Category: Video

Choices….

Sometimes you find things you weren’t expecting when you are searching for other things on the internet. I ended up finding a video clip of me performing an early version of the final version of my “invisible deck routine“, which I call Choices

Here it is:

It’s not really an invisible deck, but that’s how I describe the routine to other magicians as that gives them an easy idea of what the effect is. Before I go further, yes I understand the trick would be stronger if I said, “Name a card” then it was reversed. HOWEVER, that’s not what I’m going for. First of all, I’m trying to get a little bit more time out of the routine.

The video above starts about 45 seconds into the routine, so that gives me a routine that’s about 4 minutes. It also allows me to involve more than a couple people from the audience. The trick also reveals some personal information about me (that’s at the beginning of the routine that’s not in the video). The routine is a lot more personal than, “I had a dream someone picked a card and when I work up I flipped it over“.

I’m happy with how this routine has progressed since that was recorded in October.
-Louie

Appearing Canes…

A year or two ago someone got the idea of marketing an appearing cane as a portable Bo Staff to be used as a self defense or martial arts tool. I’m sure someone made a ton of money on it as well…assuming they didn’t get a lot of people returning them and asking for their money back.

Visually it looks great for what they are selling it as, but the reality is different.

This brings me a social media magician’s group I’m in where someone is complaining about “exposure” and it ruining the trick for them. First of all, I honestly don’t think many people are fooled by the appearing cane. It’s a second of eye candy, but not the strongest magic trick. If you showed someone the appearing cane, then asked them how they thought it would work, I’m betting they’d say it must be collapsible.

As for the exposure part of it, the appearing cane was invented in 1947 by Russ Walsh, so it’s 75 years old. If you’re hanging onto the exclusiveness of a 75 year old piece of technology where probably hundreds of thousands have been sold worldwide and that resembles nothing that exists in the real world. That style of cane really hasn’t been used in my lifetime. I wonder if you put an expanded appearing cane in front of a kid without context, just set it on the table and asked them what it is, I’m betting you won’t hear “cane”.

Honestly, I think it’s up to the creator of the trick to get publicly upset first. Once they’ve voiced their opinion, you can jump on the bandwagon. If the creator has been dead for 50 years (like Rush Walsh is, the trick is legally (in the USA) in the public domain and not a “secret”.

I would say 99% of appearing canes don’t fit within the acts they are used in. It fits James Dimmare‘s act:

James Dimmare’s act is very stylized and it fits. Just because you wear a tail coat, that doesn’t automatically mean an appearing cane fits your show. You’ll notice that Lance Burton‘s act has no appearing or vanishing canes:

Look at what you do in the your and why you do it. Are you doing the appearing cane because it’s an easy way to get a reaction, or does it actually move your show forward?
-Louie

Historical Vanishing Birdcage Videos…

I was digging around on the British Pathe website and realized I’ve never searched it for the Vanishing Birdcage. I came up with a few videos of it. Here’s Howard De Courcy doing the cage:

And here’s Will Goldston doing it:

Both Will and Howard are using the older style rectangle cages. These are the ones that have the “spoon” sleeve guard. They both use the same vanish motions, and I wonder if the reason for that is because that’s how you had to do it to make the vanish look clean with that older style cage?

Here’s an unknown magician doing the cage:

That’s with an Abbott’s cage and you’ll notice the vanishing motion is different than the first two videos. I may have to hook up one of my older style cages and give it a try…
-Louie

Pin Thru SD Card…

We live in a really cool time right now. I got an invite by Tommy Burnett to his lecture for IBM Ring 26 and was able to pop in and watch it while I was running at the gym! One of the the silver linings of the pandemic is that sometimes these Zoom magic meetings and lectures can be attended while you’re doing other things, like working out.

After the lecture they had their club meeting and I got to do the SD card trick I’m working on. That’s another silver lining of the pandemic, is that through Zoom you are able to get an audience almost instantly if you want to try out new ideas. Here’s my first time doing the Pin Thru SD Card trick (sorry, for some reason my screen recorder didn’t pick up my audio)

It’s always nice to get your first live performance out of the way. It’s a good way to shake the nerves of doing the trick and give you some confidence…or it’ll be a train wreck and show you the weak spots in the trick.

If you’re one of the holdouts not embracing Zoom after almost two years, you really should learn to use and perform on it. It’s a great learning tool.
-Louie

Erasing Memory…

Sometimes playing with an idea without a real goal in mind will lead to something unexpected. Originally my first idea using and SD card was pen thru SD card (pen thru bill). That’s really an unoriginal idea, it’s just putting the pen thru something unusual, but doesn’t really contribute anything to the effect.

Well, last night I came up with an idea, where the effect is essentially pen thru SD card, but different. Here’s what I came up with:

From a creative standpoint it’s a much more interesting solution to penetrating the SD card with another object. This effect was inspired by the Flexible Mirror trick and the old Paper Coin Fold trick. Method wise, it’s different from the Paper Coin Fold, which was fun to figure out. The shape of the SD card makes the method work, where if it was done with a coin, you really couldn’t do the move. Sometimes changing the prop will open the door to a new method and that’s why play is an important part of creating!
-Louie

Amazing Jonathan…

Last night I went to bed with the news that the Amazing Jonathan wasn’t doing well and woke up to the news that he had passed. I didn’t personally know him, but he had a huge influence on how I perform. His modern (for the 1990’s) style of performing didn’t use a lot of magic boxes, it was a lot of normal looking objects.

Unfortunately I never got to see him perform live, I just know his work from television. I did try to see him live once when I was about 19 at a local comedy club. The early show was an all ages show and the night I went it was sold out…the whole weekend was.

Jonathan has probably had more bits stolen than any other comedy magician. All of his gags are super strong and work as a stand alone bits. His work will live on as gags in other people’s show, I’m not sure how I feel about this. I guess after I’ve left this world, it’d be pretty cool if people doing my material, but while I’m alive I’d probably have a different view of this…
-Louie

Runner Up Twist

A while ago I wrote up the sequential twisting effect that uses what I think is an original count of mine that I’m calling the Runner Up Count. I finally made a quick video of it:

Here’s what I think the pros and cons are of it when compared to the original Twisting the Aces:

Pros:
– The sequential nature makes it easy to follow what has and has not flipped
-There’s no variation in the sequence, all the counts look the same.

Cons:
-starting with a double deal as the first count is difficult

Honestly I don’t know if every phase looking the same is a good or bad thing.
-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