Bring Magic Home Friday Nights

It’s been a while, but we’re thrilled to announce a new weekly show, this time happening virtually. While my last long-running show, Magic & Martini, was all about getting all fancy dressed up, this new show is meant to be enjoyed curled up on the couch with a snack, and possibly with a cat jumping up and upstaging me… we’ll see.

The shows will take place every Friday night (minus Xmas Day and New Years Day). To accommodate for the fact that we’re virtual, there will be two separate performances at 8PM Easter and 8PM Pacific, although you can reserve for whichever show is more convenient for you no matter where in the world you are.

Design by Kurt Firla

This is a brand new show, with a mixture of close-up magic (that you can now see up close on screen from thousands of miles away) and interactive magic where I play with you, your mind and possibly even cause strange things to happen in your own home. The shows have been a tremendous amount of fun so far and we hope you’ll come and enjoy them as well.

We’re starting this week and tickets are now available. Readers can use the code secrets for a little bit of a discount.

Fundraising Update

It’s nice these days to be able to post good news!

Just writing briefly to share that the virtual fundraiser show that I hosted last week, Conjuring for a Cure supporting the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, has passed its goal of $5,000 and is now sitting at over $7,000. Thank you so much to everyone who tuned in to watch the show and everyone who donated.

The show is still up a little longer if you’d like to go and watch (use the chapters to skip past the countdown clock at the beginning). And if you feel like it, it’s never too late to donate.

The show was put on by the Sid Lorraine Hat & Rabbit Club and featured over a dozen magicians performing from Toronto and around the world. Additional video jiggery pokery by Chris Mayhew.

Conjuring for a Cure Virtual Fundraiser

Last night, I got to host Conjuring for a Cure, a virtual fundraiser put on by the Hat & Rabbit Club of Toronto raising money for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation.

In the end, twenty magicians from age two-and-a-half to age ninety-six teamed up to share magic virtually safely from home. While we were in the middle of planning earlier in the fall, they instituted stricter safety measures (ending indoor dining, limiting gathering size) and everything online is so different, so we didn’t know how things would go and we set a very modest goal of $500.

We ended the evening at over $5,500 and people to continue to see the archived broadcast and donate.

I want to thank all of the magicians who donated their time: Jonah Babins, David Ben, Ian Crawford, Matt DiSero, Shawn Farquhar, Gerry Frenette, Robert Herd, Lulu Lin, Patrick Nemeth, Marty Papernick, David Peck, Jeff Pinsky, Gordon Precious, Khanya Rubushe, Ari Soroka, Ben Train, Glenn West, “Brookalini” Westfall, Mark Wicken, Andrew Woo.

You can still watch the show for the next ten days here:

And of course donations are still being accepted.

Virtual Experiences with AirBnB

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve teamed up to deliver a magical virtual experience with AirBnB. Now instead of staying at someone else’s home, you get to bring the magic home to your own

The program is designed to give smaller group a chance to reconnect online and participate in a new and fun activity. (After all, virtual magic didn’t even exist before the spring!) Multiple households can join in from anywhere in the world, but it’s still a private event, limited to just the people you invite. Spots are available now, on a first-come, first-served basis.

It started out weird, but over the past few months, we’ve been having a tremendous amount of fun performing for audiences virtually. The shows are fully live and interactive. Instead of tuning into a livestream, you get to keep your microphone on and participate the whole way through. This is especially true when we do virtual get-togethers for smaller groups of family and friends.

Feel free to take advantage of this opportunity to Bring Magic Home, or contact us if you have any questions.

Conjuring for a Cure

This Thursday, I’ll be hosting a an online show raising money for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation. Fifteen other magicians will be sharing magic virtually from home hoping to make cancer disappear.

We currently accepting donations and have already raised over $800. If you have a moment to make a donation — any amount you think is acceptable — it would be greatly appreciated.

You can bookmark the video below and watch live along with us, Thursday, December 3 at 8PM Eastern.

The show is being put on by the Sid Lorraine Hat & Rabbit Club, a secret club for magicians that’s been around since 1942. We have been meeting online on Zoom since the start of the pandemic and wanted to have a bit of fun this holiday season even though we can’t get together in person.

Is That Your Card: The Math Behind It

If you’ve seen at least one card trick in your life, you’ve probably seen this one. You pick out a card, put it back magicians rummages through the deck, pulls out a card, exclaims, “Is this your card?” That one.

When I was younger, I studied math at the University of Toronto and so I loved this explanation by UK math teacher, author and comedian, Matt Parker about the math behind about guessing what card someone chose. Because as it turns out that with just about everything to do with probability and statistics, that our intuitions are almost always wrong. And not just a little bit wrong, but wrong by a lot.

Now of course no sensible magician would do this trick by guessing. There has to be something else going on. But they might pretend they were guessing for dramatic effect. You never can trust those magicians.