A Recap of My Magical Career In 2020-22

 

From My Summer 2021 Virtual Magic Show called The Lift-Off Magic Show

Let me begin by saying, I totally forgot I had this particular blog. I've sort of gotten away from the entire blogging thing. I switched to podcasting and with that I only podcast on magic history. My podcast is MagicDetectivePodcast.com for those interested. It's currently in Season 4 with 74 episodes and growing.

But I would be remiss if I didn't discuss a few things for posterity sake. Like the last 2 years and the damned Pandemic that swept through the world. It began as the Wuhan Virus or the China Virus because that is where is originated. But the politically correct class deemed such terminology racist. Even though we have referred to viruses by the origin for hundreds and hundreds of years, and then did again AFTER this virus.  At any rate, that really doesn't matter at this point. It began as a pretty harsh virus and mutated into a much weaker one. The real nightmare was how it was handled. History will debate that and many figures who today are lauded for what they did will likely not look well over time. 

The government basically shut everything down around March 13, 2020. I give that date because that is when I did my last in person show that year. Everything after March 13th canceled. And to say I lost a ton of shows is no exaggeration. My summer went from having close to 100 shows booked by that time, to eventually salvaging only 18. And all of those were a new type of show, something called a virtual show.

You see, this government lockdown that was supposed to take 2 weeks to slowdown the curve of the virus, was in place for months(years). They kept changing the goalposts on us. Now, I'm not debating the right or wrong, I'm telling what happened. I'll let history decide.

My first virtual studio. It eventually got more sophisticated.

So this virtual thing, was a live show presented over an internet platform called Zoom. There were other platforms that people used, Facebook LIVE, Streamyard and more. Each allowed various options on how your program looked and the features it could provide. Depending upon your computer and your camera, you could look very primitive or you could look like you had an entire Television production. I would say that my virtual shows fell somewhere in the middle. I was unable to run the higher end software like OBS, but I still managed a visually appealing show with 2 cameras and lots of interesting green screen backgrounds. One of the major selling points of the virtual shows was the interactivity, and this led to a whole new sort of magic.

Interactive Magic. It had actually been around for years, but it wasn't used to a very large degree. However, if you had a decent magic library, you likely had access to some good magic that would work online. And the Interactive Magic were things that the audience could do along with you. I think there were really 2 types of Interactive Magic. The first were tricks were the audience was involved, but to no more of a degree than they were involved in an in person show. For example, they picked a card, they chose a word, that sort of thing. But the other type of Interactive Magic was when the audience had a deck of cards in their hands, or coins, or some of objects, and they followed along with the magician and the magic happened right there in their own hands.

This sort of thing had been popular as far back as the 1980s with Max Maven and his 'touch the screen' routines. These were then picked up by David Copperfield and used in some of his later specials. David even used a version of these interactive routines in some of his touring shows, by providing everyone in the audience with a printed sheet of paper that they would use to do the magic. He's always ahead of everyone when it comes to concepts. 

But now, this idea of audience hands on magic, interactively participating with the performer LIVE, was now in all of our hands. I can't speak for anyone else because I think many individual magicians realized this at different paces. I know some of the first virtual shows I saw used the touch the screen idea. But I didn't go that route. I went with the audience having some cards or a deck of cards or whatever. Why? Because I had a bunch of Jim Steinmeyer's books, the Impuzzibilities series and these were chalked full of those very kind of tricks. I also knew they worked because I had used some on the radio. YES, on a couple LIVE radio interviews, I presented a virtual or in that case an audio magic trick that the audience could follow along with. And it played incredibly well.

So now, I had this new weapon of mass amazement, if I might call it that. And I used it on most of my virtual shows. It worked most of the time. Occasionally I would see someone struggle. YES, that was another aspect of virtual, you could SEE the audience through the computer screen. They could see and hear you and you could see them and if you had them unmuted, you could see them.

I actually had two types of virtual shows, actually 3. I had the LIVE virtual that my clients could buy for just their group. I had LIVE ticketd shows that anyone could buy tickets to. Then I had a third which were recorded shows, that were not live, but customized to each client. This allowed them to show them more than once. It also allowed clients who didnt have internet or strong internet in their building to show their audiences via a thumb drive. 

My live virtual shows for clients were a resounding success. A huge hit with every client. Most clients who purchased one show purchased multiple shows over the course of the pandemic. The ticketed shows were another thing. The audiences who watched the ticketed shows were amazing. But the numbers were never quite there. It was so frustrating to try and sell tickets. I watched as Justin Willman, for example would have 1000+ at a show and have numerous shows a month, sometimes per day. And I couldn't get even 50 tickets sold. Granted, he had a bigger fanbase and better outreach strategy. But I never cracked the code on that. It drove me insane and still does to this day. In fact, I have a virtual ticketed show scheduled for two weeks from now. We will see.

Let's now go to Fall of 2021. I finally got my first booking for a real in person show. It was an outdoor festival and I couldn't have been more happy. Some folks wore masks, some didnt. I didnt wear a mask if I was more than 6ft from a spectator. The shows were overwhelming hits. It was such a breath of fresh air to be in front of real people performing. The audiences were spectacular. I believe all of my shows sold out during the run. I received a great deal of praise and expected this to be a turning point...however....

Then in October of 2021, I was booked to return to the Dulles Town Center Mall in Sterling VA. I drove 600+ miles back to Virginia and was sitting in my hotel, the Saturday before the show when my phone rang. It was the Mall Manager with some bad news. Apparently, there had been a possible terrorism warning directed at 'shopping malls and voting stations'.  And due to an abundance of caution, they had to cancel the event and thus my show was canceled. I harbor no ill will towards the mall, they did what they needed to do. But I was now out a LOT of money. 

A similar thing happened in January with a corporate client. Another high paying gig and they had to cancel, this time due to the covid outbreak getting worse. Actually, I lost ALL my gigs in January. And February faired no better. How could 2022 be worse than the two previous years? Well it was beginning that way. 

Thankfully March of 2022, I finally had some in person shows, along with some virtual shows that helped me to recover to some degree. So to say that the pandemic was a struggle, well, that's hardly touching the surface. Yet I know folks who did hundreds of virtual shows over the two years. I know one guy who did almost 500 in one year, and he was no one famous. Some folks really did well during this time, others lost everything, some lost their lives. I guess I fell somewhere in the middle. I didnt loose my life. I managed to survive over that time. Now the pandemic has been downgraded to an endemic.  I'm rebuilding my business and life, and the future looks bright....well if you don't count on Nuclear War...

Astonify The Virtual Magic Show & Seance

 

The Virtual Magic Show and Seance, known as Astonify, is styled after a Victorian era magic performance. Popular back then were seances, so we have included a virtual seance. What does this mean, 'virtual'. It means, we will be presenting the show over Zoom.us and it will be LIVE. The shows are ticketed but reasonably priced. We sell one ticket per household (though you can purchase as many tickets as you like). The tickets are available at https://www.zoommagicshow.com  By the way, when you do purchase a ticket, you'll be receiving a special packet of goodies you'll need for the show.dd

Of course, if you'd like to learn bit more about Astonify-The Virtual Magic Show and Seance you can simply visit our website at https://www.Astonify.com

Carnegie's Weekly Conjuring!

In early 2017, I started a new project called Weekly Wizardry. Actually, when it began I didn't even have a name. I just knew I wanted to slowly build my online presence via video. So I chose Facebook as my platform and began to put up weekly magic trick videos. The videos are about a minute long, quick visual tricks. The first one is still the best viewed of them all, with over 2500 views as of this moment.

I'm going to be changing the name of the project to Carnegie's Weekly Conjuring or Carnegie's Conjuring soon. For now, here are 4 of my favorites. When the project is complete there will be 50+ videos!

Carnegie Magic At Springfield Town Center

For a second year in a row, I performed at Springfield Town Center for their big Halloween Extravaganza! Last year, I sawed two people in half. This year, the big trick was to be The Spirit Cabinet. But before we could get there, we had lots of other magic to share.

The show started with a few minutes of preshow warmups. And then a huge burst of applause once the show started (thanks to the warmups). We, (Denise and I) opened with our Houdini 3 opener, which is three quick escapes done back to back. This was devised for our Houdini show with Atlas Obscura earlier in the year, and it has played well ever since.

Next came a cute little piece of surprising magic, A Traveling Coin routine using a Coin Casket and Copenetro. You hardly ever see Copenetro these days, and I'm pretty certain I may be the only magician using a Coin Casket. This is a prop right out of the Victoria Era. A little casket that holds 4 coins. The coins vanish one at a time and appear across the stage inside of an overturned glass. Wonderful stuff.

Next we did another audience favorite, the Magic Plumes. Yes, very old school, but I think we have a fine routine for it that always registers with audiences. If you're not familiar with the, the Plumes Change Color, one at a time.

The middle section of the show is all Halloween magic, with ghosts, pumpkins, candy and such. Then we finished with The Spirit Cabinet. However, due to the overwhelming mass of very young kids, we opted for what we called "The AntMan Presentation". So rather than apparently summoning 'spirits', we let AntMan do his thing and ring the bell and tamborine and so forth. It went over GREAT!

The folks at Springfield Mall couldn't be nice and we love performing there!

The Return of the Escape Artist

I really thought by now I'd be out of the escape business. A health issue that started about 10 years ago really put a damper on it so I pretty much dropped all escapes. But the recent request by AtlasObscura.com to participate in their Houdini Escapes DC event, changed all that.

I decided to do a 30 minute escape act with chains, locks, handcuffs, ropes and more. And I jumped in full force, which was a mistake. After the first couple days of rehearsing a serious problem crept up. My wrists and arms were turning black and blue. It was my own fault. I was trying to put on cuffs that were just too tight. This then caused them to swell and I continued to put them on and then they bruised. All the vintage cuffs got dropped because they were too tight. I was really upset about this, but it was unavoidable. However....

I remembered a ploy that Houdini used on cuffs he wasn't sure about. He would have them put onto other cuffs and not on his own wrists. They were still among the mix of cuffs and looked really dramatic, but were not a problem when it came to escaping. So I used a pair of darbies in the middle of several pair of Smith and Wesson and Peerless cuffs. I finished it off with a pair of thumbscrews which can be held in place with a padlock. It made an impressive looking escape.

Houdini used his 'ghost house' to escape from. This was a small black curtained cabinet that he would

kneel into to escape from his cuffs. I used a hooped curtain from a sub-trunk routine. The cuffs came off one at a time and were thrown from the curtain enclosure. The last thing to come off were the thumbscrews which I did in the open.

OH, I almost forgot, the OPENING number! This involved several escapes back to back to back. A chain/lock escape, an escape from a pair of Hamburg 8s, and then a reverse escape. I tossed a 2 foot length of rope into a sack, reached in and came out a moment later with my hands securely tied. It got a good laugh from the audience!

The final escape in the show was the 100 foot rope tie escape which I have not done in ages. I found two people in the audience to tie me up. It took them about 3 minutes to do the tying. The escape took  about 2 minutes. The 100 foot rope tie escape is fun because it's never the same no matter how many times it's done. Everyone takes a different approach to the tying. Some people are very serious about it and do a very firm job. Others don't quite have the knack and I'll need to give them suggestions along the way, like KEEP IT TIGHT and tie it around the wrists, or don't forget this or that. The two people who tied me during the Houdini event did a pretty good job.

So is that it? Have I put the escape stuff back in the closet for good? Actually no. I decided to keep it out and put it back into my show. It's going to be a regular feature. I'll be adding several other escapes as well with the addition of something dangerous to escape from. I already have a couple dangers escapes I can add, so we'll see if I use one of those or get something different. Keep watching!!!!!

When Experience Takes Over

Recently, I was hired to do a show that frankly, I thought would be just like any other gig. But when I arrived I discovered it was in fact for an audience of 40-50 teenagers. For those in the know, most performers would rather step into a den of lions covered in raw meat than take on a room full of 21st Century teens.

I'll tell you why many feel this way by sharing my story further. As the teens entered the room where the show was to be, a group of 8-10 of them greeted me with the following, "magic is fake", "ain't no such thing as magic", "you're a fraud", "you ain't foolin nobody", "this is stupid, magic ain't real". I would imagine that this greeting would unnerve just about anyone. But was I unnerved? No. Because I have been in this position before. I can tell you though that I quickly altered the entire show set. 98% of the material I had planned to do was OUT. I shifted gears into highly visual, stunning material.

When I started the show, I altered my introduction by giving them an explanation/apology. I began with this. "I'm so very sorry, apparently there was some misunderstanding or miscommunication. Some people here are under the assumption that I do sorcery, or witchcraft, or black magic or something along those lines. I do not. What I present is theatrical magic. I create the illusion that magic exists using purely natural means along with psychological principles and other secret techniques."

It was at that point that I brought out a Rubics Cube. I mentioned how a Rubics Cube is a puzzle, and many people think of magic as a puzzle, while some think of magic as real. In truth, it's kind of in between those two lines. Then I tossed up the mixed up cube and when it landed in my hands it was solved. Reaction: blew them away! They were falling over themselves in shock.

Then I presented an audience volunteer trick which had a humorous slant to it. The audience laughed at all the right moments. The spectator was bewildered as was everyone else. Then I turned the tables on them and made the following routine happen in the hands of the spectator, as if they possessed the magic. Again, they were dumbfounded.

The point of all this is, I never could have pulled this off had I not encountered this type of group in the past. I did not treat them as children, I treated them as adults. I did not try and act cool or speak their language, I simply showed them my talent in a manner that I knew they could relate too. The end result was a standing ovation. Yes, a standing ovation from a group of teens who insulted me when they first arrived.

If you're wondering what I closed with....Sawing A Spectator in Half using the Harbin Bow Saw. Kind of a big prop, but has a great surprise ending. It delivered the needed results.

Had I forged ahead with the original show I had planned to do, they would have eaten me alive. I expect that more than half would have probably left before the show was over in truth. But with the changes I made, they all stayed and had a great time. Experience, it sure comes in handy sometimes!

Magic Show Projects for 2015

I'm very excited about a new project that is an offshoot of my Steampunk Illusionist Show. It's a brand new show presented in a very Victorian style. I have always loved the shows of Hofzinser, Robert-Houdin, and Malini. They created wonderful magic in more intimate settings and I've always wanted to create a similar kind of show. There are a number of performers all over the world who are doing that very thing. Many are presenting what are called 'formal close-up' shows. Some are presenting a mix of close-up and magic.

My new show will be a mix of magic & mysteries from the Victorian era as well as contemporary material presented in a Victorian style. Expect to see demonstrations of thought reading, displays of dexterity and moments of manipulation. The show is currently in development, but we intend to have a show that can play in small parlor like venues up to small theatres. Naturally, the theatre venues will have slightly different material. I'll continue to give you updates as we progress. The website is NOT online yet, but should be very soon.

You may notice to subject above says "Magic Show PROJECTS For 2015", well one of those things is finding a home for the parlor version of Astonify. We'd like to eventually set it up as a resident Magic Show. For how long? Not sure, but I'd be happy with a short run to test the waters. I know the area is ripe for this sort of thing. There already is a very long running resident magic show in Maryland, and there is a Magic Nightclub of sorts in Baltimore. I've had friends in the area do a short run with their shows in the area and everyone has been successful. Why? Well, my friends are very good performers for one, and two, magic is really HOT right now. Once the Astonify.com site is up, you can sign-up for our mailing list to find out when and where the show will be.