Williams Magic Mobile Magic Shop

A week ago or so I got a call from the president of the Order of Aggie Illusionists as well as an email from John Mavrick, the current president of the Austin S.A.M, both of them telling me about some guy who had a travelling magic shop and was going to be stopping in College Station. It just happened that I was going to be in College Station on the day that this magic shop was rolling in, so I went to check it out.

Now I didn't have very high expectations; I was expecting something thrown together and half-assed, but when I saw the setup, I was amazed.

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A month to go

Well, it's getting around to being that time of year again. Yes, I'm talking about the Sherwood Forest Renaissance Festival!

Once again I'll be performing out at the festival, and once again here I am panicking about my show. I suppose panic isn't really the best word, but I am fretting a bit. I still have to solidify my show before the first weekend of faire (February 19th) and it's really hard to get motivated to do so.

So, instead of working on my show like I should be doing, I'm going to go ahead and give a brief go at talking about routineing.

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Reality-Distortion Field

This is another crosspost (it's not my fault that there are so many awesome blogs out there!!!) from The Four Hour Work Week.


Take a few minutes to read the post on The Four Hour Work Week about Bill Clinton. Done? Did you watch the video? Watch the video. Ok? Ok.

Did you notice the extreeme difference in George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton? Did you notice that even though you're watching something that is over a decade old, that when he started talking to that woman that it felt as if he were talking to you?

I loved the line about Clinton not seducing women but seducing everyone. We could all learn something from watching Bill Clinton.

Think about it. If you have a performer who gets up there and does the show, and is wonderful, then good; fine. But what if you get up there and make an emotional and personal connection with the audience? Who do you think will be remembered as the better performer? That's the real trick.

So take a look at this very well thought out article and see if you can't apply some of the techniques therein to your own life and your own performances and watch the results.

~Cameron Rivers, Kings To You Magic

Crosspost

Today's entry is a crosspost from Why Am I Stuck in Magician Hell. 


The sad thing is that I did this during the TAOM 2010 Close-up competition but my room moderator said it was too late to enter. The conversation went something like this:

Me: John. John! Can I enter? I can win with what's in my pockets right now!

John: No, unfortunately.

Me: But I have pocket lint!!!!

*Names may or may not have been changed.
**Me is meant to represent me, and not you.

Half Price Books

I recently took a trip to Half Price Books, a used book store chain, where I found a copy of Harry Lorayne's Close Up Card Magic, a first edition none the less, for seven dollars. This comes after finding a complete set of Card College for under thirty dollars two years ago, as well as various other books (The Complete Course in Magic by Mark Wilson is always a popular find).

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Contact Juggling

So this is an awesome contact juggling video that I saw a few years ago and just rediscovered.

http://www.break.com/index/contact-juggling.html

Check it out!

~Cameron Rivers, Kings To You Magic

Diversify

One thing that is true in almost all aspects of life is the need to diversify. Your investment portfolios, your education, your life experiences, and yes, even your magic.

How many magicians do you know who only do cards or only do coins? BORING! To be a great magician, you need to diversify your skills. How do you go about doing that? Well, let me show you.

STEP ONE

The first step to diversifying is to identify what it is that you do already and what you'd like to move on to. For a large majority of us, cards is what we rely on. They are safe, easy, and have about ten million different things you can do with them, but hand us a coin and we're doing a David Blaine style shuttle pass. 

So what type of magic do you do now? For me, it's mainly cards.

So what type of magic do you move on to? That's a more difficult question. I'm moving in the direction of coins, because there is a feel that there is a coin/card dichotomy in magic, but the real reason I'm moving that way is to learn a new skill set that is completely different. 

So if you only do coins, move to cards; cards to coins. Mainly do mentalism? Try moving on to some card stuff. Impromptu magic your specialty? try coins. And everyone should try the cups.

STEP TWO

The next step is the hardest. You will be starting over almost as a complete beginner. Yes, you may know how something is done, but your fingers are going to be stupid and fumbly (yes I did just make that word up). Instead of getting frustrated and giving up, try to remember the hard work and wonder that you had when you first started learning magic. 

Try finding that one really impressive routine you've always wished you could perform and go at it!

STEP THREE

Now that you have a basis in your new area of magic, try finding ways to incorporate it into your old magic. Cards and coins make a wonderful matrix; mentalism and cards makes for some strange and eerie effects.

Now get out there and show off your new skills.

You're covered in Beeeeeeeees!

http Check it out. Just a fun little clip from Penn and Teller.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gysIuQRK7eA

~Cameron Rivers, Kings To You Magic

Impromptu magic

Something that I've always felt strongly about (though I haven't ever really pursued it to any extent) is that a magician is someone who can, at any moment, perform for someone.

Now when I say that, I don't mean that you should always have a deck of cards and a coin on you (you should though). No. What I'm saying is that at any point you should be able to take something that is laying around or that someone has given you and be able to perform with it. Not only that, but you should be setting up situations where you can perform impromptu effects.

One example is from Michael Ammar. He said that he used to go out with nothing but a pocket full of rubber bands. He'd drop them on the floor at the places that he and his group would be and wait until someone asks to see some magic. He would protest, saying that he didn't have anything on him, and then he would feign spontaneity and pick up the rubber bands and start performing.

Another example is from myself. One of my favorite impromptu effects is the paperclip bend. To make sure I can perform it, I'll sometimes carry a few paperclips and leave them laying around places. This ensures that there's always one available.

So I suppose what I'm saying is that not only should you be able to do something with anything someone hands you, but start setting yourself up for incredible moments of magic that seem completely un-prepped.

~Cameron Rivers, Kings To You Magic

Charlie Caper

Check out this guy! One of the most entertaining performers I've seen in a long while.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4R_ub_cAGw

Daniel Chesterfield

It looks like Blogger won't let me embed YouTube videos, so here's the link to one of the best David Copperfield spoofs ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqiNL4Hn04A

Card Collections

One thing that many magicians do is start collecting cards. I know that I have and while it's not an extensive collection by any strech of the imagination, I love getting interesting playing cards.

So I figured that I'd go through and find a bunch of cool/interesting/odd playing cards that you could add to your collection and links to where to find them.

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United States Playing Card Company on trick decks

The United States Playing Card Company produces some of the best playing cards in the world. From Bicycle and Bee to Aviator and KEM, the one thing that everyone who knows anything about cards knows is that the USPCC produces great quality cards that are easily recognizable and are perfectly normal.

Now, it used to be (and has been on and off for a while) that you could order trick decks of cards from the USPCC, but most of the time nowadays, you can't. It seems that being the top card company in the world and selling gimmicked decks doesn't really mesh with corporate, and I can understand that. You don't want people thinking that the cards you provide to casino's could be marked.

But apparently, the USPCC is teaming up with David Blaine and are releasing three specialty decks on October 31st.

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David Blaine and Criss Angel

There has been a lot of controversy in the magic community over David Blaine and Criss Angel. The controversy spreads from which is a better magician, to how they have hurt the magic community at large.

Now, my opinion, and this is one that is shared by very few magicians, is that both Angel and Blaine have done amazing things for the magic community and that we wouldn't be where we are today without them.

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Criss Angel being a dick?

I know that for many of you, the news that Criss Angel was being a dick recently isn't going to make you do a double-take. But someone forwarded me an article where it seems that Criss went off on two other magicians who happened to be at the Luxor, going so far as to have them removed from the property. Geeze, what a dick!

There is another side to the story, a side that the brief article I read didn't really cover, and I'd like to speculate on.

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Sleep deprivation and magic

Red Bull gives you...evil mustaches?

I've heard that that the average person sleeps almost a third of their lives. A full third!!! That means if you're thirty years old, you've spent ten of those years asleep! Think of everything you could accomplish in those ten years!

Last night I got four hours of sleep after staying up all night watching The Prestige and The Halloween Tree (both fantastic movies for those of you who haven't seen them) and hanging out with a good friend and this morning, despite battling bouts of horrible exhaustion, I've managed to put down on paper some fantastic new ideas and methods to create a really amazing routine.

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I can't even explain it

Just got this link from Clay, the President for the Order of Aggie Illusionists. I can't explain what it is, but Whit Hadyn never looked so funky!

http://theuglydance.com/?v=bkdrepjkma

~Cameron Rivers, Kings To You Magic

Creativity 101

Creativity is one of those things that is really easy for some of us, and really difficult for others. Sometimes it seems like the ideas won't ever stop, drowning you in a flood of thoughts that eventually cause your hands to cramp from trying to put them on paper; other times it seems like the next idea will never be there, that you've been abandoned by the Muses in some vast wasteland for has-been artists.

So how do you make sure that you always have a free flow of ideas? There are a few ways to do so, but overall, the best and most effective way to ensure creativity is to go out and do something creative. Now I know what you're thinking: who has time for arts and crafts? But creativity isn't just about arts and crafts. Expand your definition of what is creative from physically creating something to menatlly solving a problem or emotionally experiencing something.

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Moments of Downtime or Why the Convention Was Funny

Yesterday I mentioned that I would be sharing some of the funny/amazing moments that happened at TAOM 2010, and after a solid eight hours of sleep, I'm ready to get to it!

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Broaden your horizons

One of the things that I tried to instill in the members of the OAI is that magic is a performing art. What this means to me is that you, as the magician, are creating a world for the spectator where it is, in the words of the great Tommy Wonder "possible to pass a ball" through a solid object or hang a coin invisibly in mid air, not just performing a sleight.

One of the best ways to improve this world that you create for the spectator is to add some spectacle: color, movement, music, anything helps. But the way that you include things like that is to broaden your performance horizons to include things like:

• Juggling
• Fire-breathing
• Poi
• Sphereplay
• Dance

By expanding your performance horizons, you allow yourself access to a new style of performance and performance philosophy  that will help you to create new, more exciting magic for yourself and others.

So take a look at taking on new skills and hobbies and see if just the act of learning something new doesn't spark the creativity inside you.

~Cameron Rivers, Kings To You Magic