A week of Funny Faces

Any time we have a show, we try to preserve the memories with photos — smiles, shock, astonishment, bewilderment, wonder. The gallery over at Abracadabaret.com has a substantial collection. I've shot some myself. Other times I hand off the camera to see what someone else captures. Sometimes the photos are gorgeous, and other times the lighting is substandard, or the background is just strange. But through these photos — sorting them, cropping them, shooting them myself — has taught me a great deal about the performance of magic. Magic is an extremely difficult thing to photograph. Magic isn't static; it's based almost entirely on transformation and change. If a woman vanishes and I take a photo, a woman not in a photograph is not particularly impressive. It's the change from woman standing there to woman not standing there that makes for magic. Even mind reading, which some now consider to be magic in its purest form, is categorically unphotogenic. If I take your secret thoughts and speak them out loud, the resulting picture of our faces might be indistinguishable from the photo we'd get if I had just told you an exceptional "Knock-knock" joke.

And as I'm fond of telling young magicians, if you make cards magically spew from your mouth (a cool trick if ever there were one) don't take a picture of it. To the outside world, it simply looks like you are chewing on a fan of cards.

Most of the people who appear on the show are "talking acts". That means that a large portion of the photos taken will capture the face in the middle of a word. Not the most flattering position. This week, I was sorting through photos and the strange and funny faces seemed to jump out at me. So here, without anyone's consent, is a collection of The Funny Faces of Magic Tonight.

Thanks to Ron Guttman, Jason Palter, Brian Roberts and the irritatingly photogenic Keith Brown for not punching me.

Magic Tonight happens every week in Mississauga, Pickering and Toronto. Readers of this blog can use the code reality for a special discount when buying tickets online.

Winning Strategies for Rock-Paper-Scissors

One of my more useless talents is that I'm particularly good at Rock-Paper-Scissors. As a youngster I was put into a skiing school in the mountains of British Columbia and for a week, we spent most of our time on the chairlift playing the game. (We also invented several useless and mathematically inconsistent plays including but not limited to dynamite, water-well and possum... I know, I could have been put in a box and studied.)

It's nice to see some of the strategies I came up with reproduced by the scientific community.

This is fairly similar, but not identical to the way I play (I need to keep my actual system sub rosa in case I'm ever called on to defend my title as Almighty-supreme-Rock-Paper-Scissors champion on Madison avenue.)

There's a second, amusing follow up video here.

Last week on Magic Tonight

Last week was incredible. We performed all three shows at our locations in Toronto, Mississauga and Pickering. Here are some of the memorable moments. (These include material which is a bit too goofy for the official gallery.) Magic Tonight happens every week in Toronto (Sundays), Mississauga (Thursdays) and Pickering (Fridays).* Readers of the blog can use the discount code reality when buying tickets online for a special discount on show tickets and dinner.

Photos by Ahmed Abdurrahman, Brian Roberts and James Alan.

*Actually that's not quite true. We're off this week since most of our performers, including me, will be attending the annual secret magic gathering, Magi Fest. An event so secret you can't even learn about it through googling.

Last time on Magic Tonight

Last night on Magic Tonight in Toronto, there was something in the water. We had the most splendiferous audience who were reacting and laughing all the way through the show. In fact, they spent so much time laughing, we ran nearly 30 minutes longer than we planned. Magic Tonight happens every week in Toronto (Sundays), Mississauga (Thursdays) and Pickering (Fridays). Readers of this blog can use the code reality for a special discount when buying tickets online.

Magic Tonight Toronto Poster sm

Last night on Magic Tonight

Last night featured special guest Brian Roberts. Most people don't realize that tall magicians are heavily discriminated against: they are too big to fit into boxes to be sawn into halves and they can't make themselves levitate because they would hit their heads on the ceiling. Instead Brian has been forced to devote his time to developing beautiful sleight of hand. I got to perform with Brian with a packed house on what was (coincidentally) my birthday. Yes... they sang... I don't want to talk about it.... I wore a bow tie... my mother told me to.

Magic Tonight runs every week - Thursdays in Mississauga, Fridays in Pickering, Sundays in Toronto. Tickets are available at www.magictonight.ca. Readers of this blog can use the code secrets when purchasing online.

Jan 11 Roberts

Last week on Magic Tonight

If there's one problem our shows have had over the years, it's been performers who share the same name. We've had to content with a ridiculous and confusing number of Jeffs, Jameses and Davids. Last Sunday on Magic Tonight, we had two Chrises (Mayhew & Westfall) performing simultaneously giving a sneak preview of their forthcoming two-person show Sketchy Magic. It was a fun, interactive and extremely strange evening. Stay tuned for more news about the full expanded event.

Magic Tonight happens every Sunday night in Toronto at the Crimson Lounge. Readers of this blog can use the code secrets for a special discount when buying online.

Photos by the irritatingly photogenic Keith Brown.