Awhile ago I made an ungimmicked spirit hand for someone in Arkansas. They then added the gimmick to the hand and decorated it so that it looks old and cool and here’s what it looks like:
I was chatting with the guy who gimmicked the hand and he’s willing to make more. If you’ve been wanting a gimmicked spirit hand, shoot me a note and we can get you pricing options for one!
-Louie
I’m excited to release my first card trick in a long time, this is called Placeholder!
Effect: You show a deck of cards that’s in new deck order. A card is selected, but kept in place in the deck of cards, so the whole deck stays in order. Now the spectator spreads the cards and their card is now blank card in its place in the deck that’s in new deck order!
One of the the things that this routine solves when using a special deck is how to get that deck in play without. In this routine the deck of cards is in order and stays in order throughout the trick, so you can openly take out the deck and there’s a reason why it’s not used for everything else and that it’s in order and you need to keep it that way.
Here’s a demo of the Placeholder routine:
Right now I’m having an introductory sale on Placeholder. It will retail for $20, however now through May 31, 2024 you can get it for only $15 with USA shipping included!
For more information or to order Placeholder visit:
https://www.magicshow.tips/placeholder/
-Louie
Last night I drove an hour to see a magic and hypnotism show. I love seeing magic shows, and supporting people who are out there performing. I never ask for a free ticket, I always buy one. Before I get into what I think of the show, let me tell you how it ended. I walked out of the show and asked for my money back.
Was the show that bad?
The quality of the show isn’t why I left, I love all magic shows, good, bad. I walked out because I got physically injured by a hypnotist during his show and he didn’t seem to give a crap about it. That’s why I left, the performer intentionally hurt me and didn’t seem to care.
OK, so let’s get into the what happened:
The second half of the show is a hypnosis show. He does the some of the standard full audience stuff, like pretend you have a balloon tied to your hand and feel it lift up with your eyes closed. As this is happening, he taps people in the audience on the shoulder and if he tapped you, you’re invited to come onstage. After the audience qualifying bit he askes people who got tapped to come onstage. I didn’t want to go onstage, and since the tapping on the should bit is discreet, no one would know that I’m declining. Four people come up, but one has a cane, so he sends her back to her seat. Then he looks right at me, gestures towards me and says that he tapped me and verbally invites me to the stage. Being a good sport I go up to the stage after I was specifically singled out.
He does his induction, I’m not hypnotized (as far as I know), but following his directions. So I’m doing what I think he’s asking me to do. Then he gets to the bit where people play imaginary instruments and I guess I didn’t start soon enough and he walks over and has me look at him and he starts shaking my arm. Apparently I wasn’t doing it right, so after a few times of me trying to do what he wants and not doing it correctly, he grabs my arm and violently yanks it towards him and says, “sleep”. It was the opposite of making want to sleep, it hurt and I heard my shoulder make a noise.
I told him that it hurt and that I was done onstage. I walked off the stage, grabbed my coat, asked for a refund and left the venue. I really wanted to yell at him on stage about how inappropriate what he did to me was.
The hypnotist was recording the show that night, so he has this on video. I’d love to see this video and to see that I’m over reacting, however my shoulder still being sore this morning almost 12 hours later tells me I’m not.
In my heart, I hope that the hypnotist reviews the video of this show and my interaction with him and realizes how forcefully yanking on someone’s arm with no warning is a horrible idea and a great way to injure someone, someone that paid for a ticket AND drove an hour to see his show.
This should also serve as a reminder that people in the audience are actual people and not props. What you do with them on stage can have lasting effects and can skew how their opinion of future shows like yours. For example if I was the holiday party booker for a company, I’d probably never book a hypnotist in the future based only on this one experience. I used to think it was unfair when people has a bad experience with a magician and won’t book any magician, now I totally understand that position!
-Louie
One of my the routines that I’m working on is a Walnut to Glass routine. My starting point is Pete Biro’s Nutty Surprise. I’ve added a devils hank for one phase and a hat load for the finale.
Here’s a picture of the end of the routine on my normal table:
Working the routine on that table is hard because there’s not a lot of workable space due to the trim on the table. After working on it a few times, I remembered I had a larger table that I could use. And here’s what the end looks like on that table:
The second table is about the same width as the first one, but without the trim, it has more usable space. The second table is also deeper allowing more room once the hat is on the table.
The next challenge or decision I need to make for the routine is whether to use a bottomless glass for the routine, or just a regular glass. I like Mariano Goni‘s version of the bottomless glass in his trick Nut Waltz. I won’t be doing this close up with people on top of the cup, but still a little bit worried about people being able to see it. I guess it’s something I’m going to have to actually try for people and either have it pass or get busted.
-Louie
The new addition to my library is Wayne Dobson’s Legacy. I’ve been a fan of Wayne’s ever since I saw him at the Desert Magic Seminar (It may have changed the name to the World Magic Summit at that point) in Las Vegas.
A while ago I got the book Wayne Dobson – The Definitive Collection. This was most of the stuff that Wayne had put out, plus a few interviews and unpublished things. It’s a great book, but then Wayne Dobson’s Legacy came out, so I figured I should get it.
I suspected when I ordered the new book was that the tricks included were going to be what was in the Definitive Collection book and based on a quick flip through the book, it appears that’s correct. There may be an additional bit here or there or a trick could be completely rewritten, but at a glance the material looks the same. I didn’t buy the book for the descriptions of the tricks, I got it for the biography which is book one of the set.
I’m only about 40 pages into the book so far and enjoying it, and if you’re a fan of Wayne’s I think you will too! If you’re just looking for the tricks, it looks like you can get Wayne Dobson – The Definitive Collection for about $25 as an ebook and I’d suggest you go that route. Either way, Wayne’s material is solid!
-Louie
Way back in June I put together a quick little sequence with my Airpods. There’s nothing crazy here, it’s a sponge ball sequence and a matrix move. However it’s a solid impromptu sequence.
@louiefoxx Airpod trick! The 10 and 2! #airpod #headphone #appleairpod #apple #trick #10and2 #sleightofhand #louiefoxx #magic #magician #technology ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
I think that needs more and a while ago at a magic club meeting someone had Ellusionist’s Self Vanishing Headphones. Here’s what the trick looks like:
They are describing the trick as a modern ball vase, however they totally missed what makes the ball and vase great. In the ball and vase you can take the ball out of the vase, you can’t take the airpods out of the case. I altered my case by drilling some holes in it so that it can actually hold the Airpods.
Now I’m able to do the classic ball vase where I take out the Airpods, put them in my pocket, they reappear in the case, then vanish from the case and reappear in my pocket. Now it’s a ball vase. That’s not what I do with the trick, but with the simple addition of adding some holes to it so that it actually holds the Airpods makes the prop soo much more versatile!
Whenever I get a gimmick, I always try to think of how it could be better for me and what I want to do with it. Being able to start my routine with the Airpods in the case is HUGE!
-Louie
When I was at an industry tradeshow on Wednesday pitching my show, one of the things I did at my booth was my card routine. This is the meat of the close up magic that I perform. It’s basically a multiple revelation of a signed card. It ends with the signed card as a sticker.
People at trade shows will usually put these on their shirt of badge and wear them all day. They end up being a walking billboard for me. people will ask them about the sticker and they’ll talk about me. I think I originally got the idea for having something visual that sticks around long after the trick from Michael Close. He talked about it in his lecture 20ish years ago and I think did a thing with a bill that turned to a bunny and left that with people.
When I’m at a booking trade show, especially when I’m new to the market, my goal is to get people talking about me. My sticker card trick is a great way to do that!
-Louie
A couple of months ago I had my first custom made vanishing birdcage made. Then a recently the maker reached out to me and offered to tweak it as he found a better way to make part of it and if I sent it back, he’d send me an updated vanishing birdcage!
The new cage came in the mail a few days ago and it looks great! It’s always great when I can have props made to how I want them, not having to work around the “off the shelf” model of props.
Finding this maker was a lot of work! Someone mentioned his name a long time ago, then I made a trip to Canada to see a show and his name got mentioned by another magician. Then a few emails and I got the maker’s contact and arranged a meeting!
I think we get spoiled by how instant and easy things are on the internet, that we forget sometimes you gotta put time in to hunt down people. I’m glad I put in the time!
-Louie
Right before I headed to Arizona a couple of weeks ago I came across Pete Biro’s Nutty Surprise at a magic estate sale.
This is a routine where walnuts disappear from you hands and reappear in a covered glass. Then it ends with surprise production of a giant metal nut!
Here’s Pete Biro doing it:
I took the set with my to the fair I was performing at and started playing around with it.
There are some moments in it that I really like and some things that I don’t. I’m not a huge fan of how the large metal nut is hidden. It’s not bad, but it work work for how I work. I also don’t like how the production was from the bag. I changed the load procedure to a body load and load the nut under the glass. I tried two ways of loading the nut, one with the glass covered and one uncovered. I thought the production from the uncovered glass would get a stronger reaction, but it didn’t. The revelation from under the glass while covered was stronger!
I have more ideas with this routine that I want to play with, and this is an interesting set of props that’s worth looking into!
-Louie
A trick that I love, that you don’t see very often is the Ring and Silk. This is usually a sequence of a silk magically going on and off of a ring. I think this trick isn’t common is that it’s most common method makes it a better stage trick than a parlor trick and definitely not a close up trick.
If you do a search on this blog you can read about my version of a Silk and Ring routine that uses a coat hanger in place of the ring.
A couple of weeks ago when I was performing at the Moisture Festival I got to work with Steve Owen and he did the trick!
I got to watch it the first time on the TV in the green room, then the second time I got to watch it live. One of the cool things about Steve’s routine is that he uses multiple methods. This makes the trick a lot stronger. I think one of the drawbacks of the standard method is that you use it over and over and if someone catches it early on, the routine is no good for them. But mixing methods can cancel out methods.
-Louie
