First Week of March

Well this has been a busy busy week. The funny thing is, half the week was booked LAST WEEK! And as the week progressed more and more people were calling and had to be pushed to next week. I certainly had a blast, but there is no time to rest. I have to get ready for a performance tomorrow evening where I will be the M.C. of a show. Then things kick in again on Monday with another busy week.

I hope you've been checking out my magic history blog, as I try to make it as interesting as possible. There are lots of articles on Houdini, but also a lot of other performers as well. I love the history of magic and I am constantly inspired by what magicians of yesteryear have done and what they went through.

Recently, I was astonished to find that in the 1800s it was common practice for the magician to actually rent a hall or theatre and take 100% of the risk involved to sell tickets and pack the house. It wasn't until Vaudeville came along that all that changed. Now, in some areas that concept has actually returned.

I'm researching a lot of the old spirit medium acts and discovering tons of incredible material that would still play incredibly well today. The Davenport Brothers, Anna Eva Fay, and even Harry Kellar were all involved in this type of performance. The Davenports and Anna Eva Fay later in life admitted they were fake. Kellar never claimed to be real and even exposed the fakers in his show. But from the spirit medium acts came the Escape Act that Houdini would later make popular. Honestly, the spirit medium acts also gave birth to another style of magic known as Bizzare Magic. And even Mentalism has some of it's roots in the spirit medium days. It's a rich playground to find new performance pieces.

Another person I did a lot of research on recently was Servais LeRoy. WOW was this guy ever brilliant. You have no idea how much stuff I purposely left out of my blogs when I wrote about him. He has a catalog of unbelievable ideas that would play so well for modern audiences.

I've got two big projects in the works and I hope to be able to reveal one of them right here, very soon!