Matt DiSero - Live from my Bedroom

Ok, that sounded wrong... Last week, while the irritatingly photogenic Keith Brown was busy swallowing sewing needles at Magic Tonight (long story), there were doings transpiring backstage at the Crimson Lounge. Adam Pal was interviewing Matt DiSero for the PalmCast "Live from my Bedroom".

I have no idea what they were talking about, but at some point in the middle, I got talked into performing a card trick for a ten-year old child who happened to be there. Of course it's radio, so for all you know, I was just shouting at an innocent child while riffling cards next to a microphone. We'll never know for sure.

You can listen to the whole interview below:

Magic Tonight is performed weekly in Toronto, Mississauga and Pickering with a fabulous assortment of special guests — including Matt DiSero on Sunday March 8! Readers of this blog can use the code reality when buying tickets online for a special discount on the price of tickets and dinner.

Mar 8 DiSero

Face 2 Face

Last year at Magic Tonight, we hosted a special fundraiser dinner for the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Following the show, in an effort to add some educational content to our programming, we did an extended interview and Q&A with Michael Close and the host of Face2Face, David Peck. We were allegedly discussing "Wonder in the 21st Century" or "The Role of Magic in a Modern Secular Society", but it was in front of a live audience with Q&A and tangents galore, discussing the history of magic, the theory behind why magic works and a few other things. The audio from that interview is now available online for the world to listen to. Stream or download over at DavidPeckLive.com, or look for Face2Face on Rabble and iTunes. 

Magic Tonight has weekly performances in Toronto, Mississauga and Pickering with a variety of special guests. Readers of this blog can use the code reality when buying tickets online for a special discount on the price of tickets and dinner.

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