Magic New Zealand® E-zine

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* Magic New Zealand®
* Proudly sponsored by International Entertainment Ltd (New Zealand)
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Issue Number: #1430
Date: Sunday 25th February 2018
Editor: Alan Watson QSM
www.watson.co.nz
E-mail: editor@magicnewzealand.com
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Hi here is the latest news
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1. Editor's Message
2. The Doug Henning Project - Interview Milt Larsen
3. All New 62nd Annual Edition Of It's Magic!
4. FISM Korea 2018
5. The Magic Word Podcast
6. Happy Accidents - #477 - Kyle Peron
7. Magic Theater Opening In Chicago
8. Comedy Festival in New Caledonia - Children's Acts Wanted
9. Australia GeniiCon18 News - Magic at the Tivoli
10. Blackpool 2018
11. E-zine Archives
12. Privacy Policy and Copyright Notice

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1. Editor's Message
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The highlight for the week was catching up and having lunch with Paul Draper (USA) mentalist, visiting New Zealand on a cruise ship, and Richard Webster (NZ) mentalist.

If you would like to read the Magic New Zealand e-zine in a HTML format
go to: http://www.magicnewzealand.com/ezine-archive/2018-Jan-to-Dec-2018/1430-Feb25-2017.html

If you would like to write a regular column for Magic New Zealand or
have some magic news drop me a line:
Editor@MagicNewZealand.com

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2. The Doug Henning Project - Interview Milt Larsen
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Is there an illusion for you that stands out as a personal favorite?

I don't think there's any particular thing. His showmanship and some of the illusions he did on his shows were really old stock illusions. But, the way he did them and the approach to it he did them all in his own way. Anytime he did anything it became his and he put his mark on it. He had an exploding personality that carried over the footlights…very few people could do that.

What was the reaction in the magic community when he retired from magic?

I think everybody was surprised. He just literally decided to go live on top of a mountain and meditate…but I think everybody in magic just considered it a great loss. So, yeah, I think I was disappointed because he was such a presence in magic when he was doing it. Then all of a sudden it was "Whatever happened to Doug Henning?"

In the end, before he passed away he had major, major plans for a "Magic City" (Doug's unrealized theme park known as Veda Land). If he had lived it probably would have happened because he had the backing of incredibly rich people and they could have built it. But, unfortunately, he passed away and who's to say what would have happened had Doug lived.

Do you think he would have ever returned to magic had he lived?

Well, I think the theme park would have been magic. He thought of magic in a much broader sense than we (the magic community) do…I think Doug really figured that if he could do magic (such as) if he really wanted somebody to float why do they have apparatus to do that? All he would do was command them to float and they'd be floating. He never proved the point, but I think he could have done it.

I had great belief in him.

In closing, what lessons do you think Doug took from "The Magic Castle" that he carried with throughout his career?

Well, I think with "The Magic Castle" we were considered the innovators of bringing magic back, and I think all that influenced Doug very much. He saw it happening and then he started making it happen in his way. We profited in magic because of Doug Henning, and Doug Henning profited because of "The Magic Castle." So, I think there's no question about that

A very big thank you to Milt Larsen for speaking with "The Doug Henning Project." His time and insights were much appreciated. Also, special thanks to Harlan Boll for setting this up.

https://doughenningproject.com/2018/02/14/larsen-on-henning-part-three-revisited/

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3. All New 62nd Annual Edition Of It's Magic!
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Message by Milt Larsen (US)

It's Magic! First show of the spring season

Cerriros Performing Art Center
Starring:
Xavier Mortimer - currently headlining his own show in Las Vegas
Michael Goudeau - variety performer who played for over 20 years in Las Vegas with Lance Burton
Mike Caveney - multiple award-winning comedy magician
Dan Birch - world renown high energy dove act
Alexander Great - grand scale illusionist

Link to purchase tickets: http://www.cerritoscenter.com/tickets/reserve.aspx?performanceNumber=5586

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4. FISM Korea 2018
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For the latest news on FISM Korea go to:

http://www.2018fismbusan.com/list.php?bbs_id=main_eng&cntry=_eng

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5. The Magic Word Podcast
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Message by Scott Wells, M.I.M.C. with Gold Star (USA)

Blackpool Convention Report and Walter "Zaney" Blaney's 90th Birthday Celebration

This past week has been a busy one. First of all, we have several reports sent to us by our mate in the U.K., Martin Cox, from each day of the Blackpool convention, the largest magic convention in the world. He gives us daily updates through the voices of dealers, registrants, organizers and talent. Thank you, Martin, for your Special Report. You can read the blog, see some photos, listen to the podcast online and download the MP3 files at: https://www.themagicwordpodcast.com/scottwellsmagic/martin-cox-at-2018-blackpool-convention

Then we offer you something completely different. Walter "Zaney" Blaney celebrated his 90th birthday on Sunday, 11 February 2018 but we had a big surprise party for him almost a week later. I thought you might like to have been there as a guest and this the next best and closest thing. You can sit beside Walter and hear all the celebrations going on all around him including a visit from David Copperfield who called in on Skype to honor Walter. You can watch a video of some of the party festivities (including Copperfield's visit), see some photos from the party, read the blog, hear some product reviews, listen to the podcast and download the MP3 file at: https://www.themagicwordpodcast.com/scottwellsmagic/409-walter-zaney-blaney-surprise-90th-birthday-party

This week we also congratulate three winners from last week's contest who won a promotional deck of playing cards from Richard Turner's film, "DEALT": Harold Bosious, Jeff Peterson, and Peter Sciretta. Congratulations, guys. And thank you also to the Friends of The Magic Word whose financial support offsets our shipping costs for these prizes. This was our 31st contest and you never know when the next contest will be nor what will be offered. So, it's important to subscribe to The Magic Word and listen each week to see if we are having a contest.

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6. Happy Accidents - #477 - Kyle Peron
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Message by Kyle Peron (US)
magic4u02@aol.com
http://www.facebook.com/perondesign
http://www.kpmagicproducts.com

You are at a kid's show and are having a great time when you approach your nesting wands routine. This is the routine that has always played well for you and you simply love doing it. You hand the first wand to the child when all of a sudden, the end cap falls off and your wands scatter all over the floor. This certainly is not supposed to happen and you look in shock and think fast what to do. You get through the show and then work as fast as you can to fix the accident from ever happening again. Sound familiar?

What may surprise a lot of you is that I actually LOVE when this stuff happens. I call them Happy Accidents. To me the happy accidents can often be better then what I had originally planned. I am always open to these types of things happening.

Instead of viewing it as an accident, I try and see how the audience reacts to it. In many ways the reactions are huge. If this is the case, then perhaps instead of fixing it so it does not happen again, I do the reverse. I try and rig up ways in which to make it happen all the time.

The bottom line for me is entertainment value. If I can get more Reactions Per Minute (what I call the RPM principle) then that is what I am going to do. If the reactions can be even bigger, then I seek those out as well.

I think too many magicians become blinded. What I mean is that we create a set routine and we tend to stick with it no matter what. We often see mistakes as mistakes and not as golden opportunities that may add to the routine.

To me a routine is never ever finished. It gets to a point where I feel it is ready to perform for an audience. however, it is always evolving and adapting to situations that come up. Sometimes these situations are accidents as described above. Sometimes they are funny things people say or do.

I have trained myself to always be tuned in to these moments. I allow myself to improv off of these situations and then gauge the reactions I get. I have had a nest of wands cap come off and the wands go all over the place before. I think it happens to many folks. However, my facial expressions and the reaction of the helper were precious. The audience went nuts and that led me into improvisation.

I started to pick up the wands and hand them to the helper. As I go to hand it to the child I drop it accidentally but do not see it. I think the child has them all and I look down and they are all still on the ground. It is a classic "see and don't see principle" but it got a huge reaction.

I then proceed to try it again but accidentally allow the biggest wand to drop on my foot causing me to react appropriately. I can then go right into the classic move of giving the kid the wands. It just happens differently. the child still ends up with a wand in each hand and under the arms and under his chin.

In essence this "accident" became something far greater than Kelly and I had planned for the routine. Instead of trying to fix the accident from happening again, we left it in the routine so it happens every time. If we fixed the problem, we would never have realized the potential this accident had for making the routine better and more entertaining for an audience.

So what I am saying is do not always try and fix things you feel are broken. Sometimes these happy accidents are truly blessings in disguise. When they happen learn to play off of them. Gauge the response you get and evaluate it after the show. Perhaps this accident played better then what you had scripted.

This evolution of a routine is what I feel can be the "real" magic.

As always, I encourage you the readers to let me know your thoughts. So, if you have any thoughts on my articles or suggestions or comments, please feel free to e-mail me directly at KyleKellyMagic@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you.

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7. Magic Theater Opening In Chicago
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Message by Jeff Bibik (US)

The Chicago Magic Lounge opened its door on February 22, 2018. This state of the art performance space features 2 secret doorways and 3 performing areas in an Art Deco setting. Dave's Magic Bar greets visitors with Chicago Style Bar Magic 6 nights a week. The main theater, the Blackstone Cabaret, seats 110 on 2 levels and with professional lighting and sound. Stage right sits our mighty theater organ. (though modern organs are not quite as large as they once were!).

In back is the intimate 654 Club, a 40-seat venue with tiered seating, and a kitchen with modern takes on the menu from the world famous Schulien's magic bar. Magic in the main show room runs Thursday thru Saturday, with a Sunday family matinee.

Tickets are required for the shows; however, Dave's bar is open to the public 6 nights a week at no charge. The future of magic is here, and it all happens next week with our grand opening headliner, Max Maven!

All info can be found at ChicagoMagicLounge.com

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8. Comedy Festival in New Caledonia - Children's Acts Wanted
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Message by Fabrice Lamarre

Guy Raquin in New Caledonia is organising a Comedy Festival from 30th June to the 1st July 2018.

He is looking for visual comedy acts suitable for children looking for magicians, clowns, jugglers from Australia and New Zealand.

Of course, the act has to be without the use of the spoken word as the public will be French speaking exclusively. Of course, if you can speak French great!

If you think that you have an act suitable and you are willing to travel, contact Guy via his email address: guy. raguin@canl.nc

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9. Australia GeniiCon18 News - Magic at the Tivoli
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Message by Kent Blackmore (Australia)

The 2018 convention of the Geniis Magical Society continues to add the big performer names. The largest of several rooms we will be enjoying at the Rooty Hill RSL is the "Tivoli" showroom, so our featured public show on Saturday June 9 will be 'Magic at the Tivoli', evocative of the great days of Australian variety theatre. Among our International guests, Levent, Paul Richards and Silly Billy will be the manipulations of multi- talented Joel Howlett, Sue Anne Webster in her astonishing character as 'Jeannie', and Sydney's premier illusionist Brendan Montanner; all hosted for the night by Sean Taylor.

It's all part of your registration - and extra show tickets are available during your booking, if you want to ensure seating together; bookings to the public will be online soon.

Don't forget you have just over a month to claim the Earlybird registration rate of $350. Some have asked about accommodation rates at the Novotel (which is part of the RSL complex). For the very best rate, contact the Novotel directly and tell them you are booking as part of the June magic convention.

Full details and registration at our GeniiCon18 website, https://www.geniicon18.com/

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10. Blackpool 2018
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Message by Mandy Davis MIMC (UK)

This year's Blackpool Convention was incredibly full - totally full of lectures, which overlapped so one needed to make choices, one man shows, galas and late-night shows. On the plus side, the nightly gala shows ran twice so that you could choose when you wanted to
eat and which show times you preferred.

Friday's lectures included Paul Gordon, Mark Elsdon, Keiron Johnson, Brendan Rodrigues, Joao Miranda, David Kaye, TC Tahoe and Eric LeClerc. Obviously, it wasn't possible to see them all - though a few were repeated.

I managed to see Brendan Rodrigues who opened with his award-winning routine, to music, which included contact juggling, production of a mini crystal ball, and appearances and disappearances of a regular biro pen.

He then spoke to us about his routine and about contact juggling, covering every aspect of the different types of acrylic balls and why he uses ordinary biro pens in his act. He moved on to his coin routine and explained about the finger exercises he does regularly to keep him supple for his coin routines as well as his ring and rubber band work. He is able to do all coin rolls etc. with both hands, simultaneously! He made sure he credited Tom Crosbie as the 'finger man' and Gavin Thomas for ring moves. This was an excellent lecture, full of great explanations and was admirable in spite of the fact I could never emulate Brendan's style of magic!

David Kaye, aka Silly Billy, opened by explaining that his style is not necessarily suitable for all children's entertainers and that some may not agree with his ideas. He explained that he worked for maximum Interactions per Minute - IPM - and that one has to think differently for children's magic by putting long 'middle sections' into tricks. This 'long middle' is to get the children laughing and shouting. He told us that seven-year olds were at the optimum age as eight-year olds 'just want to ruin the tricks!'

He showed us that his book contains Twenty-Eight Things to Add to Routines and demonstrated a few. He talked about comedy as verbal incongruity and used the three separate silks being blown out of a tube knotted together as the basic trick for him to add the interactions for the 'long middle'. He worked hard to perform with the only two children in the audience - a seven-year-old who only spoke Italian and an eight-year-old! He used comedy to make the trick into a routine and also demonstrated a simple change of a white silk to a red silk, using a change bag to which he added lots of wands.

David spoke of age appropriate tricks or tricks that would satisfy all ages, such as The Great Kovari's Codology. He also demonstrated his own trick using three cards depicting cake, gifts and balloons; he had also invented a new take on mouth coils which he was selling during the weekend. He talked about the Jack in the Box principle and showed how a running gag works in this way.

He concluded by talking about 'rip offs' and explained that he was selling his own Rabbit in Hat trick at the rip off price to stop the cheating dealers from winning that battle.

After two lectures I decided to watch two one-man shows. The first was mentalist Marc Salem. He opened by proclaiming that he was not going to use anyone he knew in the show, nor was he using any electronic devices.

His amusing rapport throughout endeared him to his audience as always. He started by revealing two thought of numbers, then divined the amount of change in a spectator's pocket. This was followed by a book test with a borrowed book. He ended with some revelations of drawings by members of the audience plus some blindfold divination.

Kockov from Monrokvia, aka Jasper Blakeley from Wales, was great fun. After his own National Anthem - for which the whole audience stood - Kockov came onto the stage, his 80s shaggy hair style almost, but not quite, overtaking his exuberant personality as he adapted his patter to his magician audience and stopped his Russian style accent to inform us the first trick was 'just a Jumbo Invisible Deck!'

There was a plethora of magician gags as he romped through Cards Across, a Bingo card number divination, a book test, Russian Roulette with handguns, a horseracing prediction and closing with a travel prediction. This show was well liked by the audience, being fun and funny. Although the show was one usually performed for lay audiences, Kockov and his assistant, Frank Hauska, played to the magicians and therefore kept them highly amused!

I attended the late gala show on Friday. The only performer on all three nights was Aaron Crow who just got better every time!

On Friday he did his version of Smash and Stabbed; on Saturday, a lovely romantic piece where a finger ring was placed inside an apple which was balanced on a woman's head. Aaron fired an arrow which impaled itself on a board next to her, with the ring hanging from it! Sunday's stunt was a bullet catch using a signed paintball.

Friday's MC was Todd Robbins and the show was opened by the amazing Issy Simpson. Other acts included Matt Edwards, Christopher Hart, Stephen Williams Junior and Craig Christian. Sylvester the Jester appeared in the early show but technical problems stopped his later performance. Noel Qualter ran a very entertaining Never Mind the Buzzsaw as the late late event.

Saturday was another full day. It began with the UK Family Entertainer of the Year competition and was peppered with lectures from Pit Hartling, Olmac, Jimmy Carlo, Chad Long, Stuart McDonald, Gay Ljunberg, Sylvester the Jester, Russ Stevens, Marc Salem and Ben Earl.. The Wayne Dobson and Friends show was as much fun as ever. I never found out what Bear Pit Close up was as an event!

I went to Stuart McDonald's lecture and I have to say it was one of the highlights for me! He talked about how he'd put together an act which had not been successful at the Combined IBM/SAM Convention in the US in 2014. However, following feedback from some great names such as Gene Anderson, through solid rehearsal, rethinking every little detail and rebuilding props, Stuart had an act that swept the board at the IBM and SAM the following year. Furthermore, he has now won a place in the forthcoming FISM Championships in South Korea in July!

Tom Binns brought his character of Ian D Montfort to the stage for a show that had grown men crying with laughter as seen on camera during the performance. His insightfulness as a medium, and some well-honed mentalism, was truly fantastic and crossed boundaries of language and cultural differences to become one of the hits of the weekend.

Saturday's late Gala Show opened with Richard Turner and included compere TC Tahoe, Niek Takens, Flute-man, Aaron Crow, The Great Kaplan, Pop Haydn, Richard Cadell illusions - and Sooty! The late events were the annual, anarchic Beat the Wand and a showing of Todd Robbins' acclaimed documentary "Play Dead".

Sunday saw a second lecture from David Kaye and one from Morgan & West which was highly praised. Todd Robbins did a workshop on walking on coals and Blockhead whilst Fay Presto got a standing ovation for her innovative lecture on table magic for banquets, showing all the workings by using a table set up complete with crockery and glassware. There were more lectures from John Bannon, Javier Benitez, Pop Haydn and Michael Murray. The International Close Up was well supported too. I favoured a lecture by family entertainer Brian Daly from Ireland - great fun, with some interesting information covering tricks, comedy and marketing. There were two one man shows - from Asi Wind and Richard Turner.

The Sunday Gala Show was compered by Noel Britten and we saw Javier Benitez, Stuart McDonald (whose act was so very good), Marty Putz (twice and hilarious), Yo Kato, Aaron Crow's paintball bullet catch, Issy Simpson having laughs with Noel, Les Chapeaux Blancs and Magus Utopia. There was a Not the Gala Show later that night, spoofing the weekend and keeping people entertained into the small hours.

What a full convention! No time to see it all - some first class lectures and shows - and I haven't even mentioned the enormous Dealer Halls!

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11. E-zine Archives
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Back issues of the Magic New Zealand e- zine go to:
www.magicnewzealand.com click on the red button center right "Archives"

When you enter the archive the e- zines are in issue order in folders for each year and are Coded, e.g. 001 Nov06 1999.txt first three numbers (001) denote issue number, then the date (Nov06) and the last figures the year (1999)

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12. Privacy Policy and Copyright Notice
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Our subscriber list is NOT made available to any other companies or individuals. We value every subscriber and respect your privacy.

You can subscribe to or unsubscribe from the Magic New Zealand® E- zine at: www.magicnewzealand.com

Magic New Zealand® E-zine is published each Sunday.

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