MagicShow.Tips – Page 18 – A daily blog about magic by Louie Foxx

Magic show at 7:40am!

I must be getting better! I did a show for middle school kids at 7:40am and it went great!

Middle school (grades 6-8) are notoriously one of the hardest age groups to perform for. They don’t really relate to silly humor that I’d use for younger kids or smarter humor that I’d used for older kids. It’s just a small age group that I find really hard to perform for. Then add in the 7:40am when they’re still waking up and it sounds like a rough gig.

The show went well. Whenever I perform for a group of kids I try to aim my material slightly older than younger than the group. I’ve found kids will “age up” much easier than down. If I do material that’s designed for younger kids it will turn them off quickly and they’ll dismiss the show as a “kid show”, which they’re above.

I opened the show with my Any Card at Any Number and that immediately had their attention. I know a lot of magicians think that ACAAN is a boring trick and many are, however for this group, if it was, they’d be asleep by the time we got to the card! ACAAN done correctly, I’m not talking about routine/patter, but method is an amazing and compelling trick. Once you start adding procedure into it like rolling dice or a calculator, then it becomes less amazing. Simply saying, “name a card, name a number” and that’s where their card it without any BS is a great trick!

The moral of the story is sometimes taking a show that you know will be a challenge will help you grow as a performer.

-Louie

Math Magic

A friend gave me the bound version of The Bat magazine that has issues 1-50. The opening trick in the first issue of the magazine is an interesting math trick. Basically if you use the number 142857 and multiply it by 1 through 6 you will get the same number, just “cut” like a deck of cards. The sequence is the same, it’s just the starting point isn’t the one (unless 1 is picked).

The trick in The Bat is OK, it uses two stacks of number cards. One is in that order and you false shuffle them, then lay them out as a “random” number. It’s multiplied by a number 1-6 from the other packet and that’s the audience’s number . The first packet is mixed and dealt out and and it matches the audiences number.

It’s an OK, and mathy feeling trick. I think it can be improved a little bit to hide the method. Here’s my idea, you basically do the same trick, however you give them the option to multiply OR divide the two numbers. That’s asked at the beginning. If they choose to divide, you work backwards. you have the number 1-6 picked first, then you use the number 142857 and cut the packet so that it’s in the right order for that number. Divide them and you end up with 142857.

I think the free choices of multiply and a dice roll add layers to the trick that would make it harder to backtrack. Also the dice has less cards in the trick, and could give it more of a “game” feeling. I guess a coin with an X and ÷ could add another prop to the routine. Also with only six outcomes, a multiple out type prediction could work. If you had six dollar bills in your wallet that had the serials numbers each matching an outcome, that could be a fund ending.

I think it’s an interesting math problem, but the challenge is to make it not feel like math.

-Louie

The Moisture Festival Podcast – Sailor St. Claire

On this episode we welcome in Sailor St. Claire. We talk a lot about the world of Burlesque and how one comes to become a performer. The different paths they could have taken and how being an emcee is very similar to teaching college.

We also learn about the many different projects Sailor is involved in and they constantly challenge themselves to learn and grow. A great conversation with a prolific contributor to the arts community.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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The Magic Garage

I love it when I’m performing in the San Francisco area and have a friday night off! Whenever I do, I swing by the Magic Garage and hang out!

One of the unusual tricks we ended playing with was an Eddie Fields card trick where a selected card is found by spelling the spectator’s name. It can be any name, and you don’t need to know it in advance, the best part is that it’s self working!

It’s a ton of fun and a great hangout with other magicians. There are people there with all sorts of skill levels and experiences in magic!

-Louie

Play-Duh

Hocus-Pocus in Fresno put out a prop called Play-Duh. This is a snake can that’s built into a Play-Doh style can. I wrote up the routine I’m doing with it here: https://www.magicshow.tips/magic-show-tips/play-duh/

I’m using the Play-Duh props in my library and summer camp shows. The fair I was performing at last week I did the routine for some kids between shows.

here’s what it looks like:

It’s just a solid, fun routine.

-Louie

Single-Lumen Dimmest D’Lite!

Some friends and I were texting horrible variation of existing magic tricks. One of my ideas was the “dimmest” D’lite! Then my buddy Chris used AI to make them into packaged magic tricks.

It came out well! He uses AI for his work, and gave me some tips on how to use AI more effectively to create things. I think that effectively communicating with AI is going to be a skill that will be helpful. It’s a modern version of knowing how to use photoshop (which I don’t know how to use).

-Louie

Hunting Vintage Magic Props

When I have down time when I’m on the road I pop by junk shops and try to find old magic props or unopened bicycle cards from Cincinnati. Usually I don’t find much, but the other day I found a Deland Deck:

I also found this lid that looks like the top of a dove pan!

The lid was lacking the spring clips inside, so a quick search on Google and I learned it’s the lid from a serving tray. I guess that the dove pan is actually something in real life…well halfway. The metal bowl isn’t something that would have been with it, it would be paired with a flat tray.

I always love finding the real life item that props are trying to mimic!

-Louie

Weather Prediction Mentalism Trick

A while ago I wrote a post about me having Trigger Finger, which is a tendon issue in my knuckle. I noticed that it was bad when it was raining, so that means I have an old man super power, my finger can predict the weather!

What can I do with that?

It got me thinking about doing a weather prediction effect. The idea of the trick will be that someone says the name of a city, and I write down what my finger thinks the weather in that city is.

I wanted the prediction to be bigger that something that could be accomplished with a nail writer. After some writing of different ideas, I hit upon using weather icons:

The flow of the effect is:

A city is chosen
The prediction is written down
The weather is the city is determined
The correct icon matching the weather is removed
The written prediction is shown to match the icon

That’s the flow.

I originally had a step earlier in the process that had me showing all the different possible icons. I decided that’s really dead time, and not needed, because we’re going to go through them later to find the correct one.

The method is really simple, I spent a lot of time writing more complex methods, but this was the most simple and direct method that I came up with.

I tried it for the first time a couple of days ago and it worked! Now to do it more and create a more complete routine.

-Louie

Magician’s Tie Bar

Somehow I got into collecting dead magician’s tie bars! Recently I was visiting with Alan Sands and he gave me one of George Sands tie bars!

If you’re not familiar with George Sands, he created the Sandsational Rope Routine. Most modern cut and restored rope routines are built off of his routine.

Thanks Alan, this will go into my collection!

-Louie