Fun at home and a Vaudeville trick

The Physics Girl, Diana, has a rush challenge of performing 20 at-home physics experiments for bored kids and parents in a 5-minute time limit. Of course, the time limit is optional so take as much fun and try as many as you like. (Some fire is included and grownup supervision is recommended.)

At the very end, I was delighted to see the “Eggs and Glasses” which is just a demonstration of inertia, but used to be part of the stage performances of a Vaudeville magician, Emil Jarrow (1876-1958). A few years ago, I was working on a video archiving project for The Screening Room and came across the master French comedy magician Gaëtan Bloom performing the same stunt on Spanish TV.

It’s a simple thing you can try at home. There’s no secret to it beyond what’s demonstrated in the clip. But if you don’t commit to it, you can have an awful mess to clean up.

Social Distancing: Indulgence

With all of the social distancing, my Canadian magic colleague, Carisa Hendrix, has given us all a little something to indulge in… Literally!

She took a full performance of her show Indulgence, performed at the Chicago Magic Lounge in the loveable guise of Lucy Darling… a delightfully vivacious character that needs to be seen to be believed.

I suppose a small parental advisory is in order, but there are some naughty words and copious amounts of alcohol… no really. I had a show called Magic & Martini for three years and I never even came close to this!

So as my colleague Jamy Ian Swiss was fond of saying, put away the smart phone, expand the browser and INDULGE!

Rencontre avec un magicien

I was recently invited to appear on "L’heure de pointe”, a CBC Radio Canada program, to talk about magic goings on in the city of Toronto. (Apparently I speak French… who knew?)

In particular Illusions: The Art of Magic currently open at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The Allan Slaight Collection of Magic Posters is currently on display through the middle of May. (Or at least part of the collection… the exhibit is on loan from the McCord Museum in Montreal where the full collection lives.) These are stunning images produced to advertise magic shows in what we call the “Golden Age” (1880-1930 give or take). They were produced by an incredible colour printing technology on an unbelievable scale — many of the posters on display are larger than a person.

On top of the posters themselves magicians with the Toronto Magic Company (of whom I am one) are performing daily in the gallery from 2:00 - 4:00 PM and also evening performances 6:00 - 8:00 PM on Wednesdays and Fridays.

We also talked about some other Toronto goings on including the monthly “Newest Trick in the Book” and a secret little magicians get together known as “Alakajam”

A Lucky Discovery

Sometimes in my show I reveal the truth about my past, before I was a professional magician, I was at the University of Toronto studying math. Not the fast track to popularity you think it might be, but it teaches you some powerful techniques for problem solving.

I made this lucky discovery when I found out that the most recent (2019) Christmas Lectures at the Royal Institution were presented by Hannah Fry. Hannah is a math — or since this is the UK, I will be respectful and switch to saying maths — communicator and an associate professor at University College London. The Christmas Lectures is cultural institution in the UK started by Michael Faraday (the person who essentially discovered electricity) back in 1825. The program is designed to bring science to a family audience.

I was checking out one of the lectures, which is all about probability, and luck. Everything is presented in the most interactive and visual way possible, and they did a fantastic job. It’s a talk about maths with no blackboard and no formulas. She discusses real problems like “What does it mean when it says there is a 20% chance of rain tomorrow?” and also the problem of false positives in medical screenings. I particularly enjoyed her treatment of the paradoxical “prisoner’s dilemma” from game theory.

But the best part is, she opens with a magic trick!

Not just any magic trick, but it’s a Canadian magic trick, and an old one at that. Her opening piece (which involves a small amount danger — trigger warning) is a giant version of something created by Canadian magician Stewart James. It appeared in a magic magazine in 1926 under the title “A Match for Gravity”. She does an oversize version then repeats with a smaller version with a teacup. The original used a paper match and a pocket watch… but even at the Royal Institution, I doubt there were any children there she could have borrowed a pocket watch from.

Stewart is widely regarded as one of the most creative magicians who ever lived. He was particularly fascinated by mathematical principles, but also created a number of curious pieces that were far more physical in nature, like this one. He was a magician as a hobbyist, working for most of his life as a postal worker in his native town of Courtright, Ontario. His work was collected in the three giant volumes shown below:

Author Allan Slaight holding three very heavy books containing the collected secrets of Stewart James

As if the world were not yet full enough of strange coincidences, this photo currently appears on the wall of the Art Gallery of Ontario as the “Allan Slaight Collection of Magic Posters” is currently on display in an exhibition called Illusions: The Art of Magic.

Also prominently featured in the lecture is another maths communicator Matt Parker, who created what is possibly the best-titled event ever: “The Festival of the Spoken Nerd.” ‘Nough said.

Google has a bit of Chamber Magic

Steve Cohen is “The Millionaire’s Magician”. He has presented a show in New York City called “Chamber Magic” now for over twenty years. (Mayor Bill DeBlassio even once declared a “Magic Day” in its honour.

Google often invites authors and other artists to speak or preform for their staff - activities in stimulating creativity and broadening horizons - and generously shares them with the world tthrough the e”Talks at Google” series.

Here Steve Cohen does a combination performance, then a sit down chat with his co-producer, Mark Levy with some interesting insights about magic, its performance and its history.

Extra, Extra, Read All About It

I was recently honoured to be invited to write the cover story for the February issue of Vanish Magazine.

It’s a profile of two Toronto based performers and friends The Sentimentalists. They began performing together in 2015. I actually have photos from one of their earliest performances on my old show Magic Tonight which ran from 2013-2016 in Toronto. The pair is made up of Steffi Kay and Mysterion the Mindreader.

ca. 2016 - Photo by Ahmed Alexander

Recently they’ve been taking the world by storm with appearances on Penn & Teller: Fool Us and America’s Got Talent and at the world famous Magic Castle in Hollywood. The article talks about how they met and began performing together and how they became a magical odd couple.

Vanish Magazine is a free electronic publication with tens of thousands of subscribers. The full issue is available online, with the article beginning on page 8.