Tricks – Page 7 – MagicShow.Tips

The Nest of Envelopes Trick

For the Nest of Envelopes, I need to figure out what is going to end up inside the envelopes. I’m thinking that a choice will be made as each envelope is opened. And those choices will narrow it down to a single thing. Then that single thing or representation (i.e., picture of it) will be in the innermost envelope.

While I hate for this to end up being a card trick, it looks like it will be. A deck of cards lends itself to being a group of items that can be grouped in a lot of different ways that are easily remembered. You can give people choices like: color, suit, letter or number, odd or even, male or female, exact value (i.e., four). A performer friend and I sat down and tried to brainstorm different things that could be grouped in different ways, hopefully four or five groups. We didn’t come up with anything that was good or easy for a person to understand.

If the trick is going to end up being a playing card prediction, then the obvious choice is an invisible deck. I travel with Rough Stick, so I quickly made an invisible deck:

I don’t know if this will be the final method, but it’s nice because it’s self-contained. The deck can go into the smallest envelope, and I don’t need to add or alter anything. Just open the envelopes, and when we get to the invisible deck, spread it to reveal the selection.

-Louie

Magic Show Running Gag

The School Assembly Tour that I did in April had a running gag in it. It was a bit with Jeff McBride’s BEKOS (smiley face version), and you can see me do it in my School Assembly Set. I really liked how it played, and I’m thinking of adding a running gag to my show.

In the past, I’ve done a thing with the Nest of Boxes, I wrote an article about it over a decade ago called Call Back: My Take on the Nest of Boxes. Basically, I was using the nest of boxes as a running gag throughout the show. I really would like to use them again; however, the reality of how my show travels prohibits me from using a traditional nest of boxes.

The Nest of Envelopes!

The idea is a Nest of Envelopes. The idea is that something is inside a nesting set of 4 or 5 envelopes. The thing inside doesn’t have to be an object that has vanished; it could be a prediction or even some sort of punchline. This opens up a lot more possibilities.

The nice thing about envelopes over a set of boxes is that they pack flat and are much lighter! Also, something that, in an emergency, could be sourced in any city with an office supply store.

-Louie

Old Magic Props in Real Life!

There are magic props that look like they were created to make a trick work, and don’t exist in real life. The TV Card Frame magic trick where a card appears between two pieces of glass is one of those tricks.

Recently at a junk shop I saw a picture frame that I’m guessing is what the TV Card Frame is trying to look like:

I’m always amazed that these things that look strange to me, but were created long before I was born, were designed to sort of look like things that existed in real life back then.

I wonder what props that look like everyday items now won’t look like anything people will have interact 40 years from now?

-Louie

Stage Show Props

These are the props that are in my hands or pockets when I walk onstage. This is for a 90 minute theater show.

The paper will have a person’s name under “congrats”, but that will be filled in right before showtime. The paper goes in the envelope, and that, along with the mic, goes in my hands. Everything else is in a pocket or under my coat.

I will say that switching from putting the ball in my back pocket to a ball dropper to steal the tennis ball is a game changer for me! I use it in my Stand Up Chop Cup routine (from my 2025 lecture notes). The steal is cleaner, with less motion and I don’t have a lumpy butt for half my show!

-Louie

What’s the Out?

Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with magic props that use electronics. There’s so much that can go wrong, and when it does, how do you still do the routine? For me, I usually run two different methods at the same time and can switch from the cleaner/easier electronic method to the analog method instantly.

I’ve got a bit in my new show that uses an electronic magic prop, and the easiest solution to it failing is to have a second one running at the same time!

I do have a third backup method that’s analog; however, the more efficient way is two of the electronic gimmicks.

With magic methods moving towards apps, and electronic gimmicks, I think it’s important to look at your show and figure out where the potential failure points are for tech and how you would deal with them when it happens.

It will happen!

-Louie

Not Doing Material

When I host a variety show, I try to do as little of my formal material as possible. I do have a lot of material ready to be used, however I try to make the show not about my act…unless I have a scheduled spot in the show.

Here’s my MC props from a gig a couple weeks ago:

Of those props, I only did my routine with the Evaporation gimmick and there were 13 acts in the show, so I was on stage a lot! Luckily, the transitions were pretty tight, and there were a lot of announcements that needed to be done, so that gave me things to fill transitions.

I also did things like interview someone from the audience:

…and fed a guy licorice out of my mouth!

Both of these things were spontaneous and really created fun energy for the show. I always try to find things that take me out of my box and to create a show that’s unique to the people who are in the audience at that specific show that they know they’ll never see again!

That’s why people go see live entertainment, to be a part of a unique experience!

-Louie

Magic Show Consumables

Last week, my magic show did 12 shows at a fair in California. When I was packing to go there, I took a picture of all the consumable stuff in my magic show. This is stuff that isn’t reusable and I have to replace each show or every few shows:

Here’s what’s in that picture:

Pad of paper
Dollar bills
decks of cards
Gift bags
wet naps
confetti
garbage bags
paper plates
throw coils
produce bags
evidence bags

It feels like a lot of stuff, and it kinda is when you’re seeing 12 shows worth of stuff, plus a couple of back ups. For a single show, it’s not a lot. The nice thing about having stuff that gets used up in the show is that my case going home is a little bit lighter!

-Louie
PS: I have written tons of posts about traveling with a magic show on this blog!

Newspaper Magic Tricks

About five years ago, I used a torn and restored newspaper as the closer to a show. I used Nick Lewin’s Slow Motion Paper Tear, and it got great responses. Someone in a Facebook group asked about a newspaper tear that gives you clean edges on the tear. In my experience with the trick getting a clean tear is a combination of the grain/quality of the newspaper and just doing it a lot. The more you do it, the easier it is to get a clean tear.

That’s not really what this post is about, it’s about using a newspaper. Look below to see multiple people mention newspapers not being common:

Yes, I agree a newspaper isn’t common, but they still exist. Just about every grocery store in the USA still sells them. Here’s a list of things magician use that they consider “everyday objects” but I think aren’t:

Dollar bills
Coins
Handkerchiefs
Playing cards
Pencil
Breast pocket size wallets
Records
CD

All of those things still exist in the world, but the average person probably interacts with them about the same as a newspaper. I can’t think of the last time I held a pencil or handkerchief that wasn’t magic related. I hardly use cash anymore, and outside of a magic context, I’d say its been years since I would have touched playing cards.

It’s all about context, people still know what a newspaper is, they just might not have physically touched one recently. I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t use one based on how often people see them, but it’s not a strange object. A silver dollar is more strange than a newspaper.

That said, the first line of the newspaper tear when I did it was a joke explaining what a newspaper is.

-Louie

The Omni Chair AKA Take a Seat!

Let’s start by me saying I think most omni magic tricks are the result of lazy creativity. I’ve written at least one blog post about that in the past. What most omni magic tricks lack is something more than just the object becoming clear.

Ok, that all being said, I came across a set of small plastic folding chairs and one of the color options was clear.

There were four colors of chairs: Black, pink, blue and clear. I bought one of each. These stand about 5 inches tall. My first idea was some sort of chair test with them. My current idea is this:

Three tiny chairs are shown:

One of the three chairs is freely selected and put into a handkerchief that’s folded into a bag. You snap your fingers and pull out a ribbon/silk that is the color of the chair you put into the handkerchief. Then you remove the chair, and it’s now clear, and the handkerchief is shown empty.

There’s not much to it, but a bit more meat than just “hold this…now it’s clear” like in so many omni magic tricks. This routine is more like Dr. Boris Zola’s Silver Extraction routine. I do like the selection of a color as it adds a layer to it.

-Louie

Call Back – Louie’s Take on the Nest of Boxes

The article below was written in the early 2000’s and was published in the online magic magazine Online Visions which no longer exists. People have asked me about where they could find it. I finally dug it up and here it is:

Call Back
(My Take on the Nest of Boxes)
By Louie Foxx

One thing I’ve never liked is how most magicians perform the nest of boxes trick. They borrow an object, it disappears, and it’s in the box, all in a nice five-minute chunk that wraps itself up nicely. I think there are a couple of reasons most magicians do it that way which are:

1) That’s how everyone else does it

2) The box is expensive, and they want to get a whole routine (or as much time as they can) out of it.

The problem I have with most presentations is the flow. They borrow a watch, and it disappears. Any reasonably smart person in the audience will know it’s going to reappear somewhere. The magician keeps the person on stage and introduces the box. Once again, any reasonably smart person in the audience will know the watch will come out of the box. When the box is opened, and the watch is in the innermost box, this nice linear flow takes away most of the surprise factor of the trick, and it becomes a puzzle.

Before I start with my solution, let me tell you a little bit about my background. I’m a full-time performer, and I work in a variety of different markets from Comedy Clubs to Schools to Casinos to just about everything. I got my start working in the comedy clubs performing a hodgepodge of stand-up comedy and some magic. In comedy writing, there is a thing called a “Call Back”, it’s where you refer to something that you mentioned in an earlier joke…and that was my starting point for my presentation of the nest of boxes.

Also, for what it’s worth, this will apply to any “impossible location” that you can load with the object in full view. Things like a Mullica type wallet would work, or even a Bill To Lemon if you put the lemon in a paper bag.

Here’s the basics of my routine: At the beginning of the show, I introduce the box and mention that no one has ever guessed what’s inside it. Now I have people make guesses, and I give some humorous clues (which are actual clues, but funny). I put the box on the edge of the stage or with someone in the audience and say, “We’ll open this a bit later in the show, and if anyone guesses it correctly, you get to keep what’s inside.”

Around the middle of my show, I do a trick where a signed borrowed dollar disappears and ends up reappearing at the end of the trick. At the end of the trick, I trade the signed dollar for one that’s not written on. Here’s what has happened: the dollar trick has nicely wrapped itself up, and in the audience’s mind, the signed dollar is out of play…But I have it. Most of the audience will forget that I even have the signed dollar! The goal is to get the signed bill in your possession, not necessarily make them forget you have it (it’s a bonus if they forget).

Now the 2nd to last thing I do in the show is reintroduce the box, which has been sitting on the floor, or better yet, in the audience on a table or a chair next to someone. Bring it onstage and recall some of the more interesting guesses that people made. Open the box and reveal the signed dollar!

That’s the bare bones of the routine. Over the spring and summer, I ended up doing this routine about 175+ times, and for me, it’s proved to be a hard-hitting routine.

Having the Nest of Boxes as a call back instead of a tight routine really puts the surprise back into the Impossible Location effect. By doing a bit where I have people guess what’s inside, it allows me to get the boxes in play early on, so the audience is aware of it long before they are used, and I get about the same amount of time in the show out of the Nest of Boxes as if I had it in one straight little routine.

Recently, I have made one change to the routine. In the show, I also do a trick with a signed jumbo card. So, I’ve been loading both the signed jumbo card and the signed dollar into the Nest of Boxes at the end of the show. I’ve found it gets better reaction than just the dollar about half the time, the other half it gets about the same reaction as just the dollar. I’m fine with the little bit of extra work to get a better reaction half the time!

I’ve also used this idea close up with the Coin in Nest of Boxes (the round brass ones). You just need to have two sets. One set you introduce at the beginning, and you switch in the one with the signed coin later in the show…but still delay the revelation till the end. I switch out the boxes while moving things on the table to clear space to do the Endless Chain trick. When the trick’s flow isn’t linear, it will make it much harder for the audience to remember you ever touching the Coin in the Nest of Boxes to switch it out (and takes a ton of heat off the switch). In a close up, walkaround type situation this is a bit tricky to reset easily, so I save it for special groups.

Inspiration: I love the idea of bringing the signed object to a second location. I was first turned onto this in one of Gary Oullette’s Fulminations columns in Genii, where he talked about card to wallet, and the only reason you do it is after you pull it out the first time, you immediately reload it and reproduce it a second time.