SKAL at Lougheed House

I do love performing at Lougheed House, Calgary's most beautiful and best-maintained grand Victorian house. The Mission Room, so named for its design style, is like a drawing room for post-dinner entertainment and is absolutely perfect for a cosy, sophisticated evening with a Victorian atmosphere. Rather makes you want to gather around a grand piano and sing civilised songs. (Luckily they actually have a Steinway in the room, just in case.)

A couple of weeks ago Lougheed House hosted an evening's food and entertainment for local members of SKAL, an international tourism and tour-operators' professional organisation. Blane Hogue, the executive director of the house, had been given the mandate of providing 'an evening of magic and mystery' for the guests - none of whom had any advance idea of what the night would involve, and he called me in as their surprise entertainer.

And what a group! Forty-odd extroverts seated in the little room, post-dinner and post-wine and obviously in a gregarious and participatory mood. I'd met many of them earlier in the evening during the cocktail hour as I did some close-up strolling magic, and they were definitely in the mood to enjoy themselves. Ah yes, a good time was indeed had by all.

One of them, Julien DeSchutter, kindly emailed me a few photos last night that he'd taken during the evening, which I'm posting here.

Chad Long magic lecture (and 'spoke too soon')

Magician Chad Long - he of pulling-cards-out-of-walls fame - came to Calgary last week to give us a lecture. Probably because we'd been misbehaving. I suppose we deserved it.

No one's lecture will be useful for everyone in the room (we all like different stuff. Funny, that.) but I came away with eight or ten little ideas, sleights and bits of business, which is far more than what I consider my minimum to make a lecture 'worthwhile'. Oh - and I was inspired by Chad's opening coin routine. What a superb piece of magic! Elegant and convincing.

...Shame he didn't teach it. And such a shame that the only DVD in the world that teaches this routine is Homer Liwag's CoinTwo DVD... which is sold out of its limited run and is completely unavailable for love or money. Why is it that some crappy dross-filled DVDs are produced in quantities far beyond what is either desireable or necessary, yet Liwag's excellent work hasn't been available for...oh...two or three years?

I say 'excellent' only because that's what the reviews say. I wouldn't know. I haven't seen it. Because there aren't any left. Do you sense my faint sense of frustration? I see a beautiful coin routine that appears to suit my performing style and the kind of venues I work, and there's no way to get hold of it. Damn you, Mr Liwag, for being so good. And for only producing 1000 copies of your DVD.

But back to Chad Long. Yeah. Fun. Nice guy, funny and creative, and worth going to see.


On an unrelated lagomorphic note, in my earlier post when I crowed of our success in reintroducing our previously-antagonistic bunnies to each other, I was a little premature. A week or so on, and the fur started flying again. Damn. This means back to the drawing board. Or more accurately, back to the cardboard box on top of the washing machine during a spin cycle, followed by a nervewracking visit to the Empty Bathtub of Slipperiness.

Day 1 of the reintroduction is over. I'm hoping this doesn't take too long. It's bloody inconvenient having to keep them apart all the time. If anyone's had any experience with this (and how often and how long the stressful situations should be engaged in) I'd be interested to know.

Incidentally, I just got a new little video camera (and new software) so I'm re-learning the video editing thing. Don't expect wonders 'cos you won't get them, but the above video is the boys in the bathtub.

Fanclub

It's always nice to be appreciated. A few days ago I was doing my regular Saturday night table-magic gig at Earl's restaurant in Westhills, Calgary, and had almost finished for the night. Five minutes before the end of my shift one of the waiters came up and asked me to go to a certain table. It was a family I'd met a couple of weeks earlier - a really nice couple with their two very sweet daughters.

The younger daughter was red-eyed and had obviously been crying. When she saw me, however, her eyes lit up and she got the biggest smile I've seen in ages. A genuine beamer.

Apparently she'd been crying because she'd looked around the restaurant when they arrived and she hadn't seen me there! How's that for validation? Applause is nice but having people cry because you're not there...

Incidentally, I'm thrilled finally to have an Okito box coin magic routine I'm happy with. I've had an Okito box (the brass pill-box in the photo, just the right size to put coins in) for years and years but was never entirely happy with the routines I'd played with. I've now spliced together pieces of two routines and altered a little bit of the handling to suit me, and I'm satisfied.

Mostly.

Still needs work, but the reaction I'm getting from spectators is strong.

Success!

I know, I know, it's been ages since I've given any real updates on how the rabbits are doing but I have an excuse -- I've been waiting for our new little video camera to arrive in the mail. So now you'll be expecting a video. And I have to disappoint you again. The camcorder still hasn't come but I have good news that you deserve to hear.

You may remember that back in October, only a couple of days before we had Augustus and Snowdon neutered they started scrapping quite ferociously and we had to separate them. How long does it take for the testosterone to wear off? Apparently three months! This meant that we had to wait until my birthday back in January to begin their reintroduction.

We put them in the bathtub together once or twice and made them swim laps as a teambuilding exercise. (Actually we just made them sit and cuddle together. No water.) In a couple of times to put them in a cardboard box on top of the washing machine during a spin cycle. If I tell you they loved the experience you will have to imagine my voice dripping with sarcasm.

But it worked! There were one or two slightly aggressive moments of chasing and a few foot thumps along the way but gradually over a period of about three weeks we had them spending more and more time together.

And now they're as close as they ever were. I can't tell you what a relief that is.

The only problem we are now having is that for some reason Snowdon (aka the Prodigious Pooper) has decided that his poo-bin is an option rather than mandatory and although he never poops outside of their pen, he seems to have no qualms about spraying poo nuggets around the place like he's on a deadline.

I'd welcome any suggestions any of you might have as to how to fix this recently-developed proclivity.

De Viribis Quantitatis

Interesting news for magic and performing buffs: Reginald Scott's 1587 book The Discoverie of Witchcraft (widely regarded as the first book on magic) has been bumped from spot #1 by De Viribis Quantitatis - a text written by Leonardo Da Vinci's best friend, Luca Pacioli.

Here's some blurb from mathforum.org:

"Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan monk, mathematics tutor, and colleague of Leonardo Da Vinci, wrote this foundational text of modern magic and numerical puzzles between 1496 and 1508. De Viribus Quantitatis (On the Powers of Numbers) contains the first ever reference to card tricks and some of the earliest recorded European examples of numerical puzzles; guidance on how to juggle, eat fire and make coins dance; and insights into Da Vinci's life and work. Often called the father of modern accountancy, Pacioli also authored the first published description of double-entry bookkeeping, accountancy's basic technique. "

Apparently it's now been translated into English for the first time in 500 years and will be published later this year. Very cool. I'd love to see his advice to fire-eaters. What would they have used for fuel?!

...still don't know any card games.

I needed a break from the computer and thought I would do my long-suffering wife a wee favour by tidying up the randomly-discarded and thoughtlessly-placed decks of cards that seem to litter every flat surface I pass by.

I then dug out all the bricks of new playing cards that I have bought but not yet used.

It made a big pile.

I emptied out jacket pockets, checked the glove compartment in the car (and the doorwells...and the trunk), unzipped the tops of our backpacks, dug around in my lunch-bag...in the bedside table...beside the tv, on the coffee tables (two of them) and gradually cleansed our living space of pasteboards.

A few years back I remember laughing when I read a message posted on a magicians' bulletin board online that said:
"You know you may be a magician when...you own more than 20 decks of cards but still can't play any card games."

Hmmmmm. I counted up the old decks - ones thinner than 52 after having spectators sign and keep souvenirs, or ones that are simply dead, too soft or no longer fan-able, damaged from shuffling and so on. I wasn't too surprised to find just over a hundred of them around the house.

The issue is what do you do with them once they're past the useful stage? They're no good for giving away to card players as they're all undoubtedly mis-matched decks. They may have 52 in the box but I'd be surprised if any one of them was actually a full deck. While I'm working, if I give away a signed card (which I do...a lot) I replace it with a random card from a spare deck in my back pocket so that I can work all night and still have more than a pathetic half-dozen cards left in my hand by the end.

I could practice all those moves that require ruining cards: card folds, torn-and-restored card routines and so on. And sometimes I do. I recently even started making origami card-frogs for people but frankly there's a limit to how many of those you can do in a night before your client starts to wonder why they booked you to do magic if all you're going to do is make hoppy-toys instead.

So they pile up. Two decks in a night, maybe three over a weekend, and before you know it you're swimming in the things.

What surprised me wasn't so much the fact that I had over a hundred old dead decks, but rather the fact that I seem to have nearly as many brand new decks. How does this happen?

The answer is Costco.

Great deal on Bicycle decks, granted, but the issue is the same that haunts people who shop for food while they're hungry. I go to Costco for cereal but always end up in the books aisle and, well, I can't remember how many new decks I still have at home so I buy another couple of bricks of the things.

I'm taking after my dad. When I was younger he had a habit of going out for groceries and coming home with lightbulbs, hummous and Quaker Harvest Crunch. Every time. And this was regardless of the fact that his larder was quite neatly subdivided into three sections: one for lightbulbs, one for packets of hummous, and one for Quaker Harvest Crunch.

And the rabbit photo below? No reason.
'Cos who needs one?

Stress meanz luv

To follow up on the last post,... we did the bathtub treatment a couple of times with Augustus and Snowdon over the past few days, and following one episode decided to let them play together for a few minutes afterwards since they seemed to be getting on fine.

Oops.

Augustus chased Snowdon within moments. No biting this time, I'm glad to say, but chase chase chase.

Ok, so it's going to be more gradual than we'd hoped.

Tonight we decided to try a different approach: The Washing Machine Treatment.

Two boys, one cardboard box and a washing machine set on spin cycle. Oh boy, they didn't like that. Snowdon hunkered down and Augustus (true to form) kept trying to jump out of the box. Nothing that a bath towel over the top didn't fix, though.

Five minutes of that, and then we let them play together...on the bathroom floor. They've never done that before so we thought it would be neutral territory. And so it was! I knelt on the floor with them and within seconds they did something they've never done before: both of them hopped up onto my lap! Perhaps I'm making some progress with them as well. Until now it's been a challenge even to get them to let me touch them without running away, but it seems the Big Bunny was the safest place to be for two little ones who didn't recognise where they were. So they sat on my lap, burrowed under my arms and climbed up towards my shoulders for ten minutes.

I'm hopeful that this means we're moving in the right direction (both me + boys and Augustus + Snowdon), but it's early days yet.

Wish me luck.