**The Daily blog will continue to be updated below this pinned post**
This is a quick heads up that I’m out of town now (7/19)through August 12th 2025.
No orders will ship during that period or work on products will happen while I’m away. In stock items will ship on Tuesday 7/12/25.
**The daily blog will continue to be updated below this pinned post**
A couple of weeks ago I did a magic show at a library and their marketing department recorded my show and made a little promo reel about the show.
I think it came out pretty well! It’s always a nice surprise when I the venue does something like this. It may end up being something I send out to other libraries in the future.
-Louie
I have a prop that I altered to run off of an ankle switch. I made a simple holder for the straps to hold the magnet and the switch. These are the tops of an old pair of socks that I cut off.
I simply folded them in half upwards to make a little pocket. Then I sewed them to make the pocket hold the magnet or button. Simple solution, however if I keep the prop running this way, I’m going to make a better version.
-Louie
This is a cool looking stage, but a hard one to work on. In the picture you can’t see the depth of the stage behind the proscenium arch. It’s about 8 feet deep to the video wall with name on it, then the stage sticks out about 20 feet or so in front of the proscenium arch.
The challenge is sight lines for the audience, no matter where you stand, there are people that can’t see your face. The drawing below might help visualize what’s happening:
No matter where you are, either the side of the arch is blocking or people are behind you. That’s just the seats on the floor, there’s spots above that are almost on the same wall as the arch!
This makes showing things really difficult and time consuming as you have to show everything to the extreme right and left sides.
Challenges aside, this is a really fun room to work! I’m glad I got to do seven shows there, and was able to dial in the show to just work worked in the room. It would have been a shame if I only did one show there and that was it. This is also a good reason to travel with back up material, two of the routines that I planned to do in the room weren’t ideal for this space.
-Louie
Now that I’ve had a chance to do the summer library show a bunch, it’s gotten tweaked and changed. It’s now in its (mostly) final form, at least the trick list is. I’ll keep adding gags, etc to the show, but the set list is solid.
Here’s what the show looks like from the front.
I only use the table cover when they give me a giant table and don’t have something smaller for my prop box to sit on.
I use a rope for my front row, but move the rope a few minutes into the show. I’ve learned over time, that noting will keep the one or two kids that are going to cross the line from doing that. As I say, “scooters gonna scoot” and nothing short of a fence will stop that.
Here’s what the show looks like from the back:
Early on, I didn’t like the Milson Worth Silk Cabby in the show. It’s too much of a magicy prop for me. The prop’s use is justified in the show. The effect is a small scarf turns into a 20 foot streamer. There’s a lot of silliness/clowning that can be done with a silk cabby, and it’s a great prob (it just doesn’t fit my normal show aesthetic). What fixed the routine is that I added a hotdog production from the streamer at the end and that’s what made the routine click! It when from my least favorite routine to one of my favorites to do!
Here are the props that are on me during the show:
The PopSchticle by Whit Hayden is a prop of opportunity, and not something written into the show. I don’t use it often, but look for places where I can “organically” add it, like when I ask a kid a simple question and they tell me a long story that’s unrelated to the question. It’s a great prop for things like that!
So that’s what my library/summer camp show looks like.
-Louie
Years ago, when I was a teenager I saw Lee Earle lecture. He did his gumball prediction and then warned that it’s not a kid show trick and that mentalism doesn’t work for kids. Lee said something like, “before you can read someone’s mind, they must first have a mind”. That’s a great quote, but it’s wrong.
You absolutely can do mentalism for kids, but ultimately it comes down to how you frame it. In my library / summer camp show for this year I do three mentalism tricks.
They aren’t framed as “mind reading” and that’s what makes them work, but they are still 100% mentalism. All three are essentially predictions.
One of them I used a Cootie Catcher / Fortune Teller to determine what I’m going to have for lunch or dinner that day.
Another is a card prediction followed by a series of coincidence effects. The third is a strange happening, which is really a multiple revelation of predictions. All three of them are highlights of the show and frequently mentioned when I ask kids in the autograph line what their favorite tricks were.
Don’t be afraid of mentalism for kids, you just need to make it fun and relatable to them.
-Louie
The differences in venues for library shows can be enormous! In two days I did a library show that had about 75 people in a packed meeting room.
Then the next day I had a library show for over 300 people in an old auditorium!
The skills needed to work in both venues are very different. When you’re standing on the floor a few feet from the audience is easier to control that in a giant theater that’s super echoy and everything in it makes noise from the floorboards to the chairs.
I heard that a previous performer in the auditorium struggled with the echos and crowd control. Being armed with knowledge of this, I really had to keep on top of crowd management and my expectations of the audience. In a giant room with a lot of echo, it’s really easy to lose control and hard to get it back!
-Louie
I was curious if Dan Harlan’s Masterworks book set had come out yet and a magic site that sells pirated magic effect that are illegal copies had them listed for sale.
The crazy thing to me is that this set hasn’t been released. They’re preselling a pirated copy of a book that doesn’t exist yet!
That’s insane to me. Why would anyone buy a copy of something that hasn’t been put out yet and why would anyone sell it? If I recall from a thread on TheMagicCafe the books are already late in coming out, so as the person selling the illegal copies, it’s gotta be a customer service nightmare to deal with anyone who bought them wanting to know the status of the book.
If you buy direct from Dan at least you can bug him. If you buy an illegal copy, there’s really no one you can be mad at (except yourself).
-Louie
When Siegfried and Roy first came to the USA, the performed in the Folies Bergere in Las Vegas. I came across a program for that show!
They were number 14 on the bill, it’s crazy that for a while they were one of the acts that defined what Las Vegas was!
I was in Las Vegas several times while they were still performing, but unfortunately never got to see the show.
-Louie
There have been several viral videos on social media of a guy doing floating paper at a coffee shop. His name is Arnold Drake World and the coffee shop he’s at is the one attached to Powell’s Books. When I was there over the weekend, I caught him doing his thing!
It was cool to see this live!
You can learn more about him in this news article.
– Louie
