed painter got to the end and when he asked the person to reveal the person they were thinking of, it wasn’t who he painted. It took all of the air out of the trick. If you have a skill that’s very interesting, don’t try to add a magic trick to it…especially if you’re not a good magician.
Yesterday I got into Colon, MI, which is a day before the Abbott’s Magic Get Together starts. The day begins at 10 am, so I figured it would just be easier to arrive the day before.
Somehow, despite not really knowing anyone here, I got invited to a amish chicken dinner! It was a lot of fun. The dinner was amazing, then we went to an amish farm and did a show for some families.
I was invited to perform, so I did my spoon act and it went over really well! I was worried about a few lines in it, but it played great and I’m glad that’s the act I did.
Today is the first day of the Abbott’s Get Together, and it looks like it’ll be a fun day!
One thing I don’t get is performers who wear sunglasses when they perform outdoors. It blocks your connection to the audience. I don’t care if you have a sensitivity to light, it hurts your show. I get that standing in the sun is uncomfortable, but so is sweating in 107 degree heat.
At the ND State Fair, on the stage next to my stage is a music stage. Daniel Kosel is performing, and all week he’s been wearing sunglasses for his shows. I want to note that his show is a lot less of a show than the other acts I’ll be talking about later in this post.
Daniel Kosel performing at the ND State Fair
Daniel is just a guy with a guitar, who stands there and sings. He sings slower songs and mostly older songs. His performance isn’t very dynamic, there’s nothing he does that makes you want to watch him, he’s more of an ambient act, than a mainstage act. While there’s nothing wrong with that, I also don’t think this is the venue for that. He’d be better in a smaller, indoor type venue.
Yesterday on the same stage they had the 188th Army Band of North Dakota. This is one of the Army/National Guard Band, and if you ever get the chance to see any of the army bands, do it! They performers are all super talented and very dynamic. They do upbeat music, and their show is super tight! Any performer can learn a lot about watching these band.
188th Army Band of North Dakota
If you look at the pic of the 188th band above, you’ll notice the guy in the center is wearing sunglasses. While I’m not a fan, I also give him a pass, as he’s not the front person, it’s the lady to the left that’s the signer. The guy in the middle was doing a guitar solo when the pic was taken.
The final show of the day was Sting Rays Jukebox Rock. This show is a high energy show that’s full of production and is a lot of fun. Sting Ray plays oldies, but songs everyone knows. He’s got a great look and a tight show. He does a good job connecting with the audience. He’s very likeable onstage.
Sting Ray’s Jukebox Rock
You’ll notice that no one in Sting Ray’s show is wearing sunglasses. I know this pic was taken after sun down, but at his earlier shows while the sun was up, everyone’s eyes were visible.
I’ve always told performers you can learn more about performing by watching other shows than you can by doing your show. You learn what you like or don’t like, and once you know what you don’t like, you can try to avoid those things in your show.
One of the fun things in the World of Wonders show is they do the some great illusions! One of them is the headless woman. This is part of a larger routine, where a girl gets her head cut off, the head is displayed balanced on a sword on a chair (so you can see under the head) and then the body is displayed without a head!
It’s fun to get to slip into the illusions for fun, but it also gives me a lot more respect for people who do them. Not just sideshow illusions, but magic illusions as it’s a lot of slipping into places that don’t feel like they were designed for people to slip into!
I don’t do illusions, however I do think it’s important for magicians to try to slip into them. It’s easy to say, “I know how it works, she’s just in the base…“. the reality is that there’s a lot more to it than simply laying down.
Last night we recorded the whole show at the World of Wonders side show. Then later that night as a cast we sat down and reviewed it. It was really helpful and while I think I contributed a lot of notes for everyone else, I probably had the most notes for myself.
One of my notes for myself had to do with a joke, something that I had been working on taking out of the show, and adding a new joke. The reason I was taking it out was that it stopped playing as well as it had used to. The joke may simply have aged outof being funny.
For context, in the routine, I’m sticking spoons to my arm. Here’s the original line:
“…I had to surgically implant magnets into my arm. I’m awesome at the airport, I always get the extra pat down”
It’s not the strongest bit, but when it was written, the TSA was in the news a lot with how they were hand screening people. At the time, it was topical and while still relevant, it’s not something that’s at the forefront of people’s minds.
A couple of weeks ago, I worked on writing a new joke to take it’s place with my friend Eric Haines (who is an amazing performer). Here’s the new joke:
“…I had to surgically implant magnets into my arm. The bonus is if I ever get lost, my arm always points north!”
That’s a decent joke, and gets a laugh. The problem was I got greedy and would tell them together to try and get two laughs, instead of simply replacing the joke.
“…I had to surgically implant magnets into my arm. I’m awesome at the airport, I always get the extra pat down. The bonus is if I ever get lost, my arm always points north!”
I think the first punchline didn’t hit hard enough, so the second one was starting off in a hole. By removing the old joke and simply doing the new one, it make the new punchline play stronger. It also tightened up the act!
After a day, I’m starting to settle into the swing of things with the World of Wonder side show. It’s very different from how I’m used to performing as the whole show, or in a 15 minute chunk. The two acts that are about three minutes are outside my normal comfort zone. My show uses a lot of personality, and for it to work, I need you audience to like me, which can take time.
When I’m in variety shows and they want two shorter bits, I normally try to get them to do one longer chunk as if the audience doesn’t like me initially it gives me some time to try to win them over. With two short pieces that are separated in a show, if they don’t like me after the first one, it’s really hard to get them to like me at the second spot.
For my two acts during this run, I picked one thing that has a lot action and applause points, but also sells me a little bit. The second spot is uses a lot of attitude and hype, which works as a second spot, but not as a first. For the second one to work, you need to like me a little bit.
I think the two acts this week are finding their place…
This week I’m performing as an act in the World of Wonders Sideshow. One of the challenges for me is keeping my acts short. They have the 10 act format and each act is in the ballpark of about 3 minutes. Normally when I perform, I try to get as much time as possible out of a routine That’s the key to being a solo act that does a full show.
I’m working on cutting down a lot of the personality bits, it’s hard to figure out what jokes/bits to cut to keep the routine in the 10 act format.
I’m fighting the urge to simply do the bits as I normally do them and have them run 5 minutes. There was a time when I was younger where I wouldn’t have cut down the bits. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized you have to be a team player, but more than that, this is taking me out of my comfort zone. Maybe I could learn that a 5 minute bit in my show, is really an amazing 3 minute bit and I’ve diluted it by stretching it to 5 or 6 minutes.
I’m enjoying stepping out of my normal box and taking some risks!
Today was a fun day for the incoming mail, I had three different vanishing birdcages show up! The first is an birdcage from India, this one has the side bars made at a 90 degree angle difference from how most are made. It could have been made left handed??
This cage vanishes fine, it’s just got a lot of rough edges, that you’ll have to spend sometime filing down.
The second cage that came is an older “martin style” that once belonged to Bryce Chambers (inventor of the Bryce’s screen illusion). It’s damaged and ad an attempt at repair at some point.
The notches in the corner posts are interesting. They appear to have been put there by the manufacturer. The do make the cage a bit more sleek when collapsed, but it appears (to my eye) to be a negligible amount.
The third cage is an Owens Challenge Vanishing Cage. This one, I’m hoping to have be my new working cage. My current working cage is one that was given to me as a teenager, and it has missing bars.
This cage looks great, however it’s pretty stiff. It’s going to need some breaking in. I put in on a pull and it vanished way better than I thought it would have with how stiff it is. I’ll keep working with it and it should loosen up!
Last week I was hosting a stage at a fair. One of the things that I was doing on stage while the band set up was relearning to do my spoon routine. This routine ends with me sticking a giant spoon to my face. I took this routine out of the show about 2 1/2 years ago, and I’m playing with putting it back into the show.
At this particular fair, I wasn’t expecting to be stage hosting, I thought I was going to be doing roving magic. I had the spoon act and lots of old video of me doing it with me to relearn it at night back at the airBnB.
The first time I put it on the stage, it was a disaster…well not that bad, but it wasn’t good. There were soo many little things that I had forgotten to do or say. However after struggling through the act once, I quickly remembered a lot of the logistical things. Then through out the day, lines started coming back to me. Finally at night when I was back at the house and I got to watch video of it, it all started coming together.
I still have a lot of lines to learn, and some confidence to build up!
