This week on Magic Tonight

It's a light schedule on this week for Magic Tonight. I, and a great many local magicians, will be off to Magi-Fest in Columbus, OH. If you think one magician is weird, try picturing eight hundred of us wandering around one hotel at the same time. But we'll be back in time for our Sunday show at The Crimson Lounge downtown in Toronto. Our special guest, Sunday, February 1 will be mentalist Ron Guttman. What makes this interesting is that I'm leaving Ohio at 7AM and these conventions are largely sleep optional. So this could be the most sleep deprived performance I've ever given. It's also Superbowl Sunday. So if you're lucky, we'll also predict the winner for you.

Magic Tonight happens weekly at The Crimson Lounge in Toronto, The Franklin House in Mississauga and The Bear in Pickering. Readers of this blog can use the code reality for a special discount when purchasing 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.

Stupid Internet

We've been having some difficulty managing our online ticket sales for Magic Tonight. Eventbrite, who's been our paperless ticket provider for over two years went through a major systems upgrade to improve their service. Unfortunately, the transition process has been less than smooth and we've had intermittent service with odd error messages, especially for people accessing the site on mobile devices. The problem is, for the moment, fixed. So to make up for the hassle, for the next 48 hours (until Tuesday at midnight) you can get 65% off tickets and dinner for all our shows at www.abracadabaret.com/purchase-tickets. Just use the code stupidinternet at checkout. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Our sincere thanks to those patient customers and friends who were able to help us troubleshoot the issue.

    

Deception on The Infinite Monkey Cage

There is a delightful BBC Radio Podcast called The Infinite Monkey Cage, with theme song by Eric Idle and hosted by Robert Ince and Brian Cox (the guy Stephen Hawking pushed into the river on the Monty Python reunion show.)

This is the episode from January 19, 2015, entitled Deception. It's available on iTunes or from the BBC.

No one does the panel discussion as well as the Brits and it's a very interesting discussion. And includes a magician and respected academic, Richard Wiseman.

One of the most intriguing things they mention, which I don't hear discussed very often, is that we are not very good at knowing when we are being deceived. There is a natural tendency to both accept things at face value, and to assume others will accept things at face value.

It also turns out that many of the "tricks" you are supposed to be able to use to detect deceptions (facial ticks and other visual cues) don't really work.

I guest listener be warned.

This week on Magic Tonight

This week, we're packed with magic with three performances of Magic Tonight. Thursday, January 22 @ The Franklin House - Mississauga Sleight of hand magician, and generally charming trickster, Ben Train. In addition to performing, Ben is also a creator and magic consultant and has spoken across Canada, the US and parts of the UK. He is the co-founded of Five Academy Magic which provides educational and professional development resources for magicians around the world. Read more...

Friday, January 23 @ The Bear - Pickering Mystery Entertainer Lukas Stark will push the limits of perception and do otherwise strange and unusual things. Previously on the show he has swallowed razor blades and escaped from straight jackets (not at the same time.) Who knows what he has in store for us next. Read more...

Sunday, January 25 @ The Crimson Lounge - Toronto Some guy named Ben Train that I've never heard of before. No idea if he's any good or not. Read more...

Performances start at 7:00 PM with seating for dinner at 6:00. Our shows are continuing to grow, thanks to your support. We appreciate all the wonderful word of mouth and referrals. Readers of this blog can use the code reality when purchasing tickets online for a special discount!

Jan 22 Train

Jan 23 Stark

Jan 25 Train