MagicShow.Tips – A daily blog about magic by Louie Foxx

Snake Basket Magic Trick V2

This snake basket magic trick I’m working on feels like a “project car” that’s in someone’s garage that they are constantly working on. It’s something I keep finding ways to improve. The first version is barely finished, and I’m working on a second one!

The big change is that I’m going to move it away from a card trick. I’m going to merge it with Terry Seabrook’s Chattering Teeth Routine. The snake will chew holes in the paper, and the reveal will be when the paper is opened. A paper is physically larger than a playing card, even a jumbo playing card. Bigger is better for a reveal!

Moving to paper also allows me to customize the routine to a show. For example, if I were doing a safety-themed show for kids, the snake could chew a stop sign in the paper. It could still be a card a la the original Seabrook routine, or spots (like on a die) or even the image a piece of art!

I’m liking flexibility of this idea!

-Louie

A New Routine with a Block

This is an idea I had a while ago, and 3d printed it:

This is a three phase mental magic type routine. I read someone’s mind, then they read my mind, then a magic trick happens. I took it to a magic meet up and here’s what the magicians think of it:

Billy McComb, in one of his books, mentions an easy way to create new routines is to combine two tricks. I think his example is a thumb tie and card to wallet. The block trick I came up with combines the Color Vision Block with a super old stage magic trick. I don’t think people are expecting the part that uses the old stage magic effect, and by the time that part is revealed, I’m way ahead of them. Also, people newer into magic may not recognize it as it’s not really used much anymore.

-Louie

Snake Basket Presentation

The snake basket magic trick that I’m working on won’t have a basket or any of the old snake charmer tropes. The main reason is that after reading about snake charmers and their rise in pop culture, I don’t think my personal values align with that imagery. It’s like “yellow face” Asian stuff that used to be popular in magic. The original intent of it was not positive.

Another reason I’m not using the basket is that it’s a trope that no longer exists. It’s not something that appears in modern pop culture. I know it was in every Bugs Bunny cartoon, but kids haven’t watched those for decades. There’s really no reason to have a basket today.

If you see a reptile show at a school or library, none of the snakes are in baskets; they’re all in boxes or tubs. That’s what I want my snake basket to look like, a box, well, specifically a wooden crate. I’m waiting on the supplies to make it, but the box will be cardboard, so it packs small and light. I’m going to cover it in wood grain contact paper and then add trim with wood grained duct tape.

I’ll post pictures of it when it’s finished!

-Louie

Snake Basket Demo!

The snake basket that I’ve been building is finally starting to take shape! I have a completely functional version of it! Here’s what it looks like:

I’m going to make a small change to the code. I’m going to add a three second delay after the button push for the action to take place. I want to be able to have some physical distance between my hands and body when the actions take place.

-Louie

Green Rooms

In the course of a month, I get to see a wide range of green rooms of offstage spaces for the performer. They range from nothing, a table in a conference room to what they have in nice clubs.

A couple of Decades ago when Jim Gaffigan was really becoming a big, we were chatting with a comedy club owner and Jim said something like, “I know what you pay me, just put me up somewhere nice.” That’s something that really stuck with me, if you treat the act right off stage, it’ll payoff onstage.

A couple weeks ago the comedy club I was performing at had a cabinet of snacks!

More than that, it had three tubs of toiletries:

That’s HUGE if you’re doing two shows back to back and you want to freshen up a little bit between shows. Personally, I try to not take these green rooms for granted, because the next gig I do won’t have anything and I’ll spend 20 minutes hunting down a cup of water!

-Louie

Chinese Laundry Ticket

I found a stack of Chinese Laundry Ticket papers in a box of old magic from the early 1960s. This is a torn and restored paper effect with a strip of paper. The theme of this trick is a ticket from a Chinese laundry that’s torn and restored, and this routine is typically filled with offensive (racist) patter lines. A better themed version would be Arnold Furst’s Fresh Fish paper tear.

Anyway, I have these Chinese laundry ticket papers, and I was curious what they actually said, so I ran them through Google Translate and here’s what they say:

This is one of the things that’s problematic with these older magic tricks, is that what’s actually written on them isn’t what it’s supposed to be in the trick. This trick, if it actually had numbers on it instead of talking about rice, would be slightly less offensive. The simple fact that the trick is taking something from another culture, but not taking the most basic step of making sure it’s correct, is just one of the reasons I dislike this trick.

Go out there and be a better human.

-Louie

Trickanalysing: The Close Up Magic of David Copperfield

On a flight I read the book Trickanalysing The Magic of David Copperfield. This is a book from 1997 that goes through 20 of David Copperfield’s close up magic routines that he’s done on TV. This book is about the theatrical elements in the routines, not about specific methods.

The first 2/3’s of the book is the author going through and breaking down what’s theatrically happening in the routines. The final third of the book digs more into the author’s definitions of the theatrical devices used and how they could be applied to your magic. Then at the end, there are some worksheets for you to go through your magic and see what you’re using, or could be using.

Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about this book. I didn’t dislike it, however, I’m not in love with it. It was definitely interesting, but I’m not sure how much of the Trickanalysing system that I’ll personally be using. It is always neat to read about someone’s system.

-Louie

Jesse Patterson

On this episode, we welcome hula hoop extraordinaire Jesse Patterson. We talk about how she fell in love with the hula hoop at a young age and how she found the circus community growing up in Texas.

We discuss her particular style and how it incorporates some long-lost juggling techniques. She tells us what led her to go to circus school and walks us through the day-to-day routines at a circus. A really great chat with a wonderful and creative performer.

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What’s Next for Louie Foxx Magic Products?

With the closing of Hocus Pocus (under the Gross family), I need to make some decisions about my magic products. There really isn’t a family run magic shop in the USA that has the reach of them, aside from maybe Steven’s Magic Emporium, and without Joe and the fire a couple years ago, I have a feeling their time is limited.

Personally, growing up in magic in the 1990’s every magic shop and city/state had a culture and style. The magic tricks available in Minneapolis may be different from what we had in Seattle. Back then, it was great when someone would travel and bring back a trick we didn’t have in Seattle. Now that the magic business has changed into a global thing, all the shops are virtually the same. There are very few magic products that are made and sold locally.

With my magic products, I wanted a dealer that I knew and someone that I could give something unique to. Something that gave people a reason to shop with a specific shop that wasn’t just price.

Going forward, what should I do with my product? Should I start reaching out to smaller local shops, or go with Murphy’s Magic and have them distribute it? With Murphy’s, I will move a lot more units and make more money. I’m really not motivated by more money (I probably should be), and I would rather have a relationship with a magic shop that’s a singular home base for my products.

I don’t know…

-Louie

Hocus Pocus Closed!

Well, it’s public now that Hocus Pocus in Fresno has closed. For me, this is the end of the “family magic shop” era. Aside from Stevens Magic Emporium, there really aren’t any prominent family run magic shops in the USA anymore. Yes, there are some smaller ones, but not really any with national/international reach.

I first met Paul and Betty Gross when I was performing at The Big Fresno Fair about a decade ago. They came to the fair and watched my show, and then they introduced themselves. I had done business with Paul Gross long before that. Hocus-Pocus was the second shop to sell my Evaporation trick. The first was Max Krause’s magic shop, but he called me at around 10pm, right after I had sent out an email to magic shops announcing the product. Paul put in an order the next morning and he immediately sold out and reordered.

After Paul’s passing, I continued doing business with Hocus Pocus when Max took over. Max was involved before that, but he became the face of the business at that point. For not being a magician, Max knew a lot about the industry and a ton about collectible magic!

That brings us to today (technically last night) with them officially being closed. Last week I got a call from them giving me a heads up about it, and I immediately booked a flight down to say good by to them. Every magic product I’ve released for the last decade has been through them, and it’s been a great relationship.

It’s sad to see this shop going away, and it was great to chat with them about what’s next. Max is a super smart guy, and he kept his Dad’s dream alive and now he’s working on his dream, and I wish him and the rest of the family the best!

-Louie