magic is about honesty
everything here is true
except for the bits I made up
My appearance on Rogers Daytime Toronto discussing the upcoming Illusions of Grandeur with Tyler Wilson at The Winchester.
About Illusions of Grandeur - Read A Tall Order
Photos from Illusions of Grandeur - Read Tall Tales and Taller Tales
James Alan's YouTube Chanel
The September instalment of Abracadabaret is coming up this weekend: Sunday, September 29 at the Winchester. The show starts at 7:00 with tickets available online or at the door.
I'm off that night, leaving the performance to three extremely capable individuals:
Nick is a gifted 'practitioner of the art of astonishment'. I've been a devoted fan of his work for years. He has been a fixture at the Hamilton Fringe festival, where I performed last year, winning Best in Fringe multiple times. He produces magnificent shows that are elegant and minimalist while at the same time being extremely enjoyable and making your brain hurt. Honestly, I've been trying to get him on one of the shows for years!
Jason has appeared at Abracadabaret and Friday Night Magic several times. He's an extremely funny and energetic comedy magician. I describe him the way Watterson described a tiger: He has no setting between high and off.
He is also the winner of the Canadian Event Industry's Entertainer of the Year award.
Chris arrived on Toronto's magic doorstep three years ago after leaving his native Calgary. When he showed up, he had a note pinned to the front of his shirt which read
Please take good care of Chris. If you give him a fresh deck of cards, a selection of Thai restaurants and good wifi, he won't leave you.
And he never has!
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I seem to lead a delightfully charmed life. Every once in a while, I seem to get an email or a phone call from a friend, often out of the blue, with a request to work on a strange or unusual project. (Actually that seems to be happening quite a bit lately, so there should be some more stuff appearing here as soon as I'm allowed to talk about it.)
Earlier in the summer, my friend, fellow Canadian magician and fellow tall person (he's 6'5 or 5'17 in the US) contacted me about doing a show. Tyler used to live in Toronto a few years ago before winding himself up in England and Spain before finally finding his way home to Calgary. He's not only a very clever and creative magician, and extremely funny in a zany-off-the-wall sort of way, he's also knows more about the history of magic (in particular close-up magic) than just about anyone I've ever met.
His project was really interesting: he wanted to do a close-up show. Close up magic is possibly the strongest form of magic. There is an immediacy and intensity that comes with magic that happens feet and inches away from you. If you watch magic on stage, you could be dozens of meters away and if you watch magic on a screen, much of the impact gets lost – as I found out personally, listening to people talk about my recent appearance in a string of Wendy's ads.
I perform a ton of close up magic, but usually in a very unstructured way - what gets called strolling magic or mingling magic - at parties. But there it's a kind of Blitzkrieg approach, trying to show as many people magic in as short a time as possible. It's a great deal of fun and is very memorable, but it leaves the people who truly appreciate magic and want to see more feeling slightly shortchanged.
The main challenge is in economies of scale (rather lack of scale) - it's hard to have a successful show that only happens for a dozen people at a time. Historically, close-up magic has been forced into larger and larger rooms. I've attended (and competed in) magic contests that had close-up divisions in front of hundreds of people.
So for fun's sake, we've decided to put on a true close-up show: Illusions of Grandeur. We'll do the same ~50 minute show six times over two nights. Each seating will be strictly limited to fifteen people. As Tyler originally proposed it, this will be a micro-drama where we attempt to outdo, outperform and outbadass each other. (Apparently in Calgary, to outbadass is a real verb... or so Tyler tells me.) We're going to have tons of fun and we'll both be premiering some brand new material. We'll be at the Winchester, which has generously allowed us to rearrange their furniture to create our little close-up palace of mystery. The shows are separated by two hours so you're more than welcome to come early, stay late and/or enjoy some food and drink to go along with the show.
For even more fun's sake, we've added VIP seats, for the exorbitant surcharge of 3 cents. What exactly VIP treatment gets you; that's for us to know and you to find out. Hope to see you there.
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In just over two weeks, a new season of the Sid Lorraine Hat & Rabbit Club will be starting. [Edit: after a weird scheduling snag which forced us to push our opening lecture back a week... sorry for that] Sid Lorraine, was a prominent figure among Toronto magicians. The Club was half-renamed after him (It was always the Hat & Rabbit Club) after he passed away. I was four years old when he passed away, and had never met him, but I had the odd chance to get to know him as I had to transcribe his handwritten memoirs (assembled from taped interviews with another past-president, Peter Isaacs) for a memorial blog. The blog, or "ChatterBox" as it's properly called, is a fun read and paints a fascinating picture from the early part of the Twentieth Century of magicians in particular and Canada and England in general.
The size of the club fluctuates slightly year-to-year, but I believe we are the largest local magic organization in the country. Membership is open to magicians and magic enthusiasts. We assemble a diverse group of members; including amateurs, professionals, beginners, collectors and hobbyists. We have members ranging from 14 years old to... well, one of the events is a certain member's 90th birthday party, just to give you an idea.
And I have the distinct honour of being president of this motley crew - for the third year running. It's actually a very fun and rewarding job. The best part, by far, is spending the year with the executive daydreaming about what next year will look like. So this season's lineup of events (which includes guest speakers from Canada, the US, France and Spain!) was assembled bit by bit gradually over several months.
It's traditional to start the year with a Canadian lecture (except last year, when Canadian Magician of the Year, Bill Abbott, lost a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors to Eugene Burger and had to wait a month). This year's kick-off lecture is a freshly minted Canadian, with a shiny brand-new permanent resident card, Michael Close (with special thanks to real-Canadian Lisa Close for luring him across the border.) Michael is an internationally known creator, performer, lecturer, and consultant.
Surprisingly, it's not that difficult to put a line-up like this together. While magicians outwardly project a veil of secrecy and mystery, when the public's not looking they can't wait to share their secrets. The community has developed an incredible sense of community through organizations like the IBM, the SAM, the Magic Castle, the Magic Circle and more. For all of the invitations we've sent, I can count the number of people who declined the chance to visit on the fingers of one hand. On reflection it's not that surprising. In any field everyone interested in raising the quality of the work within that field. More talent results in more positive word of mouth - a rising tide lifts all boats.
On a historical note, with the help of one of the club's past presidents, Trevor Hamilton, I've unearthed a brief history of the club and we'll be attempting this year to convert this charming comb-bound package into something which is informative and web-friendly. Flipping through the list of past presidents, I see a rather daunting list of names to live up to including David Ben, Ross Bertram, John Giordmaine, Sid Lorraine and Herb Morrissey. (Names that certainly don't mean much to most people, but leave some rather large shoes to fill.)
So I hope to see lots of new faces, and old, as we come back for another season - either the seventy first or seventy second, depending on how you count. More information about joining the club is available on its website.
This Saturday, I'll be at The Winchester in Cabbagetown performing at the monthly Abracadabaret. I mentioned Keith Brown would be joining us but we also have a rather unique guest. I'm slightly hesitant to call him our most unique act ever... but only slightly. Making his debut at Abracadabaret on August 25 is The Great Mustachio!
Mustachio (no relation to Joe Culpepper), originally from the United States, was stolen by Italian bandits during a family vacation to Southern Italy. He grew up tough and fast in the alleys of Naples where he learned to make a living performing street magic in his teens. He now performs sleight-of-hand in casinos, cabarets and class joints all over the world.
...
Or so says his publicist.
Join us for an amazing night of great magic (and possibly a small amount of silliness) and great food.
Sunday, August 25 - 7:00 PM The Wincheseter Tickets | Directions | Information
In just over two weeks, we'll be back at the Winchester in Cabbagetown with the next Abracadabaret! Joining us, all the way from London (Ontario, not the one you have to swim to) is Keith Brown.
As I've written elsewhere, Keith Brown is one of two things that will make me drive to London. No, you may not know the other one, at least not without buying me a few drinks.
He's produced two acclaimed shows at the London Fringe Festival: Feats of Astonishment and Exchange. He's also been named Toronto's Best Magician, certainly way better than the guy who came in second place. It's so much fun to watch Keith perform and he does some truly amazing things.
Keith actually was on one of our shows a few years ago opening for Asi Wind. We missed him for a while as he disappeared to study abroad in Sweden, but he's back now and we're delighted to have him.
If you want to squeeze in one more great show before summer ends, join us on:
Sunday, August 25 - 7:00 PM @ The Winchester Tickets | Directions | Information
Also joining us will be "The Great Mustachio"... more on him shortly!
