I'm on the road from July 12th to August 17th.
No physical item orders will be shipped until I return on August 18th.
Digital products will still be emailed during this time
-Louie Foxx Dismiss
Whenever I’m in the San Francisco area, I pop by the Magic Garage! It’s a great hangout with a bunch of magicians.
While I was there I did my Nest of Envelopes trick that I’m working on and got some great feedback!
Having a room full of magicians to give you ideas, or tell you that something doesn’t look right, is worth its weight in gold!
Things like this or magic clubs are great ways to get feedback on things you’re working on. I’m a huge fan of magic clubs, and I think everyone should go to them. They helped me out a lot when I was younger!
This is the first vanishing birdcage in my collection that has the perch go the long way across the cage. This vanishing birdcage has the spoon (sleeve guard) still attached, that’s something that’s frequently broken off of these older cages.
This one had been damages and had a repair:
Unfortunately this cage’s repair is bent, so it’s currently an non-functional cage. I’m scared to try to bend it back. I don’t want to undo the repair and end up with a broken cage.
**The daily blog will continue to be updated below this notice**
I will be out of town performing at the San Diego County Fair in San Diego, CA from June 22nd to July 6th, 2026. That means no orders of physical items will ship until I return on July 7th, 2026.
Digital items will still be emailed during this time!
The film cans that I use for my Film Can Dice Force aren’t made anymore. They still make film cans, but the ones currently made don’t work for the gimmick. I have to source mine on the “used film can market”.
The last batch that I got were super beat up and I had to refurbish(?) them. The can on the left is what they look like when I got them:
The middle can is after I gave them a wipe down, and the can on the right is after I buffed them with my Dremel! The amount of labor that goes into making the Film Can Dice Forces is way too much for what I charge for them!
Vanishing Birdcages from India have been popping up on eBay with way too high prices and descriptions. Here’s the image on one that recently popped up:
Let’s take a closer look at what those instructions say:
There’s so much wrong with that ad copy! 1: That cage isn’t a “Lindhorst Style” 2: That cage hasn’t been used thousands of times 3: Gene Anderson has never really been associated with the vanishing birdcage trick 4: Highly unlikely that this cage belonged to Gene Anderson 5: How has it been used by Gene thousands of times, if it’s “never used”
Then the red flag is the $110 price point, those cages are less than $50 new and still being made and easily available!
If you’re looking to buy a vanishing birdcage and aren’t sure if it’s a good one, feel free to contact me and I can give you my opinion on the one you’re thinking of.
I was driving home the other day, and I was thinking about the strait jacket escape. In the past I’ve done the Strait Jacket Escape with 50 Feet of Chain. Many routines are done against a clock but I like the idea of doing it against someone else doing something (completing a task). It sets up a head to head sort of challenge. My buddies Scotty Walsh and Steve The Pretty Good both did that in their routines.
The routine I was thinking about would be:
There’s a box or container of some sort that has a lock in it.
$100 is put into the container and locked.
The key is mixed with other non-working keys.
I’m put into the strait jacket.
I have to get out before someone from the audience find the correct key and opens the box.
I get out when there it one key left.
The final key that they didn’t try opens the box, and I get to keep the $100
I offer them a 2nd place prize, which is another box with a lock.
They pick any key they already tried and it opens that box, inside is $5 that they can keep!
I think it reads a bit more convoluted than it flows, or how I think it will flow.
I need to go out and try it out and start figuring out if it works or doesn’t.
-Louie PS: There’s an essay in one of my older lecture notes about how I created my comedy escape The Straight Suit.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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!
