I am really staring to miss my magic library. When I worked for Tony Eng at his shop “Tony’s Trick and Joke Shop” I collected many magic books over the years. I would end up spending all my pay on magic stuff and books. Now living in Japan the majority of my magic library is still in Canada and I wish I had here! However at times I have my mother send me some of the lighter books to me. Next time when I head back to Canada I will bring an extra suitcase and fill it up. This week I ask my mother to send me Michael Weber’s Life Savers and Aaron Fisher’s The Paper Engine. I asked my mother to send these two because one, they are not so thick and heavy and second they have a lot of great material. I want my Tarbell Course, my Pallbearer collection books, Paul Harris Art of Astonishment series plus many more but they are so heavy! For now I will read through these books, as I have not read them over in about 7 years. They should fill my recent need to read magic books for the next few weeks.
Back in Canada I loved having my good close by because whenever I had an idea, I would go searching through them for ideas, and material that would fit the idea I had and I really miss that now. I remember when I would read a magic book and it would reference another book I would to then next to get a hold of those.
One other book I would love to have with me here is my reprinted copy of Greater Magic. That book is a old but it is a goldmine of information. I think I need to start planing another trip home partly so I can bring these great books back with me! Until then all I can do is say thank you mom for putting up with my requests and having you search through my library for the books I ask for!
As I reflect on the effects in my shows both stage and close-up I have come to realize that almost all of them are classics of magic such as egg bag, torn and restored newspaper, cut and restored rope, the ambitious card, coins across, cups and balls and the list goes on. Why do I like these old classics and why do I continue to develop them and use them more than new effects? Well they work, I enjoy doing them, the routines I create entertain my audience. So I want to talk about why I think the classics work and how I go around working out their presentations.
First I want to mention why I think the classics are classics. The main reason I think this is because of the basic plots of these effects are easy to understand. Like an egg disappears and reappears, a newspaper is torn then restored to its original condition. Spectators can easily understand the point of the effect without any convoluted explanations. This is similar to classic movie plots that are constantly recycled. Why is this? Well they are easy to understand. I feel this is the same for magic effects, and is one of the main reasons the classics of magic are still relevant today.
Because the main plots of classic magic are easy to understand and follow they allow a lot of innovation for performance while maintaining the basic core of magic. If you look at Jeff Hobson’s Egg Bag, or Doc Eason’s bill to lemon routine you will see exactly what I mean. There are many many more examples of this. I feel the classics of magic open the doors to many great and entertaining presentations that are modern and don’t seem old like the effects themselves. These effects have remained for years because of these points. This does not mean that newer effect are not good, there are plenty of great ones, but these classic effects sometimes remain even stronger than some new effects.
As the plots of these classic effects are simple to understand, when working out you own presentations for them you can concentrate on the entertaining aspect of magic. You won’t need to create difficult to understand justifications for the effects because this effect is clear with these classics of magic. You can concentrate on how you want to engage with an audience and using the magic as the medium to do this. Sit down with any classic of magic and try to work out a new and fresh presentation for it and you will see what I mean.
If you are new to magic please do not skip over the power of the classic effects of magic, there are more to them that may appear on the surface and for this reason is why many professionals still continue to use them to this day.
The 4th Shikoku Magic Friends Magic Club Public Show will be held in Takamatsu March 21, 2010. Doors open at 1:00PM and the show begins at 1:30PM The event is free and free refreshments. This is a great event as it gives a chance for those Magicians here in Shikoku a chance to perform with regular performers. There will be both a close-up show and a stage stage. The venue is small and intimate. If you will be in Takamasu, Kagawa Prefecture and want more information please let me know! I will also be in the show.
This weekend I came another cool find at the library. The book is called Magic Goods Collection by Masayoshi Tsuchiya. It is of course in Japanese and is about magic collectables. It contains a lot of explanations as well as pictures of many magic collectables from North America, Europe and of course Japan. The Japanese memorabilia is the most interesting part of the book for me as many other books I have come across don’t have a lot of detailed information on Japanese magic collectables. The books covers many aspects of magic collection from books, posters, magic sets and magic props and other magic related goods. I will probably will end up buying a copy of this book.
Last month at the Shikoku Magic Friends Magic Club we decided to give everyone “homework” from the book The Encyclopedia of Card Magic which is different from the magic book of the same name in English. One of the members choose randomly pages from the book and assigned each of us an effect . Then last night we all performed then taught the effects we studied from the book. It was a great success and really showed how many great effects are contained in books that many of us overlook. So we decided to do it again for next month. The effect that I leaned and performed is something that I will keep doing and will add to my close-up show. It is a great effect half magic half mentalism. Next month as well we will have our annual public magic show. I am looking forward to next month!
Here is another post where I ties in my experiance of living in Japan to magic. Well I find so many great examples! Anyways, in the picture in this post is something called “Taiko Dai“. There are not found all round Japan but are popular in Shikoku and some other parts of Japan. Inside each of these big floats is a taiko drum and a drummer. Members of the taiko dai team carry it while the drummer plays inside. There are also guys on top and standing around it directing the poor guys carrying it how to move it and bounce it around. They have regional competitions during festivals and they can get quite crazy.
Ok Now why I am writing about taiko dais? Well it goes back to when I first saw them in the Summer of 2001. I went to the local festival in Sakaide, Kagawa Prefecture where on one of the days a Taiko Dai competition was the main event. They are big, heavy and the guys carrying them where doing amazing things I have never seen before. It felt like magic. I was seeing hearing and feeling something completely new. I will never forget it. This reminded me how many people may feel when they see magic for the first time. It is also important to pay attention to this and really do a good job of creating this feeling because if you do it right the spectator will never forget you. So when I work on my show on effects, presentation etc. I always keep this in mind. I always want to bring an enjoying feeling of something new and wonderful to my audience. I want them to feel the way I did. Which a good performance mixed with just the right effects you can create this. But it takes work and love for the art for this to happen. Also the magic and the presentation has to be who your performing character is wither its just you or a stage character you have created. When you have blended these together the audience will enjoy your performance and will remember you and have the same feeling I did when I went to that Taiko Dai festival.
If you are like me and read a lot of Internet sites keeping track of them all can be hard. Living in Japan the Internet is my primary source for English related content on magic, technology and news and I follow a lot of websites. So it has always been a challenge for me to organize how I go through all the content I keep track of. The system I use now has saved me a lot of time and kept me up to date on all the information I enjoy reading. Over the years I have tried various RSS readers but now I just use Google Reader. I can make folders to keep track of subjects, and also I am able to easily share any articles I find on twitter etc. It is like my own newspaper custom made for me everyday. You can also follow other people who have google reader set up and easily read any interesting articles that they share. I like the star feature where I can star the ones I want to keep and go back to them anytime I want very easily. Along with the regular Google Reader I use mobileRSS on my iPhone to keep updated when I am not at home. Once I read an article from mobileRSS it marks it as read on Google Reader as well. It also has all of the great sharing features of the Google version. Combining both of these has been great for me. I am able to keep track of all the sites I like and I like a lot so this keeps me organized and informed. I also like to share cools stuff as well. You can see my shared articles form Google Reader here. If you have any other great ways that you use to keep track of your favourite sites please let me know!
