close up magic – Page 13

Magic Monday in Seattle

Last week I popped by Magic Monday in Seattle. This is a fun magic show, that I think of as a magic open mic. It’s a place for me to work on new material, or knock the dust off of old routines that I haven’t done for a while. One of the fun things about the show is that there’s a huge mix in performance styles, and experience levels of the magicians.

The nice thing about this is after the show we all go downstairs to the pub and it’s a fun little magic jam! I have an idea for the Cards Across trick and I had Ruben Barron show me the one that he does (Las Vegas Leaper), which was helpful to me!

-Louie

Twenty Dollar Bill Switch

Many years ago I made a gimmick that can visually turn a one dollar bill into a twenty dollar bill. I use this all the time promotional videos for events and in virtual shows. A while ago when I was on the road, I tried to come up with a lot of different presentations for TikTok with the one gimmick.

Here’s what I came up with:

@louiefoxx Always Tip The Hotel Staff! #tipping #hoteltips #hotel #tips #magic #magician #louiefoxx #moneymagic #twentydollars ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx How to make money! #howtomakemoney #makemoney #case ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx How to make the big bucks! #bigbucks #twentydollars #onedollar #magictrick #louiefoxx #hotelroom #hotel #moneymagic #sleightofhand ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Dizzy Dollar Trick! #onedollar #dizzy #moneymagic #magictrick #louiefoxx #dollarbill #numismatics #sleightofhand ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Inflation Explained! #inflationexplained #dollarbill #twentydollars #magic #moneymagictrick #sleightofhand #magician #howtoincreasemoney #magictrick ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

Those five tricks are all essentially the same trick, just presented differently to hopefully give them all a different feel. Those five are in addition to how I do it in virtual shows. I think getting a lot of mileage with a single gimmick is a big advantage with social media, where you can get multiple videos out of a single trick!

-Louie

Vintage Magic Trick: Fly Cards II by Aldo Columbini

I was playing with Fly Cards II by Aldo Columbini from 1991. I’m not familiar with Fly Cards I, so I can’t compare the two to talk about the improvements that this one has over the original. The effect is similar to an ace assembly, you have four cards with flies on them and a dozen blank cards. You make put 3 blank cards on each card with a fly. The first fly disappears and reappears in the next packet, so that packet now has two flies. Then those disappear and reappear in the third, so that packet now has three. Finally the three flies disappear and you accidentally tap the fourth packet revealing the surprise ending of four smashed flies.

Here’s a demo:

@louiefoxx Vintage Magic Trick! Fly Cards II by #AldoColumbini #magictrick #magic #sleightofhand #cardmagic #elmsleycount #antiquemagic #louiefoxx #petermaloney #magician ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

What I like about the trick is the progressive assembly, where the flies keep moving to the next packet. What I don’t like is the flies. It’s strange theming, maybe something like honey bees would be better, but then the smashed ending would have to be different as you don’t want to smush honey bees. I think this idea would be interesting in an ace assembly context, however the problem is that I don’t think it would work out as you’re passing off one card as two several times.

It’s a good trick, and I think if someone spent some time thinking of a better theme OR used it as a custom thing for a social media video it’d be useful!

-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

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

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

A Batch of Placeholder!

Yesterday I shipped out a batch of my new trick Placeholder to Hocus-Pocus.com!

Placeholder is a card trick where a selected card turns blank, you can watch a demo of it here:

I have a lot of fun with this trick! You can get it from Hocus-Pocus.com or from me at: https://www.magicshow.tips/placeholder/

-Louie

Another Visit to the Magic Garage!

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