Discourse in Magic

Ryan Plunkett is well known as the author of A New Angle and from his work at The Chicago Magic Lounge.  We’ve been eager to get him on the podcast for some time now.  Ryan worked for a while at a magic store. It ended up teaching him about the things that he hated about magic.  So much of the industry is based on pushing cheap tricks with little actual value. Ryan first started with magic as a kid.  His parents got him a magic kit when he just 5 years old.  It has been with him every since. He started performing at a local bar when he was still a teenager.  He studied theatre in college and had mostly stopped performing magic. After moving to Chicago in 2014 he met some people starting a weekly show.  That show turned into the Chicago Magic Lounge which has become his sole source of income. After going to his first show at the Magic Lounge he offered to help out.  He designed their website and helped out with booking acts. As he became more involved he really tried to focus on serving a lay audience as much as possible.  They try and present many different styles of magic. They developed a consistent schedule as well. Every Thursday they produced a show. That Thursday became so successful that the theatre offered them an additional day on Saturdays.  That consistency was the secret to their success. When Ryan graduated from high school a friend began manufacturing affordable card cutters.  Ryan thought it was super cool and started using it all the time. The problem was there was not a lot of new material available about how to use it.  Throughout college he continued to tinker with a tapered deck. After attending a magic convention he met Michael Feldman.  He was super impressed with Ryan’s work with the deck.  They started working together on a book that featured new tricks for this very old style of magic.  The book came out in July of 2017. What do you like about the current state of magic? “Magic is making a big comeback.  Even Netflix is investing heavily in magic right now and that’s a really good thing” What do you want to ask the audience? “Anyone can have an effect on magic.  What are you doing to make magic a better place?” What do you want to tell the audience? “More people should spend time diving into the magic of the past.” Who should we have on the podcast? Nick Diffatte What was your favourite part of the episode? Jonah liked hearing about how they turned the Chicago Magic Lounge into a success. Tyler liked hearing about how Ryan became involved with people to produce incredible things. Ryan says the art of collaboration is often overlooked in magic. Plugs https://www.instagram.com/plunk_n_grind/ https://www.ryancplunkett.com/   The post A New Angle on The Chicago Magic Lounge with Ryan Plunkett appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

We’ve been trying to get The Evasons on the show for a long time now.  Then out of the blue they phoned us up and said that they were in town.  We invited them over to the house to record this week’s episode and the results were pretty spectacular! Jeff and Tessa first met at a fashion show in Toronto in 1983.  They had both been hired to perform some magic tricks. They’ve been performing together ever since.  Jeff was first introduced to magic by his grandpa who gave him a magic book. He worked as a radio DJ for many years but always performed magic on the side.  Tessa grew up in St. Lucia but came to Toronto to work as a fashion model. As a kid she saw Mark Wilson performing illusions and was totally entranced. The Evasons act has evolved a lot over the last 35 years.  For a long time they performed a big illusion show. They worked theatres big and small across the country and aboard cruise ships.  A friend gave him a tape of a mind reader and they decided to make change. No one was doing a two person mentalism act. They worked on the act while aboard a cruise ship.  It absolutely floored the audience that night and they knew they had something special. Performing couples is a rarity in the industry.  When they first started working together they weren’t yet romantic partners.  That relationship only developed after five years. The fact that they were friends and business partners first is what ensured that their relationship has lasted for so long. When Jeff and Tessa first started in the business it was much easier.  There was so much work, especially in the corporate sector. All of the details were handled by agents so they were left to concentrate on the act.  Nowadays, they are much more involved in their own promotion especially on social media. What do you like about modern magic?  What don’t you like? Jeff doesn’t like the amount of people willing to give away secrets almost for free.  Tessa doesn’t like the number of people just stealing tricks rather than simply asking. What do you want to ask our audience? Jeff wants to know why do you want to do magic?  Tessa wants to know why there are not more woman in magic. What do you want to tell our audience? Jeff says stop pushing magic on people that don’t want to see it!  Tessa says she can’t stand the dissing of the older generation. Who should we have next on the podcast? Ryan Joyce What did you like about the podcast? Tyler liked hearing about how Tessa and Jeff have managed to combine their professional and personal lives. Jonah liked hearing about the process of creating an act that’s unique. Tessa really enjoyed learning about how Jonah and Tyler think about magic. Connect  https://www.instagram.com/mentalistduo/ The post Succeeding as a Touring Duo Act with The Evasons appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

We’re really excited to have the co-founder of Vanishing Inc Magic Joshua Jay on the podcast. Josh and Andi Gladwin founded the company on the belief that there was a real dearth of high-quality magic on the market. Josh was criticized when he first began selling difficult, high-quality tricks. The critics suggested Vanishing was giving away too much. But Josh says that giving a newbie a really impressive trick right away will ensure that they are hooked for life. But the company is not based on profit at any cost. Josh says they have pulled innumerable products either because there was a missing credit or because the products were not up to snuff. Josh says a magical act is made up of dozens of different choices. How you present a trick is as important as the trick itself. The same goes for magical lectures. Josh has seen many, many bad lectures. But the golden rule is to nail the performance and to talk as little as possible. Josh will perform as many as twelve pieces per lecture. Speed is best. Sitting through a four hour lecture with only three tricks is a terrible waste of time. Eight years ago Josh produced a show called “Unreal”. It was an autobiographical show that was deeply personal. Since that time he has dreamed about what else he would do in a one man show. Since then his views on magic have evolved considerably. Six Impossible Things is the result of that process. What do you like about modern magic? What do you hate? Josh likes how magic has returned to the stage. There are more stage performances than ever before. He doesn’t like how social media is incorporating bad practices into magic. Using camera tricks is not magic. What do you want to ask our audience? If a group moved up to you right now what trick would you perform for them? What do you want to tell our audience? You have to have a serious passion for magic. Who should we have on the podcast? Andi Gladwin What was your favourite part of the episode? Tyler liked hearing about the importance of really loving magic. Jonah liked hearing about how Josh has his fingers in a number of different aspects of magic. Josh appreciated hearing the compliments about his new show. https://www.instagram.com/joshuajaymagician/ The post Teaching, Lecturing, and Making a Show with Joshua Jay appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

It’s time for another catch-up interview with Jonah and Tyler. The episode starts with a quick recap of the last month. Tyler has made a terrible mistake and gotten a Muggle job. He works at at vape store, which is apropos since he uses an e-cig himself. He got the job by doing some magic for the company and they were so impressed they gave him a job. Jonah thinks that’s a good lesson for everyone proficient in magic. It’s always a good way to impress the normals. Tyler has been performing some magic lately though. He was part of the recent Newest Trick in the Book that featured Jonah as well. He had been asked to work on a trick a few weeks ahead of time but didn’t end up doing that. Tyler was panicking right up to the night of the show. When he arrived all the other performers said they hadn’t prepared very well either. That made Tyler relax a lot more. Jonah, meanwhile, worked a dentist convention with Chris Westfall. It was a cool place to do magic. He also attended this years Browser Bash which was a great time as always. He loves how there was nearly 400 magicians there this year. Jonah has also been reading a lot lately and has been working on a new close-up trick. It’s a coin trick. He’s using Garrett Thomas’ Imagination Coins and loves the possibilities they provide. This episode is the first since the notorious fake Teller episode the boys release on April Fools Day. Like most pranks it backfired spectacular. Jonah received ridiculous amount of hate mail because of it. So many listeners were so happy when that episode was posted, only to be utterly shattered by disappointment. Sorry! (Not sorry.) Since the Denis Behr episode was posted he was recognized for his remarkable Conjuring Archive. He archive is a searchable collection of classic magic books. He was given an award by The Magic Castle for that achievement. We didn’t talk nearly enough about it in the episode but we still want to give another shout out. Jonah and Tyler were recently asked a question on Instagram that they found really interesting. The person asked what contributions magic has made to the wider society. Tyler thinks the question is more about non-practical things like most artistic endeavors. He thinks that magic can inspire people to achieve more practical things. That said you shouldn’t worry about it’s economic value. Jonah agrees with that. He thinks it’s unfair to compare it to more practical pursuits like science. Magic has whatever value you want to assign to it. Jonah is still considering making a book out of the lessons learned from this podcast. Before he does that he needs to know if anyone would actually want such a book. Email or Instagram us if you think a Discourse in Magic book is a good idea. We are still looking for others to contribute to the podcast website. If you want to write a blog or an essay for us drop us a line! The post What do you love about Discourse in Magic? appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

We’ve invited magic legend Johnny Thompson otherwise known as The Great Tomsoni onto the show today. Together with his wife Pamela Hayes Johnny has been performing for packed houses in Las Vegas for decades. Johnny saw a movie about a Mississippi river boat gambler when he was a kid and he decided he wanted to become a card sharp. He bought The Expert at the Card Table at a Chicago bookstore for 35 cents. He spent the next four years trying to learn everything between those covers. Johnny eventually realized that there wasn’t a lot of places for a 12 year old card cheat to work so he decided to switch to magic. Johnny started working on a dove magic act in the 1940’s. He soon realized that there was already too many bird magicians on the scene so at the age of 16 in 1951 he joined Jerry Murad’s Harmonicats, a musical act with a number of hits under their belts. He stayed with the group until 1957. But Johnny eventually decided to get back into magic but this time with a focus on close-up magic. Johnny booked a regular gig at the Playboy Club in New York. Over the next year he would perform three times a week. He slowly began to incorporate more slapstick humour into those performances. By the end of the year he had an act that was almost entirely comedy. The act was an immediate hit. Over the last few years Johnny has become one of the most sought after magic advisers in the business. He had retired the act in 2015 but by then he had already been occasionally consulting with magicians like Penn and Teller, Chris Angel and Michael Carbonaro. Johnny was first approached with the concept of Fool Us about 10 years ago. He told Penn and Teller that the hardest part of the concept would be to tell the magician they knew how the trick was done without telling the audience. Johnny suggested Teller could draw out the illusion but they settled on just using magic lingo that the audience wouldn’t know about. He is the guy that decides whether Penn and Teller have actually been fooled during the taping of the show. Johnny is about to release a new book titled The Magic of Johnny Thompson. The book is a two volume set that details everything Johnny has learned over a six decade long career. One of the trick’s is known as The Gambler’s Ballad a trick that Johnny has been closing his shows with for decades. Showtime recently produced a film called The Gambler’s Ballad: The legend of Johnny Thompson. The film documents Johnny’s life and features him teaching the trick to Teller. The book also features moves that would otherwise have been lost as they were taught to Johnny by long dead magicians. Johnny says he has been incredibly lucky because his career has spanned an astonishing change in the magic business. His first job was performing in front of freak show in the 1940’s. He met some of the great magicians of the early 20th century when he was coming up like Paul Rosini and Jay Marshall. Chicago was the place where bar magic was invented and there was the remnants of vaudeville was still active when he was a kid. Johnny says it’s tough to make a career in show business. His goal was to end up on a Vegas stage. It was the Mecca of magic. That’s no longer the case. There’s no place for magicians like Johnny anymore. When the hotel companies replaced the mob in the 1980’s they ended the lounge show and that so many magicians depended on. He says that close-up magic is the one bright spot in the business. Places like Germany still have a large number of close-up theaters. But increasingly, he says, magic is being pushed onto video and online. What don’t you like about modern magic? What do you like? Johnny doesn’t like the current fad of people revealing how tricks are done online. He does like how many young an exciting magicians there are in the business right now. What would you like to ask the listeners? How many of you have solid, classic magic in their repertoires? Who should we have on the show next? Armando Lucero What did you like about the episode? Jonah liked hearing about the history of show business. Tyler liked hearing that Johnny became a magician because of his love of being a card sharp. Johnny was just excited to be on a podcast because that’s what will keep the art form alive. The post Show Business and Magic Consulting with Johnny Thompson appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

We’re excited to have Denis Behr on the show this week.  Denis has consistently released some of the most innovative card magic in the world.  His dedication to the craft shines through in everything he does, especially in his new DVD titled Magic on Tap. Denis first started with magic as a kid after being given a kit as a kid. Card magic has become his obsession. He never worked as a professional magician having trained in mathematics at university. He now works as a web developer and programmer at company based on Munich, Germany. Every big city in Germany has a close-up theatre and Denis has been worked at nearly all of them. The theatre in Munich can seat as many as 80 people. Denis tends to work the first two rows and so his shows tend to be a mix between close-up and a theatre show. Denis is influenced by everything in his life. He reads a lot of books and also finds himself inspired by other magicians. He loves creating the feeling of impossibility in his shows. His voracious reading is all about learning about a magicians philosophy and technique. He’s not interested in just gleaning ideas for new tricks. If that happens he’s happy but learning about the history of magic is an end in itself. What do you like about magic right now? What do you hate? Denis likes how easy it is to get in touch with magicians from all over the world.  He doesn’t like how easy it is for magicians to publish low quality content. What do you want to ask our audience? What is the ratio of magical books to DVD’s that you are currently consuming. What do you want to tell our audience? Be less hateful online! What was your favourite part of the episode? Tyler liked hearing about how Denis first became engaged in magic. Jonah liked hearing about how Denis designs his routines. Denis liked talking about the connections between mathematics and magic. Connect https://www.instagram.com/denis.behr/?hl=en http://www.denisbehr.de http://www.conjuringarchive.com http://www.conjuringcredits.com/ The post How to Love Magic with Denis Behr appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

You know him from his incredible Instagram presence – we’re super excited to have @JustJoshInMagic on the show this week. Josh became obsessed with magic as a teenager. It was an interest that started as a diversion from his rigorous training as a musician. But soon enough he had traded the saxophone for a deck of cards. As he entered college he could no longer afford buying magic and so began to create his own tricks – all of which were horrible. He would perform for kids at various daycares and preschools but realized he preferred the magic he did for his friends. He went to school at UCF which is the largest university in the United States. That enormous student body provided a great audience for his early efforts. Josh works as a professional animator and has balanced both of his passions in his life. He finds there is a lot of parallels between magic and animation. He has used Instagram to build a big audience. He started recording his tricks as a way to create magic that he had never seen before. The reaction was so strong that he was encouraged to create more and more. “It just started to evolve,” he says. “I’m just grateful that people have liked them.” Josh thinks that having a day job has been a huge benefit to his magic career. He has the luxury of creating magic just for the love of it. It has also allowed him to create authentic relationships in the magic community without worrying about the career aspect of it. Josh has a real obsession with money magic. Because it’s an everyday object that people are familiar with money magic tricks have a huge effect on an audience. The audience also thinks they know what a counterfeit bill would look like. The audience is sure that a real bill can’t be tampered with. That fact makes a money trick all the more amazing to audience. Using “real money” makes the magic all the more real. What do you want to tell the audience? Researching and crediting is so huge. Josh is working on a book about money magic and he has learned the importance of giving credit where credit is due. Learn your magical history What do you want to ask the audience? If you could do your favourite trick with a different medium what medium would you adapt it to? Who should we have on the podcast? Jeff Prace What was your favourite part of the episode? Jonah liked hearing about how Josh was attracted to money as a medium for his magic. Tyler liked hearing about the crossover of magic and animation in Josh’s life. Josh liked the discussion about being true to yourself and doing things that you enjoy. Plugs https://www.instagram.com/justjoshinmagic/ http://www.justjoshinmagic.com/ http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/9420 https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/magic/close-up-magic/just-joshin-book/ The post Money Magic with Josh Janousky appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

It’s episode 105 and time for another solo chat between Jonah and Tyler. It’s been a month since our heroes sat down for one of these. Jonah had a ton of show throughout March with the Toronto Magic Company. Newest Trick in the Book is now a weekly show every Tuesday which is something that Jonah is really happy about. He continues to work on his time machine phone bit and has an idea of incorporating a “magical” amulet in one of his routines. The Discourse in Magic T-shirt is now available. There are about 70 of them left and once they’re gone they’re gone for good. It’s the perfect attire for the upcoming Browser’s Magic Bash that starts April 21st. Browser’s is an incredible shop and an important part of the Discourse in Magic mythos. The boys are always legitimately amazed when they run into someone wearing the shirt. Ben Train recently lent the book Philosophy Bites to Jonah. Originally a podcast, the book features short words of wisdom from ancient and contemporary philosophers. It occurred to Jonah that something similar would be awesome for Discourse in Magic. There have been so many incredible magicians giving incredible lessons throughout the previous 105 episodes. Jonah is stoked about the idea so message him if you like the idea. Tyler has started scripting his new show. It’s all about where he is in his life and why he has chosen to create a show at this point. The end point reveals that its not about what you say you are. It’s about what you do. What you choose to put into the world. Tyler didn’t want magic to define him but it ended up doing just that because he devoted so much time to it over a decade. Jonah has booked some incredible magicians for the future episodes of the podcast. He has a list of people that he wants to get on the show before it ends. Several of them have agreed to appear on the show in the coming months! Listener Quinn Winters (amazing name) sent in a question for. He noticed that both Jonah and Tyler have math backgrounds, as have many of the guests on the podcast. Quinn wonders why there seems to be such a natural connection between math and magic. Jonah thinks it’s because of the close relationship between math proofs and magic tricks. They both use things that you know to prove things that you didn’t know. The formula is the same. The difference is that one of the things along that chain in magic isn’t actually true. Figuring out math problems and magic tricks are very similar, especially for a young kid. The boys end the episode with some final thoughts.  Tyler encourages everyone listening to visit there local magic shop this week.  Jonah issues a challenge to the audience to build a magic prop from scratch this week.  Will you accept it? The post T-shirts and Talismans appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

It’s taken more than two years and over 100 episodes but we’ve finally done it.  We managed to convince one the biggest names in magic to join us for a feature length interview. Teller tells us about his early years performing magic with Penn Jillette and how, together, the built one of the most durable brands in live performance.  He also reveals the secret to succeeding on his TV show Fool Us and why he believes Discourse in Magic is the best podcast he’s ever listened to.  We can’t think of a better way to usher in spring 2018 then with this interview! The post Fool Us and Beyond with Teller appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

He’s an incredible magician, a close friend but most importantly he’s a listener to the podcast. Caleb Wiles is well known for his amazing stage performances and his appearance on Penn and Teller’s Fool Us. As he started diving deeper into card magic he became totally obsessed. As his journey progressed he became known as the magic guy in his class and in his family. Soon enough he was performing on-stage. Caleb soon learned the importance of repetition. Doing a card trick 100 times will reveal new opportunities to change the trick. Imposing a structure on his magic is a key part of his creative process. Sometimes that structure can become the method itself, he says. He wants his moves to be absolutely perfect. He tries to create bullet-proof tricks. Caleb is a creator first and foremost. He doesn’t create magic for his audience. He only performs magic to prove that the methods he creates actually works. His magic is for himself. For many years he designed shows simply to fill the allotted time. A 45 minute set would be crammed with as many tricks as he could. He soon realized that performing a show like that was totally unfulfilling. He now tries to create magic that is awe-inspiring but still accessible to a general audience. After appearing on Penn and Teller in 2016 he recently detailed the experience in a magic lecture. He got on the show after submitting a trick called 26 factorial. He got a call back but the producers wanted him to perform another trick they saw online. What do you want to tell the audience? Define a target. It could change but you need to have a target to aim at. What do you want to ask the audience? Why do you do magic? (Keeping in mind that any answer is the correct answer) What do you like about modern magic? The Jerx blog is a personal favourite of Caleb’s. What do you hate? Magicians destroying relationships over a few thousand dollars. Who should we have on the podcast? Tiger Wilson Brent Braun What was your favourite part of the episode? Tyler loved it when Caleb compared professional wrestling and magic. Jonah loved hearing about how Caleb truly loves creating magic. Caleb reemphasized that inspiration comes from creating on a regular basis. Plugs http://calebwiles.com/ https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/magician/Caleb-Wiles/ The post Magic, Math and Pro Wrestling with Caleb Wiles appeared first on Discourse in Magic.