Canada's Magic Reader's Choice Award

Some mysterious stranger has nominated me for the Canada’s Magic 2018 Readers Choice Awards

“In the past year he’s helped numerous performers make their acts better, has participated in leadership roles on several major magic projects (including Toronto Magic Company, Ring 17 Hat and Rabbit, Magicana, etc). He’s lectured on his original magic, he’s supported the community...

I could keep going on.”

The criteria are delightfully vague:

“You may nominate living Canadian Magician(s) of your choosing by leaving their name along with a short note about how they inspired you in 2018…  

This is a "bragging rights" only contest.  There is no cash value for this award.”

I’m nominated along with some other wonderful magicians and friends including (in alphabetical order) Jonah Babins, Ryan Brown, Jeff Christensen, Greg Frewin, Carisa Hendrix, Mike Segal and Kent Wong. So, happy to be nominated and I hope I can count on your vote, dearest reader.

Strange and Unusual

My friend Nicholas Wallace will be appearing in Toronto in January as part of the Next Stage Theatre Festival with his show Strange and Unusual.

Back when we were hosting Magic Tonight, Nick was one of our most requested guests (certainly the creepiest guest), and earlier this year he received the Allan Slaight Award for Canadian Rising Star in Magic.

Unfortunately, Nick lives rather far away, out in that mysterious void on the other side of Hamilton, so getting a chance to see him perform in Toronto is rare. But he’s here for five nights at the Factory Theatre and there is an early bird discount up until this Friday, December 7. Just use the promo code EARLY BIRD (with the space) at checkout. The show is definitely worth seeing!

 

Factory Theatre

The Show Before the Snow

I’ll be making one last public appearance before the end of the year. The Toronto Magic Company is putting on a free event at See Scape, The Show Before the Snow. I’ll be appearing along with nine or ten other magicians and free food has been promised.

The show is free to attend, but there is limited space, so you can reserve tickets at the link below.

 

The Show Before The Snow

Tuesday, December 4, 2018
8:00 PM

See Scape
347 Keele Street (@Dundas)

The Art of Magic

A last-minute public appearance. I’ll be appearing on The Art of Magic along with Ben Train, Jonah Babins and The Sentamentalists. This is the fifth show in the series and all of the previous shows have sold out. So if you’re in Toronto, please join us for a night of magic & mindreading.

 

The Endless Chain

On Tuesday night, I gave an impromptu performance at The Newest Trick In The Book, put on by the Toronto Magic Company and hosted by the charming Jonah Babins. I had just come from another event and had been asked to step in for another performer who couldn’t make it. You can see photos from the event from David Fulde here).

Toronto’s magic video elf Chris Mayhew shared the video of that performance:

The Endless Chain is an old crooked gambling game. As Whit Hayden and Chef Anton described in their monograph on the subject, the most difficult thing to do while presenting the Chain is to convince people that it’s actually possible to win.

Normally it’s presented as a piece of close-up magic (and you can imagine it would be much clearer if you could be sitting around watching the chain from above). But from the composition of the rest of the show, which was heavy on card magic, I opted to switch to this, literally on the walk up as I was being introduced. But it felt true to the rules of the Newest Trick as it’s something I’ve never performed in that setting before.

Black Friday

Black Friday is upon us. We don’t have any more shows left in 2018 with tickets still available, but if you would like the first crack at tickets for 2019, we have opened up tickets for Suite 114 Toronto for:

Saturday, January 12
Saturday, January 26
Saturday, February 6
Saturday, February 16
Saturday, February 23

Readers can use the code blackfriday and get 60% off tickets purchased online. (Valid until the end of Monday.)

Design by Kurt Firla