Recently I was performing at an outdoor event where it dumped rain all day. My stage was covered so that was nice, but getting around the event I was frequently getting soaked. This the glamourous side of show biz:
In between shows I would go to my dressing room to dry off my socks and shoes so that I’d be comfortable at my next show! There’s nothing worse them stepping onstage and having something like wet shoes bug you. No one in the audience can see the discomfort, but it’s something that takes you mentally out of the show.
Keeping yourself comfortable in the show is important!
I’m a little bit late on this thinking as it’s May and Easter was weeks ago, but I’m surprised that no one is making Easter Peeps as sponges for the sponge ball/bunny trick. The make total sense and the marshmallow has a sponge like visual texture.
If you didn’t want to do a traditional “in their hands” style vanish and productions, you could use them more like multiplying bananas. They’re topical, visual and really wouldn’t take any additional skill to learn if you already do the bananas.
They really wouldn’t be hard to make a mold of, assuming the ingredients in the Peeps don’t have a bad reaction with the mold material. For me this is a deep back burner project, maybe I’ll get to it by next easter…
The other day I popped into my social media and it suggested I be friends with this guy. He’s rocking the “Yellowface” to do the linking rings. This a super lazy presentation approach, and definitely not a modern one. He puts on the outfit to do the Linking Rings.
Let’s take a step back and look at him trying to honor Asian culture. He didn’t do any research on it. There’s no evidence that the lining rings came from china (source: Genii online). So aside from the rings being from China, why is he wearing the clothes? Based on this article which reviews him doing the rings, I can’t find any reason why he’s wearing that robe in his presentation. I hope he wasn’t using any of the “I learned this from a great Chinsese magician…Fu Ling Yu” lines.
We as magicians need to move past this sort of stuff. You can do the Linking Rings without putting on robes.
I will say that I do have an out of context view of what’s happening as I’m just seeing a facebook picture, however the article I read seems to confirm what I’m thinking. In my heart, I hope he’s doing a thought out presentation that’s respectful…
Over the last month or so I’ve been trying to get through the book King of Conjurers: Memoirs of Robert-Houdin. This is the biography of Robert-Houdin and for me this is a hard read. It’s probably that it was translated from French and it’s not the best translation is what’s making it a hard read.
It’s an interesting book and one that I feel I should read at some point as everyone loves to quote Robert-Houdin as saying, “…a magician is an actor playing the part of a magician…”
While reading the book, I found this advice (bottom paragraph) about working slowly:
I think he’s right in many instances, but not 100% of the time. Yes, working slowing has it’s place, and most magicians could benefit by working a little bit slower. Someone like Hans Klok whose style working fast works for him.
I’m heading out to a show in a bit and I’m going to try to slow it down a bit…
The other day I was at the Pike Place Market and walked by a street performing pitch and saw this:
Unfortunately Mr. Unity wasn’t there, so I can only form my opinion based on his milk crate stand.
It looks like he does the day of the week birthday calculation. This is something that I’ve personally never understood why is impressive. It’s clearly a math calculation, not a memorization feat (at least when I’ve seen it). And the end result is something that I didn’t know or have any connection to.
I think if it was reversed and you told the magician the day of the week you were born on and the year, and they told you your birthday, it’d be much cooler. However, I’m going to imagine that would ultimately give the magician a 20-25% success rate, unless there some some fishing for where in the month the birthday is.
Woo hoo! The first batch of my Take Out Box has sold out at Hocus-Pocus and I’ve got a new batch of them on the way! Thanks to everyone who has ordered one!
If you don’t know what the Take Out Box is, here’s the video:
What I really like about this prop is that it’s like a classic production box that would have been put out by Abbott’s or Davenport’s, but it looks like something that actually exists in the current world…unlike those older boxes metal boxes, or the ones that have funky Chinese characters on them. However, if you’re into the Chinese characters, you could draw one on it and it would totally make sense on this prop!
Last night I went out to see the band The Interrupters and one thing I noticed was that they use a lot of things to tell the audience what they want them to do. This is something that in my show I try, but subtly. After watching this show, it made me realize that asking an audience to do something isn’t bad. It can be repetitive, but not necessarily bad.
Something like telling the audience how to respond when a trick happens is effective, because sometimes they don’t know how to respond. If you want people to clap along to a song, you need to tell them.
I need to reevaluate my show and look at places where I’m not getting the desired audience response and try to find spots where I can tell the audience what to do!
I’m always trying to expand my knowledge about magic and magic techniques. I just had four news books arrive!
These four books are on vary different things within magic! I think it’s important to be well rounded and know as much as you can about as much of magic as possible. It makes you better in an impromptu situation, and it makes you a better creator.
Knowledge is power and sometimes you can find a technique from a style that’s something you wouldn’t normally do, but can find a way to apply it to what you do!
A couple of nights ago I performed in comedy show at a bar. I used to do a ton of these, but don’t do very many anymore. It’s also fun to work with the younger comics.
One of the things about these shows is that usually sound is limited, so I do the show with just a handheld mic, not a lapel or headset mic. I do use one of Nick Lewin’s Microphone Holders for tricks where I can’t use a mic stand and need both hands.
This particular bar had a lot of sound options, but I still used the handheld. I really do prefer a handheld mic as you can use it to gesture and emote. I also try to not use music in my show if I’m not doing a 45+ min headline set. The other night I was just doing a feature (middle) spot, so it was very low tech for me.
It’s fun to go out and flex my bar show muscle to make sure I can still do them!
One thing about performing outdoors is that the weather can make pulling a crowd very difficult. Last week at a fair, on Sunday it rained hard all day and attendance was really low during the day. I had the last show of the night and my show started an hour before the fair closed, so there was literally no one on the fairgrounds!
The picture above was taken from the stage about 5 minutes before my show’s start time. The challenge is what do you do? I probably could have called off the show and the fair would have been OK with that. Personally I will stand on stage and talk for however long my show is supposed to last. I can usually make something happen, but I wasn’t optimistic about a show happening.
Right after show start time I was on the mic working on jokes, and two people walked by and I started talking to them and got them to sit down and did some informal magic for them from the stage.
At this point with less than an hour left in the fair and a break in the rain, some other people started to venture out of the buildings, and about 15 mins into my show I actually had a crowd!
It wasn’t the biggest crowd I’ve ever had, but I did end up getting about 90% of people who walked by my show to join the crowd, so that’s HUGE!
The moral of this story is always work hard on stage and don’t “phone it in”.
