I recently worked with Gazzo and he did something that had a huge impact on me. When he entered the circle for his show, (the crowd was already in place), he brought a drummers stool in with him and sat down Sat down! The effect this had on the audience was tremendous. All of a sudden the focus shifted and it was as though Gazzo had breathed in and drawn the audience closer with that breath. read more
I went back to Covent Garden and died on my arse.
I spent a week with legends who are responsible for 80% of my professional repertoire.
I worked on new material.
These things are connected. read more
Photo by Mark78_xp on Flickr
I had a conversation with someone recently who wanted to become a professional magician and to be honest I was a little jealous of their freedom to choose where their career in magic would take them. I started off on the street and spent a long time try to shake off the “street” image in order to move into the world of corporate entertainment, ironically my street performing background is now part of my whole marketing strategy. read more
Such a long gap between posts could indicate that the blog was dying however that’s not the case I’m pleased to say. I have been away on holiday, (which other than the kids having a great time did turn into a kind of Groundhog Day meets Dante’s Inferno), and on my return my trusty iBook G4 died. The result is that I have been forced to invest in a rather large iMac and have spent too long getting it all together. It was however a labour of love as I am a huge Mac fan and now I am good to go. read more
My old street performing buddy Charlie caper has just won Talang – (Sweedens got Talent). If you look at the footage you can see his progression through the competition and I think it’s interesting to see that his magic, (in my opinion), gets weaker and yet the audience love him more each time. read more
If you haven’t seen, heard, or read Hugh Macleod then you have the wrong kind of Gaping Void in your life. The cartoons on this site are penned by him and now he has a new book out on creativity, “Ignore Everybody”. I haven’t read it yet but I have it ordered and I suggest you do the same.
Every blogger who touches on creativity, originality etc. has promoted, praised this book and like I said I haven’t read it yet so I’m going to ignore the advice given in the book’s title and do the same.
“Practice lady, practice.”
Okay so it’s a very old joke but the fact is practice alone won’t get you anywhere as a performer. You need to rehearse. read more
There’s a lot of talk at the moment about change being needed in the world of magic and certainly magic in the UK. Most people agree that the standard is not as high as it should / could be and something needs to be done. A recent lecture at the Magic Circle given by Noel Britten was all about this, and of course no-one disagreed as that would suggest arrogance or ignorance. So here is my little bit:
No matter how much something is needed without a desire to change, change will not happen. read more
“Everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die”
Okay so the quote isn’t accurate nor can I remember the source, (I think I saw it in a poker book), but the sentiment is there. We all fail at one time or another and it is a vital part of success, however how you handle failure is the crucial part – it can make or break you. There are countless stories of successful people who have lost everything before finally making their breakthrough, we don’t tend to hear about the ones who lost everything and gave up. read more
“For horizontal fluid flow, an increase in the velocity of flow will result in a decrease in the static pressure.”
If you pump water through a pipe and then narrow the pipe the speed of the water increrases and the pressure drops. The same thing works for creativity. If you have a thousand ideas about a thousand projects that’s one idea per project, however if you limit yourself to 10 projects the ideas will flow quicker and that’s 100 ideas per project. You keep the volume of ideas the same and narrow the focus. The result is less pressure and more chance of acheiving something worthwhile.
Look at it another way. If I asked you to write about “the world”, you have so much choice that you’d probably get lost in your search for a good idea. So look at the world through a window and literally you have a much smaller frame of reference and a much higher chance of thinking of something to say. It’s a form of mental bondage and there’s something liberating about a PVC catsuit and a hockey mask. Apparently.
