Congratulations to my friend in magic, and fellow BC magician Shawn Farquhar! This year Shawn took home the Grand Prix award at FISM the “Olympics of Magic”. On StreetofCards.tv Shawn teased us by explaining that he would be performing a combination of his “Shape of my heart” routine and his signed card to sealed card case effect. Hopefully Shawn will release some footage of the effect for us who couldn’t make it out to FISM.

PS: Soma won as well. He’s pretty good too

You can read other blog posts about the win on itricks, and on the magicnewswire.

( Full version )

Magically turning a small square of aluminum foil into a diamond ring.
Length:1:02

The other night I stopped by WalMart to pick up to some new playing cards and I was shocked when I found the playing card isle and among all the regular expected cards they also had some theory11 Guardian cards! The cards were the same price as the rest of the cards for something like $4.99. The great part though is that you don’t have to pay any shipping like you would ordering from their website, and it’s in Canadian currency instead of American.. not a bad find.

The cards themselves I’m very impressed with. Although the back designs really look a lot better on the computer screen than they do printed on the cards, they still very remarkable. The card stock itself is quite a bit thicker than regular bicycle card. The thicker card stock gives them a really nice feel in your hands and also helps with some card moves.

I don’t like the fact that audiences aren’t familiar with Guardian cards, so I doubt I’d ever use them in performance, but to play around with them is fun. Next time you’re at WalMart pick up a deck and check them out!

Family Fun with Rutland May Days

This 50th anniversary will last for four days.

Rutland May Days are scheduled to take place May 15 to May 18 in Centennial Park.

This year’s event features new attractions such as bull riding championships, all-star wrestling, karaoke, youth and teen dances and an amusement park.

On Friday, May 15, everyone will get a chance to dance with a youth dance for those under 14 starting at 4 p.m., ending at 7 p.m. and a dance for those ages 15 to 18 from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m.

The parade starts at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 16.

Breakfast every morning at 8 a.m. by the Dry Grad Class.

Daily admission to Centennial Park is $2.

[via Castanet ]

I will be performing on Saturday May 16th at 4:00 PM at the Rutland Park Stage in the field beside the Rutland Centennial Hall. Hope to see you there!

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve been busy working on a new wedding website that will be launched hopefully sometime next week– but in the next few weeks for sure. Keep a look at this space and I’ll let you know once it’s live!

If you’re a magician reading this, you’re probably already familiar with the name Joshua Jay. He’s the author of “Talk about Tricks” in MAGIC magazine, author of “Magic The Complete Course”, and has a slew of other accomplishments to his name. The Complete Course is a great book that I would recommend to anyone who’s just started out in magic, and to anybody who wants to re-look at some the classics. Don’t overlook this “beginner” book though, it includes some classics like Crazy Man’s Handcuffs.

Today Joshua Jay launched a brand new website and online magic retailer. I’m not sure why we need ANOTHER magic retailer, but, they do have some lofty goals how they are going to be different than whats already out there. To prove their serious – Joshua Jay released a 92 page eBook – all for free. It’s called “Over, Under” and is written for those serious about their magic who are under 18 years old. The first section is for the student of magic, and the latter half is for the parents to read. Check out the website to download your free copy. I won’t bother with all the details of the book since you can get it for free. You do have to register on the site to get your download, but from what I’ve read so far, its worth it.

Uh oh, Well it turns out that Masters of Illusion on MyNetworkTV was reschedule to a new time but lots of people didn’t know so they missed the show! Well, fear not my American friends because you’ll still be able to catch the full episode online for download from the official MyNetworkTV website. First go to their website, then click on “Full Episodes”.

The newest Episode hasn’t been posted yet, but I’m sure it will be available in a few days. I’ll try and post any clips that appear on youtube on my blog as well.

You have to admit, that new Britney Spears song is pretty catchy.

I got excited when I heard over at The Magic Newswire that Ed Alonzo was going to be helping Miss Spears with incorporating some magic into her new circus themed concert. Wicked stuff!

Gossip central of the world “E!” has been all over the story as well.

If you head on over to candies.com you can put in your information into that box in the lower right corner, or some bogus information, and you’ll see a short video clip montage of their rehearsal. Lots of circus stuff, but there appears to be a couple moments where they show magical apparatuses. I’m not sure if this is what the E! commercial was referring to or not. We’ll have to wait to seen.

[Edit: Below is the video that was previously "locked" at the Candies.com website. Thanks itricks! ]

First Look at Britney's 'Circus' Tour

[Edit #2: Looks like an extended version of the above video was released today. Its, like, twice as long, at 2 minutes in length. Haha ]

Well it looks like the Blackpool magicians convention is over and the reviews are coming in. I haven’t heard any news of major screw ups, and nobody so far seems’ to be complaining, which has to be some sort of record for a convention that size!!

Its been really cool to see all the Blackpool magic pictures that people have posted on Facebook. Having people like Jeff McBride and Rudy Coby (Great to have you back buddy!) on my list means I get to see all the pictures that he’s tagged in. Its been funny to see all the comments on pictures from people who had their picture taken with David Blaine. In every picture he’s just standing there with a black expression on his face. He looks like he’s starving and been in a block of ice for 63 hours or something…

Nedim Guzel’s Photos – Blackpool 2009
Dennis van den Hove’s Photos – Blackpool Convention 2009
Howard Hughes’s Photos – Blckpool Convention 2009
Berk Eratay’s Photos – Blackpool 2009
Peter McLanachan’s Photos – 2009 Blackpool Convention (You can see an example of David Blaine in this album)

( Through facebook I can’t tell what albums are set to public or not, so I’m going to give you a bunch of links to some Blackpool photo albums. If some of the links don’t work for you, just let me know in the comments section. )

For some video from the convention, check out the official Blackpool blog site.

Okanagan Today Segment on Leif David’s Nomination for the 2009 Okanagan Arts Award.

Congratulations to all the winners of the 2009 Okanagan Arts Awards including the Theatre Kelowna Society who won the “Theater” category for which I was also nominated. It feels great to be nominated in the community for an art which isn’t very “traditional”. The Theatre Kelowna Society has been bringing theatre to Kelowna for over 60 years and is truly deserving of the award. Congratulations again.

[ More pictures on my Facebook ]

Today I did an interview for “Okanagan Today”. The story is about the Okanagan Arts Awards this weekend.

I had a great time at the interview. We started off by filming a bunch of different magic tricks. Since there was no host this time, I had to do solo effects. I performed some coin manipulation, a few card color changes, changing a $10 into a $100 bill, and a few other things. After filming the effects Tamie Williams interviewed me. We’ve met several times over the years, I performed for her daughters 11th birthday over 7 years ago.

I figure it will only be a few more years until I’ll be performing for kids birthday parties where I performed for their parents birthday. I first started performing when I was 8 years old and I often performed for kids that were about the same age. Now I’m 23, and there’s lots of people my age that are having kids. So I figure in just a few more years I can perform for the next generation. It kind of scares me actually. Makes me feel like one of those teachers where they taught your grandparents, parents, and you!

The Okanagan Today story is going to air on Thursday on Channel 11. The show starts at 6:00pm and repeats every 40 minutes or so until Friday morning at 6am, then back up at 10am til 2pm. I’m going to try and record a copy and put it up on youtube too.