magic is about honesty
everything here is true
except for the bits I made up
The trailer for a new short documentary about magic in Toronto, and in particular our local secret magic shop, the Browser’s Den of Magic, has just been released.
In order of appearance: Mark Lewis, The Sentimentalists (Mysterion & Steffi Kay), Ryan Murray, Mark Correia, John Talbot, Jim Byrnes, Wij, me, Jacqueline Swan, Ahmed Alexander, Mike Segal, Kevin Rusli, Jeff Hinchliffe, Patrick Nemeth, Ben Train. Produced by Paul Steinberg.
Photo by Tyler Sol Williams
For the moment it looks like we are taking a break from in person live entertainment. But that doesn’t mean the magic has to stop. For everyone who is isolating and social distancing at home, we have put together a virtual magic program using the free video chat software ZOOM to bring the magic to you.
Unlike most live-streamed entertainment, this is a personalized interactive experience just for you and the family and friends you want to invite. No leaving comments or muting your microphone. You get to be part of the magic all the way through.
Or if you’d just like something to watch and enjoy, here is a full performance of my show, Magic & Martini, filmed with a live audience at Suite 114 in Toronto in November of 2018. We will leave the video up to enjoy as long as social distancing guidelines are in effect.
Produced by Chris Mayhew. Special thanks to Carisa Hendrix (aka Lucy Darling) for giving us the idea!
This morning I received this incredible notice from David Ben, the Artistic Director at Magicana. In this time of uncertainty, many industries have been put on hold and this is a reassuring light to brighten the day of many magicians in the country:
“And just like that, the Canadian magic industry has vanished.
In response to difficult and devastating times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for magicians who work in the gig economy, the Slaight Family Foundation has pledged to help.
To contribute during these trying times, the Foundation has established the Allan Slaight Relief Fund of $150,000 to help defray cost-of-living expenses incurred by professional Canadian magicians. The Slaight Family Foundation has partnered with Magicana to administer the payment of funds to applicants who meet eligibility.
The relief fund was initiated to help with monthly household costs, such as telephone, utility and grocery bills, up to a maximum of $500 per application. Because of the uncertainty of how long we must maintain strict social distancing, applicants can reapply for assistance thirty days after receiving a prior payment, until the fund is depleted.
If you are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, living in Canada, working as a full-time professional in magic with at least three years of experience, you are eligible for funding assistance.
We understand that many magicians are semi-professionals. We would, however, ask that applications at this time be reserved for those who rely on magic as their sole source of income.”
Speaking from personal experience, the Slaight Family have been unwavering supporters of both healthcare and the arts. For me in particular, that intersection of interests led to an extended opportunity to teach magic workshops for children in hospital and rehabilitation settings with a program called My Magic Hands which was fully funded by the Slaight Family. So reading this announcement, I found my self at the same time deeply moved and also entirely unsurprised.
The months ahead are going to be very difficult for the field. Even as some of the social distancing restrictions begin to relax, large gatherings of people are going to take much longer to return. In particular, anything where people are asked to sit together in rows of seats in close proximity will be off the menu for a while.
Even though most magicians are not pickpockets who are sneakily grabbing your wrist to remove your watch, the heart of magic is its interactive nature. The audience is an integral part of the show. “Examine this.” “Take this card.” “Squeeze this in your hand.”
Close-up magic, which I did a fair amount of, is about creating personalized experiences for small groups of people; maybe even one person. And then you repeat the process sharing the same tiny miracle to new groups of people over and over again, possibly for years. Needless to say, that doesn’t translate well to video online. Not only do you not get to experience what’s going on first hand — there are multiple layers of glass in the way, the camera and your own screen — but it also only needs to exist once and then it’s there online forever.
So live magic will be scarce and possibly a bit weird for the next year. I don’t mean to say it will be changed forever. All signs are pointing towards being able to develop and deploy a vaccine which would render this much more analogous to the seasonal flu and life will start to look more like what we think of as “normal”.
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.
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!
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”
