Shikoku Magic Friends Club Public Show 2009
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.
Aaron
Magic Goods Collection
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.
Aaron
Magic Pot
Today I went into Takamatsu the capital city of Kagawa Prefecture for a show I had to do at a Cafe. The show was well, interesting as I thought when I originally booked it ( I knew it was going to be a challenge). Was not easy but went over well. 25 years of experience got me through this one. The show was well received but I was burnt out. I’ll leave this story for another day. Anyways, I wanted to visit the magic shop in Tamakatsu but it was closed. I had some time before the show so I went by. I always seem to get there when it is closed. Eventually I will get to the shop when it is open. Magic Pot is the magic company here on Shikoku that puts on the Shikoku Magic Convention as well as many other magic events and run the magic bar chain “Tejinaya” on Shikoku and the Chugoku area of Japan. This year the convention is in Takamatsu again and will be held in May. Once I know more information about this years convention I will post it! I hope they get the same venue as last year because it was very good. I also dropped by one of the big book stores there and WOW they had a lot of Japanese translations of influential magic books usually found only at magic shops such as the Card College series, books by Derek Dingle and a whole lot more. When I have more time going to go back there and look through them all. Now I am going to have a hot bath and head to bed!
Aaron
How To Do Impersonations
I went to back to the library today and I found this book: Do Impersonations in 5 minutes! 100 Japanese Celebrities. I thought it would be an interesting read and I may be able to find some things I can use on my Japanese show. Though it may be strange having a Canadian doing the odd one line impersonation of a Japanese celebrity but hey it is worth a try! I’ll stick to those in the book I know well. Always looking to try new things that fit better in with Japanese culture that wont seem so weird. Wish me luck!
Aaron
I know this is mostly a magic blog but I am also a fan of tech so I wanted to jump on the bandwagon and blog about the new Apple iPad and write about some of my thoughts and how it relates to me in Japan. I am not an Apple fanboy but I am a recent “convert” to the Mac platform after years of being frustrated with Windows. This December I gave up Windows and bought a MacBook Pro. After over a year of using the iPhone I was convinced. Anyways back to the iPad. Firstly I have seen many people complain about what it lacks the biggest being a camera for pictures and or for video conferencing. Now lets go to what Steve Jobs talked about at the iPad presentation. It is a device between the smart phone a regular computer, a kind of bridge. Smart phones and computers have cameras so why need a third? I know, I know, people said this about cells phones a few years ago. But imagine holding the iPad out to do a video conference, your arms would get tired and the video would be all bouncy like bad home videos. It would only work well if it was on a kickstand. So it seems to use this tablet this way is perhaps awkward and not so elegant. This is the reason I see for it not having a camera as well as keeping the price down and the device light and thin. Remember you have to think of this as a new device not as a net book, nor a laptop, nor as a tablet PC using a normal desktop OS. This is something new easy to use and something convenient when you want t relax or are sitting on a plane, train, or bus. I can also think of many business applications for this device for record keeping.
Ok what about here in Japan and would I buy it. Well I might, the problem is the Japanese iTunes store has no movies or TV shows, one of the main features of the iPad. Of course you can convert current DVD etc. but that takes the beauty and ease and loses the point of the system. It also looks as if there won’t be a iBook store any time soon as well. A work around for this is of course to use the Amazon Kindle app for the iPhone. It seems for me anyway that until the Japanese iTunes store gets upgraded with movies and TV’s shows and gets the book store in Japan I don’t see myself using this device soon. I do however see how I can it use at show venues for setting up and prepping my show but I just use my iPhone and my MacBook Pro for now. I do hope to see it get these features here with cheap 3g connections then I will probably pick it up.
Written on my iPhone.
Aaron
The Party Magic by Hiro Sakai
If you listend to my last Magic AudioBoo you will know about the magic trick a week from a magic book challenge I put out. I have already started this with other books but today I decided to drop by the local library to see what they had. They had a few basic kid’s magic books but I came across this one called The Party Magic by Hiro Sakai. Hiro Skai is a brillant Japanese Magician who recently performs under the name Dr. Leon. This books seems to have been written for beginners who just want to be able to learn some tricks for parties etc. But there seemed to be some cool effects in it. It also came with a DVD with the presentations of the effects. I havent watched the DVD or read through the book yet. I will probably not use anything from it but I will use it to work on my Japanese presentations as I can learn useful phrases from reading books like this. When I was around 9 or 10 years old I constantly took out magic books from my school’s library and the local library and I learned a lot. Anyway, You never know what kind of gold you will find at your library so head out to your local library and check out what magic books they have!
Aaron
Shrine Visit Jan 1, 2010
Happy New Year 2010! Looking forward towards this year! I hope everyone had a great 2009. Everyone keep up the magic! I hope that this year I can keep my self productive and complete a bunch of magic projects I need to get started. Most of all I want to interact with different magicians from all over the world so please send me messages I would love to make a connection with you this year! Once again everyone have
Shikoku Magic Club Street Magic Show
As I write this there us just about 14 hours left for 2009 here in Japan. This his been a great year. One thing I am glad is that I got back into Social Networking. The reason why I did it was I missed the magic community back in Canada. I am involved in the magic community here on Shikoku but at the same time I missed doing some magic discussions in English. My Japanese is ok but when I try to talk about magic theory my meaning in Japanese goes out the window. So getting back to blogging here and talking with people on Facebook, Twitter has been great and keeping up with magic pod casts makes me feel like I am back in the loop. I was glad to discover that IBM publishes a digital version of the Linking Ring and SAM does the same with the MUM. Now I can keep up with the magician community news. I feel with all of this I am getting a really good international view of the magic community and I like this! I have reconnected with some old friends and made a lot of new ones. Now I am looking forward to a great 2010. Happy New Year Everyone!
Aaron
My Magic Buddies
On Thursday night I went out to a Oden Kiosk to eat Oden (a hotchpotch type food) with some friends. There were not magic friends but magic entered the mix. We were enjoy the atmosphere of the small kiosk and eating oden and just relaxing. After we were there a while two high school girls came to eat but where I live there are not many foreigners. So they had the typical reaction when they see foreigners, a bit shocked and they were not sure if they should stay and sit down or go. My friends who are Japanese told them come on in a sit down. They had them try to ask me some questions in English but they were to shy to do so. They I started to speak Japanese to them and they relaxed a bit. Then my students let my secret out of the bag and told the two girls I was a professional magician. I think this confused them and were not sure how to take it. Then I pulled out some magic and performed. This was probably the first time they had ever seen magic live. They enjoyed the magic and started to relax to the idea that I was not Japanese. The effect of my magic was stronger than the magic effect because it made them become more relaxed and not scared of the blued eyed foreigner. This is the best result from me doing magic. They will now probably be less timid the next time they meet a foreigner. The rest of the night went well as I continued to do magic for different people who came to the small kiosk. I was not working there as a magician but just a regular customer but I made some new friends and the friends I was there with had a great time too. The power of magic can be very strong and can break the ice between people of different ages, races, and, language. This is the true power of magic.
Aaron
Great Magic Table
This picture is of the magic table I loved when I worked at the now closed Magic Bar Momentos. There was the main table which was good but I loved performing at this smaller one on the other side of the bar. It was custom made for the Magic Bar with room for the magician in the middle. In the picture you can see the blue close-up mat, that is were I sat. The table had prop drawers and a great servante. I could also control the lighting around the table from under the table. Before I came to Japan I rarely performed sit down close-up magic I normally did table hopping style close-up magic and never sat down. After coming to Japan and working here is where I fell in love with sit down close-up magic. I felt the situation was more intimate than standing up and doing close-up magic for me. The table was perfect size to reach and talk to any of the spectators. Working here I did not only perform magic but had to make conversation with the guests before and after the show and this table make it the perfect setting. This bar is now closed and I really miss performing here. If I ever have a chance to open a magic bar I will make a table similar to this one. My magic really grew in sophistication performing at this table and I miss it!
Aaron
