This weekend I will probably get almost no sleep! Lucky it is a long weekend here in Japan. Why is this? well, with the Essential Magic Conference and Shikoku Magic Friends activities in Takamatsu I will be doing magic all day and all night. Most of the Essential Magic Conference live broadcasts start after 12:00AM Japan time so that means no sleep. Then driving to Takamatsu on Saturday coming home at around 12:00AM then online for the conference. Going to be a great time and hopefully it will motivate me even more. Today is just a short blog so below enjoy a video of Lance Burton from the Essential Magic Conference site.
Aaron

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Japanese Flag

I have written about performing in Japanese and in other languages before in my blog, but today I wanted to write a little more on the subject and this is, it is not just enough for me just to translate or write my show in Japanese but I have to take care to incorporate cultural aspects of the culture into the show. This goes for pop culture, political culture, history, and much more. The reason that this is important is that here in Japan my audience is 99.99% Japanese people. In many of the causes many of the people in a show may or may not know each other depending on the venue. In those cases it is my job to be able to connect the people in one way, with a shared common experience. This I can achieve by making some joke, or commenting on some shared Japanese cultural experience they all have and that I have. I do this by making a comment at the beginning of my show or by making a joke in my introduction. This then right off the starts makes the audience connect psychologically by connecting them to this mentioned shared cultural experience. This really breaks the ice between the audience members so that they are now “primed” to react better to my performance. It also benefits my relationship to them. One it brings me into their shared experience as well. This is very important for me in Japan as a non-Japanese performer. They seem to one find it interesting I know and understand some cultural Japanese experience that they thought that I would not possible have had. This breaks the ice between me and the audience and creates the bond of the shared experience between us. They become more relaxed with me and they start to talking to me like I am Japanese rather than a foreigner, which can be a problem for foreigners living in Japan. This technique I use for my show I also do in my real life in Japan and it has the same effect. So remember if you are performing a show in a different language in a different country make sure you add this shared cultural experience into the show it will go a long way.

Aaron

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Before you read my blog you need to watch the video below if Jamy Ian Swiss on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

I really enjoyed Jamy’s spot on this show. Thanks to the Internet I was able to see it here in Japan. There are a few things that I really learned from this spot, and they are also the main reasons why I really enjoyed it. One of the reasons is that Jamy had a conversation with Craig. The whole performance is like a conversation with magic as the glue. He interacted well with Craig without any strange awkward feelings of trying to get back on “script”. He was able to go with what Craig said and worked it into his performance frame work and used it for the effect. This made it feel so real and at the moment, which make it very entertaining.  Another reason each of the effects he performed had a reason why it was next. When Craig asked him to do one more he had it ready and linked it with the previous effect by talking about the ways one can choose a card. I loved this premis and made sense for this set. Lastly his effects were perfect. The effects were simple to understand to Craig, the studio audience and on TV. They were powerful and enjoyable with out needless ramble.

So what did I take from this and what should we take from watching this as Magicians. Well we need to enjoy showing magic to our audience and engage in a conversation with them. Clearly Jamy enjoyed talking with Craig and the same with Craig. This then transferred to the live studio audience and to the TV audience. Magic allows us to interact with the audience and Jamy does this without any awkwardness as I mentioned. I feel motivated to create this same kind of feeling in my own shows. For me it really shows how magic should be performed, no ego, no showing off, but and entertaining experience of magic between the Magician and his audience. Well done Jamy you are truly one of the greats of our time.

Aaron

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Yesterday I posed about David Copperfield well I have to mention the first Magician I ever saw. It was on TV when I was a Kid around 1981. I saw Doug Henning on TV and it is where my first fascination with magic began, but I didn’t get more into magic until the mid 80′s. It was Doug Henning planed the original magic seed in me. Here is a clip of Doug performing. This is not from the TV special I first saw, I searched for the routine I remember the most from that time but could not find it. However enjoy another in full Doug Henning glory!
Aaron

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When I was a kid David Copperfield was my hero like many young magicians who grew up in the 1980′s. I was lucky to go see him life for the first time when I was 16 years old. At that time he used to come out and sign autographs. I was happy because for me I was meeting my hero since I was a 10 year old boy. Below is one of my favorite David Copperfield illusions. This video doest have the original music from when it first aired this is the remixed version that aired on the special he did with Claudia showing the best over the years. I wanted the original version with the original music as I remember as a kid but could not find it. Anyways enjoy!

Aaron

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At the Edge of Shikoku

On  Saturday May 1, 2010 I drove with some friends to the edge of Shikoku to Sada Pass (Sada Misaki). At this spot you can see where the Pacific Ocean and the Seto Inland sea meet. Also from this spot you can see across to Kyushu. Below are pictures where you can see these 2 views. Lots of great food out there as well. I had Sashimi for lunch. This was a great day to start Golden Week here in Japan. Golden Week is a series of consecutive holidays at the beginning of May in Japan. It was a great way to relax and get away from stressful things. It’s hard to believe that people live way out to where I went but they do. After walking back from the pass there was an old lady selling wakame a kind of seaweed at the entrance of the trail. Smart lady. I hope that I will be able to make some great day trips like this in the future.

Aaron

You can see Kyushu from Shikoku!

Where the Pacific Ocean And Seto Inland sea meet.

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My New Something

I am sorry I have not blogged in the past week or so. I have been busy working on a magic project of mine which I have been working on for a while. I have started to put a bit more time into it as I want to get a large part of it complete during next week as I am some free time to spend on it next week during Golden Week here in Japan. Today I completed setting up the basic web site structure for it up. Over the next few days I will be getting my content up for it and then open it publicly sometime next week. I have been posting about it on twitter a bit over the past week or so and people have asked me what it is. Well it’s not an effect or anything for sale for magicians but it may have some things like that in the way future. It’s mostly for non-magicians but it will have a section for magicians. The picture in the post is just a “tease” of the basic website with the name hidden The site will be in both English and Japanese. Anyways time to get back to work. I will though have some new blogs and Magic AudioBoos up during this weekend!

Aaron

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Cups and Balls

The Cups and Balls return to my close-up show. Why did they disappear from my show in the first place? Well it what out of respect to the owner of Momentos Magic Bar where I worked for 2 and a half years. Mr. Momentos signature closing to his show at he magic bar was the Cups and Balls. So when I worked there I thought that it would be a bad idea for me to perform them. Mr. Momentos never said I could not perform them but out of respect for his show I decided not include them in my show when I reworked it for the magic bar. After I finished my time at the magic bar I got used to my new show that did not have them in the show. Now 5 years after I removed them from my formal close-up show they are coming back! I am excited to bring them back because the Cups and Balls has a lot of magic, entertainment, and, artistic value. I have some ideas that I want to add and remove to my original routine. My goal with the new routine it to make it relevant to a modern audience, and I hope to bring more magic to it than just juggling balls with cups. It will still be a few weeks before I will actually use it but I will be spending time with my Cups and Balls everyday until I have my routine fun and entertaining. I hope I can do it!

Aaron

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Me Performing In Takamatsu

This weekend I have some magic things coming up. One is the monthly meeting of the Shikoku Magic Friends Club, which is always good. This month we will be working on some card magic from the Japanese Encyclopedia of Card magic, then some creative exercises to help our performances. Also This weekend I want to start making some videos that introduce magic related things here in Japan. I hope while I am in Takamatsu to record some video for this project of mine. I want to introduce some things that people outside of Japan may not get see. For example I will to introduce some magic bars, Japanese magicians, and magic events. Of course I will introduce these to the English speaking world. So let’s hope I can start these. I have been wanting to work on them for a while. There are also some other magic projects I will confer on with some of my magic buddies when I am in Takamatsu. I also need to send out my registration for the Shikoku Magic Convention in May. I want to make some videos while I am there as well if I can. Also in June there will be another magic bar competition at Bar Intiki Magician in June I believe, I will get more information about this on Saturday night and post the information on my site. Tomorrow I should have a magic related blog or magic AudioBoo posted, not sure which one will make it first!

Aaron

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Geeking Out

Tonight I am not at home but I am some free time so I am just geeking out. I hope that is ok. Listing to podcasts and doing magic, playing with my Macbook Pro, dreaming of the iPad and working on some technical things for my show. I feel like such a geek but it sooo relaxing. I say make sure you take some time to geek it it feels really good. I am looking forward to the magic convention here next month which reminds me I need to register this week. I wish they had a way to do it online but I have to do bank transfer, which means I have to go to a bank ATM before it closes at 7:00PM. (I hate that still today some bank’s ATMs here in Japan still close at 7:00PM or on the weekends.) Tonight I wanted to head to the onsen (hot spring) but I could not work things out. I think this blog entry has already warn out its welcome. I’ll be back blogging this week with some more solid content.

Aaron

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