Vintage Magic Junk Shop Find

Magicians always ask me where I find all the vintage magic tricks that I have. The answer is simple, I hunt for them. Recently, I was performing in a small town and was walking through a junk shop and found this box:

It’s clearly an older prop, my guess is 1960’s. Here’s a pic in the mirror of my hotel room so you can see the front and back:

What’s really weird about this is the arrangement of the window and door. Here’s a video walkthrough of the prop and what I think is going on:

It’s definitely interesting….

-Louie

Balloon Swallow Trick Idea…

I had an idea for the trick where the magician swallows a balloon animal. Let’s start with me saying this is something I’ll probably never do, simply because I don’t do the balloon swallow trick. I have several issues with it, one of which is that it really lacks an ending. This is my attempt to give it an ending.

After the magician swallows the balloon, they take an ice pick and jab it into their belly button. You hear a pop, and the magician pulls the deflated balloon out of their mouth.

That gives the routine a finish.

All you need is a Comedy Ice Pick and a Bingo Shooting Device. Glue the Bingo Shooting Device to the Comedy Ice Pick, and when you’re ready for the pop, set it off!

As far as I know, this ending is original to me; feel free to use it if you do the balloon swallow trick.

-Louie

Opening Night at the Moisture Festival!

Last week was the opening of this year’s Moisture Festival! I was part of the cast of the opening night show, then I’m back on March 28th and 29th. The Moisture Festival is a fast paced variety show. Each act does about 5 minutes.

moisture festival

Everyone in the opening night show was super cool, and were also amazing acts!

moisture festival

Doing variety shows that have other magicians in the cast is where my style of doing non-standard magic in non-standard ways really helps me. I don’t really have to change what I do because there’s another magician in the show. Last week at the festival, I did my marshmallow act. For the 28th and 29th, I think I’m MC for two of the shows, and the last one, I’ll probably do my bullwhip act.

Hosting the shows at the Moisture Festival is a lot of work, but the host is really the glue that holds the whole thing together onstage! You need to be able to fill time for the stage crew to set/strike props, which can sometimes be fairly involved!

One of the things that the Moisture Festival does really well is create a family backstage! Everyone is super friendly, and it’s just fun to be there!

-Louie

Meta Glasses Gag Idea

Here’s a gag idea: You call attention to your glasses and mention that everyone has cameras in their glasses now. You then pull/shake a camera out of the glasses.

That’s it, a quick sight gag.

To do it, the easiest way would be to palm a small camera and produce it. More complex methods would be a camera that collapses. A simple, but pain to make would be a latex or sponge camera.

There you go, if this idea interests you, go out and do it!

-Louie

Monopoly Magic !

I like the idea of the mentalism premise where you have a 5 objects that are all the same and one different one. People from the audience all hold one of the objects, and you find who is holding the odd one.

That premise is fun, and I have a few themes for it. The other day I thought of one using Monopoly game pieces.

monopoly magic trick

The hotels and houses lend themselves to a presentation about finding your way home.

This set of houses and hotels was 3D printed and is gimmicked to work with Promystic’s Flux. One of the challenges of using an electronic gimmick is what do you do if it doesn’t work? What’s the out? For some things, I’ve decided the best way to do it is to have a second gimmick. Luckily, Flix isn’t too expensive, and running two gimmicks at the same time isn’t very complicated.

I look forward to trying this out!

-Louie

Postcard Magic Trick

I’m working on a trick where I need to make a postcard disappear from one stack and reappear in another stack. Here’s what I came up with:

The reason I’m going with a gravity flap instead of an elastic flap is that I don’t need a visual change of the card. Also, with gravity, there’s less to break. There’s nothing worse than restringing an elastic flap card has broken right before a show!

-Louie

Take Up Reels

Today I’m making a couple of take up reels! These are reels that are typically used for the vanishing birdcage. They don’t have anything to do with the actual vanish of the cage, they simply take up slack in the pull and lock it short. This allows you freedom of motion before you do the cage vanish.

People frequently ask me what kind of cage this will work with, and the answer is that it’s great for any cage that works on a wrist to wrist pull. That means an Abbott’s style will work as well as an Owen vanishing birdcage.

The take up reel can be used for more than the birdcage. The Chimney Vanish with a silk will work or pretty much anything that goes up your sleeve. If you have any question about if this will work for you, feel free to contact me!

-Louie

Spoon Dropper!

One of the things that I need for a routine I’m working on is a spoon dropper. This will allow me to steal a spoon from my jacket. The first idea was just a magnet. The issue that I encountered was that if I moved too much, the spoon would get knocked off the magnet.

One solution would be a stronger magnet, but it needed to be easy to pull off the magnet. What I did was glue some magnets to a bowl of a spoon, then cover that with black fabric.

spoon magic trick
spoon magic trick

The spoon bowl’s shape holding the spoon kept the fabric from my shirt/jacket from dislodging the spoon.

spoon magic trick

This was a fairly simply solution to the the problem!

-Louie

Portland Magic Jam – Day 3

The final day of last week’s Portland Magic Jam had the Paul Draper lecture. He does a choose your own lecture where the audience asks him to talk about things and he talks about what the audience requests.

paul draper lecture

Then there was a panel Q and A with all the weekend’s headliners.

magic convention panel

Then David Kaye and I snuck out so I could take him for the most Portland lunch, which was eating at a food truck pod!

food truck pod magicians

Then the weekend for me ended with the magic contest.

magic contest
magic contest

Unfortunately, I forgot to take more pictures of the contest. There were a couple of extra charge workshops going on after the contest, but I had plans with my wife, so I couldn’t do any of them.

The weekend at the Portland Magic Jam was a ton of fun! I wish I could go to more of these, however, my performing schedule doesn’t let me.

-Louie