Proudly and Pride-fully Canadian

Happy Canada Day! It's been a busy week filled with both rain, rainbows and no shortage of Magic! Distracting me from the (slightly damp) Pride Celebrations downtown we hosted a lecture with Norman Beck who was visiting from Texas for the uber-secret "31 Faces North" (so secret in fact that I'm not even allowed to admit to myself that I know about it.)

But before that, even before I got into the pride festivities, I learned about the United States' Supreme Courts' ruling on marriage equality. It was a fairly emotional morning. I was flipping through my RSS feed at just the right moment, before the blogosphere went nuts and there was just a single post from Joe My God and in the preview without the images it was just one line:

SCOTUS RULES FOR MARRIAGE!!!

I was alone and it was totally quiet and I just stopped. It's certainly not often, you can read a single line of text and know instantly that the world was not quite the same place it was yesterday.

In hindsight, it wasn't really that much of a surprise. But for a moment it was shocking and beautiful. Then the internet went nuts. Both people sharing the decision with excitement and people eagerly waiting to drink the tears of crushed conservative opponents.

But it's strange to watch the events in the US unfold from up in Canada. For us, when it comes to equality, the writing's been on the wall for a decade or two. I seemed to hit the tail end of it. When I was in high school it was still in vogue to use "gay" as a synonym for "stupid", "idiot" or "moron". But since so much of our culture seeps in from south of the border, it's been unusual to watch both the conservative doom and gloom proclamations and the slowly but steadily changing tide of support. It was clearly on the right track, but it wasn't clear that they were going to get it right. (At least not until a string of federal court decisions started swatting gay marriage bans like flies.) But soon it will feel like it couldn't have been any other way.

But within an hour or two social media became a rainbow explosion and colourful striped pictures what was particularly moving was seeing photos from our show turning up with rainbows. These are the ones I saw, but I'm sure there were a few more.

Of course, for anyone who's been paying attention, we've been celebrating Pride on the show for essentially the whole month. Now that it's July, I can shelve the rainbow duct tape for another year. Although I think the unicorn might stay. Not sure yet.

This week on Magic Tonight

This weekend, my special guest on the show is none other than the adorable Ben Train. Most of the time, Ben is a creator of magic (which is the phrase magicians use to excuse the fact that they spend a lot of time alone in a room playing with cards wearing their pyjamas) and the director of Five Academy, which produces resources for magicians to learn new tricks and generally amuse themselves online. Ben has been on the show many times. Recently, he hosted the show when I performed along with Phil Pivnick. There, he gave me what is quite possibly the worst introduction possible. I had to work a little bit to convince the audience that I was not some mysterious psychotic serial rapist (which is really hard when you're performing a magic act with rope, duct tape and a stuffed rainbow unicorn!) So for those curious to see how I plan to get back at Ben this weekend, come join us.

Magic Tonight is continuing every Sunday through the Summer. Readers of this blog can use the code reality for a discount on the price of tickets and dinner when purchasing online.

July 5 Ben Train

Norman Beck lecture in Toronto

On a very wet and rainy in Toronto, filled street construction and Pride celebrations in nearly equal amounts, we hosted a lecture with Texas' Norman Beck. For those not familiar with his work, Norman is essentially cleverness personified. We arrived too early to set up for the lecture and went to lunch and he made sure that I was pre-fooled. He performs what is apparently very clear cut and straightforward magic, but what's going on behind the scenes is not at all what you'd expect. Subtlety and general sneakiness can sometimes go farther than fancy sleight of hand.

As a bonus he slipped in his secrets for getting better restaurant service and nabbing free room and seat upgrades. Useful wisdom indeed!

Special thanks to Magicana and Julie Eng for helping us to organize this event.

She's at it again - Lavender Blonde being generally NSFW

If you came to see my show last year, The Uncertainty Project, you'll remember being shocked by the opening with Lavender Blonde and her barely dressed backup dancers. To kick off the Pride festivities downtown I went to the Gaga4Gaga party at the Marquis of Granby on Church Street. Mostly because I knew Lavender would be performing. New material (which is totally NSFW):

Because of the audio in the background, they videos may not play on a platform that doesn't display ads (like phones).

I woke up Saturday morning with a bit of a sore throat which means that I probably sang along far more than I'd be willing to publicly admit.

Last week on Magic Tonight

What wonderful audiences we had at the show. Things were certainly feeling festive as the GTA got into the spirit for Pride. Sunday in particular was an extra-fabulous rendition of the show. Although it was raining through most of the day, it didn't make things any less festive. There is a bit of backstory. A few months ago, one of the servers at the Crimson Lounge where we host Magic Tonight in Toronto, fixed me with a steely glare and warned me that when Pride rolled around, i was not going to get away without some serious sparkles and glitter. Of course, you don't really have to ask me twice, but I figured I'd play hard to get just for the sport of it.

And the incredibly tall (and I suppose honorarily fabulous) Brian Roberts did a fantastic bit of classic magic-ing at the Franklin House in Mississauga.

If you haven't been out to see the show in a while. Take a look at what you missed. Magic Tonight continues every Sunday through the summer at the Crimson Lounge in Toronto. Readers of this blog can use the code reality for a discount on the price of tickets and dinner when purchasing online.

My interview with HOWL Magazine

HOWL Magazine just posted a short interview I did with them earlier this month. Check it out -

HOWL is a new non-profit print, video, and online queer arts and culture magazine based in Toronto. The interview was shot at The Cage 292 in Toronto where we host Magic Tonight every weekend. Readers of this blog can use the code reality for a discount on the price of tickets and dinner when purchasing online.

HOWL Magazine logo