Gig Recap

A week ago today I had my gig. Against all odds, it actually went pretty well. I definitely prepared more for this than I have in the past, but I also know that I put preparation off for way too long and could have done more. There were between thirty to forty people there spread out across eight different tables. Most of the tables had about six or eight people at them, but there were a couple that only had two or three.

What I had planned were two different routines that ran about seven minutes each. Just about everything was card-focused, which is something I would like to change in the future. I do think I had a good variety though, so it wasn't just a bunch of "pick a card" over and over.

The first routine centered around the four aces with a loose theme of  "Luck of the Irish," I produced the aces one at a time, did a modified spectator cuts the aces, twisted the aces, did two sandwich effects with the red and black aces, and finished up with invisible palm aces. I had a lot of fun doing this one, and overall I think it was received well. The sandwich effects could have been routined differently for my tastes. I didn't get the pop I was expecting out of it. I'll talk about that more another time.

The second routine started with an Invisible Deck with a 52-on-1 card, then a slightly modified Color Monte and finished with a version of Mr. Stickman by Richard Sanders. This routine was slightly shorter than the others as far as number of tricks, but it played about the same length of time. I wasn't super happy with this routine and wish I had taken the time to do something better. I didn't have a natural way to work St. Patrick's Day into this set like I did with the other one (which wasn't asked of me, I just thought it would be a nice touch) so I shoehorned it in by making Color Monte a demo of when I got hustled by a leprechaun and turned the stickman into a stick leprechaun.

During the second routine I did mess up twice, once revealing the ace of clubs instead of the ace of spades and once during Color Monte when I let my mouth get ahead of my brain and forgot where I was in the script. Fortunately (or not) these happened at different tables. Both of these could be solved with more practice, especially the Color Monte issue. I also usually use a line when asking them to think of a card that eliminates obvious cards, but I didn't this time. I should make sure I do that in future performances of the Invisible Deck.

I managed to hit all the tables in 57 minutes, just shy of the hour they asked for. The perfectionist in me would have liked to his that hour exactly, but there were no complaints. I was afraid of coming up way too short, so I was happy. I would like to figure out a way to carry water with me or something because I had dry mouth pretty bad by the end of it after talking almost nonstop for an hour. Maybe I could keep a bottle with my stuff and make my way over for a swig after every couple tables. I also need to do better about bringing the magic up to chest level. I spent the whole time bending over working at the tabletop level, and my back killed me when I was done.

All in all, I had a great time and I think it was successful. I learned a lot and now I have some things to think about and work on for the future. Don't know when my next gig will be. I know for sure I'll be doing a festival at the end of June, but maybe something will crop up in the meantime. I'll keep everyone posted.

- Andster

I Wish

I wish we lived in a world where magicians (or, I suppose, people in general) weren't dicks and we could openly talk about methods when selling a trick. I hate that we have to list off a big thing full of what the trick isn't (which in my mind just invites speculation and guessing more than anything) instead of just being able to say "Here's how it works," and have people still buy it.

I'm sure we all at one point or another have fallen victim to hype of some sort or another in our magic careers. Usually either the list of "No's" makes it sound like the holy grail of magic and in reality you get a convoluted handling to fit the criteria they set, or it turns out that the conditions you normally perform under aren't compatible with the handling. Then there's the issue of demo videos that don't tell the whole story, but that's a whole other post by itself.

What I would love, and I know this is a complete pipe dream fantasy world, is if a new trick told you how it worked and you could make an informed decision about whether or not you wanted to buy it. If you liked it, you'd pay the money and perform it, almost like a licensing fee. If you didn't like it, you would be a reasonable person and not perform it because you haven't purchased the license.

It would be nice to see the gimmick and find out before you drop cash on it that it's flimsy and hard to handle. It would be good to know that you require a stooge to watch what your spectator does before you spend your hard earned money and realize you have no friends. Imagine how the reviews would change. Instead of reading "The 'secret something' can be a bit fiddly, but there are ways around that. You'll know what I mean when you see it." we could have reviews like, "The gimmicked card has a tendency to slide off the top of the deck, but you can use your third finger to hold it. I haven't found it to be that big of an issue in real life."

No longer would we see ads like:
No rough and smooth!
No thread!
No wire!
No magnets!
No puffs of air!
No duplicate!
No switching!
No stooges!

Instead we would see:
This requires a piece of double sided tape and a solid billet peek.

But we will never get to that point because magic is all about the secrets, and magicians are dicks and won't pay if you give them the secret for free. Hell, I'd be happy if more (or any, really) magic shops offered refunds if you don't like a product. Sure, you'd probably still get dicks that just put money down on one trick and keep refunding and buying new ones but I feel like that would take effort and there would be fewer that do that than if you just openly advertised the secret.

I know this will never happen, but I can dream. If I ever get the chance to sell something I've created, I'd like to experiment with some truth in advertising and see how well it goes. Probably about as well as I expect it to, which is why people don't already do this.

You're all a bunch of dicks.

- Andster

Sometimes You Just Gotta Go For It

I just booked that show I talked about a couple weeks ago. I debated with myself for a long time, trying to decided if me saying I wasn't ready was just another excuse or was a real feeling. I finally decided that if I could talk them into doing table hopping instead of all eyes on me for an hour, I'd do it.

I'm in the process of developing a parlor-ish show, but there's no way in hell I would feel comfortable doing it that quickly. Probably just another excuse, but it is what it is. For now, I'm sticking with the close-up that I'm comfortable with. Hell, I could probably just jazz an hour but I'm not going to try it.

Long story short, they said walkaround would be fine and they agreed to my price without even blinking, so I guess I've got a show to do. I'll let you know how it goes. I've actually got two performances lined up here, so I guess I'm finally getting back into the swing of things.

I'm almost ready to make an announcement. I'd say stay tuned, but my pageviews are showing that nobody's tuning in the first place. So tune in then stay tuned.

- Andster

Magician Gets Punched

A few days ago, I went to a coffee shop to check out a magic show. One of the performers pulled this guy up from the audience to help with a trick who was absolutely hilarious. I wish I had thought to record more of the trick, but I only got the last bit after he failed to find the card.

I don't know if this is funny without the context of his whole interaction with the magician or not, but it was awesome at the time. It made me think that if I were going to do something like this myself, I'd try to come up with a way of scripting it to avoid getting such a wallop. Or maybe pick a kid or something, I dunno.

- Andster

Do I Bite Off More Than I Can Chew?

I have a tendency to agree to things without thinking, then figure out how I can accomplish what I said I'd do. Yesterday I got a call asking if I was interested in doing an hour show for an event in a couple months. Of course I said yes. Then I started thinking about it, and I have doubts that I can fill an hour.

I've got some time to prepare, and I'm sure I have the material and the ability but it's gonna take some work. I usually do more close up, walkaround style things so I'm not sure how well that will translate to this event. I don't know if it's a case of me making another of a million excuses and I should just buckle down and do it.

My saving grace here is that I haven't actually committed to the event, it was basically just saying yes to a middleman who would pass my number on to the event coordinator. I'm supposed to get a call from here to discuss the details, so that would be the time to back out if I'm going to. We'll see what I can come up with in the next couple days. Whatever happens, I'll keep you posted.

- Andster

About Stooges

After my post from the other day, I started thinking about stooges and their place in magic. This is something I've been meaning to write about for a long time now so I finally forced myself to sit down and do it. Strap in, this'll probably be a long one.

Years ago I probably would have told you that stooges had no place in magic and anyone using them was lazy and should find a way to accomplish the effect without a stooge. Now I realize that it's not so black and white. There are certain scenarios where having a stooge, instant or otherwise, can strengthen the effect. There are also times when using stooges can weaken things overall.

In my opinion a poor use of a stooge is a trick that can only be accomplished by using a stooge. I feel that these tricks look too impossible for an audience and they often correctly assume that the assistant is in on it. An example of this is something I feel like every magician hits on early in their career: Too-Perfect Mind Reading. It's not too much of a stretch to think "Gee, instead of forcing a word or using a center tear or a peek wallet, why don't I just have Bob help me out and tell him to say giraffe?"

Instead, I think a stooge should be used to strengthen an effect. They should be part of the method, not the entire method. An example I've seen of this being tossed around in the past is using another magician who knows the same stacked deck as you in an ACAAN effect. A real spectator names any card, your stooge names the corresponding number in the stack, or vice versa.

You could also use that to eliminate the weak point in a one-ahead routine. The simple 3-Way Test from Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic is one of my favorite pieces of impromptu magic, but I don't like that the third stage needs to be a force. Yes, you can get lucky with equivoque or you can use a psychological force, but ideally you could ask people to make completely free choices. Doing that for the first two stages and limiting choices in the third, to me, makes it look fishy. Having a stooge for that third stage can clean things up for you immensely.

I used a stooge a few months ago when I needed to film a video for something. I had been performing the Invisible Deck all day at a festival and towards the end I decided to get some footage of it. Instead of filming the actual routine, I grabbed someone I knew and basically said, "Hey, you're gonna help me make a video real quick. I'm going to ask you to name a card. Say the seven of hearts." I turned the seven around in a normal deck of cards, turned the camera on, and did my ID routine. It was exactly the same as I had done all day long, except I didn't need to do any math and I couldn't possibly screw it up. In my mind, that's the perfect example of using a stooge. It streamlines a performance, anyone watching would see the same thing as if you didn't use a stooge, and you can do the same thing in a non-stooged way.

Now that I've gone on and on about using stooges sparingly, let's talk about an idea I had that takes it to the other extreme. What if you did a magic show where everyone there was in on it except one or two people? I'm picturing something small and intimate, like after hours in a coffee shop or in a hotel suite. The show can seat maybe a dozen people total. Every time a person or couple books a ticket, that show becomes sold out. Early in your show you can do a "traditional" magic trick using the real spectators. As the show goes on, you do effects using your stooges that become more and more impossible. I'm thinking use them to sign duplicate cards or coins, think of words from the dictionary, use them to do the cleanest version of the lottery effect you'll ever see. The sky's the limit, I would just try to keep it at least semi-plausible.

As long as your stooges don't ham it up, the people who actually buy tickets and come to this as a real spectator are going to see the best magic show in the world. I think if this were to be actually done, you would need to select your stooges carefully. You can't have an audience full of your friends in case someone recognizes them. I think actors or people from Craigslist would be the best bet, but then I don't think you'd be able to sell tickets at a high enough price to be able to pay people. You would also have to keep track of people who have seen the show and be careful to not let them see the same show twice. Maybe switch things up with your stooges, but then you run the risk of someone getting confused. Maybe limit people coming back for a second showing by having tickets be sold out if they try to buy them. There's a lot of problems but I think they could be solved, I just don't know if I could solve them in my current position. I would love to try one day though.

Let's take this a step further into the extreme: What if everyone at the show was a stooge, but everyone though they were the only one? This is starting to become more performance art than magic show, but the idea of it really gets me. I think this would be best in an casual setting, like a house party or cookout or something. Individually and well in advance you approach your guests and tell them you're going to try out your new show but you need their help in one part. If they could just do X, you'd really appreciate it. Set up the whole show with different people in different roles.

Again, the whole thing can be as impossible as you'd like to make it but I feel that the more plausible you can make it, the better. Pull off the whole show (though I guess it is more accurately a play at this point) and afterward everybody's still amazed. I would love to do this and just sit back and see how long it would take people to realize, if they ever did. I think with the right group of people they would just keep quiet about it and be amazed forever. Again, I would love to try this but I'm not sure I can ever pull it off.

Well, that's what I've got to say about stooges. For now, anyway. I could probably talk forever about it but I would probably talk myself in circles more than I already have. I might revisit this at a later date.

- Andster

Do You Want to Make Someone Vanish?

Well, now you can for the low, low price of $1,300! Actually, it's $1,375 which makes perfect sense because $1,400 would be way too much for this. Full details here. Go check it out, watch the video, then come back. I'll wait.

Okay, welcome back. First things first, I don't wanna talk shit on this guy on a personal level. I'm sure he's a great guy, talented performer, all that stuff. The thing that I want to know is, what's stopping someone from just performing this on their own without buying the license? The demo video is more or less an instructional video, especially if you've read the Paul Harris idea this whole thing is based on.

It's been a while since I've read that particular Conversation From the Edge, but if memory serves this performance is exactly what PH suggests you do. It's not like there's a whole bunch added here to make it different and worth selling as your own thing. Maybe an argument could be made that the mind reading bit at the beginning is original and, in my opinion, having that helps sell the second effect to the spectator. However, I also think you could pretty much get away with just about any thought transference, mind reading, drawing duplication effect that's currently on the market. Going one step further (and trying to obfuscate as much as I can here) you could probably also take what one spectator has to do for part two of the effect and incorporate that into part one and you're golden. Feel me?

I do have to say, this is something I've really thought about doing over the years. I never have because I'm not performing in the right spaces to pull this off. Watching the video and seeing the reaction this gets (though we have to remember the "real" reaction is from one guy and not hundreds) does make me want to give this a try. Maybe one day I'll be able to. I don't know if I would do this as a closer though, because to me the whole thing ends up seeming like a gag. Apparently it works out for this guy, but I personally would rather end the show on a moment of impossibility for everyone than for one.

- Andster