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Yesterday I got to check out Ted and Marion’s magic show, and it was superb! There’s lots of original stuff in their show with some clever thinking and it plays really well. I also took my girlfriend Melissa too, and it made for the perfect date. She even got to go up on stage and help out!

[Left to right: Myself (Leif Thordarson), Marion Outerbridge, Melissa, and Ted Outerbridge ]

I had some flyer’s printed up advertising the local magic club, and after the show the ushers handed them out. So hopefully that will spark some interest and maybe a few might even join

After the show Melissa and I stuck around and chatted with Ted and Marion for a bit. It was really nice and its too bad they weren’t in town longer, but, hopefully next year we’ll get a chance to sit down for dinner or something.

I never shop at Penguin magic, and, in all honesty, I probably never will. My main reason is the fact that it isn’t run by magicians to help magicians. It’s owned by a company to make money. All dealers need to make money, but, there are enough other choices out there who have a love for the art of magic and just want to help it (and make a living while doing it).

None the less, I thought my readers would want to know about the Valentines day special going on over at Penguin magic right now.

Orders over $50 and get your choice:

* Visu-Antics by Jim Pace (DVD)
* Table Hopping Cups and Balls with Carl Andrews (DVD)
* Reparation by John Lovick (DVD)
* Jay Sankey’s Create Your Own Magic (DVD)

Order $100 or more and get your choice:

* Pyrotechnic Pasteboards with Gregory Wilson (DVD)
* Liquid Metal Starring Morgan Strebler (DVD)
* Bill in Kiwi with Carl Cloutier (2 DVD set)
* Lake Tahoe Bar Magic with Randy Wakeman (2 DVD Set)

Order $150 or more and get your choice:

* Sankey’s Greatest Hits (3 DVDs)
* Gambling Moves w/ Cards featuring Simon Lovell (3 DVDs)
* Complete Card Magic with Gerry Griffin - The Definitive Set (Volumes 1-7) (7 DVDs)
* Escapology with Dixie Dooley (4 DVDs)

Over at Ellusionist they blogged about TOXIC PLAYING CARDS! According to their site some cards in China have toxic levels of formaldehyde residue…

To help the situation I decided to make this photo guide to help avoid any confusion.

Don’t: Eat cards from China. Do: Eat 1800 Series cards from Ellusionist.

Well, this might be starting to sound like a blog run by www.magic.org, but I want to let you know about just 1 more thing then I’ll shut up. Recently Aaron updated his best kept secrets page, and its a whole heck of a lot nicer and easier to read. The last design didn’t render properly in FF and for that reason alone I didn’t read it. Anyways, On that blog he’ll be pitching new items that have come out and other magic news. So check it out at http://www.magic.org/secrets/.

(I’m still waiting to receive an email before I’ll post about my magic show maple ridge, hopefully in the next few days)

Again, I love magic. I just have to shout it out to the world. This weekend I had a show in Maple Ridge BC. I’ll talk about the show itself in my next though.

Today I got a chance to visit Clownin Around Magic Store in Grandville Island. I’ve only ever been to just a few magic shops. We got lost on our way though and we made it there just before they closed. I was able to pick up a couple things I didn’t want to order online because of the size. There wasn’t really anything too special but Joe who was running the counter stayed a few minutes after closing and helped me with a couple questions. It’s sad that physical magic stores are a dying breed, I never got the chance to hang out in a magic shop like lots of the stories i hear about from the old timers It’s all web stores, newsletters, and hyped up media clips. Oh, don’t worry Aaron, I’ve still got an order for you too.

I don’t really get a chance to see other performers very often. It reminds me of the PCAM convention. They had 2 big screens so everybody in the room could see fine. Even though sometimes I couldn’t tell what was going on, or my visability was limited, I chose to watch the people live instead of the screens. I can watch magicians at home on DVD or on my computer, but I dont get to see them live. Often the routines were things I had already seen on Tv/DVD before, and I didn’t go all the way to Calgary to watch it again on a screen, even if it was “live footage” heh.

Anyways, thats all for now. I’m posting from the hotel room right now, but once I get back home I have some photo’s I”ll show of my show and some other stuff that happened on my trip.

I made a post earlier today about Penn and Teller and a few of their online clips. I was going to search for some clips of Teller speaking, but I ended up getting sidetracked and working on something else. Anyways, on the Ellusionist blog they posted a video of Teller explaining the psychology of magic.

I remember reading an article about this presentation about a year ago on reddit.com I thought, but I can’t seem to find it now. Anyways, it’s much better to see the video of it anyways.

I also found some other videos of Teller speaking as well.

Here’s a clip of Teller speaking in a deleted scene from “Fantasticks”

Online magic friend David Garrity was featured today on Boston.com!

“This isn’t your grandfather’s magic show,” says Comedy Studio owner Rick Jenkins. Every Tuesday at the club’s long-running Mystery Lounge, top magicians from throughout the country perform their mysterious arts. Tonight catch the magic of special guests David Garrity (below) from Six Flags New England, Erik Starkey from Pittsburgh, and David Oliver from Broadway’s “Monday Night Magic.” “Such a big show in such a small, cozy room,” says Jenkins, “is a rare spectacle.” 7:30 p.m. $10. The Comedy Studio, 1238 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge. 617-661-6507. thecomedystudio.com

To learn more about David Garrity goto his website.

I must say I’m continually impressed with the magic depot - www.magic.org. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been slowly adding items to my shopping cart but I haven’t purchased anything yet. Well today I received this email.

Hello Leif! Aaron Smith here from http://www.magic.org I noticed you have a
couple of items in your cart but haven’t checked out yet. Is there anything
I can help you with?

My 20% OFF Sale ENDS Wednesday! http://www.magic.org/secrets

How very cool! Now thats a great marketing lesson. If you shop for magic online, I’d check out The Magic Depot- great service, free shipping, and if you sign up for their newsletter they have specials every few weeks or so.

PS: If you live in Edmonton/ Calgary check out http://www.vanishingrabbit.com/. Brent Smith will take your online order as well and shipping is probably next to nothing. I think I heard he also gives you a deal if you’re an IBM member. Check out their site for more info. But, if you’re from that area, you probably already know this.

As we all know it’s hard to distinguish the good from the bad when buying magic. I’ve put together a list of recent purchases that I enjoyed and thought to be worthwhile. Although these won’t suit everybody, I certainly enjoyed them. You can find more information about all of these by doing a quick search on the magic café.

• Exploring Magical Presentations by Eugene Burger (“Fading Coin” is much better live!) [review] [ Buy ]
• Bill Malone – Here I go again. Vol 1-3 [ Buy ] (Great card magic for any level)
• Paul Potassy – World Renowned Magic [ Buy ] (A living legend!)

I’ve also been going back and practicing some things that I had once started to learn but then forgot about. Its nice to pick a slight back up and start practicing again because you aren’t fumbling quite as much as before, its a good feeling! I’m trying to put down my cards more often and practice other stuff, but cards just have this magical allure about them, I can’t seem to put them down for any length of time. Between handling cards and the weather my hands are super dry too, arg.

I just came across a website that tracks all the magic blogs out there, check them out at http://www.magicforge.net/blogtrack/. My page isn’t linked yet, but I sent them a link to it so hopefully it will appear in the next few days.

If magicforge has linked to me, and you’re a new visitor, then welcome! Read the past entires and check out some of the free magic tricks in the right hand menu.

Just like everyone else I LOVE Derren Brown, he’s brilliant and everything he’s put out is done exceptionally well. Through some website today I came across this interesting article/interview with the man himself in TIMESONLINE some UK magazine/newspaper I guess. Check it out here.

“I’ve had about three weeks off in these past four years,” Brown says, with no evident weariness or ran-cour. “There are huge blocks of time with no evenings or weekends free. But if I had time off I’d only use it for evil,” he adds, with a devilish grin.

I’ve read on a couple blogs now about how Mark Wilson commented on how he thinks that Criss Angel has set television magic back 48 years.

I have mixed feelings about actually.

Mark Wilson is talking about how Criss Angel uses movie magic and camera tricks to accomplish some of his magic tricks. The problem with this is that some of the things on his TV show can’t be done in real life at all. The problem comes when audiences expect that these types of tricks can be done in real life as well, which of course they can’t.

I don’t even know how many times I’ve been asked to levitate, or if I can levitate from building to building like Criss does on TV.

Up until a few weeks ago I always felt that he cheated his audience. He can’t really do those things without the help of a camera crew and an editing room. But, in the latest MAGIC magazine there was an article with Cyril. He basically explained how the things that he does on his show can be done in real life. If you were there at the filming, it would look exactly the same to you, as it did to the camera. The thing that blew my mind is when he explained just how much money it costs to produce these “done in real life” effects. Pulling a card through a submarine window for example. When Cyril did it they spent an enormous amount of money to create the effect. Whereas, with a few stooges and some fancy editing and you can do the same effect for free basically. Which would you do? The end result on TV is the same (or nearly).

Cyril can’t REALLY do that trick in real life either, but, he DID do it in real life. Does this distinction matter to the home audience?

How could Criss possibly produce a whole season’s worth of episodes if he blew the whole budget on a single episode? He couldn’t. It becomes a trade off. Sure, there might be a way to create this effect in real life, but, the home audience isn’t watching it in real life- they’re watching it on their TV sets.

Love Criss or hate him, he’s put magic out there in the mainstream. I’m for one am grateful for that.

I’m very interested to see what type of Illusions will be in Criss Angels Cirque show. I hope I get a chance to see it!