To The Edge Of Shikoku

Posted on May 3, 2010 by Aaron Jones

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.

Some Magic Stuff This Weekend

Posted on April 15, 2010 by Aaron Jones

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

The 5th Shikoku Magic Convention and Others

Posted on March 24, 2010 by Aaron Jones

Shikoku Magic Convention 2009

So far this year I have plans to attend only one magic convention and that is the Shikoku Magic Convention which will be held in Takamatsu on May 8th and 9th, 2010. Last year it was a great convention. Some of the performers this year are Bravo Nakatani and Hikari. Looking forward to this convention.

There is also another convention I would like to attend and that is the which will be held on the Internet in July. This is the Essential Magic Conference. This is a cool concept and I hope that I can attend it should be easy because I can attend at home. I like it because living in Japan it’s hard to visit any other conventions outside of Japan. This convention can give me the opportunity to attend from the comfort of my MackBookPro. Also Dodd Vickers from the Magic Newswire did a This Week In Magic episode on this convention which can be found here.

As I mentioned I have only plan to attend the one convention and will probably attend the online convention but I sure hope that I can go to at least one more during the summer. During the Shikoku Magic Convention I hope to send updates by Audioboo, and some video via YouTube from the convention as well as blogging from it.

Aaron

Shikoku Magic Friends Show 2010

Posted on March 22, 2010 by Aaron Jones

Magic Friends Show

Yesterday March 21, 2010 in Takamatsu the Shikoku Magic Friends club held their annual public magic show. I was also very glad to be a part of this event. We had 10 performers with both a close-up magic show and a small stage show. We had a good turn out of spectators and the event went very well. I have a feeling this was the best attended one so far. One of the great things of this event was the variety of magic styles and performers in our small club. Each person has their own unique style and permanence personalities which I think kept the show moving and entertaining. No two acts were similar. It seems that in May we will start doing a public show each month. We still have to work out some things to make the show better mostly the technical details etc. I have some video of the show and I will get some more video from Shinnotsuke and over the next few weeks when I have time, try to make a small video with clips of each performer. Over all a great event and below I will share a few pictures from the event! You can also see more photos here.

Aaron Continue reading →

Feeling The New

Posted on February 16, 2010 by Aaron Jones

Taiko Dai

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.

Aaron

Magic Shop Was Closed!

Posted on February 7, 2010 by Aaron Jones

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

Impersonations of Japanese Celebrities

Posted on February 7, 2010 by Aaron Jones

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

iPad, Me, and Japan

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Aaron Jones

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 Magic Bar Competition Was Excellent!

Posted on October 3, 2009 by Aaron Jones

Me With Terushita after the Competition!

The Bar Magician Competition at Bar Magician Intiki Magician was excellent! There were 14 competitors and everyone did an great job. This was the 3rd time Terushita held the event. It also was the magic bars 2nd anniversary. Competitors ranged from University Magic Club Member’s a group of 3 1st grade elementary school girls to professionals. But the main point of the evening was no about the competition but having fun with each other and entertaining the guests. I was lucky and won the special achievement award.

What I enjoyed about it was I got to enjoy doing magic with my magic buddies as well as I made some new magic friends and this is what magic is all about. Here is a link to the pictures from the evening. During the evening I made 2 AudioBoo’s one pre-event and one after with an Interview with Bar Intiki Owner Terushita and excuse Terushita’s attempt at very bad English at the end LOL

Pre-Event Magic AudioBoo

Magic Audioboo Interview with Bar Intiki Magician Owner Terushita.

Momentos Magic Bar Closing

Posted on September 12, 2009 by Aaron Jones

Mr. Momentos, Cyril, and me

On September 19, 2009, Momentos Magic Bar in Takamatsu will close after 22 years of business. This is the magic bar were I worked for 2 years from 2004 to 2006. Mr. Momentos will move onto another business after the bar is closed. I own a great deal to Mr. Momentos, as he gave me my first big magic break in Japan by having me as a guest performer at his bar before I became a regular performer 3 times a week. During the time I was there is wife and assistant passed away in 2004 from cancer. In 2006 Mr. Momentos moved the bar to Nagoya for 2 years and then returned back to Takamatsu in the fall of 2008. The picture on the left is when Mr. Momentos took me to see Cyril’s show in Takamatsu. Many other great magicians got their magic bar experience from working in his magic bar. My Good friends. Shinotsuke, Jack Amano, and Terushita. We will miss Momentos and wish Mr. Momentos all the best in his next endeavor. This ends a magic era in Takamatsu.