Discourse in Magic

This week Jonah connects with Tyler Rabbit to talk all about his amazing work with coin magic and his thoughts on the suspension of disbelief and the rise of exposure videos. Tyler Rabbit is an incredibly talented coin magic performer, who has also performed at The Magic Castle. But it wasn’t always this way and this conversation Tyler shares with Jonah his love-hate relationship with magic and what pushed him to give up on magic entirely before returning seven years ago and starting fresh with a focus in coin magic. Performing With Limitations Tyler admits that coin magic has a well deserved reputation of having the smallest effort to pay-off ratio. You’re going to put in a lot of work and ultimately you’re not getting that much magical effect out of it compared to putting in the same level of effort into card magic.  That limitation and challenge is one of the reasons that Tyler is so attracted to coin magic. He shares with Jonah how he challenges himself to innovate with such heavy (and with coins that’s literally heavy) limitations. By focusing on making sure his sleights are in service to his concept and plot he’s discovered limitless possibilities for his routine. The Fake Exposure When Tyler is not innovating with coin magic he’s battling online content creators who expose magic secrets. And while he’s found some success in engaging in the comments section, including having some videos taken down, he’s found a more novel approach to both combat exposure culture and satiate his weird sense of humour.  On his Coin Magic Underground channel on Youtube he released a video entitled How To Vanish A Coin From A Spectator’s Hand, a fake exposure video that is the first step in a series of hidden clues and puzzles that will eventually, if the the person is dedicated enough, reward you a treasure trove of actual coin magic explanations. Tyler doesn’t actually hate exposing magic’s secrets, after all it was from a library book that he found that got him started in the first place, but he does believe that someone should put in the legwork if they want to learn the tricks of the trade. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Jackson “Jax” Ridd is one of Tyler’s closest friends and one of the minds behind Four Suits Magic. Cydney Kaplan is an up and coming magician performing at the Magic Castle right now.  Mokoto is wise beyond his years and is primarily known for his coinistry and street magic. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Tyler likes all the new stuff, including cardistry. He thinks cardistry is awesome and they go really well with card magic. He also loves that it’s flying in the face of the male stoicism that persists in magic circles. Tyler is not crazy about exposure videos and tutorial videos. He also personally doesn’t like doing Zoom shows. He recognizes that there is amazing work being done there but doing magic live on video just doesn’t do it for him.  Plugs The Coin Magic Underground YouTube Channel You can follow Tyler on Instagram at @tylerrabs The post Coin Magic & The Suspension of Disbelief with Tyler Rabbit appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Jonah connects with Colin McLeod to talk about his return to his live show at the Mirage in Vegas. Together they talk about his journey from comedy to magic, and the very different goals they each have with the audience, and his thoughts on making sure that his brand of mentalism is being presented to the audience in an entertaining but also ethical way. Comedy vs Magic Colin shares with us how his pursuit of magic and mentalism came after his pursuit of comedy. It was the deceptive quality of magic that turned him away and instead he was drawn to the world of comedy because of its ability to connect to apparent truths. Because of this comedy background, everything Colin does is done with the framework of connecting with the audience and impacting them in some way. He would rather use his performances using magic and mentalism as a bridge rather than a barrier. The result is his performances are very interactive and focus on Colin presenting himself as an authentic real self rather than the mysterious god-like magician that an audience might not be able to relate to. The Real Connection When audiences buy into you they then will buy into what it is you are doing. Colin breaks down how his Sherlock Holmes character builds those bridges. The character that will work for you most, according to Colin, is the one you enjoy being most. It will be a version of you that accentuates and highlights aspects of your character that will then further accentuate highlights of your magic. Being the Best You Can Be Very early on Colin made a list of the things he wanted to accomplish. The people he wanted to work with, the stages he wanted to perform, and so on. Having that list gave him the goals to aim towards and pushed him towards being the best he could be in those areas. What Colin really wants to see is other magicians pushing themselves and being the best that they can be in all of their weird and wonderful ways. Wrap-Up Endless Chain David Gerard, the smartest person that Colin knows. He’s been the co-writer and director of every live show and major TV appearance that Colin has done. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? What Colin likes is also what he dislikes. Which is that a lot of great ideas have come out during the pandemic but the flip side of that is a lot of those great ideas have since been stolen by others, which is a real double edged sword.  Colin loves being in Vegas and being spoiled by all the amazing magic shows. Plugs Colin releases a lot of magic through Theory 11  You can also visit his personal site at psych-artist.com  But you should absolutely be safe and visit Las Vegas to see his live show, Limitless, with Shin Lim at the Mirage. The post Truth & Deception with Colin McLeod appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Jonah has advice to help you succeed during the most important time of the year for a professional magician. This month, and the next three months, are very important months for your magic business. September, October, November, and December are ridiculously important months for your magic business. The Most Important People To Reach Out To So aside from doing everything with your marketing to find new people Jonah recommends three groups of people that you may have forgotten about and to go reach out and say hello.These groups are people who are very likely to say yes. The three groups are your Yeses, your Nos, and your Maybes.  If you have been in magic for any amount of time, you’ve had a lot of bookings come through inquiries. You’ve had lots of bookings that will work and not work. And this right now is a really good time to collect the list of everyone you’ve ever done a paid booking for and everybody who’s ever said, “no” and everybody who’s ever said, “maybe”. That list of people is a list of people who already know, like, and trust you. And it’s a list that is going to get you a whole lot of movement this time of year, because it’s very likely that if they put on an event last year, around this time, they may be looking to put on an event this year, around this time. You should be reaching out to them right now. Need More Help? If you need help reaching out to your past clients, if you need help converting past relationships into new bookings or finding new bookings then email info@discourseandmagic.com with the subject line “gigs”. Jonah will tell you about the program he’s doing right now to help you get some gigs right now, a program to help magicians get from $3,000 to $5,000 a month in virtual or in-person magic income. So if you need some help booking gigs, whether it’s for the first time to get to the scale of $3,000 to $5,000, or if you’re just trying to return there, or you want some help with your past clients or with your marketing material, then email Jonah info@discourseinmagic.com with the word “gigs” in the title. The post Magic Appetizer: Yeses, Nos, and Maybes appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Jonah is thrilled to connect with the legendary Bill Malone. Whether you watched any of his DVDs or saw him on YouTube as a kid, or don’t know who he is yet, this is going to be an incredible conversation with someone who embodies the very aspect of Discourse in Magic.  Bill Malone is one of those guys in magic who basically has it all covered. In sleight of hand, he is absolutely at the top of his game. As an entertainer, he is hilarious. And he’s the most entertaining force with a pack of cards that you’ve ever seen in your life. And in business, he is known as being one of the top paid magicians. This is somebody who is building incredible relationships and giving you the tools.  The First Job Bill Malone never thought he would ever perform in front of an audience. He was interested in the techniques and the artistry but not the performance at first. But a mentor encouraged him to apply for a job a bar in Chicago called A Little Bit Of Magic and, after originally lying that he didn’t get the job because he assumed nobody would hire a kid with only six months experience, he started performing in front of live audiences.  There he learned on his feet about how long to spend with each audience member, how to perfect his routine, and how to speak to total strangers. Despite scary it was it was sink or swim and if he wanted to swim he had to figure it out quick. Building Relationships Today Bill is one of the highest paid magicians, mostly performing for corporate events for some of the most powerful companies in the world. Of course, that didn’t happen overnight and Bill shares with Jonah the years of bad choices and mistaken strategies he had to navigate before learning how to build trust with clients and grow his business.  He’ll offer you some tools to use the next time you’re performing at a party or a corporate event, what language to use, and how to communicate with people from the business world, who expect a certain level of class of presentation, to maximize the potential that they’ll be asking you to perform at their next event. Malone’s Magic Bar Bill also opens up about running Malone’s Magic Bar, a place that, among other things, was also used as a way for Bill to train and mentor magicians that caught his attention. At Malone’s Magic Bar, Bill is not looking for the flashy poses or the best tricks but for the performer who can connect with the audience on a personal level. The best thing you can perfect is how to relax and just talk to the audience member, to walk up to them and communicate in a way that lets people in.  As Bill talks about Malone’s Magic Bar you’ll learn more about what he’s looking for in magicians, and it should be no surprise to find out that the actual audition was often not the deciding factor but the ten minutes before and after when you would just be talking to each other. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Charlie Fry. He’s real show business.  Lance Pearce. As far as a guy who knows magic, slight of hand, performing, everything, he’s just brilliant.  Finally, Steve Forey What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? I do think there’s a lack of. Presentation. And I think it’s because magic is, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but magic is going back towards “it’s all about the trick”. Watch this trick and effect and that’s it. I don’t agree with that. I still think that the magic is in you. It’s what you do that brings you out.  I see some beautiful magic. When I saw Derek DelGaudio’s In & Of Itself I thought this is the most unbelievable thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve always known Derek as being a great sleight of hand magician, and he’s always been a good friend, but what he’s done, he’s just gone to another level. Plugs Bill is pretty hard to find online, he doesn’t get on the internet much except for the rare collaboration, but keep your nose out for a book he’s beginning to put together which is going to collect all his stories into one place. The post The Best Magic Show Of Your Life with Bill Malone appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week we share with you an episode from the Between Dreams podcast with Chris Ruggiero, who recently featured Jonah as a guest.  Chris and Jonah have a lot in common as both have shifted from primarily being entertainers to now helping with production and advising other creators. Chris is a legend with a history as a professional juggler and an eye like nobody else, producing a really great show.  In this conversation they talk about how Jonah blended his business and magic training and why he chooses the guests he chooses to interview on Discourse in Magic. To find out more about Between Dreams with Chris Ruggiero visit chrisruggiero.com/podcast The post Between Dreams Podcast with Chris Ruggiero appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Jonah offers up three tips to help you boost your magic creative output. Tip 1: Challenge Yourself Jonah is, right now with Ben, participating in a challenge they’ve called the Tarbell Challenge. It is a monthly challenge on YouTube from the Tarbell course in magic. Ben and Jonah take a book a month and come up with a trick from the book. They make it their own and then publish it on YouTube. And the reason why the challenge is so helpful is because they each want to beat each other and come up with a better thing than the other. Because of that, they’re both working very hard. And they know that when the time comes and they’re going to be filming, they don’t want their thing to look not as good as the other’s does Tip 2: Have A Deadline. Most of the magic that Jonah has ever created was because of a deadline. Those periods of a deadline, those periods right before you actually have to present or perform really helps. So if you have an event that you can sign yourself up for an open mic, a public show, a private event that you get booked for. If you can do some sort of gathering, you can even make the event by saying, okay, on this day, I’m doing this, I’m inviting 10 people to be a part of it. And you just fabricate yourself a deadline. The truth is, committing to completing a project before a moment in time allows you to complete that project way faster and way better. We want to get more output out by having more deadlines that we need to complete things by. Tip 3: Collaborate Coming up with things alone is fun, but sharing things with others and getting feedback and trying again is a whole different type of fun. When you’re collaborating, you’re playing, and isn’t that the reason why we all got into magic? There’s something really cool about working on magic with multiple people. You’ve likely got friends who would love to help you and bring them questions, bring them problems to help you solve. And it makes it a lot more fun. If you struggle to create magic, but you want to create magic, then stop doing it alone and invite other people to be a part of the procedure. Not only will you make more, but it’s going to be a ton more fun.   Take The Tarbell Challenge! If you’d like to join Ben and Jonah in the Tarbell Challenge check out the Toronto Magic Company’s YouTube channel by clicking here! The post Magic Appetizer: 3 Tips For Being Creative appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week we share a segment from the Three Questions with Jake Strong Podcast, in which Jonah was recently a guest on.  Jake’s podcast is a simple premise, he asks his guests three questions. That’s it! And in this episode he asked Jonah about the misunderstood aspects of running a magic business, the preparation that goes into interviewing his guests on Discourse in Magic, and his strengths and weaknesses with the Toronto Magic Company. Along with Jonah, Jake has also interviewed Ben Train from the Toronto Magic Company. Be sure to check out more of Three Questions with Jake Strong by visiting threequestionswithjake.podbean.com or subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts. The post Three Questions With Jake Strong Podcast appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Jonah sits down with Joe Rindfleisch to talk all about rubber band magic and hoe Joe is at the forefront of developing the language used to teach this style of magic and the classic magic he taps into to influence the new tricks he’s developing. “You got sixty bucks”? Originally Joe wasn’t involved in magic at all, but he did meet with friends to play cards and eventually every night would end with someone doing a card trick. When he finally asked how it was done he was told that “a magic trick is told, when a magic trick is sold” and his friend directed him to a magic shop. Pouring over books, Joe found that trick and learned it’s secrets and a few years later was able to perform that trick for the same friend, with a few select changes he learned from classic magic so he wouldn’t know how it was done. Learning From The Classics Joe has earned a reputation, through teaching courses and selling instruction videos, as one of the world’s biggest developers and inventor of rubber band magic. The secret to that success was a decision to approach rubber band magic just like all the other forms of magic. Almost anything you can do with cards or coins you can do with rubber bands and from that you can create a beginning, middle, and end to the routine and evolve rubber band magic from a quick short trick into a full magic routine as robust as any of the other classics. Joe gets into where he finds his inspiration, how he adapts classic coin and card magic into his rubber band routines, and why he’s so fascinated by the potential of rubber band magic. Developing A New Vernacular Developing a whole new branch of magic means coming up with language to describe it. Because rubber band magic has been so underdeveloped it can make it very difficult to write out instructions because all the basic hand motions and positions have to be written out in long form detail that can be hard to visualize in one’s head. Which is why, if you’re like Jonah and other magicians learning rubber band magic today, you have likely only learned a rubber band trick by jamming with another magician in person or watching video instructions. What Joe is setting out to do is create a new vernacular, a new set of words, to describe what is being done in a rubber band trick. By teaching the basic hand positions and motions first and creating a robust foundation he can then move on to more easily, and efficiently, teach more complex rubber band routines.  Joe shares with Jonah some of this language and helps describe the terms used to describe those fundamental positions you’ll need to learn if you want to grow your rubber band magic knowledge.  Wrap-Up Endless Chain Dr. Cyril Thomas, from France, is a very prolific creator. And Joe loves Marcus Eddie’s magic. He’s just a powerhouse creator. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Lately Joe has been teaching magic through Penguin Magic School and the enthusiasm of his students is making him enthusiastic. What Joe doesn’t like is the proliferation of content creators teaching and sharing magic without crediting the sources. The best way to learn a Joe Rienfliesh rubber band trick is to learn it from Joe Rienfliesh!  Plugs Joe has his own site at rubberbandmagic.com All of Joe’s downloads can be found exclusive at Penguin Magic And you are invited to message Joe on Facebook Messenger, he’s always open to chat and answer your questions. The post The Secrets of Rubber Band Magic with Joe Rindfleisch appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

Ben and Jonah are back to get you excited about taking UnConventional.fun beyond the final frontier, that’s right, they’re going to space!  Of course we mean virtually, as UnConventional.fun is the premier virtual magic convention and the next one is happening on August 28th and 29th and tickets are still available at UnConventional.fun! In Space No One Can Hear You Sleep The first UnConventional.fun was hosted in a virtual hotel lobby and the 2nd and 3rd events sent attendees to the amusement park adventure zone that was Magic Land but the fourth event Ben and Jonah really wanted to take the gloves off and embrace all the outrageousness that a virtual magic convention can embrace and taken the entire event into outer space.  And since it’s happening in space, this means that there are no time zones and no sunsets and no night time or daytime so unlike previous UnConventional.fun events which would end after a certain hour each day this time around, when the convention starts, the events won’t stop until the end of the second day.  Don’t worry if you end up sleeping through your favourite lecture though, the entire event is being recorded and everyone who attends will be given videos of the lectures and panels that take place over the two day convention.  A Star Studded Event With over twenty-two confirmed guests, including magical luminaries such as Dani DaOrtiz, Garrett Thomas, Daniel Garcia, and Harapan Ong, you’ll be attending a two day event with some of the best magicians on the planet.   And all the lectures, panels, and shows will be yours to keep after the event so you can watch and rewatch your favourite moments over and over again.    Prepare For Launch The space station is ready to receive you and all you have to do now is head to UnConventional.fun and buy your tickets  The post UnConventional.fun … In Space! appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Jonah connects with legendary “underground” magician Howard Hamburg. Howard has never been a full time professional magician but at eighty-three years he is a long-standing member of The Magic Castle and considers some of the greatest magicians of our time to be among his closest friends.  Howard shares with us his recollections of the heydays of the Magic Castle, how he “got his name” from Dai Vernon, and his advice for today’s magicians.  “Well, do you need to see anything more”? Today you might find Howard sitting in Dai Vernon’s old seat at the Magic Castle, and it was The Professor himself who convinced Howard to audition for membership to the Magic Castle in the first place. Howard shares with us his early days with magic, how he learned his first card trick in the backroom of a billiards hall, and how he won over the committee at the Magic Castle to earn his membership.  “An Era Where Things Turned” Sitting at Dai Vernon’s table at the Magic Castle gave Howard a front row seat to the heyday of American magic of the 60’s and 70’s and during that time many of the greatest magic legends were just his friends that he spent his time with. Howard shares with us some of his favourite stories of the magic greats pulling pranks on each other and joking around among the halls of the Magic Castle as well as some of his own antics. As Howard puts it, he was the second biggest troublemaker at the Magic Castle (The Professor was the biggest). “Think Like A Spectator” Howard Hamburg has seen the world of Magic change over the years and from his front seat perspective on magic history his biggest advice for today’s magicians is to think like a spectator, not like a magician. Howard says, “If they stop thinking like a magician and start thinking like what the spectator is seeing then they will find themselves doing better magic”. Wrap-Up Endless Chain I’d love to really think this out and get back to you. There’s so many guys out there that are just wonderful, really. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? I liked the creativity that I see, the wonderful creative initiative of wonderful things out there right now. I’m talking about techniques and subtleties. I think there’s more of that coming back. Instead of just the trick, I think, people are seeing that there are things that are in between the lines of that structure, that little subtleties make the effect, the effect doesn’t make the subtleties. I don’t like the internet or YouTube and I think it’s very harmful to magic.  Take home point Stop thinking like a magician and start thinking more along the lines of a spectator. Also, pick up a book once in a while. Plugs Howard Hamburg still operates underground. When the world re-opens after the pandemic you might get lucky and catch him sitting at Dai Vernon’s seat at the Magic Castle and if you listen to the end of this episode Howard will share with you his personal e-mail that you can reach him at, but to preserve his well earned mystery, and to hide it from bots that might scan this text, we won’t be printing it here. The post Magical Stories of Magic Legends with Howard Hamburg appeared first on Discourse in Magic.