Special Fundraiser Performance

Next week, several friends are putting on a special fundraising performance. It takes place Tuesday, April 30 at 8:00 PM. A Slice of Magic is dedicating 100% of the proceeds from the event towards sending a young person to Magic Camp on scholarship. Sorcerers Safari is Canada's only overnight camp dedicated to magic. In their fifteen year history, they have hosted hundreds of campers and an amazing roster of magic guest instructors from around the globe including multiple world champions.

The show features a number of good friends performing in the lounge at the Boston Pizza at Yonge & Eglinton (who have generously donated the space for this event. Tickets are $10 and are available online or at the door.

Doors open at 6:30 where you can come early for dinner and also see magicians performing close up magic before the show proper begins at 8:00.

Best Magician Contest

This Saturday, I will be competing in the "Best Magician Contest"[1] hosted by A1 Chinese Radio and Classic Force. We will be on stage at Market Village in Markham, Ontario on Saturday, April 13 at approximately 7:30 PM. This a free event being put on by the Radio Station. [Update June 3, 2013 - Performance footage, shot by Hansen Lau]

[1] It's not really a contest. The event is hosted in Cantonese. "Best Magician" has lost something in translation. Instead it's a gala performance with a mix of amateurs, hobbyists and professions with some judges thrown in for dramatic effect. There is some kind of prize for the act they like the best, but we're not sure what that is. To quote from Whose Line Is It Anyway, everything is made up and the points don't matter. But it should still be a great show!

Reality Based Magic - Notes

Last night, I did a special lecture for magicians at the Joan Caesar Hat & Wand Club in Kitchener, Ontario. To go along with the lecture, I prepared a 50-page booklet describing some of the tricks I taught. I have a few copies of the booklet left over for any magicians that might be interested. The trick includes one piece from Lies, Damn Lies & Magic Tricks, an item from my family shows (yes, I perform for children when asked politely) and from my close up repertoire as well as some smaller card items and three essays.

The booklet was originally going to be titled The Magic of Reality, but before I had a chance, Richard Dawkins stole the title and used it for his book for children. (The book is superb, if you don't have it already.) The theme that draws the pieces (mostly) together is that according to certain systems of magic theory, they are all bad tricks, and yet they work. When I say bad, they're time tested in front of audiences but they violate tenets of standard magic theory about how the methods should work. For me they underscore that "rules" in magic are really just guidelines and that reality is the ultimate arbiter of what works and what doesn't.

To match the spirit of the title, the cover image and chapter titles are images from the Hubble Space Telescope, which are easily more impressive than everything in the book.

If anyone is interested, I have a handful of the books left. I may also re-release them in an electronic format at some point.

The booklet is $20, available from the Ring 17 online store. 

Nominated for Magician of the Year

According to an announcement posted yesterday on the Canadian Association of Magicians Blog, I've been nominated for Canadian Magician of the Year. What does this mean? I have no idea. The process behind the award has changed this year, and the process is not quite transparent with no formal criteria. It appears to have been remade as a popularity contest where anyone can nominate anyone and it goes on record. So at the moment it appears to just be a very flattering joke someone has played on my behalf.

Edit 5/17/2013 The President of the Canadian Association of Magicians clarified that what were originally announced as "nominations" aren't proper nominations but rather "suggestions for nominations" . The actual "nominees" are really just the "finalists" who receive the most "suggestions for nominations". Furthermore, the two lovely people who did "nominate" me have since been identified and both have confessed to doing so with the most ironic of intentions. So it still makes about as much sense as the rest of Canadian politics.

Lessons Learned the Hard Way

On Thursday, February 21, I will be giving a lecture for the Joan Caesar Hat & Wand Club in Kitchener. I'm very excited for the lecture since it contains several things I have never shared except with close friends. Tickets are available at the door if you are interested in attending. However, I was a bit shocked when I saw the photo they used in promoting the lecture. Apparently this was modified by the secretary using an iPhone app.... Henceforth, I will have a new stipulation in my rider that promotional photos may not be altered... sigh.

Photo by Irina Popova, sparkles by Daryl Hutton

New YouTube Page

I've started posting some performance video and other resources on my YouTube page. Feel free to subscribe there.