MagicShow.Tips – Page 48 – A daily blog about magic by Louie Foxx

Rice, Vase, and Checkers by MagicCrafter

I love hunting down magic vintage magic, and in my hunt I recently came across a more modern trick from about 2013, but it is highly collectable. It’s Rice, Vase, and Checkers by MagicCrafter (Brian Cook and Master Payne).

This one was in Florida and the auction house and I managed to get a crazy deal on it! I’m hoping it’s complete, I should have it in about a week. Luckily I’m friends with Brian Cook over at MagicCrafter and I can have him take a look at it and hopefully repair anything that needs fixing.

This is a cool looking prop, but not the style that I personally collect. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it or sell it. I’m just glad I saved this from it from probably being bought by someone who doesn’t know what it is and it end up in the garbage!

If you’re interested in buying this, send me an email and we can chat!

-Louie

Still Working On The Street Show…

One of the challenges of trying to relearn to do a street style show is trying to figure out what the show is. Is it a close up show or a bigger half circle show? I really love doing close up magic when roving at a fair, and I’m finding it hard to transition from building a crowd with close up to then turning that group into a circle show crowd.

Part of the challenge is “ego”, I’m finding that I have some fear of losing people and I need to get over that. I’m afraid of failure in this context. I’m pretty fearless on stage with taking risks and trying new things, so I’m not sure why this has gotten into my head. I’m afraid of people leaving. I know that people will filter in and out of the show and that’s just what it is, but I my mind can’t get over seeing people leave.

I did find when I went out to do my “roving” set, if I immediately put up my rope front row, that kept me from doing tabled close up magic, and really helped for me to just do the bigger stuff. I do need to make a judgement call based on how busy the areas that I’m assigned to are at my assigned times as to what will be more effective, close up magic or a half circle show. Sometimes there’s very little foot traffic and I think it feels strange trying to build a big show for the handful of people that walk through the area.

Hoping to get some of my fearlessness back soon!

-Louie

The Moisture Festival Podcast -Lindsay Benner

In this episode we hear talk with festival favorite Lindsay Benner. We discuss how she was able to see Bill Irwin at a young age and the impact it had on her.

She tells us about her first street shows in San Francisco and how she really had to take a different approach than she expected. We learn about how she was able to stretch out a 7 min cabaret act into an award winning 45 minute show. A fantastic glimpse into the world of the ultra awesome Lindsay Benner.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Magic Jam!

The Magic Jam that I put together in Seattle on Tuesday was a blast! We had a good turn out of people I knew and magicians I didn’t know!

For me one of the takeaways is that it reminded me that there are soo many different styles of magic out there and there’s not really one right or wrong way to do it! Peoples styles are heavily influenced by where they perform, whether that’s just for their family and friends, busking, corporate shows or whatever. The venue dictates a lot of the material you do.

Thanks to everyone that came out to hang out!

-Louie

Balls in Hat Routine!

The last couple of weeks I started working on a Balls In Hat routine that I learned from Jimmy Talksalot. It starts with two in the hand and one in the pocket and ends with a nine balls coming out of your hat! It’s a really solid routine!

You can see parts of it in this reel from the fair I was performing at:

@louiefoxx Magic at the @sanmateocountyfair! #magic #sanmateocountyfair #sanmateo #closeupmagic #magician #bayarea #countyfair #louiefoxx #magictricks #cardtrick ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

There’s a ton of great info and routines on Jimmy’s Substack. There’s free info as well as stuff for subscribers. It’s $8 a month to subscribe and totally worth it to read and watch all the content he has up there. The magic and essays are focused on street magic, but there’s a lot to be learned there if you don’t do street magic.

-Louie

Straitjacket and chains escape

For a few gigs this summer I’m going to be doing the straitjacket wrapped in 50+ feet of chain escape. One thing I started doing about a 8 years ago when I first started playing with the straitjacket and chains was take off the crotch strap.

Here’s before and after pictures of the straight jacket:

I realized that no one knows the crotch strap is missing if it’s not there. I discovered this when I was visiting the Oregon State Museum of Mental Health about 10 years ago. There was a straitjacket on display and it didn’t have a crotch strap and the information placard said that they weren’t used as a restraint, but to keep people from unconsciously doing self harm, Like thru scratching themselves.

Most people rely on the crotch strap as the main point of humor in their routine. I decided I didn’t want to do any crotch strap jokes, so there’s no loss there. Sure my routine may be funnier, but it’s not what I want to put out there as my art.

-Louie

My 2024 Summer Library Show

Each year I do a unique library show. Sometimes material gets cycled back into the show, but it must wait till the third year (two years off) to come back into the show.

Here’s this years set list:

If you look at the set list, there’s one spot where there’s three tricks. I could do: Dad jokes, mind reading or shell game. The variable there is if I can use a TV in the room, I do shell game. I there isn’t a TV that I can use, then I do either my Dad Jokes trick or Wayne Dobson’s Spectrumlist with the librarian doing the trick.

Here’s what this year’s case set up looks like:

This is a pretty quick set up for the show about 30 minutes right now, but it will be 15-20 minutes after a couple of shows. I have about 4 extra tricks that I’ve packed with this show to make sure I have enough material. After this week of library shows, the set list will be locked in and I’ll ditch the extra material…well, I’ll keep one extra bit.

-Louie

New Addition to Library Shows!

Last summer when doing library shows I noticed that probably 95% of the library shows that I did (indoors) had a TV screen in the room that I did my show in. So this year I planned a trick (actually two and a half tricks) that could use the TV as projection for close up magic.

There’s really not much to my set up, it’s an iphone with a camera app, an HDMI adapter and and HDMI cord. This very basic set up allow me to do the two full trick and one revelation with the screen.

In the beginning of the show during my warm up I do my ambitious card that uses projection. Then later in the show I do my Russian Shell Game routine and finally I use it for the reveal of my nest of boxes routine.

It’s working great and every library I’m doing (indoors) this summer has a TV in the room for me. I do have alternate material in case I can’t do use the TV for whatever reason. I’ve only done it once (so far), but it plays great for those routines and I’m glad I’m using something that’s already in the room!

-Louie

Magic Shop Fires

Within the last 12 month’s there have been three fires at magic shops. Last summer there was the fire at Steven’s Magic Emporium. Then this month there was the fire at Vanishing Inc‘s warehouse and the fire at Magic Shop San Diego.

These could be completely unrelated incidents, or there could be a link. I have zero information about any of these fires, but I wonder that with more and more magic using Lithium Ion batteries in the trick or in the packaging (like Murphy’s Anverdi Color Match package) that these could be the cause. I have zero evidence and this is just my personal theory as to a possible cause. It’s too much of a coincidence to have three of the few remaining magic businesses in the USA all have fires in the last 12 months.

It’s good to hear that no one got hurt in the fires and hopefully all of the businesses will make a full recovery!

– Louie

New Sound System

Earlier this month my decade old Sennheiser wireless mics died and I needed to replace them. I ordered the Sennheiser AVX system, but sent that back as it didn’t work for what I needed. The AVX has an auto gain level, which tries to keep your sound level. While in theory this is a good idea, it ends up ducking and messing with my voice too much to where I keep cutting out. I sent the AVX back for a refund.

I ended up ordering the Sennheiser G4, which is the current version of the Sennheiser G3’s that I had previously had.

This bonus is this set came with the “brick” which can be plugged into a handheld mic to turn it into a wireless handheld mic. I guess if I really wanted to buy another receiver, I could run my music through the brick.

There’s a reason why the Sennheiser G3/G4 are the standard for variety acts. They’re reliable, they’re easy to use and they’re durable!

-Louie