Performances

Shared Uncertainty

Part of the problem of a show called The Uncertainty Project is the necessity of remaining tightlipped about its contents. It was extremely important for the show to force people int a position to "expect the unexpected"* with all the discomfort and excitement that comes with that state of mind. At the end of the day magic revolves around reversal of expectations. We expect our watches to stay on our wrists, shuffled cards to stay out of order and empty hats to remain rabbitless. It's a fine line, trying to walk outside the boundaries of a traditional magic show but without degenerating into total randomness and Family-Guy-Manatee humour. On the other hand, I routinely blindfold myself with duct tape on stage and do magic with thimbles, so a show on the eve of World Pride demanded a certain amount of extra unexpectedness.

Enjoy Part One of The Uncertainty Project!

The Uncertainty Project was presented June 18-21, 2014 at the Wychwood Theatre in Toronto with additional unexpectedness by Lavender Blonde.

Not sure yet when Part Two will become available or how much of the show I'll be willing to post publicly. I guess the future really is uncertain.

*It's not actually the contradiction in terms that people normally assert that it is.

Canada's Magic on The Uncertainty Project

The Uncertainty Project was reviewed, (somewhat randomly) on Canada's Magic.

♣ There will never, ever be a show exactly like the show I saw.  (At least, it's highly improbable.)

♦ Any show with links to Heisenberg, Einstein, Fermat, Schrödinger, and Douglas Adams, is cool in my books.

♥ There were some very powerful moments.

♠ I was absolutely entertained.

The full article is available here.

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Beyond the Mundane

On Friday, May 31, I was on Beyond the Mundane hosted by Elsie Lynn Leyland and Randi St.Claire. It's a very long interview and we cover a wide range of topics from magic, belief and disbelief. But mostly we're talking about The Uncertainty Project. You can "watch" the interview here, even though this is supposed to be radio. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jYar-jv20M?rel=0]

Tickets for The Uncertainty Project are now available online at www.uncertaintyproject.com/tickets James Alan Uncertainty Project Poster

Uncertainty Project: CP24

James Alan Uncertainty Project Poster
James Alan Uncertainty Project Poster

I was on CP24 Breakfast this morning discussing my upcoming show, The Uncertainty Project at the Wychwood Theatre. While the show is about uncertainty, I am necessarily tight lipped about the tricks which are in the show, but you can get an idea of what's coming here:

The performance portion was not entirely what I was hoping for. Unfortunately the crew was dealing with a serious breaking news story about a deadly fire in Brampton. So while I was still able to go on amid the coverage we were, to a large extent, improvising when it came to the performance. We still got to have some fun though.

Tickets for The Uncertainty Project are available at www.uncertaintyproject.com/tickets

Uncertain Confessions (Part 1)

My new show, The Uncertainty Project is approaching very fast (June 18). While I am keeping very tight lipped about the contents of the show (what good is a show about uncertainty if you know in advance what's going to happen?) I wanted to share a bit about what's behind the show: where it came from and how it developed. Randomness and probability have always held a deep fascination for me. When I was younger, I was introduced to the Infinite Improbability Drive of Douglas Adams and also to Chaos Theory as described by the inimitable Jeff Goldblum in Jurrasic Park (Even when I'm supposed to be learning about velociraptors, I still somehow gravitate to non linear dynamics.)

My love of randomness — that sounds a bit perverse, maybe "interest" is better — is coupled with pathological indecisiveness. Under no circumstances should you try to present me with any kind of options like "What movie would you like to go see?" It's not pretty. So in order to escape from the black hole that is decision making, I invoke random chance wherever possible. This means that unless I'm performing in a show and the order of the tracks actually matter, every music-playing gizmo that I own is set to shuffle on a permanent basis.

Unfortunately, that means this exact scenario actually happened to me once:

Buy tickets to The Uncertainty Project here. Or, if you're the guy this happened to, contact me and I'll arrange a free ticket for you.

More uncertainty coming soon....