Until August…

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Jesus, the year is flying by. Is this something we all think every year? I guess it is. Or maybe there was a year when we were like. “Shit, it’s only April? Why am I getting out my Halloween decorations?” That never happens, does it? It’s always just faster and faster.

For supporters, you’ll receive the next newsletter August 1st. If you’re a family-level supporter and have an advertisement that you’d like included in that issue, try to get it to me by the 28th.

TCC Presents has a new release called The Faraday Pad, that has just been announced. If you want to spend $300 (to $500) to get your spectators to think, “I guess there’s a magnet in that special pad of his,” this is your opportunity. Does it produce some cool visuals? Yes. But I’m not sure who would be fooled by this. Have the people behind this never spoken to a lay person? Magnetism is one of the few methodologies they know of. When you bring out your own performing surface it’s almost laughably obvious. I don’t get it.

This is how you know this thing was maybe not designed with fooling normal laypeople in mind. In the ad copy on kickstarter it says:

We have hidden the device under an unbelievably ordinary-looking Close-up Pad.

Hmmm…. okay.

“At first I thought there might have been something funny about the surface the magician was performing on. But after looking more intently, his close-up pad is unbelievably ordinary looking.”

I have bad news for you… close-up pads aren’t ordinary looking (except to magicians). And this one doesn’t even look like the standard one magicians use.

Well, whatever. You spend your money how you like. I just think it’s bizarre—regardless of how cool it might look—to do something where the general method is so obvious to the spectator.

In regards to Monday’s post where I responded to a question about slowing down when performing, here are some other tips that came in:

Richard Osterlind shared his great way around this (I don't recall if it was from a lecture or a video release). He said he tries to do everything as silently as possible. And trying to do things silently automatically slows him down. I think it's a great mindset, because you can't readily answer the question "am I going too fast" but you can answer "am I being as quiet as I can?” —CC

A good way to slow down a routine is to say the patter out loud as you practise. Figure out the pace and the moves to go along with the patter so that when you do it in front of people, you can maintain a steady pace. Doing this can also help you re-establish your routine if it goes wrong. The problem to adopting this method is taking care not to be too wooden. —ML

I still like my suggestion, because it literally forces you to take your time in a way in which there’s no getting around. But I see the value in these suggestions too. (Although I’d never memorize patter, per se. But in practice you could set a timer for how long you think the trick should take, and then practice talking along with the trick at a pace that fills that time.)

A shoebox of floppy disks has been found and The Magic Cafe is back online. Go remind yourself why you didn’t like it.

Enjoy the rest of your July! Try to get in some dope summer nights before we’re all like, “Oh, I guess it’s December now.”