When I’m in the bay area, or near it I always try to visit the Magic Garage! It’s always the great to visit and chat with Will Chandler and he also makes an amazing Old Fashioned!
What’s fun about the Magic Garage is that it’s got magicians who hang out there who do all sorts of magic. From close up to parlor to illusions and magicians of every skill level!
I love hanging out here and chatting magic! It’s one of my favorite spots that I pop into!
-Louie
Last week at the fair my good wireless mic system stopped working and I was using my back up wireless mic system. When I used it the first day it was intermittently cutting out, so I switched to the sound company’s wireless handheld and that was doing the same thing. That told me it wasn’t a hardware issue and I finished the day using their wired handheld mic.
Overnight the sound tech did some research and learned that vertical metal poles (especially aluminum poles) can affect how wireless mics work. At the stage the wireless receivers were on the other side of a stage wall that was made up of vertical poles!
We moved my wireless receiver to the stage side of the poles and everything worked perfectly! I’m glad that he did some extra research to figure out why it was doing that and now we both know how to solve the problem in the future!
-Louie
When I work as an MC, I ask for 1-3 bullet points that I can say about an act/show. That’s really all that you need in an introduction. The reason I ask for bullet points is that I can filter it through my voice.
Here’s an introduction that I was given recently:
That’s not an MC introduction, it’s the introduction that you group leader should be giving on mic, but not for the MC. Also it’s written in the first person from the band’s point of view, so I had to live update it as I read it. The other thing with LONG pre printed introductions is that I’m getting older an my eyes aren’t as good at they used to be. I can’t reasonably rewrite this in a larger size that’s easier for me to read. Where a simple paragraph would have been much easier and I could have rewritten it so that it was easier for me to read.
So for most MC’s that I know, we prefer bullet points, not a page of text. Figure out your three bullet points so that you’re ready the next time you need to give an introduction to an MC.
-Louie
Well, after spending some time researching and asking around about different wireless systems, I settled on the Sennheiser AVX system.
Unfortunately Amazon couldn’t deliver to an Amazon Locker, so I’ll have to have it sent hope and it will be there when I get home in a few days.
Hopefully this system will work out for me!
-Louie
Well, after about a decade my Sennheiser EW 100 G3 mic packs stopped working properly. Over the last 10 years I have sent them back to Sennheiser to be repaired and repaired them once myself.
With the help of Mark (the sound tech at my stage this week) I managed to diagnose the problem, it’s my 1/8 audio input that needs to be replaced. If I send it to Sennheiser to be repaired, it’ll cost about $250 or more. I’m thinking that money would be better put into a new wireless system, than into a 10 year old system.
While at the event I luckily had a back up wireless set with me!
These aren’t as nice as the Sennheiser ones, but they are helping me get through the gig. I don’t normally carry a back up wireless set, but for some reason I threw them in with my gear for this gig. I can use a handheld to do my show in an emergency, but prefer not to.
-Louie
One of the things in magic that I collect are reels. Specifically locking reels, not so much plain reels like the Paul Diamond Reel or a P&L Fingertip Reel. I have those, but don’t actively hunt them down.
Recently Mike Caveney sent out an email and one of the things he was selling were some reels. It was a set to two reels, and I jumped on it!
I’m more interested in the locking reel on the left than the reel on the right. These reels were used more to reposition the cage after the vanish that for the actual vanish of a birdcage. I hope it looks a cool in person as it does in the pic!
-Louie
While I was in San Francisco at pier 39, I popped by the magic shop. This is one of the last Houdini’s Magic Shops, and is run by Vanishing Inc now. It’s a pitch shop, so they’re really selling starter magic, but since it’s owned by Vanishing Inc, they sell a lot of their products.
With Vanishing Inc having a large catalog of books, the shop was well stocked with those AND playing cards as well!
Personally I like the older style of magic shop where you can dig and find strange things, but that’s probably because that’s the kind of magic shops that were around when I was a kid. Also I’m very aware that I’m not the target customer for this specific magic shop.
-Louie
Yesterday I made it to Pier 39 in San Francisco and caught the tail end of Fred Anderson’s show.
He ended with card to mouth and what really stood out to me was how slowly he worked. It made me remember that I really need to slow down when I’m performing street style shows.
There’s always a ton you can learn by watching other performers, and I’m glad I got to see a little bit of Fred’s show (and hang out for a bit after).
-Louie
One of the spots that I stop at when I drive down to California is Jerry Andrus’s grave. It’s in the Jefferson Cemetery in Oregon and it’s only a couple of minutes off of Interstage 5. It’s right about when I need to get out of the car and stretch my legs and walk around for a little bit.
I think it’s important to remember the magicians that came before us. Jerry was lightyears ahead of his time! He was a pioneer of cardistry 40 years before it was popular.
@louiefoxx Cemetery Tour! Looking for Jerry Andrus#jeffersoncounty #oregon #cemetery #graveyard#jerryandrus #louiefoxx #findagrave #townhistory #opticalillusion ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
I think it’s important to remember the magicians who came before us.
-Louie
Here’s a great version of the Vanishing Birdcage by Jeki Yoo.
The cool thing about this is that he’s wearing what he normally wears for all of his videos. The downside is this method isn’t practical for a normal stage show presentation. In my opinion any different method for the cage is great, no matter how practical or impractical it is for different venues. The normal stage version of the Vanishing Birdcage is already a very impractical trick due to the set up when compared to pretty much any standard magic trick, so it’s hard to say any method isn’t “practical”.
-Louie
