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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.

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”.

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

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.

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!

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!

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

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!

Nest of Envelopes as a Running Gag

This routine is starting to take shape. First, I had the idea of doing a running gag with a nest of envelopes. Then I figured out what the magic trick payoff at the end of the running gag would be. The last piece of the puzzle is to figure out the routine.

Each envelope will have an instruction written on it. This is independent of the card selection process.

The rough flow is that they will make a choice, like red or black. Then they will open the envelope, and written on that envelope will be an instruction. They do that. Then you do another routine and come back to the person with the envelope. You give them the next choice, like hearts or diamonds. Then they open the envelope and do what’s written on it. That is repeated until the choices have narrowed it down to a specific card. The last envelope has the invisible deck in it, which reveals the selected card!

I think this will make the invisible deck play bigger with all the envelopes, but also allow me to get more time out of the prop, without it being a single routine that’s dragged out.

-Louie

The Nest of Envelopes Trick

For the Nest of Envelopes, I need to figure out what is going to end up inside the envelopes. I’m thinking that a choice will be made as each envelope is opened. And those choices will narrow it down to a single thing. Then that single thing or representation (i.e., picture of it) will be in the innermost envelope.

While I hate for this to end up being a card trick, it looks like it will be. A deck of cards lends itself to being a group of items that can be grouped in a lot of different ways that are easily remembered. You can give people choices like: color, suit, letter or number, odd or even, male or female, exact value (i.e., four). A performer friend and I sat down and tried to brainstorm different things that could be grouped in different ways, hopefully four or five groups. We didn’t come up with anything that was good or easy for a person to understand.

If the trick is going to end up being a playing card prediction, then the obvious choice is an invisible deck. I travel with Rough Stick, so I quickly made an invisible deck:

I don’t know if this will be the final method, but it’s nice because it’s self-contained. The deck can go into the smallest envelope, and I don’t need to add or alter anything. Just open the envelopes, and when we get to the invisible deck, spread it to reveal the selection.

-Louie

Magic Show Running Gag

The School Assembly Tour that I did in April had a running gag in it. It was a bit with Jeff McBride’s BEKOS (smiley face version), and you can see me do it in my School Assembly Set. I really liked how it played, and I’m thinking of adding a running gag to my show.

In the past, I’ve done a thing with the Nest of Boxes, I wrote an article about it over a decade ago called Call Back: My Take on the Nest of Boxes. Basically, I was using the nest of boxes as a running gag throughout the show. I really would like to use them again; however, the reality of how my show travels prohibits me from using a traditional nest of boxes.

The Nest of Envelopes!

The idea is a Nest of Envelopes. The idea is that something is inside a nesting set of 4 or 5 envelopes. The thing inside doesn’t have to be an object that has vanished; it could be a prediction or even some sort of punchline. This opens up a lot more possibilities.

The nice thing about envelopes over a set of boxes is that they pack flat and are much lighter! Also, something that, in an emergency, could be sourced in any city with an office supply store.

-Louie

Not Doing Material

When I host a variety show, I try to do as little of my formal material as possible. I do have a lot of material ready to be used, however I try to make the show not about my act…unless I have a scheduled spot in the show.

Here’s my MC props from a gig a couple weeks ago:

Of those props, I only did my routine with the Evaporation gimmick and there were 13 acts in the show, so I was on stage a lot! Luckily, the transitions were pretty tight, and there were a lot of announcements that needed to be done, so that gave me things to fill transitions.

I also did things like interview someone from the audience:

…and fed a guy licorice out of my mouth!

Both of these things were spontaneous and really created fun energy for the show. I always try to find things that take me out of my box and to create a show that’s unique to the people who are in the audience at that specific show that they know they’ll never see again!

That’s why people go see live entertainment, to be a part of a unique experience!

-Louie