Magic is in the Details

This weekend, I was out in Uxbridge, Ontario — a quiet out of the way township which the residents described to me as their "own little piece of heaven" — for a private birthday celebration. Event planning is all about the details because that's what lends an event a feeling of authenticity that people will remember, instead of a cookie-cutter banquet which can be forgotten between desert and the walk to the car door. 

After my show, there was a lovely table laid out with dozens of handcrafted magic-themed cookies. (I actually think the birthday girl made them all herself... so much for a relaxing birthday.) Always be on the lookout for small details that will make your next event magic!

Illusions at the McCord Museum

Last weekend, I was in Montreal at the McCord Museum. A group of magicians gathered because the McCord Museum was opening a new exhibit dedicated to the (literal) art of magic. In this case, this means Magic Posters.

In the so-called "Golden Age" of magic, travelling performers would have enormous promotional posters which would announce their appearance in a given town. The posters were mainly produced by a technique called stone lithography, which allowed for stunning multi-coloured billboard-sized images to be produced. One of the largest collections of these posters was donated to the McCord Museum by La Fondation Emmanuelle Gattuso. These posters were recently put on display in Illusions: The Art of Magic. 

It's difficult to get a sense of the size and vibrance of the images from photos. The collection really needs to be seen in person to be believed. (That's magic for you!) Here is a small preview courtesy of the McCord:

There's also a gorgeously produced catalog reproducing 230 of the posters in the collection along with historical essays that I'm in the process that I'm in the process of working through. 

The Allan Slaight Awards

Saturday night, as part of a special gala show concluding the 44th Magic Collectors Weekend in Montreal, Magicana presented the Allan Slaight Awards. The awards, now in their third year, were created by the Slaight Family Foundation to honour Allan Slaight. A deeply passionate magician who is better known to the world at large through his work in broadcasting, he is now in his eighties, his idea of a quiet Canadian retirement involves quietly donating millions of dollars each year to various healthcare and arts organizations. 

The awards recognize the best in magic with $50,000 a year in prizes. There are awards for performances for the public and also those who advance the craft, publishing reference material within the field. In the two years the awards have been given previously, some of my favourite magicians have received the awards, including Penn & Teller. 

For the first two years, the awards were presented a private dinner. This is the first time they have been open to see. The winners were:

Max Maven
Lifetime Achievement - $15,000

Derek DelGaudio
Sharing Wonder - $15,000

John Lovick
Sharing Secrets - $10,000

Edward Hilsum
International Rising Star - $5,000

Eric Leclerc
Canadian Rising Star - $5,000

David Ben, John Lovick, Max Maven, Edward Hilsum, Julie Eng - Photo by David Linsell

This year, I was backstage for the show, so I had a slightly different perspective. For example, here is John Lovick who won the award for Sharing Secrets for a book he wrote in collaboration with Handsome Jack, the world's foremost male model magician. He's having a slight wardrobe malfunction.

Handsome Jack with his pants down... don't ask. 

Photos from Magic & Martini in Toronto

Last night, at SpiritHouse in Downtown Toronto, we hosted another sold-out Magic & Martini. Thank you to everyone who attended the show. We had a great deal of fun with a few surprises. Here are a few photos from the evening from Tyler Sol Williams. 

Our next few Toronto shows are already full, but we have dates listed through the end of September. Readers can use the code shaken for a discount on the price of tickets when purchasing online. 

A Sold Out Event No One Was Invited To

On April Fool's Day, Toronto saw a one day convention for magicians, The Browser's Bash. (Named after the local magic emporium, The Browser's Den of Magic.) The event received a rather prominent writeup on the front page of the entertainment section of Thursday's Toronto Star. 

“Browser’s Magic Bash is an annual massive meetup for 400 mostly local and a few international magicians. Here, amateur and professional escape artists, mentalists, comedians and prestidigitators convene for a quasi-networking, quasi-educational get-together that is really more like a massive family reunion than anything else.

With niche magic shops petering out, and web tutorials readily available, chances for modern-day magicians to hang out with tons of their peers don’t arise often. So when an opportunity presents itself, up-and-coming magical entrepreneurs jump on their chance to poke around for tips from the pros, while hobbyists come out to hang with part-timers and everyone gets to gawk at the impressive tricks done by masters of the craft.”

I'm frequently asked where I go to learn what I do.

[As an aside, I believe based on reading that "Where do you learn how to do that?" has replaced "How did you do that?" as the most popular question audiences ask. This seems to be a recent shift, and I think it's due to the influence that Harry Potter, or more importantly Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, has had in popular culture. My audiences can now imagine a magic school, even though there really aren't such schools in real life.]

The truth about us is that we're not terribly secretive people. Magicians are horrible at keeping secrets. The reason has primarily to do with vanity: If you come up with a truly interesting idea, you want credit for it which leads to the idea being promoted in one form or another. So in actual fact the "secrets" of magic are being disseminated all the time, just slightly off the side of the road where you don't notice. 

In a typical year, I add twenty to fifty books and a similar number of periodicals about magic to my library. By and large, these books aren't especially hard to procure. In the magic world, my money is just as green as yours — fabulously rainbow-coloured in Canada. But educational resources, and gatherings like this are easily accessible if you know where to look for them.

As Fox Mulder was famous for saying; The Truth Is Out There.

Magic & Martini at SpiritHouse

Last night, we hosted another sold out performance of Magic & Martini at SpiritHouse in Downtown Toronto. Thank you to everyone who attended the show. We are currently sold out in Toronto through the end of May with some spaces in Oakville and Hillsburgh. 

Readers can use the code olive for a discount on tickets purchased online. 

Photos by Tyler Williams