544: Gaetan Bloom - Crazy Creative

Gaetan Bloom is recognized as not only one of the most inventive and creative magic thinkers in our world of magic, but also he is one of the really nice guys in magic. We sat down with Gaetan during a recent magic convention and spent some quality time talking about his work in France, his performances at the Crazy Horse cabaret in Paris, his first meeting with another creative thinker, Kevin James, plus his thoughts and philosophies on magic and working with invisible thread and much more.

Gaetan Bloom talks about his road to work at the Crazy Horse in Paris, his thoughts on creativity using thread, his friendship with another magic creator, Kevin James, and many more topics.

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378 - Tom Frank - Street Wise

Tom Frank crossed the U.S. on a major lecture tour in early 2017. While he was in Houston, Texas, I had a chance to chat with him about some of the things in his lecture plus some of the things that weren't. Tom performed on Universal Studio's "City Walk" for a number of years until he was bumped by Harry Potter.

Tom Frank lectured for the Houston Association of Magicians and took some time to sit behind the new microphones to chat with Scott Wells for The Magic Word Podcast. Be sure to listen to our chat at https://www.themagicwordpocsast.com/scottwellsmagic/378-tom-frank

Time Stamps for this podcast:

00:08:18 - Tom talks about the importance of "Back of the Room Sales", pitching, and how magicians are leaving money on the table; performing on the street; advice he received from Cellini; lessons he's learned while on the street and on the road; operating a brick and mortar magic shop; and more.

01:06:24 - Product Review: "Cube 3" by Steven Brundage is not a gimmicked Rubik's Cube, but it is a super smooth working model complete with an online instruction video and PDF. This is NOT a self-working trick but will require work to perform. Recommended.

01:11:44 - Product Review: "The Yarn" by Manuel LLaser (Vernet Magic) is a signed bill/card to ball of yarn. Recommended.

334: A Magical Christmas Carol

Over the past year, I have attended a LOT of magic conventions. During those events, i have tried to update you with what was going on each day with daily updates from the organizers, talent, registrants, and dealers plus sometimes a little "color" background outside of the hotel.

But while I had some of my guests "cornered" for a few minutes, I asked them to do a reading of the classic story, "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. As many of you don't know, Dickens was a bit of a conjurer himself having performed during the summer of 1949 in a coastal resort off of the Isle of Wight purveying prestidigitation to those on holiday in the area. He was known as the “Rhia Rhama Rhoos - the Unparalleled Necromancer" and reportedly performed many unusual tricks including making playing cards magically burst into flames, transporting a woman’s watch from inside a wooden box and into the middle of a loaf of bread, and even cooking a steaming hot plum pudding in a gentleman’s top hat.

But prior to his venturing onto the stage to prestidigitate, he had already written many of his well-known novels including one published in 1843 which would become the iconic classic and perennial treatise on the holiday, "A Christmas Carol".

So here I present you this year's audio greeting card with great gratitude to all of my guests who participated in this project and also to all of you who regularly listen to The Magic Word Podcast. Happy Holidays!

As a little added treat for you this holiday season, here is a video I filmed and edited in 1985. Magician Scott Wells is visited by "three foreign" visitors who want to learn magic. In this video, Scott performs close-up, stand-up and stage magic for his guests. He also gives magic lessons to his guests; however, these instructions have been edited out of this public video.