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Working on Comedy Magic…

A while ago my friend Monty Reed mentioned he was working on some comedy magic, and I suggested we go to an open Mic. Our schedules finally worked out and we went to one last night:

This was Monty’s first comedy open mic, and there are some “rules” that people need to know. It’s always easier to go with someone who has done them before, they can kinda show you the ropes.

There’s nothing crazy you need to learn, however if the concept of “The Light” is new to you, it’s important to know. The light is usually a literal light of some sort, so a flashlight, or phone, but can be something as simple as a someone waving to you or sitting in a chair. It’s a signal that you’re running out of your allotted time onstage. Usually they “light” you when you have one minute left. When you’re new or working on new material, it’s hard to tell how much time you have done and the light is really helpful…if you know what it means!

-Louie

Adding a Measure

A while ago I bought Measure for Measure by Iain Bailey which is a prediction using a tape measure. You pull out the tape and someone says stop and you’ve predicted where they say stop. Here’s the promo video for it:

I think it’s a great trick, but the method didn’t really work for me. There’s a move that needs to happen, and it’s not hard to do, but the move just didn’t work for me. I’m not saying it’s bad, because it’s not, it’s a great trick. The method didn’t work for me.

I ordered a few tape measures and got to playing around with altering Iain’s gimmick.

What I ended up with is a tape measure that starts legitimately closed, ends legitimately closed and is 100% self working, there’s no move. I also upped the width of the tape to the Stanley Fat Max tape measure, so it’ll play a little bit bigger. As a bonus, you can see the prediction retract with the tape as you close it.

Here’s a quick demo of what my solution looks like:

I want to be clear that I’m not knocking Iain’s release, it’s a great trick and I think it would work for most people out of the box. Also, the hard part of creating magic is the first 90%, from the initial idea to a finished product for how the creator wants it to work. The final 10% is easy, and my “improvement” was the easy part, since the idea and gimmick already existed.

Also when it comes to marketing magic, there are a lot of choices that have to be made. Sometimes a method won’t be the best, but more accessible to the majority of magicians, or something that may seem like a small, insignificant tweak will triple the cost per unit.

I’m heading out on the road in about a week, I’m excited to give my version of Measure for Measure a try in front of real audiences!
-Louie

Always One More Step…

One of the things I’ve always said about creating magic is that it’s about problem solving. One trick where this is especially true is the spoon and fork transposition that I do. This particular trick has been an engineer nightmare the whole time I’ve really been working on it. It’s a series of challenges to get me to the next step.

One of the recent challenges I’ve had with this trick is that at the end there’s a good chance the spoon and fork will clink in my pocket. While it’s not loud and it only happens once during the routine, I want to eliminate it.

The first attempt was putting a felt covered magnet on my pocket and all that did was change the “clink” to a “clunk”. That took me to the next and final solution, I simply put a piece of felt in my pocket to act as a divider. That solved the problem and it was an easy simply solution! Also if I try to avoid having magnets on my body, as it’s amazing how often you’ll get stuck to things. I’m not against using magnets, I just try to not have them attached to me.

Theseus – review

Over the summer I drove through Chicago and stopped at Magic Inc and picked up Theseus by Nathan Colwell. The book is on a single trick, but has multiple methods and a bit about the journey that Nathan took to get to the different solutions to figure out the different methods.

The effect is a card is signed and torn into four pieces. Each piece is replaced by a turn corner from four different cards. When the four replaced pieces of card are turned over, they are the original signed card.

I really like the premise of the trick. It’s based on the Ship of Theseus thought problem. Essentially it’s if you took all of the parts of a ship and replaced them, is it the same ship? It’s a hell of a premise for a card transposition and great presentational connection that Nathan made!

The methods are good, and there are many of them. Just a heads up, this isn’t an self working trick to do, you will need to do some sleight of hand. That said the methods aren’t that hard if you’re not afraid to put in a little bit of work. Honestly it’s not that hard to palm a quarter of a card.

My big complaint with the book is that Nathan uses a lot of non standard techniques and unless you already know them or own the original source material, you’d have to spend and additional couple of hundred dollars on books/videos to correctly learn each method correctly. An example of this is you end up in “master palm” position. If you don’t know the palm, you don’t know if you’re doing it correctly. Nathan does give a credits and where to find the info, however a quick description of the master palm position would be helpful.

With the lack of complete descriptions considered, I still think the premise of the trick is great and if it appeals to you, get the book. There’s enough info in the book to kinda figure out the moves you don’t know, or at least get from point a to point b. That’ll give you a feel for that particular method and you can decide to invest in the source material for the moves you don’t know.

-Louie

Camera’s on…

One of the greatest challenges in magic is getting audiences in virtual shows to turn on their cameras. In the pic below I’m doing performing for about 50 people, but only a handful have their camera’s on.

There are a lot of reasons why people don’t turn their camera’s on, and I honestly don’t blame anyone who keeps their camera off. There are some solutions, for example some ticketed shows have a requirement that all cameras are on. This isn’t an option when you’re hired by someone…I guess you could put that in as a condition in your contract, but I bet it would be a hard sell for a corporate meeting.

The first step is simply asking for people to turn their cameras on. That’s the single step you can take that will yield the most cameras to turn on. In my experience the more I interact with people the more cameras turn on. Once someone figures out a way to get 90% of the camera’s on without requiring it, these shows will be soo much more rockin!
-Louie

Printing Memory…

The idea of using SD cards for magic tricks is interesting to me. I’m not sure why, it’s basically a coin trick, but there’s something about the prop that I find interesting. I think that it’s potentially fragile and has value. The value can be either monetary or sentimental, and usually both.

Designed a SD card for my 3D printer

and printed them out:

There are a few different ones. Regular SD card shaped and then the ones with the holes could hold micro SD cards in the slots. I’m not sure what I want to do with the ones that will hold micro SD cards, I’m thinking a 16gb card turns into two micro 8gb cards.

I’ve got another fun idea, that’s sort of like an “omni” SD card. You mention that memories are contained on them. Someone from the audience mentions a topic that someone would take pics of. Let’s say they choose “Pets”. The SD card turns clear, but inside there’s a the image of a cat.

Now the fun part, playing until I find an idea I like!
-Louie

RIP – Retire It Please

One thing that struck me was the amount of love for the Amazing Jonathan I’m seeing in FB posts.

It’s not the love for him that’s surprising, it’s the people who are doing it. There are a lot of people who I know have swiped gags from the Amazing Jonathan’s show and use them in their show, but are posting RIP’s on their social media. Are they really mourning his passing, or are they mourning the passing of their source free material.

These posts are like being sad when circuit city whet out of business, but not being sad because you were a customer, but because you used to shoplift laptops and it was easy to steal from. If you’re really sad he’s passed, you’d put the rest all of the gags stole from his show.

-Louie

Shell Game Collection…

We’re wrapping up our first move for the first time in 16 years, and it’s amazing what you accumulate over a decade and half. At our new place I set up my collection of three shell game sets, and I have more than I thought I had, and in the picture below there are no duplicates:

There are some interesting sets in the collection. For example I have three sets of Rivera Shells that are all made out of very different material. There are both sets of Karl Normal Shell Game which are bowls, the original run has a divot in the top, where the second run of them doesn’t.

The shell game set I own that’s not pictured is my main working set. I really should get a second set as a back up, and to have in the display.

-Louie

Lip Reading…

Yesterday I did my second day of senior shows and it was a lot of fun. I think I may finally be figuring out how to make my coat hanger thru silk routine work. I just need to let the effect marinade and sit with the audience even longer. The trick is a very strong and visual trick, and I think brains just take a long time to process it.

Another thing I’m learning is how much people use their eyes to listen. When we listen we also do a lot of lip reading. When someone is masked, it’s harder to understand them because we can’t lip read. This makes a ton of sense looking into the past. For example my wife uses the captions when she watches movies on a smaller screen like her phone. It makes it easier for her to “hear”. Because of this I’m talking a lot more slowly and deliberately in my shows.

-Louie

Amazing Magicians in Seattle…

In Seattle we’re a few weeks away from the Moisture Festival. This is the largest variety arts festival in the USA (possibly the world). I’ve been involved in this festival as a performer for 8ish years and then for the last year as one of the hosts of The Moisture Festival Podcast.

I was just looking a the schedule of performers and for magic fans, there’s a lot of amazing magicians coming to the festival. In 2022 the Moisture Festival has:

Avner The Eccentric
Mike Caveney
Tina Lenert
Skilldini
Steve Owens
Jamy Ian Swiss
Just Felice
Joey Pipia
Magical Mystical Michael
Master Payne
Louie Foxx

If you’re in the Northwest, it’s worth a trip to come out to a show, or weekend of shows. Tickets are on sale now and available at:
https://moisturefestival.org