MagicShow.Tips – Page 63 – A daily blog about magic by Louie Foxx

Magician Garage Sale!

Over the weekend my buddy Mike Dobias hosted a magic garage sale! Mike had bought out the inventory of Mickey Hades magic shop in the 1990’s and wanted to get what was left of it out of his garage. He also had some of his old personal props from his shows and let me bring a couple of boxes of stuff.

There were some fun surprises, like a stack of Bill Goldman’s Monkey in the Middle trick, Dean Gunnarson’s Escape Artist trading cards and Bob Driebeck’s Necktie Servante that was put out by Nielson Magic!

I took home a banker’s box full of old packet tricks, which will end up on my Tik Tok where I show “vintage magic tricks”. If you aren’t following me on Tik Tok, shoot over there and give me a follow at: https://www.tiktok.com/@louiefoxx

Then there was the social aspect of hanging out and BSing with other magicians! It was a fun day!

-Louie

Evaporation + FREE Out For Beers

Assigned Street Performing Spots are Lame

A few weeks ago I was performing at a fair. I was doing street style shows and they gave me an assigned spot and assigned times. On paper this sounds like a good idea, however in practice it’s usually a horrible idea. 99% of the time the entertainment coordinator doesn’t walk the grounds at different times of the day to see where the shade is.

Here’s one of my assigned spots a few minutes before my assigned start time:

I should mention it was over 90 degrees out and you’ll notice there’s no shade. If you look to the right, you’ll see my case is in the shade, but most of the case is in the sun. There’s zero usable shade at this spot and very few people will stand in the sun for more than a few minutes. I personally will stand in the sun as I’m getting paid, but I don’t expect an audience to do that.

However a little bit up the pathway there’s this spot:

There’s plenty of shade and I decided to “go rogue” and do my magic show there with shade for the audience. I was able to get people to stop here and watch the show.

Personally I’m a “ask for permission” person and not a just do it and “ask for forgiveness” person. However this was a situation where it made sense and if anyone asked about it, I could simply show them the pictures and I think they’d agree with me. Also I’d probably walk that person into the full sun spot and then show them the pictures and talk for a long time and watch them get uncomfortable in the sun to emphasize my point.

-Louie

Close up magic vest

When I was a teenager there was an ad in magic magazines for a close up magician’s vest. The thing that made this vest unique was that it had something like 50 pockets! That’s a lot of close up magic to carry around with you…50 tricks!!!

When I was at Hocus-Pocus a couple of weeks ago, I ran into one of them and it was glorious (in a strange way)!

This is something that I think is supposed to be worn under a coat, so its not super visible…however I can imagine seeing a clueless magician wearing this as outerwear to show off how many tricks they have on them!

It was great to finally see something that I had only seen the ad for and even back then thought it was a questionable idea…but I’m also glad that someone had a vision and brought this to market. I think you have to go too far to know you’ve gone too far!

-Louie

Low to the Ground

During one of my street style sets at the fair yesterday I had a group of younger kids show up and I knocked my table down so that they could see the table top.

I was surprised that this instantly built a larger crowd. I’m not sure why more people wanted to watch. It does make the table top more visible to the front edge of the crowd and maybe it makes people huddle in and look like they’re watching something interesting. I’m not sure why it worked, and maybe that was a one off sorta thing, but I’m going to try it again today and see what happens.

-Louie

Happy Birthday USA!

In the USA it’s Independence Day, which is the birthday of the United States. Way back in 1796, which is the country’s bicentennial, there was a trick put out called Happy Birthday USA: The Bi-Centennial Card Trick by Shigeo Futagawa.

This is a card trick where you have cards that all have red and white stripes on the back, and the numbers on the front. The numbers are 1976, and they change into 1776 and then the backs change to make a flag!

Here’s a demo of the trick:

@louiefoxx Fourth of July Vintage Magic Trick! #fourthofjuly #4thofjuly #america #1776 #usa #cardtrick #closeupmagic #vintagemagictrick #antique #louiefoxx #vintage #independenceday ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

What I thought was interesting is that in a era of Emerson and West packet tricks with confusing instructions, this has very well laid out instructions that are easy to read!

This trick is a good example of capitalizing on an event in the future. I wonder how many of these that were sold, but I also wonder how many were unsold and thrown away on new years day in 1977!

-Louie

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

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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