After one of my shows yesterday at the fair I’m performing at, I had a guy tell me something interesting after the show. He was a caterer and has worked with a lot of local performers, so he’s seen some magicians, and told me that. The caterer told me that my product wasn’t a magic show, it was my personality.
I 100% agree with his assessment and that’s the goal with the show. It’s not about the tricks, while they are important and I select them to hopefully move the story of my personality forward. What I’m selling is how I work, not what I work with.
Some magicians live on the the tricks that they do and that’s an easier route than trying to live on your personality. One of the hard things is when people don’t like your show, that directly means they don’t like you. Where if you do an effect driven show, if they don’t like the show they don’t like the tricks.
It’s up to you what your art is…
Category: Tricks
Unqualified Answers…
In the past I’ve written blog posts about how the facebook groups are bad places to get advice. The exception to this is when it’s a curated group of people where you know everyone. Recently in a group someone was asking about where to find some fuse to make a fake stick of dynamite. I’m not sure why you would want that, however that’s a different conversation.
In the comments of the facebook group, someone added this comment:
This is horrible advice. First of all, that doesn’t make flash string. Soaking cotton in lighter fluid makes a wick. It will burn, but not like flash paper. What will happen is the cotton string will light on fire until the lighter fluid burns off, then the string will burn, leaving a lot of residue. It also won’t happen in a flash, it burn like a wick with very little fuel, because that’s what it is.
Be careful out there when you ask for advice on the internet!
Tear-able Solution…
Restarting to do a trick that’s been almost two years since I used to do has some fun little challenges. One of the things that the trick needs is a double walled envelope. I went out and bought some envelopes and gimmicked them:
The first show I realized quickly that these particular envelopes were made differently than I was used to. They start loaded with and item behind the wall and I put something in front of the wall during the show. During the first show I used it in yesterday, I couldn’t get the front compartment open! It was too flush with the front side of the envelope.
The solution was pretty easy, a quick little tear and I was good to go! That little scallop I ripped out allowed me to access the front compartment easily.
The routine that I use this for the audience never sees that side of the envelope until it’s sealed, so it’s not issue having a tear that big.
I frequently tell people that creating and performing magic is 90% problem solving!
Five Card Surprise…
Here’s another packet trick that I got from a collection of magic that I’m revising. Today it’s Five Card Surprise, and there was not creator listed on the packaging. It’s sort of like an illogical princess card trick.
Here’s the video of me doing it the original way as written, then doing a revised version for a real audience:
This trick suffers from trying to make it easy to do. What I mean by that is the card selection is you simply telling them what card to take. I think it not being a choice weakens the trick a lot. The simple addition of a force of the card (any force) greatly improves the trick.
Magic Inc!
I’ve wanted to visit Magic Inc for a long time, however every time I’ve been in Chicago it’s been closed. I finally made it to Chicago when it was open.
Inside I noticed they had my Evaporation trick in stock! It’s always fun to see my trick out there in magic shops.
While I was there I picked up a copy of Theseus by Nathan Colwell.
It’s an interesting idea, it’s basically a book that’s just one trick, with a lot of methods for it. It sounds like it’s a bit of a journey through how the trick was created. I haven’t really had a chance to dig into it yet, but I’m excited to read it!
Abbott’s Day 5
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 vanishing 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!
The evening show was Lance Burton and Friends:
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.
Learning By Cutting…
Reflecting back on performing with World of Wonders last week, it really got me out of my comfort zone. Performing in a three minute context isn’t something I really do anymore. When I was starting out I built my show at comedy open mics in 3-5 minute chunks, however it’s been a while since I’ve worked in that format.
The big thing for me is that it’s gotten me to edit. I was cutting out things that really didn’t need to be there. Also when you’re doing a routine as a stand alone bit, you’ll notice what’s a strong joke or bit and what felt like it was a good joke, but it’s just your momentum from the whole show that helps you get a laugh.
I’ve also written some new jokes and come up with some new bits for the routines I was doing.
I’m really glad I did this, it’s not my normal thing. I learned a lot!
Getting into a Cast…
One of the fun things work this week with World of Wonders this week is that I’m part of cast of performers. That means my duties are more than just my act. I’ve got a small part in another act. I pop my head through the curtain and say a couple of lines. This is something I’ve never really had to do before, aside from performing with my daughter.
In the middle of the run, I had another performer have an idea for my spoon act. This idea would use a second person to introduce my giant spoon. The idea took off! Backstage we then started riffing and before I knew it, it was a fairly fleshed out bit!
This is something that I can’t normally do in my spoon act, however I also don’t know that I’ll be doing the spoon act much longer as part of it probably isn’t very good for my health.
The important thing is even though I don’t know the future of the spoon act (I took it out of my show about 3 years ago), I’m still working on it. It’s got a brief life in the show for 9 days, but I still want it to grow!
Joke Swap!
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 out of 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!
Spark of Invention…
This week I’m performing in Minot, North Dakota. I’ve worked out here many times over the years. When getting into town, I drove by a Menards hardware store.
Normally this isn’t a huge deal, but this is the hardware store where I bought all the stuff to create my Evaporation trick! It’s also the store where I bought a lot of the parts for all the previous unsuccessful versions of the trick.
Many magicians think that finished ideas just pop out of people’s heads, and while that does happen, it’s rarely the case. Usually it’s a idea, that eventually after a lot of work gets to the final idea.
The key is to trying to create a new method for a trick is to not give up. I tired many, many bad (in retrospect) ideas for how to make the trick bottle. However each bad idea taught me something, and they all moved me closer and closer to the final goal!
-Louie
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