I’ve just finished a very busy weekend of close-up magic performances.
I’ve been to Nottingham University, RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, Combe Abbey near Coventry, Alton Towers and Henley in Arden near Redditch.
It’s a lot of traveling, even if they were spread over four days, but I was lucky with the roads and weather. Besides, it’s good to be a busy magician isn’t it?!
I just thought I’d share this magic video of Cardini. I’ve seen a few short clips on YouTube and the like, but this is a long clip of almost his entire manipulation act. In fact it may well be the only footage of Cardini as TV magic shows only started towards the end of his career.
Magicians are as guilty as any of harking back to the ‘good old times’ and viewing the past with rose-tinted specs, but with Cardini, it is entirely justified.
Cardini was not only technically gifted (he was able to perform card manipulations while wearing gloves) but his act was also theatrical - he didn’t just stand there and do clever stuff, which is basically juggling. Not that there’s anything wrong with juggling, it just isn’t magic. He plays the part of a slightly tipsy gentleman, who appears as confused and surprised about the cigarettes appearing at his fingertips as the audience.
Anyway, have a look and enjoy a true master at work.
There’s a bit more about Cardini on Wikipedia.
Every now and then, I am reminded why being a magician is such a great job.
Just like any job, it can have it’s ups and downs. The traveling can be arduous, things go wrong and even performing can lose it’s buzz after a gig every night for a week.
A wedding at the weekend reminded me why I do it. I was performing close-up magic, walking about performing in the hands magic during the photographs and then table magic during the meal.
The wedding breakfast began and I timed it so I could perform for the top table after the main course was finished.
From the start of my set, everything went perfectly. There were no interruptions to spoil the flow, nothing went wrong, the table reacted brilliantly in all the right places and, most unbelievably, laughed at all my jokes.
It is rare when performing close-up magic in a real world situation that this happens. Sometimes the magic doesn’t work as smoothly as it should (although usually the audience is not aware of it), or the wait staff need to get to the table, or something happens in the room that distracts the audience, but not during this 10 minutes.
The climax of my routine was the ‘Congratulations Card’, an effect where the Bride and Groom choose a card between them, simply naming any card in the deck.
When they turned it over to reveal it was the only red backed card in the deck and the only one with a sticker on it that said ‘Congratulations on your Wedding’, the whole table gave the best reaction I think you can receive as a magician - the disbelieving gasp and sharp intake of breath. This turned into laughs and applause and at that moment, I actually felt a shiver run down my spine.
It’s my job to give people moments like that, hopefully making their day even more special, but it’s also fantastic that I get to share it with them.
Someone emailed me today to offer me a number plate, one of the more unusual unsolicited email offers that I’ve received.
The plate was WI3ARD, which I suppose you could read as wizard. I said no thanks.
An interesting idea for a magician, although there is nothing else on my car to suggest that’s what I am, apart from the top hat and bunny rabbit on the parcel shelf, so it would be meaningless to most people.
Plus they would probably think what I think when I see a personalised number plate written to almost look like a word… what a **&%^$%!
By the way, the top hat and bunny rabbit was a joke.
At the weekend, I was booked to perform close-up magic at a wedding held in a rather nice country house hotel near Loughborough.
As normal, I went to introduce myself to the hotel wedding coordinator and find out what the plan for the afternoon was. I got as far as “Hi, I’m Dan the magician…” before I was told in no uncertain terms that I was not to perform the “trick where a card ends up on the ceiling…if you do you’ll be charged to clear it up…”
It turned out that a couple of magicians who had been there previously had performed this effect and it then cost the hotel £100 each time to remove the cards and repair the ceiling!
It sounds as though they had performed it using some kind of glue rather than the method using a drawing pin. When I could get a word in I explained that none of the card magic I was performing involved ceilings, glue or damage.
It’s strange how people tend to assume all magicians perform the same tricks. Maybe it’s because a lot do?