Remembering an Old Seattle Magician

Recently I was hanging out with some magicians working on some new magic and someone looked up and saw the cards on the ceiling and wondered who put them there.

card on ceiling magic trick by cliff gustafson

I immediately knew, it was Cliff!!

I'm here on Wednesdays
A short film about magic cliff gustafson

In the 1990’s I met Cliff Gustafson, he was a Seattle magician who worked a lot of bars in the Seattle area. It feels like he worked 1-2 bars a night seven nights a week! He stood out, he wore a tuxedo with a bowtie and everyone knew him!

Cliff wasn’t the best technical or original magician in the world, don’t get me wrong, all the tricks he did were solid! What he excelled at the hardest part of performing magic, he was likable! When you watched Cliff perform, you instantly liked him!

Cliff was always really cool to me, and you can watch a short documentary about him that has some clips of him performing at: robhanna.com

Cliff passed away in 2016, and Seattle lost it’s hardest working magician!

-Louie

Magician Bio For Promo

In my spare time I help out with a variety arts festival and I’m updating their website with bio’s for performers. I’m amazed at how many performers don’t have a simple one paragraph bio.

Back when I was on vacation in Oct/Nov part of our trip was on a cruise ship and in one of the production shows they had bios of the different performers in the show on the screens before the show. These were simply one paragraph bio’s with a head shot of the performer.

cruise ship performer bio
cruise ship performer bio

These don’t need to be much and are used much more often than you’d think. A bio is different than a the short/long description of your magic show, as they may both be used at the same time in the same program.

A bio is a little more about you and less about the show. It’s simply a quick background on YOU.

Magician Bio Sample

Johnny The Magician began practicing magic when a magician performed at his sister’s 8th birthday. Ever since that day he’s been amazing friends and family with sleight of hand tricks and in the last 20 years he’s come a long way! In addition to being a graduate of the Chevez Course in Manual Dexterity he was also “stunt hands” creating magic with a credit cards in a national commercial for Visa.
In his spare time Johnny is an avid boating enthusiast having sailed on every ocean on the planet!

There’s really not much to it, just list some interesting thing about you, some accomplishments and maybe something about a hobby you have. Having a short bio ready to send out to bookers or already available on your website makes you life and their life much easier!

-Louie

The Riddle of Chung Ling Soo

I’ve had the book The Riddle of Chung Ling Soo for probably 15 years and never read it. I finally took with me on a flight and read it on the plane!

I have a hard time believing it was a mass market book, and not just for magicians as it gets pretty nerdy in some areas. I did find it interesting that while Chung Ling Soo died during the bullet catch trick, the author mentioned that he wasn’t going to go into the theory of suicide. I think that’s an angle that needs to be explored for the sake of completeness.

It was a good, quick read and if you can find a copy of it, it’s a solid $10 buy.

-Louie

John Martin Book…

Several years ago when I started working on my Take Up Reel, someone told me to contact Granville Taylor as he knew a lot of about them. The person mentioned that Granville was pretty secretive about magic methods. I found his website and notice he had a book about John Martin who was a magic builder. I send him an email asking about the book, and also seeing if he wanted to chat reels.

I never heard back.

Then about a week ago a copy of his book John Martin: The Master Magical Mechanic – A Genius at Work popped up on ebay at and extremely high price. I messaged the seller and we agreed upon a much more reasonable price.

The book just showed up and I’m waiting to read it as I’ve got a few things ahead of it. Just flipping through it, it’s an interesting book. Starting with it looking like a home printed and bound book. All of the pages are printed on one side…I have a feeling it’s going to be an interesting read!

Here’s the blurb of the book:

JOHN MARTIN. The Master Magical Mechanic. A Genius at Work. Book written and published by Granville Taylor (Faust the Magician).

New. A limited edition of 250 copies, each one numbered and signed by the author. 105 pages, including 24 pages in full colour, with over 100 colour photographs, plus 10 detailed workshop plans of some of the Martin replicas made by Granville Taylor.

Preface by Peter Diamond. Introduction by Professor Edwin A.Dawes. The book, A4 size, is stapled and bound with red Rexine cardboard covers.

Chapters: Martin’s Early Days, Magical Equipment Made by Martin, My Introduction to Martin, My Turn to Shake Hands with a Legend, More Visits to Martin, Touring the World, Taylor-Made Magic & Martin Replicas, My Martin Equipment, Is it a Martin?, Granville Taylor assisted by Martin, Memories of Jan Martin Recalled by Prof.Guy Higgins, Leo Burns, Photographs of My Martin Equipment, Photographs of Taylor-Made Replicas of some of Martin’s Equipment, Photographs of Martin Equipment from the John & Anne Davenport Collection, Photographs of some Martin Equipment from the Peter Nicol Collection. Plus 10 Workshop Plans for Taylor-Made Martin Replicas: Poker size Rising Cards, The Coin Shooter, Release Clip for Lines for Coin Shooter and Holdout, Vanishing Birdcage Clip, The Martin “Butterfly” & Improvements, Small Butterfly Production, The Handkerchief Vanisher, Lit Cigarette Vanisher, Gadget for Cutting Rope Ends, The Cigarette Dropper.

Granville Taylor (Faust the Magician) knew Martin in the last few years of Martin’s life, watched him at work, and ordered several items for his show. He owned and presented the only illusion Martin ever built (The Aerial Suspension), and, over the years he has bought more rare Martin equipment, which he has used in his shows around the world. This book is a fitting tribute to The World’s Master Magical Mechanic.