I still believe in magic clubs and that they are a great way to learn magic and build community. Last night I brought some of the performers (Bri Crabtree, Dennis Forel and Mickey O’Conner) from the fair to the Fresno Magic Club.
Dennis Forel did some amazing stunts with a balloons, which is always my favorite!
And Micky O’Conner did a great bit with a jumbo coin
And we saw some great magic from the club members as well
I highly recommend looking up magic clubs when you travel! It’s also always nice to see what tricks and styles are popular in different areas. -Louie
Something I try to do in my show is have my show visually different from most other magic shows. Right now I’m closing my show with my Straight Suit comedy escape routine. The headline band at the fair was Midland and they were at my show yesterday.
Doing an unconventional show like mine is a much harder way to go than simply taking a standard path with standard tricks like most magician. However I feel taking a nontraditional road is worth the extra effort.
In the spirit of fairness to Murphy’s Magic Anverdi Color Match, and not just being old and stud I tried using it at all of my shows yesterday and I kept hitting hurdles and having to default to my “out” for when the gimmicks fail for every show.
The problems I’m having is that the with the pens in the cup, I don’t get enough movement from them to trigger the thumper from their initial grab of the pen. I’ve played with different sensitivities, however that also presents a new challenge. In my show I need to move the easel that has the paper and pens and that triggers the pens. The Murphy’s Magic set does have a reset button, which is great, except that I keep the thumper in my sock and can’t push the button. Unfortunately due to what I wear, I don’t have a lot of options of where to put the thumper where I can reach the reset button.
I also tried having the pens on my table, but how my table is configured there isn’t a lot of space, and moving the table triggers the thumpers. Sure I could keep the pens in the off position, move the table, then put them in the on position, however I don’t have that much real estate on my table for two spaces for the pens.
I’m not saying that the Murphy’s Magic Color Match set is bad, it just doesn’t work for how I perform. I’ll probably keep the set around for a bit and try to figure out how t make them work for me (as a back up set), or find a use for them and if I don’t I’ll get tired of them kicking around my office and sell them.
Not too long ago I wrote about simply having a description of your show on a schedule being more effective at putting butts in seats than your name. Here’s the daily sign on the stage that I’m performing at for a 12 day contract:
My show’s name is the only one that has any description of what it is. It’s the only one where if someone sees the sign, they are going to go out of their way to see (if they want to see a magic show). The other two acts with no description probably won’t make it on people’s mental schedules.
Sure having just your name is great for your ego, but it doesn’t help with crowds. I’d rather have “magic show” than “Louie Foxx”.
The name that I gave my show is, “Louie Foxx’s One Man Side Show“, however usually either Louie Foxx or One Man Side Show made it on the sign. It was my agent’s idea to call the show The Magic of Louie Foxx for the fair/festival industry. It’s really made a difference in my starting crowds!
I figure I should try the Murphy’s Magic Color Match sets in a show…since I own them. I don’t like the markers that the set comes with, so I had to pull out the gimmicks and put them into a new set of pens.
On a side note, on the Murphy’s Magic Color Match Video, they mention removing the gimmicks, but then don’t talk about it…at least not that I watched. I will say I didn’t watch the whole video, the routines don’t interest me right now, so it could be buried in those instructions. It’s not listed (that I saw) on the table of contents.
I’ll give them a try later today and we’ll see how it turns out…
Currently I’m on the first half of a twelve day contract in Fresno, CA. I used to do Promystic’s Color Match in my show a while ago and I’m recently cycling it back into the show. At the beginning of the run I had one of the pens start to do strange things, so I ordered a replacement part for it…but that doesn’t help me for the rest of my current contract.
Luckily, Hocus Pocus is only 5 minutes from where I’m performing, so a quick trip there and I picked up one of Murphy’s Magic’s Anverdi Color Match sets.
I honestly don’t think that the Color Match that Muprhy’s Magic sells is Anverdi’s…especially when at the beginning of the video they show how it’s different. It’s Murphy’s way of justifying something that may be an ethical dilemma.
I do like how the Murphy’s Magic set has an auto cycle off for the signals. That’s handy in 91% of instances, however in that remaining 9% it makes it harder on you as the performer. Yes, they do have a work around, but it’s not really practical for me. Method wise, I guess it’s solid, I’ve only practiced it, because somehow my Promystic gimmick that was acting funky, magically started work fine once I bought the Murphy’s Magic set.
While a few bucks more, I still prefer the Promystic Color Match set, I think it more solidly built. I also like that I can easily have two thumpers operate at the same time, where I don’t recall them mentioning that using two was possible with the Murphy’s Magic set.
I think I’m going to keep using my Promystic set as long as I can, as I prefer how it works. It could just be me being old and stuck in my ways…
A couple of weeks ago I picked up Presti Cup by Edouard Boulanger. Here’s the trailer for it:
What I like about it is a lot of the action happens off the table. He method is interesting and the wand could be replaced by something like an Enigma Gimmick. I do think that the wand makes the moves more deceptive, however I don’t use a want in any show other than my children’s show. So if this is something I end up doing, I’ll need to figure out how to justify the wand, or how to eliminate it.
I think with an Enigma Gimmick this routine would end up similar to Axel Hecklau’s Just a Cup, which is a great routine. I do like that the ball is physically larger than a die.
A long time ago I was playing with the Anthony Linden’s Suit Jacket Escape routine. This is an “in and out” type of escape routine, and it uses the shackles that have the giant oval ring between the chains that lock your wrist. Anthony’s routine is great, however I visually don’t like the look of the shackles with the big oval in it.
What I did to get away from the shackles is I bought a set of “jump cuffs” from Cannon’s Great Escapes. Jump Cuffs are handcuffs that can be (minimally) examined and you can instantly open them. I was going to use them for the “in and out” part of the routine, but I couldn’t get over the noise of the arm ratcheting. Also it took a long time to take them off and put them on.
The solution to the time and noise was remembering the method used in Harry Anderson’s Cufflinks routine from his book Wise Guy and it was also a commercially available product. Part of the Cuff Links routine is a thumb tie style bit with handcuffs instead of your thumbs being bound.
What I did was take my Jump Cuffs and gimmick them like the gimmicked cuffs for Cuff Links. This gave me a really cool gimmicked set of handcuffs, that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else use. Unfortunately the routine didn’t play for me and I eventually sold the uniquely gimmicked handcuffs about 10 years ago.
Now I have an idea for a routine that would used the Jump Cuffs with Cuff Links gimmick. I just bought a new pair of Jump Cuffs from Daytona Magic and am going to add the Cuff Links gimmick to them. We’ll see if my new idea for a routine works…
Last week I saw a lot of concerts and one thing that I noticed is all of the performers got right into what they do. No lengthy intros, just BAM right into it!
Sadly soo many magicians don’t do get into it right away. Their opening lines are way too long and don’t do anything. If there’s a laugh, or character building, that’s great and acceptable. Unfortunately magicians like to talk for 3 mins about quantum whatever that they really have no knowledge about before they get to the trick. When you walk onstage you need to give the audience something. Your opening lines aren’t a good spot for giving the audience a fake science talk. It doesn’t establish you at all, sure it may justify the trick, but there’s time for that…and that’s deeper in the show, not your opener.
I don’t believe you need to open with a “flash opener”, but something a little bit quicker than a 20 minute bill in lemon routine. A good option that’s not a flash trick is opening with some stand up comedy about yourself or the venue gives the audience something (a laugh).
Sometimes it feels like I’m perpetually cleaning out my office. This time I found a super rare Kraft’s Famous Magic Kit. This is a punch out magic kit that was created by Harlan Tarbell!
From what I’ve heard (mostly from Richard Kaufman) is that there are two versions of this punch out kit. The 1936 version for Morton’s Salt which has Tarbell’s name on the cover and the version that I have from 1938 for Kraft which doesn’t have Tarbell’s name anywhere on it.
I suspect that the Kraft version is a bit more rare than the Morton version as I’ve found many instances of that one being sold, but I can’t find a single mention of the Kraft version. I’m guessing since it lacked Tarbell’s name, less people saved them.
