MagicShow.Tips – Page 24 – A daily blog about magic by Louie Foxx

Tinkertopia!!!

One of my favorite stores is in Tacoma, WA, it’s called Tinkertopia. It’s a reclaimed material store that resells this stuff for art.

They have soo much cool stuff, and I always find things that I can use as a part of a magic prop or for some other project.

One of the things that I found were some hinged plastic circles. You can see them on the counter in the above picture. They are 4 segments that are hinged to make circles. I’m thinking I’m going to use them for something similar to the hinged ruler figures that magicians used to do.

The challenge with a store like this is that once they sell out of something, you many never find it again. They had these hinged circles in three colors, so I bought two of each color for a total of six of them. I’m kinda regretting not buying them out of all of them, I have a strange feeling I’ll either need more for whatever idea I come up with, or I’ll fall in with whatever my idea is and want to make a backup and I won’t be able to find more.

Then there’s the possibility that I don’t come up with anything I like with them and end up throwing them away. That’s the gamble.

-Louie

Getting to the Gig in the Winter!

In Seattle when it snows, the whole city shuts down. It’s due to the hills and that Seattle doesn’t get much snow, so there’s a lot less infrastructure to deal with it. The other night I had a gig in downtown Seattle and there was snow in the forecast. This gig was for a national convention, which means most of the people attending were from out of town and staying at the hotel where the convention was being held. That meant if it snowed, the event was still going to happen.

For me, the solution was to get a hotel walking distance from the gig, that was if it snowed I would still be able to make it to the gig. Sure the room cost me money out of my pocket, but I looked at it as insurance to protect the much larger paycheck.

The gig went well and it didn’t snow, but I enjoyed the 6 minute walk to the venue!

When I was in my early 20’s and working a lot of comedy rooms on the road, we did whatever it took to make the gig happen. That’s when I started travelling with emergency things like a microphone, so the gig would happen no matter if the sound guy showed up or whatever.

Many magicians are cheap and wouldn’t invest in the room and then complain that they had to cancel the gig because they got snowed out. I’m not saying you should throw away money on unnecessary things, but I am saying sometimes the insurance is worth it!

-Louie

Am I a Roving Mentalist?

An upcoming roving gig I have wanted a mentalist, not a magician for their event. The agent who contacted me about it knows what I do in my show very well and asked if I could do it. My stage show has many mentalism things in it that just aren’t really presented as mentalism and my roving is the same.

I said “yes” to the gig, but need to reframe what I do a little bit to put it into the context the client wants. The material that I’m planning on taking out with me:

ACAAN – I published an old version of what I do in a linking ring from 15 or so years ago
Spoon/fork bending – I published this as The Perceptive Bend in Vanish Magazine around April 2019
Paint Swatch Matching – I published this as Pick Our Rooms Paint in Vanish Magazine in I think July 2024
Color Block Prediction – This uses a small block with different colors on it and it uses up to three different methods throughout the routine. One of the methods is original to me, the other two are based on marketed items.
Number prediction – This is basically Acidus Novus for the method and a follow up to the color block trick
Pet’s Name Divination – This is my routine using Peeked by Joel Dickinson. Peeked is a really clever effect/method to gain information on a card in the context of a divination type routine.

That’s the roving set and it’s way more material than I’ll need for two 45 minute sets for 400 people. I think that I’ll do two different sets for each time I’m out. That will solve the problem of people mixing with other groups and having seen something before.

-Louie

Mentalist: Uri Gator!

Never pass up an interesting photo! Last week I was doing roving magic at an event and they had an reptile attraction at it. In my roving set I was doing spoon bending and did it for the people running the reptile exhibit.

I had them put the spoon in the alligator’s foot like it was the mentalist and it ended up being a fun picture!

Stuff like this is good social media content, but also something that the event loved and they used the picture!

Always be on the lookout for things like this!

-Louie

More Money Packet Tricks!

A few days ago I posted a video of a packet trick where 4 one dollar bills turned into 4 two dollar bills. It’s essentially a packet card trick with dollar bills. Turning $1’s into $2’s is alright, but I got to playing with a slightly different arrangement that I like more:

@louiefoxx How to make money with bad math! #money #magic #math #magictrick #dollar #hundred #moneymagic #badmath ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

The bills changing into different bills makes the trick feel a little less like the same trick four times. Also the ending with the hundred dollar bill seems like more of a finish to the trick.

-Louie

Silent Movie

A few weeks ago we went to see a silent movie with the music played by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. This show was sold out and it was a ton of fun.

When watching the movie one of the things that surprised me was the length of time that the title/dialog cards were shown for. It felt like they were either shown way too long or not long enough to read them.

When I was a kid in a high school journalism class we were told that you were supposed time yourself reading the words and add two seconds and that was how long you displayed them.

What does this mean for magic?

Well when you talk, especially telling jokes you need to make sure the whole (or most of) audience has caught up to the end of the set up before you do the punchline. For a magic effect, you need to display at the end long enough for the whole audience to realize what happened and process the magic effect.

– Louie

Dunninger Epherma!

We bought a house a few weeks ago and are moving. One of the fun things about moving is finding things that I had forgotten that I had. This tie clip turned up!

This tie clip belonged to Joseph Dunninger! I have that a few other things that were his. I need to figure out a way to display it, for now it’ll sit on my desk!

-Louie

Packet Tricks by Jerry Mentzer

For fun I’m working through the book Packet Tricks by Jerry Mentzer. This was published in 1982, so kinda when packet tricks as a trend were becoming really popular.

It’s really interesting to see where these tricks and techniques came from. The Phil Goldstein stuff is intesesting as I see the roots of some of his later stuff in the two tricks he has in the Packet Tricks book.

I’ve been posting some of these of TikTok, and you can see them and other vintage magic tricks and routines there. Plus I post some other stuff I think of on there.

If you’re not on TikTok, here’s some of the videos from the book Packet Tricks:

@louiefoxx Vintage packet card trick! #cardtrick #magic #cardmagic #magician #magictrick #packettricks #jerrymentzer #cards #royalflush #aces ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx 40 year old card Trick! #cardtrick #magictrick #1982 ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Classic Ace Card Trick! #cardtrick #magic #aces ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Royal with Cards! #cardtrick #magic #cardmagic #magician #magictrick #packettricks #jerrymentzer #cards #royalflush #aces ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Like oil and water! #cardtrick #magic #cardmagic #magictrick #twos #vintagemagic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Magic trick from 1982! #cardtrick #magic #cardmagic #cards #magictrick #1982 #vintage #magicbook #vintagemagic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Four-A-change card trick! #cardtrick #magictrick #cardmagic #cards #kings #aces ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Those aces! #cardtrick #magictrick #packettrick #magic #cards #aces #vintagemagic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Classic card trick from 1982! #cardtrick #magictrick #magic #cards #twist ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

These are fun to learn, and I think it’s important to learn things for fun. It can be a challenge balancing my passion for magic with the job of performing magic.

-Louie

One Dollar Bills to Two Dollar Bills

Yesterday I posted about a thing I was playing with using money instead of playing cards for packet tricks. I’ll give a walkthrough of how to do it, but first here’s the video of the routine:

@louiefoxx Double your money! #money #double #magic #moneymagic #dollar #twodollarbill #magician ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

Needed: Three one dollar bills and three two dollar bills. These must be crisp, and the fake movie money works great for this.

Set Up: From the top down: A single one dollar bill, then the 3 two dollar bills and the remaining 2 one dollar bills.

Working: Show the packet of bills face down and then turn them face up. Do an Elmsley Count to show what appears to be the faces of 4 one dollar bills.

For the first change you will do another Elmsley Count to show that one of the one dollar bills has turned into a two dollar bill.

Repeat that, doing another Elmsley Count for the second one dollar bill to change into a two dollar bill, but this time put it the final bill bottom instead of the top of the stack.

For the third change you will do another Elmsley Count, however this time when you get to the single one dollar bill outjog it about an inch. Set the final bill (two dollar) on top of the stack.

Strip out the one dollar bill with your right hand and show it on both sides. As that his happening your left hand buckles the bottom bill creating a gap between it and the rest of the bills above it. Your right hand puts the one dollar bill into this gap above the lowermost bill in your left hand.

For the final bill to change, simply do a modified Elmsley Count to show four two dollar bills on both sides. Do the first two counts Elmsley Count, leaving you with the block of bills in your right hand and 2 two dollar bills in your left hand. Your left hand spreads its two bills and turns over to show both sides. The left hand then puts the two bills UNDER the bills in your right hand. The whole packet of bills is then flipped face down and Elmsley Counted to show four backs.

That’s it, a change of 4 one dollar bills to 4 two dollar bills. Nothing really ground breaking there, but I think this will be a stepping stone for something better…I hope!

-Louie

Packet Tricks With Money

This isn’t a new idea, but doing packet tricks with money seems like a good way to get away from card tricks while still doing card tricks. I’m aware of a few of packet style tricks that use paper money that have been sold or published in the past.

I bought a pack of the fake “movie” money on Amazon and started playing around with what can be done. Here’s the first thing that I learned, the modern US currency has color variations on most of the bills, so it’s really hard to do anything because anything hidden hast to be perfectly squared. Also, unlike cards the different amounts of money doesn’t all have the same back. Then there’s the problem with the bills needing to stay crisp!

The solution to the first problem is was easy, use $1’s and $2’s as they have the same color edges. Emotionally changing a one dollar bill to a two dollar bill doesn’t hit as hard as turning a one into a one hundred. However two dollar bills are interesting as people thing they’re rare, so there could be something there.

Here’s what I came up with:

@louiefoxx Double your money! #money #double #magic #moneymagic #dollar #twodollarbill #magician ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

There’s not much to it, just a few Elmsley Counts and a Buckle.

I wonder If this would work better held at chest height as a platform/stage piece over a close up trick?

Anyway, I think there’s something with packet tricks with bills. I don’t think this it and there’s a better application out there!

-Louie