Tag: magic show

Knife Swallowing Magic Trick

Recently, I was on a quick vacation to Chicago, and one of the things we did was go on a Pizza Tour. At our last stop on the tour, we were sitting at a table with a family that had a kid who was probably six years old. This was a great moment for sneaking in a magic trick. The family didn’t know I was a magician, so it would be a surprise.

What trick did I do?

Since I didn’t have anything on me, I did an impromptu trick where it looked like I swallowed a knife. I learned at a Tony Clark lecture when I was a teenager at Bob Goodsell’s West Coast Wizards Magic Camp in the early 1990’s. It’s a great trick and if you don’t know it, it’s worth learning!

I asked the kid how he liked his pizza, then I said that I loved it so much I wanted to eat the knife (that I cut it with), and then I did! I played it for real and that’s one of those moments of pure wonder that I created!

As a magician, you should be able to do something at any moment, sometimes it’s an improvised trick and sometimes it’s a planned trick that you carry with you. Also, just because you CAN do a trick and any time, it doesn’t me you have to!

Moments like that are great and perfect for impromptu magic!

-Louie

Have Fun Onstage!

One of the things that I see a lot in magic shows is a performer who doesn’t look like they’re having a good time. I get that there are some characters where this makes sense; however, I frequently see it in comedy magic. You absolutely should look like you’re having fun if you’re a standard comedy magician.

The other night I saw The Return of Jackie and Judy, which is a Ramones cover band that’s made up of Fred Armisen and most of the band Sleater-Kinney. One of the things about this show was everyone onstage looked like they were having a blast!

the Return of jackie and judy - fred armisen and sleater kinney

When you’re onstage, in most cases, you should look like you’re having fun! It shouldn’t look like a chore; even doing openly difficult things can look fun, or at least like you enjoy what you’re doing.

A few years ago I wrote a blog post about The Secret to Likability, which is worth a read.

-Louie

Card Man Stuff by Al Leech

I picked up the booklet Card Man Stuff by Al Leech recently and I’m digging it!

Card Man Stuff by Al Leech

The stuff in it is older school card magic, and the clunkiness, I think, can be easily fixed. For example, he used the cut deeper force to have a card selected, and that’s a move that I really dislike. I think the problem with that force is that when the cards aren’t in face up and face down clumps, it kinda gives it away. There are better forces that can be done in its place.

The first trick is the production of a four of a kind, and that naturally flows into the second trick, which is a transposition of the two four of a kind sets of cards. I like things in books that can be routines that flow from one to the next to eliminate set up in the second trick, but still work as stand alone magic tricks if needed.

Despite the clunkiness, the tricks are pretty direct, which I like!

-Louie

Chopped Weed Nugs

Yesterday I wrote a post about doing a Chop Cup with a film can and “weed nugs”. What I was using for fake weed looked really green. It’s probably been over two decades since I’ve seen what they look like in real life, so I had to consult a friend of mine who partakes in that marijuana. He agreed and sent me some pictures of what they should look like.

The one on the right is the bright green one, and the one on the left is one after I gave it a dusting of a couple of colors of paint.

marijuana magic trick

I think the one on the left looks way better, not perfect, but good enough to sell the premise to an audience. Things like getting the color of a nugget of weed is one of the challenges of magic prop building that magicians don’t normally think about. I don’t want the chopped weed nugs to look so bad that it takes people mentally out of the presentation hook of the routine.

I’m not sure where I’ll ever do this routine. I have an idea for the presentation that I think works. I personally don’t smoke marijuana, and am not involved in that culture. When performing, my persona is more clean cut, so pretending this is mine doesn’t work. I needed to come up with a routine that doesn’t feel fake. I’ll probably write a blog post about how I intend to present this sometime in the future.

-Louie

Weed Chop Cup

Since I released my Film Can Dice Force, I have a ton of film cans kicking around and have been playing on a chop cup with a film can and “weed nugs”.

chop cup with weed

I’m trying to work out the most efficient way to arrange everything for what I want to do:
1: The magnet is in the film can, and the weed nug has a shim
2: The film can has a shim, and a magnet is in the weed nug
3: The film can and nug both have a magnet

These props are kinda unique, as the fake weed nugs have really no weight to them. So it’s hard to build inertia to dislodge them. The little bit of weight that a traditional ball has really makes a huge difference in how hard you have to set down the film can.

These little challenges make prop building much harder than people think.

-Louie

Magic Trick Box for $25

On a leap of faith I bought a box of vintage magic tricks for $25 while I was in California. I didn’t really know what was going to be inside of it, but I figured it was worth the gamble. Here’s what was in it:

There wasn’t one thing that totally blew me away. The box was definitely worth more than the $25 I paid for it, but not a crazy score.

I’m lucky that I was able to fit everything into my suitcase. A couple of the things are going to move to my shelf!

-Louie

Magic at a Coffee Shop

Last week, when I was in Chicago on vacation, I stopped at a coffee shop, and noticed they had a magic trick on the shelf!

The coffee shop was called the Two Hearted Queen, so I expected the card on the shelf to be the queen of hearts. Here’s what it was:

It was fun finding a magic trick out there in the wild, just sitting on the shelf.

-Louie

Film Cans for the Film Can Dice Force

I have a knack for creating magic tricks with a prop that is an everyday object, but the specific version of that everyday object that I need is the least common version of it!

My Film Can Dice Force is a good example of this. It uses a normal film can, it’s the one with a black can and a grey lid. This one is the minority of film cans that are out there right now.

film can dice force

I needed more of them, and it took a lot of work to find enough of them locally to fill orders! I do have a bunch coming from eBay, but that shipment got delayed, and I didn’t want people to wait for their orders.

All orders for this trick have shipped thanks to a couple of vintage camera repair shops that also still develop film in-house!

One thing I really believe in is developing relationships with the places that I source the components for my tricks. When they know me and know what I’m using the stuff for, it makes them much more willing to help me with weird requests than a website where I’m just a number.

-Louie

Magic Lecture in Canada!

hidden wonders magic speakeasy
Screenshot

Yesterday and today I was performing up near the USA/Canadian border and I saw that Nathan Coe Marsh was doing a lecture at Hidden Wonders (Shawn Farquhar‘s magic theater) in New Westminster, BC. That was only about 40 minutes from my hotel, so I dusted off my NEXUS card and drove across the border to see the lecture.

The first surprise came when I was doing some work at a coffee shop before the lecture and I happened to look up right as Paul Romhany walked by!

paul romhany

That turned my working a little bit on my laptop into chatting with Paul, who is also the editor of Vanish Magazine, where I publish a monthly magic trick.

It was great to briefly say “hi” to all the Vancouver BC area magicians!

canadian magicians

Nathan’s lecture is great and I highly recommend it!

nathan coe marsh magic lecture

In the lecture Nathan did a great job of showing all the work that goes into creating a routine, not just how to do the routines. He talked about his vision for the pieces he shared and how many of his routines are collaborations with other performers. This is something that I think is important and most magicians don’t do, that’s work with other people.

If Nathan is doing a lecture in your area, go see it!

-Louie

Nest of Envelopes – Single Spot

A few days ago was a meeting for the Portland SAM magic club. I remembered it was a meeting day, so I wrote a new script for it, made the cards for a new method and tried doing it as a solo spot instead of as a running gag.

The script had the flow that I wanted, and the spots for the jokes that I wanted were there. The jokes were just meh for the most part, but for me, the important thing was to get it in front of people to see how it felt.

The trick played well, but the ending is going to take time to figure out the best way to reveal the card at the end. I have a lot of options and variables on those options, like is the person from the audience onstage, does the whole thing happen in the crowd, do they hand me the final envelope from the audience, but I open it onstage, etc.

This is work!

-Louie
PS Click here to read more about how I develop magic tricks!