A bold claim – but true. Not a brilliant new gimmick. Not a new routine from the Vernon archives. Not something requiring a big investment but a proven procedure that does really work.
Group magic.
Vernon and the greats used it. Fred Kaps used it.Peter Warlock, Jack Avis, Francis Haxton and other names used it. And I’ve [...]
Posted on October 21st, 2009 by John
Filed under: Magic Ideas, Magic Miscellanea, Magic Thoughts | 2 Comments »
MANY YEARS AGO I WAS WORKING IN SPAIN and one evening my wife telephoned to say that my friend John Styles, possibly Britain’s leading Punch and Judy worker, had called. It seems he had been booked to present the ages-old entertainment by a local council but that an objection had been raised by a ladies guild stating [...]
Posted on November 14th, 2008 by John
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YEARS AGO I USED TO GO TO CONVENTIONS AND BREAK A LEG trying to get to see everything. Every show, every lecture, every dealer item. No more. As a semi-retired magus, floating down the river and drifting towards the waterfall, I now pace myself somewhat and visit just the things that immediately interest me. Which [...]
Posted on October 3rd, 2008 by John
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I WAS BROUGHT UP IN THE DAYS OF VARIETY from the stages of the music halls in and around London. It is a genre that died at the hands of television and with it the bills that included a menu of singers, dancers, comedians, speciality acts, magicians and the like that compounded into the title – variety. [...]
Posted on September 15th, 2008 by John
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THERE ARE MANY VERSIONS AROUND but in a recent tv interview Groucho Marx of the famed Marx Brothers summed it up very succinctly.
When asked how they became a great act with superb timing, funny material and sight bits he said ” Well, way back we did thirteen shows a day. If a gag went well [...]
Posted on September 6th, 2008 by John
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MUCH EARLIER THIS YEAR I PUBLISHED A PIECE about sponge balls and many magi have asked if I could repeat the blog.
Certainly!
So – do you do sponge balls? Of course you do. Everybody does but I think we are all guilty of unwittingly revealing the secret.
Let me tell you a story. When I was seventeen [...]
Posted on August 25th, 2008 by John
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I’VE ALWAYS BEEN AN ADVOCATE of working an act regularly until it goes like clockwork so that all your energy goes into the presentation. Many professionals have worked this way – Eddie Tulloch the king of the trade shows in the U.S. I’m told performed all his life with just a pack of cards, a pack of [...]
Posted on August 17th, 2008 by John
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AS A KID I NEVER LIKED THE EGG BAG TRICK. When I saw a magician perform this effect I didn’t think it was very mysterious and the bit of ostensibly hiding the egg under your arm I thought was childish.
Until.
As a fan of Jeff Hobson I once saw him do a 30 minute spot in a [...]
Posted on August 14th, 2008 by John
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YOU’RE IN A DEPARTMENT STORE, supermarket or restaurant and it comes out that you’re a magician. Inevitably someone says “Show us a trick”. No doubt you have your own outs that you do but here’s an absolute stunner from Jeff McBride that was passed onto me by good friend and Magic Circle Editor Matt Field.
Get [...]
Posted on July 9th, 2008 by John
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WHAT WAS IT THAT STARTED YOU IN MAGIC? My first memory of seeing a magician was at seven years of age at a school concert where a Chinese clothed gentleman borrowed a teacher’s watch, made it vanish and it reappeared in a locked box inside a large ball of wool.
It so stuck in my mind that I [...]
Posted on July 7th, 2008 by John
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