Discourse in Magic

In this Episode we got to sit down with the one and only Shawn Farquhar to talk about how to fool Penn and Teller, or win a contest like FISM, twice! If you haven’t had the opportunity to see any of Shawn’s recent fooling videos you can check them out here: In our episode we walk through both of his Fool Us performances, and how he did it. Since we’re catching him right on the front end of his second Fool Us performance going viral, we chatted quite a bit about the experience. If you want the inside scoop on how Penn and Teller act backstage after they were fooled Shawn goes into great detail about it in the episode. It turns out that Shawn was more into putting on good TV then he was about fooling them – But it looks like he did both! Then we trace further back in time to his two gold medals at FISM, and why it took some silver medals along the road to get there. The secrets to both fooling Penn and Teller, and winning FISM turns out to be the same: know your audience. For Penn and Teller, the secret is to play on their knowledge of magic, and for FISM – just play by the rules. Through Shawn’s stories we dive into how he selects songs to go with his routines, and my favourite part is a long list of watch stealing stories that either went horribly wrong or horribly right. If you are interested in Shawn you can usually find him on a cruise ship, or… lets be honest, at an airport. Or, if you want to find him online check out his store Palmer Magic Or check out his personal website and follow him on any and all of the social medias Contact Website Facebook Instagram Twitter   As always please let us know what you think of the episode in the comments below

In this episode we packed up our bags and travelled to Toronto (hehe) to our good friend Bobby Motta’s house. If you know anything about Bobby, you know that he is one of Toronto’s Top Mentalist and is a very very bright guy. In the episode we chat about some of the differences between magic and mentalism, and why Bobby chose mentalism over magic in the end. If you’ve ever seen one of Bobby’s shows (and you should), you would know that he has found his niche. One of the things we chat about in this episode is the relationship between mentalism and science, and truth/ honestly (a la Ben Train’s episode). Bobby’s view is much less concerned with negatively affecting the audience. Since they are there for a performance, under the umbrella of theatre, he includes a disclaimer. If people believe what he’s saying he doesn’t worry so much about it. When we chat about science he tells us a story, that I think is very relatable about his performance for some people at LifeLabs. I think that it helps illuminate that especially with mentalism, not everyone views it the same way. Not everyone is going to believe the mumbo jumbo that we’re saying and THATS OKAY. As Bobby says: “As long as they leave feeling something” you’ve done your job. And I think a great view. I think it’s a nice idea to make everyone feel something similar, but if it’s not possible, making sure that everybody feels something, and leaves the show thinking about it, and not thinking about what meal they’re about to eat, then you did your job. On the note of Bobby Motta, this month (AUGUST) we have a simple simple simple contest. If you Tweet at us you can win a copy of Bobby Motta and Peter Mckinnon’s Blackmail. Take a look below:   If you’re from Toronto Bobby has a show at Dave and Busters on Friday and Saturday Nights called Grey Matter that is worth checking out! Contact Website Twitter Instagram Facebook  

In this Episode we sit down with our good friend Scott Hammel to talk about stunts. Scotty is a motivational speaker who uses magic and stunts as a tool to help deliver his message. We wanted to chat with him about a lot of the “Why and How’s” of stunt work, to better understand the niche that he’s found himself in. Scotty has a massive range of stunts under his belt, from escaping from a straight jacket hanging upside-down from a hot air balloon, to catching a bullet being shot at him. While I could describe them to you below I have attached a few videos from his youtube channel so you can see what he’s all about Like here where he juggles live foireworks   Or here: where he jumps out of an airplane blindfolded and handcuffed   We think that Scotty is an inspiration, and a great friend. In the episode he doesn’t reference any resources, so we don’t have much more to add on this page. Please check out his Youtube Channel, he has a ton of great material. As well the stunt he’s talking about at the end of the episode is coming up soon, so stay tuned for that announcement and how to keep up to date with the wonderful things he’s up to! Contact Twitter Instagram Youtube Website

In this episode we got an opportunity to sit down with our friends at Art of Magic: Dave (of Dan and Dave), and Elliott Terral. It was a very insightful conversation about art, and how it applies to the world of cardisrty and the world of magic, and how they are evolving right now and in the future. At the start, we spoke about the launch and purpose behind Art of Magic. Of course we had to dive a little bit into the Dan and Dave story to find out why the separation and deviation from the classic Dan and Dave brand. Dave explained that there wasn’t as much room to grow when it was all under the same roof, but now that they have separated magic and cardistry (as well as puzzles and games) each individual brand has the space to really hone an idea. The goal of Art of Magic is a curated resource for people to trace the journey through magic, and inspire them to make it more artistic. They have created just that. The design and organization of the site make it look and feel top notch, a real beauty to explore, but the separation of websites has allowed home pages and banner photos of this website to not be more playing cards, and more cardistry, which is visually appealing, but detracting from magic. We touch on the fact that with the creation of things like this, people coming into magic are very lucky to have a world of incredibly curated magic at their fingertips, instead of when we were kids, scrolling youtube, watching VHS tapes, or buying doohickeys and tiddlywinks and the magic store. Then, we dive into the world of cardistry, which is very exciting for us, since we aren’t cardists, but we are of course blown away by what they do. The world of cardistry is exploding right now. There’s development in style where people are creating their own design and style, like isolations or #carddestroy. More specifically we chat about the personal styles, music choices and gear of cardists. How it’s representative of the rebellion movement given the age range, and for us, it reminds us of the breakdancing movement. But most importantly it is real self expression, between the recording of it, editing, music selection, deck choice, personal style, and that’s not even talking about the cardistry. Maybe instead of the next dance movie STEP UP 17, where someone makes it against all odds by dancing, we have the underground cardistry world, and people making it big, by flipping cards around their fingers at underground competitions. Since the art is in such an evolutionary phase, there are more and more creations happening each day, and as they both explain, its such a unique form of self expression because unlike magic, there isn’t really a goal in mind, it is, once again just like dance. Finally we dig into the age old question “is magic art?”. As one can imagine we bring up other art forms like painting, and elliot brings up a beautiful comparison between if all paintings are art, and why or why not. You really do have to listen to understand the details of their points. Nothing new in the discussion of the art, but definitely something unique given their position, perspective, and closeness to cardisty. We super enjoyed the interview, and if you are interested in their new(ish) website and project Art of Magic, I super recommend checking it out! As well if you are interested in some of the best designer decks in the world as well as some puzzles I would recommend checking out Art of Play, to see what they have to offer

In this Episode Mark talks about his approach to magic, and comedy from the perspective from an actor, and an expert in theatre. We hear the beginning of his story, where he used to perform in class, and regularly visit Browsers Den to buy tricks for the following week, and it starts to all make sense. In the intro and outro we spoke about marks viral video about Pokemon Go, which exploded yesterday. We totally recommend checking you out, if you haven’t (we know you have already though). Of course, we know Mark from Sorcerers Safari Magic camp, where we’ve known each other through our teens, and some of our growth in magic. That being said, he’s the funniest person we’ve ever seen on stage, and he’s pretty funny offstage too (as you can tell in the episode). His approach to magic is very different. We spoke about the idea of storytelling in magic. He gave some great advice about making the story more present, and setting stakes on the night. With that, we come to an idea which we’ve spoken about very often at discourse in magic. The idea, that an obviously fictional premise allows the audience to want to enjoy it, and believe it, just as someone would do with theatre. Of course an important point that Mark shared is that the story on stage needs to be compelling, and an entertaining story, which is unfolding live. Since Mark comes from an acting background, he recommends taking acting classes. As he explains it, it can’t hurt, it can only help. He is absolutely right! We jump into the conversation of using hack lines, and non sequiturs. We want a full show, and to interrupt it with abrupt comedy comes out of nowhere. Even if it ends up funny, there’s a better chance they will remember your comedy if it is pertinent to your show, and not out of the blue. His advice for inspiration isn’t to watch comedic magicians, but instead to watch funny people. Funny movies, comedians, or anything like that to help inspire your delivery, without copying others work. When trying to add comedy, his first approach is instead of writing for what other people will like, write what you think will be funny. It’s a much better way to actually find your audience, because if you’re using hack lines, you may grow to resent the lines and tricks that you have. We then chat about the importance of filming your show, and watching or breaking it down afterwards. It’s common to think that when you’re recording it, the shows are going to go differently. But we recommend knowing that it’s just for you, and that it doesn’t need to be posted on any social media or anywhere. If you record all of your shows, then that will become the norm, and you can study it, breaking it down play by play. He didn’t recommend many specific resources for us to link to, but I think that the advice in the episode is top notch. We thing it’s very well suited for you, if you’re a stage performer, or a performer of any sort. Contact Noodle Boys (Facebook) Website Twitter Instagram  

In this episode of Discourse in Magic we got to sit down with our good friend Rosemary Reid to chat about women in magic. Rosemary has a very reasonable approach to why there aren’t that many women in magic. She expresses that the problems women face in 2016 are the same issues that women face in magic. In addition the hurdles that magicians face, female magicians face as well. Since Rosemary wan’t raised into a family of magicians or anything of that sort she was pulled into magic through the Toronto magic community. Which community? Sorcerers Safari (surprise). It played and still plays a massive role in her (and our) magic lives. Of course as a Toronto magician places like Browsers Den are particularly important for the community as well, and Jeff the owner has been nothing but amazing and encouraging. In 2016, as we discuss in the episode there are more and more women in magic. With names like Raven, Suzanne and Billy Kid, it’s awesome to see the scene exploding, and maybe the availability of these performers as idols and mentors might help the growth in the coming years! But women in magic isn’t new, we learned a ton in this episode from Rosemary about important female magicians that we didn’t k now about. Names like Dell O’Dell, who pioneered magic on television, but often doesn’t get named alongside the greats all that often. At one point in the episode there was a great debate, between Tyler and I. The discussion was one of nature versus nurture. Wether there’s anything unique about men or unique about women that’s creating the divide, or wether it’s relevant to look into it at all. Finally we spoke about the famous trick of cutting a women in half, and it’s origins and I learned a ton! Apparently the trick was performed, and pioneered by P.T. Selbit during the early 1920’s. This is particularly relevant given the timing of the suffrage movement; women getting the right to vote. With information like that one can tell that it’s difficult to separate art from the time period it was created in. Even more so when we found out that he seeks out Christabel Pankhurst, a leader of the movement, and called her out and asked if he could saw her in half.  If you want to learn a little bit more about the subject Jim Steinmier has written at great lengths about the subject. So what do you think? Is there an aspect of magic that is causing more men to be in it than women based on the way men and women are innately, or is it purely societal. Where do you think it’s going? Do you think the percentage of women in magic is growing, or that it’s staying the same as a small percentage? Let us know what you think about any of this in the comments below! Contact Website Instagram

In this episode we sit down with Oscar Munoz to chat about IBM( International Brotherhood of Magicians) , theatre in magic, and how to accept criticism when working together. We were very moved by his involvement and excitement about theatre. It’s nice to be impressed by the effort and attention to detail that magicians give no matter which direction that detail is in. First Oscar spoke quite a bit about his involvement with IBM. Since he’s the incoming president we thought that he would have a ton of information about the organization, but instead we got better. He told us his ideas for the future of the organization and how it needs to be more focused on the involvement of the members. After that we dove into the topic of theatre. Since he knew from a young age that he was going to be a magician he got very involved in theatre, plays, and performing that seems to be a recurring recommendation amongst top magicians. He explains that there is a theatre of stage magic, but also a theatre of close up magic, and we should treat it that way. Since this month is about community we asked him about some of his advice regarding working with others. Immediately he spoke about the idea of letting go of the ego, and being able to accept critique. If we are going to allow ourselves to be in magic competitions and conventions, then we should be getting feedback. And if we want criticism we should be able to take in when it comes. At the end of the episode he snuck in a knowledge bomb about theatre makeup and how important it is, if you’re going to be on stage, since theatre lights dull out your facial expressions. Top notch advice. Contact Website Youtube    

After meeting Simon Black at Motor City magic convention in Michigan and watching and learning his mechanics I was knocked off my socks. But since then, he has really dove into the world of magic theory, specifically Spanish theory in his magic. We chat about some major ideas in the episode, but specifically we touch on wish fulfillment and some parts of thepry which reflect that. In this episode Simon did quite a bit of name dropping of his friends and mentors. Since Simon knows his stuff here are names of some of the top name drops in this episode In terms of mentors he made sure to highlight four people: Asi Wind, Garret Thomas and Alex Pandrea and Tony Chang. But Simon isn’t new to the idea of standing on the shoulders of giants to make his magic theory awesome. He spoke about some other very important magicians Chan Canasta for his work on understanding chance and coincidence. He mentioned the study of  Juan Tamariz‘s book The Magic Way, and of course highlighted the performance of Derek DelGaudio and quite a few others. If you got anything valueable out of this episode leave a comment below telling us what worked for you

In this Episode we sat down with Aaron Fisher and Adam Grace from Conjurer Community to talk all about the student teacher relationship in magic and the blurry lines between them. You’ve heard it before but once again we shoutout the relationship between us and Aaron Fisher which stemmed from Sorcerers Safari Magic Camp. Aaron also explains that the Playground of Sorcerers Safari gave him some ideas of the community aspect of Conjurer Community. We reference some important things that this awesome duo is a part of, starting with Aaron’s book The Paper Engine which is an incredible book on some of the finer details of card magic and theatre, which includes some amazing effects. It was an incredible book in Tyler’s development through magic, and we totally recommend it if you’re a card magic guy, or even just a magic guy. We got to dive into their introduction story, which starts from another great community The Society of American Magicians, which is the thing that brought these two minds together. A telling story of their introduction helps us shine a light on why these two work so well together. Since these guys have been magic teachers and mentors for some time now we spoke to the about how to be a good magic buddy. One of the top pieces of advice from them is to focus on putting yourself in the right space, and focus on being a good friend. Instead of trying to force a relationship with people Aaron and Adam recommend finding a community to get involved in and let the magic friendships follow naturally from that. If you are interested in seeing what Aaron and Adam are doing over at Conjurer Community, please check it out. Contact Feel free to check out either of their respective websites or on social media. Aaron Fisher Website Twitter Adam Grace Website  

Woooooo! ten episodes in, what an exciting episode 10 talking about magicians best friend: playing cards! We hung out with our great friend Lee Asher got a chance to see his collection, and speak about the innovation in playing cards happening right now. Innovation in design, feel, build, look, weight, and other specifics that are getting heard by the factories. The economy of playing cards is promoting innovation and making it much easier for the end users to have their voices heard. If that’s a magician it means that the look of the deck he is performing with can reflect what presentation or performance style suits them. One can imagine that the wants of a flourisher and the wants of a spooky mind reading, tarot card type are completely different. We also get a chance to  speak to Lee a little bit about the Fourniers and why he made thicker cards that he likes. European Paper, Baked instead of finished, right before the crowdfunding era Lee went through the grind of making playing cards before it was cool #hipsterlee.  For us, Fourniers were one of the  first packs of cards that weren’t bicycle cards. They are made to last and they do! We spoke to Lee about the way the market of playing cards works which is sort of like Beanie Babies. There is obviously not a regulated market for these things, but definitely depending on when a pack was made, how many were made and who made them, they can be worth a ton. Now multiply that by a few thousand, and you can imagine how that could add up! Then Lee spoke to us about the organization that he’s a part of: The American Playing Cards Collectors association, or 52 plus jokers. They promote and propagate the love for playing cards. Make sure to check it out if playing cards rae your thing. It’s free to get involved, and cheap to be a member, and the gbenefits are endless. They have magazines conventions and other amazing resources for people who love playing cards! If you want to start learning history, information, news or anything else there is an incredible forum called Playing Card Forum, run by 52 plus Jokers. It’s totally free to join, and every question you could ever have about playing cards has already been asked and answered on there. And if I’m wrong, go ahead and ask it! If you want to really dig deep, there is the Hochman Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards which is the most thorough encyclopedia on the subject to date As well, if you live anywhere near Toronto, and this is your thing, there’s an awesome meetup soon happening at browsers den. They’re hosting the Toronto Playing Card Meetup  on June 12th, 2016. Please check it out, there are going to be some awesome people there including Lee himself and other playing card enthusiasts around the area. In addition, Browsers Den and Lee Asher paired up and gave an incredible playing card collecting guide. Take a look at it to spark your interest in collecting cards, and all the fun and finesse that goes with it. Contact Website Twitter