Pictures – Page 77 – MagicShow.Tips

In a Puff of Smoke…

If you read this blog, you’ve noticed I reference Gary Oulette every now and then. His Fulminations column in Genii Magazine when I was a teenager had many things that stuck with me, like always producing the card a second time from your wallet.

He put out a manuscript called In a Puff of Smoke which had his system for creating smoke from the hands. This was supposedly used by David Copperfield in the 1990’s in this torn and restored baseball card.

I finally came across the one of the manuscripts at a reasonable price. It’s not a trick I’ll ever do, especially in the over 30 years since he put it out the technology for making smoke has greatly improved.

What I do find interesting is his thought process for putting the gimmick together and making it work. Especially using 1991 (or earlier) technology. I sometimes wonder what crazy stuff Gary Oulette would be putting out now if he was still alive? He was definitely someone who figured out how to make an idea happen!

-Louie

Playing With Others…

Working on the road at fairs allows me two work with all sorts of acts. Last week I worked with Scotty and Rich and Orion. They are all variety acts and with very different styles!

One of the great things is chatting ideas with these different acts. Everyone comes at it with a different background and preferences as to how a show should be done. Talking to other acts and getting feedback often will show you things in your show you didn’t see or thing of.

If you work with other acts, talk to them and use them to help you grow!
-Louie

Magic Shops on the Road..

One of the things that I try to do when I travel is visit magic shops and support them. Last week when I was flying into to San Francisco and driving a couple hours north, I stopped by Misdirections Magic Shop!

misdirections magic shop in san francisco

While I was there I picked up Shrapnel by Kim Anderson.

This is a linking pin type routine that has a lot of phases that use a finger ring. I’ve been doing some stuff for a few years with a finger ring and an Andrus Key Pin, so this was similar something I was already doing.

I really like the smaller pins for the trick. That was the part I was unsure about, I didn’t think I would like using the smaller pins. Kim’s routine is great and the instructions are pretty clear and I had fun learning it. I haven’t tried it out yet, but heading back out on the road in a few days and will give it a whirl!
-Louie

Picture of Sound…

Sometimes when performing at a fair the stage doesn’t really have a sound person. If they’re using professional variety acts, it’s normally not really necessary to have a sound guy there the all day, every day. On the stage I was on there were only two acts, me and a juggling act.

One of the things that I always do is take a picture of the soundboard:

The uppermost three cords are mine. Once the sound tech gets me where they want me, it’s easy to simply reference this picture whenever I show up and plug in. I don’t have to walk all over the fairgrounds to track down the sound guy to set my audio.
-Louie

Do Not Disturb…

For several years I’ve been working on a Silk Thru Coat Hanger trick.

You can read posts about it here

It’s three phases, the silk goes thru the hanger, then two hangers are put on the silk and one that’s selected goes thru the silk, and finally the silk goes from the triangle of the hanger to the hook.

I’m not the biggest fan of the second phase, but the trick really didn’t work as a two phase routine. It hit me while sitting in my hotel room, the Do Not Disturb sign would make a great prop for this routine and fits in with my presentation. The reason I never realized this before was most of the signs have a slit in them to fit over the door handle. The slit makes it useless for the trick, but I’m staying at a hotel that has Do Not Disturb signs that don’t have slits! I took one of the signs to the fair and gave it a try and it works!

I’ll need to play a bit with trying to figure out how to get it smooth. I think the problem is the sign at my hotel is that it’s got a really small hole. A quick search on Amazon and I found some with larger holes. I ordered them and they’ll be waiting for me when I get home.

I’m hoping this is the solution to the second phase of the routine!
-Louie

Show Me a Trick…

One thing that has always bugged me are magicians that won’t do magic for people they run into who ask them to “show a trick“. There thinking is that no one else in any profession gets asked to work. That’s simply not true. Lawyers get asked legal questions, doctors get asked for medical advice, it’s not unique to magicians. It’s unique to professions that have “secret knowledge“. What I mean by that is they have knowledge or understand things that the average person doesn’t.

Looking back in time, all of the great magicians a hundred years ago made reputations doing impromptu magic. Max Malini biting the buttons off of coats or Hermann who pulled the coins out of rolls or eggs at the market. I think most magicians hesitancy is they lack the technical skills and knowledge of tricks to “do a trick” at a moments notice. I’m a huge fan of always having a trick on you. You don’t have to do it, but sometimes it makes a huge difference having something always ready.

The other night someone at the bar where I was having dinner recognized me from my show earlier in the day. They told the bartender that I was a magician and he asked if I could show him a trick. I asked if the bar had a deck of cards, and they didn’t. He handed me a pen and asked if I could do a trick with that, so I swallowed the pen by lapping it. Then I did my Splitting Image (mismade bill) trick, which was a solid end to my “impromptu” performance.

Not relying on what you can find around you, but having something on you that you are guaranteed to kill with is a huge advantage. Planning ahead and keeping a few tricks in your wallet makes a huge difference!
-Louie

Safety Pin Trix

One of the things I’m trying to do is be better with my time while I’m on the road. When travelling and performing in cities away from home, there’s a lot of free time. I usually go out and see the local sights, and hang out with the other acts, however there’s still a lot of down time.

One trick that I do in my close up is the Linking Pins and I use Jerry Andrus’s gimmicked pins, but I’ve never really gone through Jerry’s book. This morning before I headed out to the airport I grabbed my copy of Safety Pin Trix and some regular and gimmicked pins.

I’m planning on going through the book in my hotel room. I’m hoping there will be some things in it that I can add to my current routine!

-Louie

Remote Control Party Popper!

Yesterday I posted about wanting to make a Remote Control Party Popper. I ended redesigning the party popper holder, so that it would fit more securely on the board. The one on the right is the new design, and it’s got a flat bottom to site flat on the board.

You’ll notice that I’m using spools to coil in the string. My first attempt was a lever that pulled them, but I couldn’t get the torque I needed, however the strings constant pull worked well to pull the strings.

Here’s the working version:

Having two that shoot off makes it feel “bigger” and having the second one staggered I think makes it hard to miss. I think people will hear the bang from the first one, but might miss the visual of the streamer. The second one should be seen as the first one will have gotten the attention.

I think if I made it again, I would put the two motors in the same motor housing, which would allow me to make it a little bit smaller.
-Louie

Party Popper Idea…

One of the cool things about having a 3D printer is it helps me make my ideas a reality, and do it fairly easily. Last week I got the idea in my head of having a remote control party popper. If you don’t know what a party popper is, it’s a little tube with a string. You pull the string, there’s a bang and and little streamers shoot out.

The mechanism is pretty simple, it’s going to be a motor on a remote control. The party popper needs something to hole it in place, so I designed a little holder for it, with a hole in the back:

The plan is to attach this to a board with the battery, remote receiver and motor. To load it, you’ll put in the party popper, tie the string to the motor and when you’re ready, simply push the on button on the remote.

We’ll see if this actually works once I put it together later today…
-Louie

The Secret to Likability…

The easiest step to being likable onstage is smiling. That’s it. If you can do that you’re soo much closer to the audience liking you.

Smiling makes you look like you want to be there and you are having fun. Yes, there are times you don’t want to smile, and those times should be well thought out. Your default should be a smile.

Many years ago I heard an interview with comedian Neal Brennan on Tom Papa’s podcast Come to Papa. He mentioned that he thought he was smiling onstage, but realized he wasn’t. Onstage you need to smile bigger than you think you need to for it to play to the audience. Hearing that interview really helped my show!
-Louie