Tricks – Page 75 – MagicShow.Tips

Unsigned Cards…

When I’m doing close up magic, one thing that I don’t do is have people sign cards. There’s frequently a strange hesitancy when you ask people, like they aren’t sure exactly what you want them to do. Instead I have people draw a picture on the card.

I say, “Draw a picture on the card, it can be anything…Bigfoot fighting a ninja, so it’d just be a picture of a bigfoot. I won’t judge you…till later. I don’t care what you draw, I’m not your mom…wouldn’t be the first rocket ship I’ve seen today.” That has 2-3 laughs but it also gives them a moment to think about what to draw and I disarm them about worrying about the drawing being bad. It also takes away the incentive for a teenage boy (or drunk adult) to draw a penis as I’ve already gotten the laugh from that.

The other thing this does is gives me a real moment in the show that’s happening now that I can comment on. I can talk about the picture and everyone knows this is real and not preplanned.

Play around with using alternatives to signatures you might like it.

-Louie

Trying the Pins…

Over the weekend at the fair I was performing at I got to try out Shrapnel by Kim Anderson

It’s working great, however I’m not sure if I like it than the larger Andrus Key Pins. The nice thing about Kim’s set up with Shrapnel is the pocket management with how the pins are carried with you. I like size of the Andrus pins, they play a little bit larger, of course the downside of the Andrus Pins is that you need to find them used as they haven’t been made for a long time.

I’m glad I have Shrapnel and while I may not use it as much as the Andrus Pins, it’s great to have another option that’s still available!

-Louie

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

Old School Vanishing Cage

One thing that you’ll know about me if you’ve read this blog at all is that I’m a Vanishing Birdcage nerd. Last night I was watching a clip of Harry Blackstone Jr. doing the Vanishing Birdcage on the Magic Palace TV show.

Here’s the clip:

There are two things I noticed about just the vanishing birdcage segment. First is this gag where he asks the girl to put her hand on his had and reacts and says, “Isn’t that nice“

That gag was probably acceptable at the time that this was recorded, but by modern standards it’s creepy. I hope that if Harry Blackstone Jr. was alive now, he’d be aware enough to drop the bit.

The next thing that I noticed is right after the cage vanishes…listen for it…

Did you hear it?

A kid says, “ouch“. I’m guessing the kid has his fingers between a couple of the bars and got pinched when the cage vanished. I also hope that if he was still alive, he’d change how he did this part of the trick so that there was no way a kid could get hurt. I’m thinking that when this was recorded, an occasional pinched finger was okay.

Look at your magic, what are you doing that may have aged out. Usually the performer is the last person to realize when something in their show has hit its expiration date.
-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

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

Milk Cap Three Fly

Awhile ago I had picked up some Milk Caps and rigged one up like a split coin so that I could do a Three Fly style routine. Here’s the routine with some patter:

These milk caps are as unusual of an object as something like a silver dollar to anyone under 30 years old. People get hung up on what’s an ordinary object, and a large size silver dollar isn’t an ordinary object. The USA stopped using the large size dollar coins in the late 1970’s or over 40 years ago! The audience has to make a leap in time for either prop. I’d argue that the milk cap is easier to justify because it’s something they haven’t seen before. Where a large size dollar coin is similar to something that exists, but not the same. You can justify the milk caps through presentation, however most magicians don’t justify why they have old coins.

-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

Tina Lenert – Rings and Silk

A couple of weeks ago when I was performing at the Moisture Festival, I did a weekend of shows with Tina Lenert. She did her Rings and Silk act, which is fantastic! Here’s a video of the act:

There is soo much magic that happens in that 6 and a half minutes and it’s all pretty strong magic. I think it has almost as many effects per minute that a manipulation act! My favorite part is when she holds the ring behind her back and drops it onto the silk:

It’s a fabulous act, and if you ever get a chance to check it out, I highly recommend it!
-Louie