Audacious Gambits
.. from Vaudeville at the Baker, the Stupidest Thing I Have Ever Done On Stage… Sometimes I feel almost ashamed. Sometimes.
In my last post, I mentioned how wandering through a craft store could be perilous … here is the result of one such excursion … Two small wooden “rounds”, some paint, stick-on lettering from the scrapbooking section and a sharpie marker… and we have the work-in-progress “parlor” version of my” Up-Vertible”…. all for about one-third [...]
One of the things I find myself doing from time to time is wandering through craft stores. Usually I’m doing this because my wife wants to go to one, but… I’ve found a lot of useful stuff wandering the rows of scrapbooking, wood, paint and random other supplies. Poster board, too. It’s odd, but in [...]
Magicians carry a miniature “reality distortion field” with them, theatrically speaking. When you tell someone you are a magician, they automatically assume you are going to be able to do things which most “normal” people can’t do. “Magical realism” combines what we agree to be “normal” with aspects of magic or “not normal” reality to [...]
“The Hook brings you back…” – Blues Traveller No matter how much pretty stuff we have to show our audiences, they have to, at some level, care about what you’re doing on stage if they’re going to stick around. Sometimes it’s easy. You ask someone if they want to see a trick and they do. [...]
In his feature article in Genii magazine, Mac King once said that if his luggage was lost during a trip, he could put his act back together with a quick trip to the Woolworth’s. I got to thinking about that – so long as I can get to a hardware store I can put together
Here’s a scary thought – don’t buy a single prop for a month. Don’t purchase any prop which is not a replacement for something you already have or a “consumable” (paper goods, rope, cards) which gets used up in your act. This will prompt you to look at what you have and what you do [...]
Magicians like to pack as much magic as possible into an act. It’s as if there is a “trick per hour” ratio we want to maintain. One thing I’ve noticed as I keep going in my show is that the number of tricks I’m doing is diminishing, but I’m taking more time to build up [...]
Continue reading about Audacious Gambits – Cut Back On Your Act
So many magicians throw aside “old” magic tricks because, in our world, they’re overexposed. By this I mean that magicians see other magicians doing magic tricks and once they’ve seen it 3 times, it’s “overexposed”. In this case, make a list of tricks you love that you don’t do. Now, pick one trick, and try [...]
Continue reading about Audacious Gambits – Old Trick, New Stuff
Close-up magic is the biggest selling type of magic today. Books, tricks, videos – almost 80% of them concentrate on close-up magic. Let me tell you something: I don’t like close-up magic. I’ll give y’all a sec to let that sink in. Magic is a visual art. Close-up magic is about little pictures. And far [...]
