If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I’ll be performing at Westside Daze on Sunday Night (June 29th 2008) at 7:00pm at the Johnson Bently Stage. Park behind A&W, you’ll see the signs and the shortcut to the park.The show runs till about 7:45pm. After me ABBA Again, an ABBA Tribute band, will be performing after me. So come on out and check it out.

You can see the event on Facebook by searching on facebook for “Ali K. Zam performing at Westside Daze!”. Apparently I can’t directly link to it because you need to belong to the “Kelowna” network before you can see it *shrugs*

For more information on the Westside Daze events check out their site for the full schedule.

PS: Tomorrow there’s a parade at 10:30am and tomorrow night in the Fireworks as well.

Today I helped out setting up for Westbank’s Westside Daze Festival. I love helping out because normally I get to an event or a festival and everything is already setup and everything just runs like clockwork. I think its important for me to get “behind the scenes” and see what REALLY happens during an event.

I was helping setup the main stage today and they just got brand new chairs for the festival. In past years they had old wooden chairs but they’re getting pretty beat up these days. Well anyways, So I guess they ordered the chairs through Canadian Tire. They were told that it wasn’t a problem to order 250 of them and they could ship them to them in the next week. Well, it took them over a month to finally arrive. Half the lot of chairs ended up in Winnipeg somehow! But that’s not the bad part. Every chair had a sticker on it from the manufacturer. But get this, when Purolator sent the chairs by air shipment, they added one of those tracking stickers to EVERY SINGLE CHAIR. On top of it all, they added a “shipped by air” sticker too! So we had to setup all the chairs, and remove 3 stickers from every single one. And let me tell ya, those little tracking stickers are made out of some industrial strength glue because they’re designed to never come off! We tried our best to take them off but it just wasn’t working. We ended up having to buy a few bottles of that “goo be gone” stuff, soak the chairs, then remove the stickers, then we had to hose down all the chairs to get all the “goo be gone” residue off. It was just a nightmare.

Next year remind me not to help out. I’d rather just show up and see everything running like clockwork

I’ve never had a chance to see David Copperfield live before, but I grew up working his magic specials on TV and wanted to be like him. Well, Now I’ve learned that in my magic I’d rather be me than David Copperfield, I still love watching him perform. At the end of August when I goto Vegas I’m hopefully going to get a chance to see David perform as well. I can’t wait!

I came across this video of David performing a classic routine with a twist. Its done just brilliantly. Enjoy!

The Magic of David Copperfield - Mr. Roger’s bandana trick

At the start of every Pixar film they have a little short comic movie before the “featured presentation”. For the next movie coming out tomorrow (June 27th) titled Wall-e, There’s going to be a pre-short filmed called ‘Presto’.

“Presto DiGiotagione, a turn-of-the-century magician, is famous for an astounding hat trick. Presto’s apprentice rabbit, Alec, however, is dissatisfied as he shares none of Presto’s wild success. While Presto is out eating lavish dinner, Alec is left behind, locked in a birdcage with a carrot torturously out of reach. Directed by Doug Sweetland. Sweetland also voices Presto and Alec. 5 min”

Last night The Pendragons performed on America’s Got Talent. Thanks to Doc for tip.

I doubt anybody, ever, will do that trick better than that.

Lance Burton will be on ABC’s The View either tomorrow (June 26th) or the next day (June 27th). After its over I’ll see if I can find a video of the segment for anybody who missed it.

Well, fret not my Canadian friends who can’t watch Celebracadabra on VH1, or even on the VH1 website. It turns out that Celebracadabra will be airing on Much More Music. You need to check your local listings, but it looks like tomorrow (June 22nd) that show will air at 10:30am, at 6:00pm, 9:00pm, and Midnight. Each time slot is airing the premiere episode of “street magic”.

Jump on board the 1st annual Light Up The Lake!

The Kelowna Community Food Bank presents the 1st Annual Light Up the lake event on July 1st to kick off our 17th Annual Christmas in July campaign. Jump on board as we cruise around Kelowna bay while lighting up the city with inspiration.
Light Up the Lake takes place on Tuesday July 1, 2008 from 8:00pm to 10:00pm promising a memorable evening of lights, laughter, music, and giving- a complete evening of entertainment. This exciting event benefits the nearly 30,000 persons (40% of whom are children) who use the Food Bank annually, in addition to the 6,000 clients of other local agencies we help such as the Okanagan Boys and Girls Club and Kelowna Women’s Shelter.

For more information or to purchase tickets please go to the website at www.lightupthelakekelowna.com

Over the years I’ve received gifts from my audience. Sometimes though its a drawing of me (as seen here).

Recently though, Ceara did this charcoal drawing of me based on the photo that I have on my business card.

Not bad at all

For my newsletter I decided it would be neat to teach a magic trick. Now, I know the old saying that a “magician never reveals his secrets”. Well, that’s only half true. There are lots of tricks in magic that have been around for a long time that just keep getting passed on. The linking paper clips effect can be found in many beginner magic books, and has already been exposed online. For those reasons I don’t feel bad about putting together my own instructional video. I’ve also included it in my beginner magic trick section in the menu on the side.

I hope you liked the video. What do you think?

Thanks to everybody who made the Vernon Sunshine Festival possible. Also a big thank you to the Marble Slab Creamery who sponsored my shows for the event.

In the morning I performed on the main stage:

Then in the afternoon I did 3 street shows:

The weather was PERFECT for an outdoor festival that day. I hope I get the chance to return again next year, I had a great time.

I hope everyone had a great day