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Ever since my sister began working at the Kelowna Food Bank and I’ve learned lots about the issues they deal with. More than just food assistance they also help bring awareness to healthy eating and lifestyle among other things.

In fact, April is Dental Health Month. The Kelowna Food Bank and Success by 6 put together a newsletter each month, you can download and print the April Dental Health Newsletter by clicking here.

Okay, so why do I bring any of this up on a magic blog? A magician by the name of Steve Trash put together 10 videos on making healthy choices. I’m going to post 1 video over the next 10 days.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

The first episode of Celebracadabra was put online onto the VH1 website, but the problem is, you can only watch it if you’re in the US! If you are from the USA, you can watch the episode right on the VH1 website.

If you’re from Canada though you can watch the episode on youtube (its still up right now, but this sort of video may be taken down in the future, so watch it quick!)

Kimberly Wyatt - Celebracadabra Episode 01 (PART 1)

Kimberly Wyatt - Celebracadabra Episode 01 (PART 2)

Kimberly Wyatt - Celebracadabra Episode 01 (PART 3)

The final part of the episode is missing where you find out who’s eliminated/didn’t make it. They’re holding the big news for when the show actually airs on TV. I don’t even get VH1 though, so I’m going to have to find each episode online… darn it.

Hello Magical Friends,

Here’s the information for next month’s Kelowna Magic Club meeting.

Where: Moxies Classic Grill - Kelowna
When: Tuesday May 6 2008 6:00-8:00pm
Topic: Because I write the emails, I get to pick the topic. I was thinking for this month it would be fun to do some magic with a summer theme. It can be tricks that you can do while at the beach, tricks with a beer bottle, or maybe something with a beach towel—Anything! In the past having a theme hasn’t worked out too well… but for next meeting try and come up with something creative and show it off. It can be your own creation or something by somebody else, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got 2 weeks to come up with something.

If you know anybody who would like to join the local club, please have them me (Leif Thordarson) at (250)575-7469. We’re always looking for new members.

Check out this cool quarter optical illusion I found in Jeff McBrides newsletter a few months back.

It sounds like there’s going to be lots of people who can make it out to the next meeting so you won’t want to miss it. Besides, you need to eat dinner anyways, so you might as well come out and have dinner and enjoy a few hours of magic. See you there!

Your friend in magic,
Leif Thordarson
Ali K. Zam Productions - Magical Entertainment
Website: www.alikzam.com

I found this video on Boing boing awhile ago with a man creating balloon hats for people in a nursing home.

A few years ago, on Christmas day my dad and I used to go down to the Hospital and perform. My dad is a professional clown and has been performing since before I was born. Shriner clowns go out to help raise money for Children’s Hospitals and things like that. Anyways, So on Christmas day the hospital tries and sends as many of the people home as they can. So, those that are in the hospital are usually in pretty rough shape. Sometimes you’d get people who really didn’t want to see anything, sometimes you’d end up with people who didn’t care otherwise, but it was the last group that I found so interesting- those people who let you in and you made their day a little brighter with a bit of clowning around or some magic.

I just updated my wordpress to the newest version, and I also updated my theme! So, How do you like it?

I think it’s a little too pink… I know. I’m going to change some of the pink to blue’s and purples.

In the next few days I’m going to continue to make some changes around here. If you find anything thats broken or isn’t working as you think it should, just leave a quick comment and I’ll look into it.

Last weekend I performed at Zellers as part of their “A-Z Event”. They were having a huge sale on items all over the store (check your local Zellers) and had a number of special events going on including the Westbank Rotary “Poop for the park” raffle sale, hot dog stand by the Westbank Food Bank, and Ali K. Zam providing a bit of magical entertainment.

I was hired to perform for 2 hours at the store entrance as people came in. For this event I decided to draw big crowds, perform visual tricks, and create as much of a “buzz” as possible. Well I’m glad I decided to take this approach because it went perfectly and the reactions were just wonderful.

[Ali K. Zam building the crowd at Zellers in Westbank.]

From my experience performing at festivals I was able to quickly build a crowd. I didn’t even get a chance to fully setup before I had a huge group watching on.

In this next picture I had a little boy help me use magic to make him a Magicians hat. I often reserve this for my children’s show, but since this was a family event I just knew it would go over well.

[Just a few tears in the tissue paper and it magically turns into a magicians hat.]

To finish off each of my mini-performance’s I decided it would be fun to predict what people came into Zellers to buy. I tried it with 3 different people at the end of the show and each time I was 100% correct! I had multiple people come up to me after they were done shopping to tell me just how amazed they were by the performance.

[Ali K. Zam predicting exactly what people came into Zellers to buy. For this show it was a haircut, shoes, and a Gloria women's.]

This show was such a blast to perform. I’ve already got some street shows like this lined up for some upcoming summer festivals. I can’t wait! As my public performance dates get closer I’ll post the show information here. Keep checking back for updates.

( Go to this contest page to enter the Zellers A-Z contest for a 2008 Ford Edge. You have to enter before April 25th.)

Today I decided to see if anybody in kelowna uses craigslist or kijiji for local entertainment. I put up a listing for myself up on craigslist (kelowna services) and up on Kijiji (again under kelowna services). *crosses fingers*

Check it out, and feel free to pass my website onto anybody who has an event coming up that might be able to use my services. Thanks

Shawn’s daughter Hannah Farquhar performs some spooky telekineses in the below video.

Apparently they’re going to film a whole bunch of them, so I’ll repost them here as I hear about them.

Apparently its the “World’s Most Amazing Trick Shot”. I thought the first table was cool! wowza.

Last weekend I performed at a very special event called the Sunshine Dreams for Kids and performed some close-up mingling magic. More than 80 “special kids” - all “Sunshine Dreams for Kids” - from Penticton to Kamloops came to play Sunday at Scandia Golf & Games. This is the 11th Annual and for all these kids, it’s a real treat. Scandia has given a Sunday morning each year when these kids can come and play games to their hearts content, all with Scandia’s compliments.

I’d like to personally thank all the other people who got on board to support this event. Bunsmaster in Pentiction supplied free pizza and Coca Cola for supplying free drinks. Ace Plumbing and Airtec Heating provided oodles of toys which were given away as prizes. U.P.S. Westbank produced the invitations that originally were sent to all Sunshine Dreams for Kids who had received the Dreams in past years. And of course, all the volunteers who made the event possible (Thanks Karen!)

The Daily Courier wrote up a nice little article about the event. You can click on the image below to read the whole article.

Here’s some magic that Shawn Farquhar and Jim Thielemann did using golf items. Shawn posted these videos on his blog but I’ve included them below.

Floating Sunglasses

Floating Club

Magic Hole in One

And last but not least, this one is my favorite!
Fins and Skins Magic

Very cool Shawn! Well done!

Congratulations to my friend in magic Mike, aka Freaky Fisher, for getting some media coverage after performing at the Taste of Kelowna. You can read the article online on the Captial News website.