Category: Video

Any Card At Any Number

One of the days I was performing at the Moisture Festival, there was a delay in starting the show. The producers asked me if I could fill some time to keep the people in the theater occupied. I did my Any Card At Any Number (ACAAN). Here’s the full spot because there’s a joke that’s a callback and doesn’t make sense if you don’t see the beginning before the trick starts.

For me, ACAAN is a great stage trick; it’s solo with just me onstage, but it involves the audience, and it’s a good trick!

-Louie

A Toast to Nick Trost #3

In the book The Card Magic of Nick Trost there’s cool trick called Double Pinochle with an Elevator Finish. Here’s what the trick looks like as written:

It’s a nice change of four cards. What I don’t like about it is that it’s themed with the game of Pinochle, which isn’t as common as it was in the past.

Here’s what I came up with to update it:

The first change I made was for it to use four jokes, instead of two queens and two jokers. Then I used my Elmsley For Video move that allows you to show all four kings when you do the Elmsley Count and not have to show one card twice. Then procedurally, I needed to add a displacement so that I could get a clean display at the end, so I did a weird sort of top change off the bottom of the packet to the top of the deck.

Hope you like my changes

-Louie

Vintage Magic Junk Shop Find

Magicians always ask me where I find all the vintage magic tricks that I have. The answer is simple, I hunt for them. Recently, I was performing in a small town and was walking through a junk shop and found this box:

It’s clearly an older prop, my guess is 1960’s. Here’s a pic in the mirror of my hotel room so you can see the front and back:

What’s really weird about this is the arrangement of the window and door. Here’s a video walkthrough of the prop and what I think is going on:

It’s definitely interesting….

-Louie

Postcard Magic Trick

I’m working on a trick where I need to make a postcard disappear from one stack and reappear in another stack. Here’s what I came up with:

The reason I’m going with a gravity flap instead of an elastic flap is that I don’t need a visual change of the card. Also, with gravity, there’s less to break. There’s nothing worse than restringing an elastic flap card has broken right before a show!

-Louie

The Joseph Silk Gun!

When I was setting up my dealer table at the Portland Magic Jam, someone saw my Joseph Silk Gun and asked about it. I did a little demo for the other magic dealers in the room, here’s what it looked like:

I think that it’s crazy how good this trick looks! It’s hyper visual, and it was way ahead of its time, but using a gun in a show now isn’t something many performers could get away with.

-Louie

A Toast to Nick Trost #2

Here’s the second trick in the book The Card Magic of Nick Trost. The Seven Card Trick is a “repeat” style magic effect, where you keep taking away a card, but still have the same amount. Here’s what the trick looks like as written:

And here’s my update with my thoughts on why I made the changes that I did:

Ultimately, the challenge with any “repeat” trick is the ending. I used to have a trick called Whiplash where a six card repeat was followed by a six bill repeat, then ended with the six bills turning into six cards, which gave it an ending.

With the 7 Card trick, or in the updated 4 card trick, the ending with just one card gave it a different moment. I had an idea that I like more than just ending with one card. Here’s what happens, you have one card, and you tear it into four pieces. You count the four pieces, and they are five! You then toss away one of the pieces, and when you go to count them again, the card has been restored!

-Louie

Joseph Silk Gun

Awhile ago I aquired a Joseph Silk Gun. This is a pistol that you put a silk ontop of and the silk disappears.

joesph silk gun

Here’s what it looks like in action:

The vanish looks like trick photography! Unfortunately, there’s really nowhere that I would use a gun in a performance. Maybe if you did some sort of vignette, but that’s about it.

I’m going to try to find time to make a video of it with a Crystal Cube prop. Both the vanish and production would be instant!

-Louie

Shows for Seniors

Last week I was doing a show for a senior community and here’s what my 45 min show looks like:

magic show

The props are in the bottom case, and on top of that is my Bose s1 pro. I’ve seen pictures of some people who bring in elaborate setups, and that definitely makes the show look bigger, but it’s not for me. I no longer bring in backdrops, for me, it didn’t make the show play any better. Sure, there are times I wish I had them because whatever is behind me is distracting or makes the show hard to watch, I don’t encounter them enough to make me want to pack and set up a backdrop.

I’m also using the facility’s TV or projector more and more. I don’t do close up magic to it, but I use it to make smaller things play bigger! This is easy to do, just plug a camera into their TV’s HDMI port. Boom done.

magic show

I used to take a wireless system HDMI to these shows, but it’s just easier to have 25 feet of HDMI cord. Simple and quick set up.

-Louie
PS: If you’re interested in doing shows for senior communities, check out my book How to Perform for Seniors at
https://www.magicshow.tips/how-to-perform-for-seniors-book/

A Toast To Nick Trost #1

Here’s the first videos of what I’m calling A Toast To Nick Trost. These are videos where I do a trick from The Card Magic of Nick Trost as written, and then I do a variation of the trick that I’ve come up with. Usually this is just adding a move or theme that didn’t exist when Nick came up with the trick.

Here’s Nick’s Observation Test:

And here’s my updated version of the trick:

Here’s a quick tutorial of my version:

I think what I like about my update is the final display of the cards face up, then flipping the cards face down to reveal the color change!

-Louie