Photos from Magic & Martini Featuring The Evasons

Last night's sold out Magic & Martini was an unbelievable treat for me. One of the most rewarding things in this industry is collaborating with other performers. For two and a half years, I had that chance every week when I was hosting Magic Tonight. But there was one act that was never able to perform on the show.

The Evasons, while originally Canadian, perform now almost exclusively in the US. And since Magic Tonight wrapped, Magic & Martini has been a solo endeavour. But the opportunity presented itself and I couldn't resist, so last night's show featured a brief interlude from the world's foremost mentalist duo. (Which was a total surprise to most of the ticket buyers since we only decided to do this on Wednesday!)

Jeff & Tessa Evason

They are unquestionably the top in their field, if not in the world then at least in the English-speaking world.) There's something that happens when your name becomes synonymous with what you do. The way you reach for a Kleenex and you don't "search" for things on the internet, you Google them. Among magic-folk, what was — once up on a time — "Second Sight" is now just known as "The thing the Evasons do."

Thank you to everyone who attended the show. Here are a few photos from the night from Tyler Sol Williams. 

We have some dates with space still in August. Readers can use the code olive for a discount on the price of tickets when booking online. 

Close-Up magic at the Lockhart

This Tuesday night, I'm doing a table-side magic in Downtown Toronto at an incredible magic-themed 

Tuesday, July 25 starting at 7:00 PM
at The Lockhart (1479 Dundas St. W.)

It's free to get in and you get to enjoy their menu. If you're in the area, come by and see some magic.

 

Magic & Martini featuring The Evasons

This Saturday, July 22, at SpiritHouse in Toronto, we're having a very special Magic & Martini. I'll be joined by two special guests The Evasons.

Jeff & Tessa Evason

Jeff and Tessa Evason are the world's premiere mind reading duo. Having seen them work their magic live, that's a title that doesn't even begin to do them justice. Their abilities will leave your minds blown and your gasts flabbered. 

They work primarily in the United States now, but are originally from Canada. My entire life in magic I came up hearing about what they could do and it always sounded too good to be true. (Then I saw them live and they surpassed the hype.)

Magic & Martini doesn't normally feature guests a special opportunity presented itself, and I couldn't turn down the honour. This is truly a one-night-only opportunity that will never come again. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it!

If you don't now who the Evasons are, you can take a look at their appearance last year on Penn & Teller: Fool Us. The non-silent one declared their performance "Just Breathtaking!"

There are a very limited number of seats remaining,
so reserve your seats now:

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The show is at SpiritHouse, located in downtown Toronto at the corner of Adelaide and Portland. Before the show, you have a chance to sit down and explore their amazing cocktail menu

 

And if you're managed to read this far, use the code secrets when booking your tickets for an discount!

Adam West Memorial

There were some people who simply knew how not to take themselves too seriously! I remember watching the 1960s Batman too young to know that it was intended to be silly.

Photos from Magic & Martini in Toronto

Last night, we had a fantastic sold out Magic & Martini at SpiritHouse in downtown Toronto. Thank you to everyone who attended. The energy in the room was truly electric.

Next weekend, we have a private event so there will be no show, but join us for our next performance in Toronto n July 22. Readers can use the discount code secrets to save on tickets purchased online. 

If you missed it, here are some photos from the show from Tyler Sol Williams.

To Mecca by way of Hamilton

Last night, I had the chance to see David Blaine (in concert?) in Hamilton. I've always had a tremendous amount of respect for David, although being tightly entwined with the magic community, there has always been a thing that the cool kids do of criticizing those performers who are immensely more successful than they are, usually for totally arbitrary reasons.

But twenty years ago, his first TV special, Street Magic, redefined close-up magic for the twenty-first century. Through my work with Magicana, I built an online video archive called the Screening Room. The centrepiece of that archive is over thirty hours of footage from an Canadian TV magic series called The Magic Palace where many of the best known magicians of the 1970s appeared as guests. At the moment, I believe I'm still the only person who has watched all of the footage and it's performed in a particular style, appropriate to its time. Now, close-up magic looks nothing like that and I believe that's largely due to David's influence. 

An entire generation took his specials as the model for how magic needed to be done (whether they understood what he was doing or not.) So of someone under the age of 35 now tries to show you a piece of close-up magic, chances are they are "doing" David Blaine for you. 

Now, full disclosure, many of us bought tickets to the show expecting to be disappointed. He is, after all, a close-up performer, and this was a theatre of over a thousand seats. There was some serious skepticism as to whether or not he could pull it off. Either, the show would just be too small, or in order to do larger pieces, he would have to have to present Vegas-style grand illusions which would just ring false. 

Instead of disappointment, we got a religious experience. (And for me that's saying something!) Since the tour continues, I should avoid spoiling things. Although if you have seen the TV specials, you will recognize large parts of the show. Perhaps parts of the show which you thought could only be performed in the extremely controlled conditions of a television shoot, where you can re-shoot and edit to your heart's content. Those people will find out very quickly that David is, in multiple ways, the real deal.

Half way through holding his breath under water.

This is the only part of the performance where photography was permitted. One of the things that made this evening astonishing was the tremendous sense of calm, stillness and focus that he brings to the stage. Anything and everything he does becomes enrapturing and you find yourself unable to do anything but sit there and watch what he's doing. Even when what he's doing is nothing. I've heard people say they would buy a ticket to go listen to James Spader read a phone book. You could buy a ticket to watch David Blaine just stand there. 

That counter shows five minutes and one second. He did make it slightly past the ten-minute mark. There was a very strange tension in the room. It was, I believe, that the entire room knew they were about to give him a standing ovation, but were waiting for permission to do so. While he was deprived of oxygen, the audience was being deprived of its ability to react. And, as can clearly be seen, part of it was probably the unwillingness to put down the phones. 

Perhaps the sea of lights, is the new standing O. (Unfortunate that it's practically invisible to the performer on stage. 

The other magic trick of the night... thank you Hamilton