stage magic – Page 56 – MagicShow.Tips

Strange Vanishing Birdcage Proportions

I found a Vanishing Birdcage on eBay that I don’t have in my collection. I don’t know who made it.

This one is interesting because of its dimensions. Its 5 x 5 x 5 inches, so a square. For perspective, my Owen Vanishing Birdcage is 5 3/4 x 5 x 5, so a rectangle.

Riser / Summers baby lindy vanishing birdcage, owens challenge cage, and maker unknown vanishing birdcage — *Left to Right: Baby Lindy – Unknown Maker – Owens Challenge Cage*

What I find strange is the square dimensions make cage look smaller and not really give you any advantage as the cage collapsed is virtually the same size as the Owen cage.

The amount of bulk reduced in your sleeve after the vanish is negligible, and it’s only one bar shorter than an Owen Challenge Cage.

What is interesting is the weight of the cage. I compared it to my Baby Lindy and Owen cage and this cage is 20% lighter than the Riser/Summers Baby Lindy Vanishing Birdcage and about 2/3’s the weight of the Owens Challenge Cage.

The lighter weight is the only advantage for this cage, however I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t have made it a bit wider or shorten it’s depth to give it that rectangle shape to reduce bulk.

I’m glad to have it in my vanishing birdcage collection!
-Louie

Hat Coil preparation

I’ve got a few summer camp shows this week. Yesterday I mentioned that I use a Hat Coil in my summer camp show.

Last night I was getting them ready, so here’s how I prep them. I start by removing the inner brown cardboard from the hat coil. Then I take a bit of the middle and I crumple it into a ball. That ball then gets shoved into the middle of the hat coil. That makes it easier to pull out when I’m ready to produce it.

Next I cut off some of the outer layer and throw it away. I use tape to secure the end. The reason that I do that is because the hat coil slows down a lot towards the end and the last bit just takes forever. By cutting off a little bit is makes it a little punchier:

It takes about 10 minutes to do 7 -10 of them, so it’s pretty quick.

Now I’m good to go for the week!

-Louie

Magic Mondays in Seattle

In the Seattle area we have a show called Magic Mondays. This is essentially a magic open mic, and a great resource for local magicians to work on material, or just have a chance to perform in front of a real audience. This show has been running for years and has a built in fan base, and the audience came back when the show returned after 2 years off during the pandemic.

Last night we got to see Jim Earnshaw perform some coin magic, then David Regal’s Will The Socks Match. I really liked the sock trick!

Next we had Frederick Turner doing a “do as I do” style card trick, with a bell as the transition prop. I really liked the used of the bell and it was great signal at the end of the trick.

In the show was a new to the Seattle area performer, David Hirata. He did some great rope magic, card magic and was a lot of fun to watch!

Finally we had Master Payne who did his fabulous coin in bottle routine. He’s going to be doing a presentation at FISM in a couple of weeks and will be doing this routine, so he was practicing it.

Last night’s show was solid show and best of all, it’s FREE to the audience!
This is a great show to catch is you’re in the Seattle area on the second Monday of the month at Third Place Books (Ravenna).
-Louie

Masters of Illusion!

It’s official, I’ll be on The CW’s Masters of Illusion on Saturday July 16th! Here’s the teaser video of what I’ll be doing:

This is the cracker card trick that I starting doing in 2019 (I think). I was performing in Arizona at a fair and didn’t take any cards with me, thinking I could buy them in the town I was performing in. Unfortunately it was a smaller town and I couldn’t find anywhere that sold cards in town and the closest city was over an hour away!

At that time I did a card stab style trick, so I tried to figure out what other object I could substitute for cards and essentially the same jokes and routine structure. I decided on Ritz Crackers and worked out a routine for it. Over the course of the week I was performing the routine started to take shape. It’s different from the original routine enough, that they could be done in back to back shows, the only prop they share is the drop cloth.

I always love it when something created out of necessity becomes something bigger than what it was a placeholder for!

-Louie

My Fav Flower Trick!

This video of a magic trick came across my social media feed:

It’s not a deep mystery, but I’ve watched it maybe 6 or 7 times and it makes me smile every time!

I’m not sure how or why you’d use it in a show, but I love that someone came up with it, wrote it up in a book and many years later someone else made one!
-Louie

Library Magic Show

There was a time many years ago when I would do about 75 library shows in a summer. This year I think I’m doing 5, however I’m staying very busy performing in other markets. Yesterday I performed at one of the first libraries that I ever performed at!

The pic was taken as I was setting up and people were trickling in, we ended up packing the place!

One of the great things about library shows is that they normally have a theme each year and you get to create with that theme. It makes creating really easy because you have rules you need to follow. In the case of a library it’s the theme of “outer space” or whatever.

Since I was only doing a handful of them I didn’t offer a theme this year. I do kinda miss writing a 45 minute show every year and taking it from nothing to a a polished show! Those skills have really helped me with creating material for other venues!

-Louie

Vanishing Parakeets!

Oh man, I just got home from being on the road for little while and I had a package from Jonathan Neal waiting for me! This arrived the day after I left and I’ve been anxiously awaiting it! I had ordered two of his parakeets for the vanishing birdcage! These aren’t rubber, they are silk on the outside.

These little guys are amazing looking and collapse into virtually nothing! I like them as they visually have more “pop” than the plain ol’ yellow canary that I had been using.

Unfortunately my cage is in California right now and I’m in Seattle, so I can’t try them out just yet.

-Louie

Tape Measure Prediction…

One of the tricks that I’m trying to move out of my preshow and into the main body of my show is my version of Iain Bailey’s Measure For Measure trick. This is a tape measure prediction, you pull out the tape and someone says “stop” and there’s a giant arrow drawn on the back where they stopped. I totally reworked Iain’s gimmick so that it works way better for how I perform and the conditions that I perform in. You can read a little bit about it on this blog post.

The challenge I’ve had with it was getting the effect to really hit. It was getting an “meh” sort of reaction. What fixed it was that I added a phase to the beginning of the trick. This first phase I used a separate tape measure and the person from the audience says “stop”, but misses the prediction and it’s wrong. I tell them they will get it wrong the first time, but will get it right the second time. I think this really sets up what’s going to happen the second time and makes their brain processing the effect much faster.

I’ve managed to get a couple more laughs out of the routine as I’ve been working on it this summer. It’s slowly becoming a more fleshed out routine. I just need to do the work, which is writing, testing and editing.

-Louie

Rubber Canary!

A couple of days ago I wrote about there being two kinds of Nielson Latex Canaries and that I prefer the lighter color as it’s thinner. The reason is that it’s a thinner latex. If it happens to stick out of the cage during the vanish it doesn’t really hang up on your sleeve. Here’s what the cage looked like after I pulled it out of my sleeve yesterday:

When I noticed that I made a quick video to explain the difference:

While the difference in the firmness of the latex isn’t much, one thing I’ve learned about the cage is that a lot of small things that end up making a huge difference!
-Louie

Riser / Summers Vanishing Birdcage

I’m just wrapping up run of 8 days of shows using the Riser/Summers Baby Lindy Vanishing Birdcage. This is the first long run of shows that I’ve done using the cage. First of all, this cage has really no break in time, it’s good to go right out of the box and for me it’s the perfect amount of rigidity.

Jim Riser Dan Summers Baby Lindy Vanishing Birdcage

I use a Nielsen rubber canary in my cage, and currently the Riser/Summers cage comes with one, which is nice. I’ve noticed that there are two types of the canaries that Nielsen has put out over the years. One of them is a lighter yellow and one is a brighter yellow. The lighter yellow one is a thinner latex than the brighter yellow one. I prefer the lighter one inside of my cage as it collapses much flatter and if any of it is sticking out of the cage, it doesn’t really provide any resistance if it catches on my sleeve.

This cage works perfectly with my Take Up Reel, so I’m able to close the show with it. The other thing that’s great about this cage’s size is that I’m able to bend my elbow with it all the way up my sleeve, making the motions of my arm much more natural feeling (at least to me) after the vanish.

I’m having a great time with this cage and if you’re in the market for a cage, I recommend the Riser/Summers Baby Lindy Vanishing Birdcage!
-Louie