Lately I’ve been popping into virtual open mics and there’s something that drives me crazy. It’s when performers say, “If you were here I’d have you ____” and usually fill in the blank with something like, “shuffle the cards” or whatever. It’s been almost two years since we’ve moved to virtual, you don’t need to say that. If you haven’t figured out how to do the trick without someone in the room yet, virtual performing may not be for you.
HOWEVER, I do think there is a place to mention that “if it was an in person show, I’d have you _____” and that’s to cover a method. More specifically to rule out a method. A good example of this in an in person show is when Kreskin does the linking finger rings and he exposes the gimmick and says he doesn’t use that.
In a virtual show context, you could say, “If you were here I’d have you shuffle the cards, but you’re not, so I’ll shuffle them…” then you do a false shuffle. The key would be to put a little bit of distance between the false shuffle and a crazy revelation that would only be possible with a deck that was in a special order. Doing a false shuffle and then doing something like Any Card At Any Number would probably be fine without putting in any time misdirection.
To sum it up, don’t tell the audience how you would do things if conditions were different…they aren’t attending an in person show and they know that.
-Louie
Category: Tricks
Tiny Bible Magic Trick…
Yesterday I posted a dollar bill trick where the dollar was used to produce a tiny bible. The “bible” was one I made was just some paper that was stapled together, covered with duct tape and wrote on it in white pen (These pens are also handy for marking cards!).
The homemade bible is fine for a test run, but the first thing the people I’ve shown this to did was flip through it. That tells me it needs to be a real bible or at least pass the flip test. There are certain things where having the object people want to touch be real and not something that pretends to be real makes the trick stronger. There’s a sense of disappointment if someone realizes that the oranges you use in cups and balls aren’t real. It doesn’t make the trick any less amazing, but it takes them out of the magic headspace there were in. With that in mind I went out and hunted down a tiny bible!
Sometimes it’s the little things that add a lot to the trick. Having it be a real bible makes it more than a sight gag…not much more, but it does elevate the trick!
-Louie
Money Magic with a Bill…
I’ve had an idea in my head for a while to do something with the “In God We Trust” on the back of a dollar bill. I went out and made a bill that doesn’t have it, normally it’s printed just above the giant ONE on the back of a dollar bill.
This one turned out great and it’s got a nice texture and doesn’t feel altered. The next thing was to figure out what to do with it, here’s what I came up with:
Ideally I want to borrow their dollar bill, call attention to a lot of the “hidden” things on a bill, and also call attention to the “in god we trust”. Then I’d do some sort of trick with one of the parts of the bill and during that trick I’d switch the bill for the one that didn’t have “in god we trust” and I’d do the bible production.
The next challenge is going to be figuring out what the first phase would be…
-Louie
Four Ace Production…
Last night I was playing with a deck of cards while I watched the final couple of episodes of Dexter New Blood and came up with a little pop out of a card from the deck. It’s pretty easy to do:
- Hold the deck in your right hand in biddle grip.
- Swing cut the top half into your left hand into mechanic’s grip
- Your left thumb side jogs the top card about half an inch to the right
- As your righthand approaches the left hand, the back of the right hand’s middle fingertip contacts the side jogged card. The right hand continues moving forward and slightly up. That will cause the side jogged card to flip face up. When that happens, your right hand moves down to put the two halves of the pack together.
That’s it.
It’s not much, and it feels really familiar. I think it’s a mix of a lot of thing that I already know and that’s what makes it feel like it’s something I already know.
After playing with it with one card, I started thinking about producing a second card. That ended up being a four card production:
While not the greatest or flashiest four ace production, it was fun to come up with last night!
-Louie
Trick with Canadian Money…
A couple of days ago I had a Facebook memory pop up that had a video I made while I was on tour in Canada about four years ago. While I travelled I used to do a videos of magic tricks in my hotel room. It’s been a while since I’ve made one, however I think this was a very interesting video as it uses Canadian money. If you’ve never played with them, they are plastic bills, that don’t easily fold and hold a crease, and most Canadian magicians dislike them. Here’s a cool trick I came up with using them:
What I think is really cool about this trick is that it takes advantage of the hologram and clear spot that’s in the Canadian bill. I don’t know how well this would play in Canada as there’s a discrepancy in the trick that virtually no one outside of Canada would notice.
I think this is a fun social media trick, but really wouldn’t make it into an in person show.
-Louie
Get With the Times…
Ugh, so the idea of “cultural appropriation” in magic has popped up recently in a social media group for magicians. Personally I’m against people using props that depict things they don’t know about. A good example is the classic magic production boxes that have a Chinese character on them. At the very least, know what it actually says.
Yes, there is an artistic choice there use them and not know what they say. However your artistic choice says something about you.
Luckily those boxes and wearing Asian robes have mostly fallen out of fashion for younger performers. Right now it’s the older performers who are the ones that are (still) doing it. I try not to judge the past by modern standards, but if you are in modern times still doing things that may have been acceptable in the past, you need to get with the times.
Someone like Ian Adair who I respect as a creator still sells his Fu Ling Yu trick:
That style of imagery doesn’t belong in a modern magic show. I also understand he lives in a different country and what may be acceptable there may be different from where I live. I also understand he probably had a ton of these made 20+ years ago and doesn’t want to throw them away. I wish he would realize that sometimes you have to let go of the past, that trick really can’t be a good seller anymore.
-Louie
Free Magic Lecture…
Later today I’m doing a virtual magic lecture at 7:30pm eastern time. If you want the link to it, send me an email!
I really enjoy doing virtual lectures because I can use video elements for me doing the tricks in actual shows. This allows people to see me do the tricks that I teach in the actual setting they are intended to be used in. I’ve seen soo much good material die in a room full of magicians over the years. I think going forward, if I ever do in person lectures again, I will have a video element of the lecture.
Anyway, shoot me a note and swing by the lecture!
-Louie
Triumphant Flip Off
I’ve been facinated by using the old card revelation where you drop the deck on the table and the top card flips to reveal a selected card as a way to correct the deck for a triumph style effect.
Here’s a video demo of one that I’ve been doing lately:
About a month ago I wrote up a quick outline of the working of the effect:
http://www.magicshow.tips/magic-show-tips/triumph-clean-up/
One of the challenges was figuring out how to do Daryl’s Triumph Display with the deck in the condition that the deck is in for my routine. It’s basically the same as Daryl’s except the final two blocks of cards are hand hand and you rotate your hands palm up to show the face up and face down blocks.
I’m glad I figured out how to do the final display, it just took sitting around and playing until I worked it out, and the solution was soo simple!
-Louie
Out For Beers – Review
I woke up today to a great review of my Out For Beers trick!
I really love this trick, the play on words gag really works with my personality. I also think the trick works better than most of the Out to Lunch style tricks because it starts as a gag that is motivated. The trick sneaks up on the audience, which make it even more amazing!
This trick has been a huge hit at the booking confrences I’ve been at over the last few months and has driven a lot of traffic to my tradeshow booth and gotten me a lot of work. Get yours now!
Out For Beers $19
-Louie
Tik Tok Magic…
Well…it looks like I’m on Tik Tok now, you can follow me @LouieFoxx. I just put up my first video, or you can watch it here:
@louiefoxx Kitchen Magic with Louie Foxx! #magic #magictrick #egg #whiskey #magician #magicshow #fyp #foryourpage #kitchenmagician ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
This trick is kinda interesting with the shotglass production kicker. I used Black Fox’s Shot Glass Production, that I don’t think he ever really released, or maybe no one really bought. He gave me one 15-20 years ago and I found it while cleaning up. I used to use it sometimes when I used to do the egg bag.
It’s been sitting on my desk for a couple of weeks, and I finally had an idea for it, and that’s what I did for the Tik Tok video. It was fun to figure out something to do with it!
-Louie