Volume 2 Issue Number 3 March 2009

W es Is el i & P art y M agi c
The Magic & Illusion Show
Monthly Newsletter
Volume 2,Issue 3
March 2009
March already?
Welcome back
Special points of interest:
• Our public show schedule
Well football season is officially over
and spring seems to be right around the
corner. We are very busy booking summer shows; we already have several
county fairs lined up and a couple more
on the line.
• A magic show review
• Magic news
• Trick of the month
• Entertainment news
• Party Magic news
Unfortunately during March & April we
have no public shows in the works.
We will be doing a lot of school shows, a
bunch of private functions, and a few
church shows.
These shows are all pretty much invitation only.
Natalie & I in Dallas to watch the Cowboys play the Greenbay Packers. Natalie
looks very cute in that jersey, especially
since she is a Redskins fan.
Quote of the month
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning
from failure. - Colin Powell
Inside this issue:
A special thanks to Ron Schneider for this month’s pictures of the illusion show and everything he does for us. I'm so blessed to have a friend like you. Thanks Again!
The Magic & Illusion
show comes home
2
The Greatest Show on
Earth becomes magical
2
Magic for Beautiful
people
3
Scams in a down
economy
3
Our February went out
with a bang
4
Britney Spears sawed in
half?
4
Trick of the month
5
Who is this guy?
Harry Blackstone Sr. If you don’t know this name, you should.
Harry was born in September 1885 and died in November 1965.
Born Harry Bouton he tried to come up with a cool stage name
for himself while he was in his teens and saw a Blackstone cigar
and the name stuck. Harry received his first trick for his birthday at the age of 8. As a teen trying to learn every aspect of
magic he got odd jobs working with cabinet makers and other
craftsmen to learn what skills he needed to build his own props.
That is just what he and his brother Peter did, they built almost
every single prop they ever used in his huge, lavish show.
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Who is this guy? (cont)
Harry Blackstone toured mostly in the US, but during World War II Harry toured with the USO organization. He took his large illusion show to 165 military bases & since many of the camps did not have
any theatrical equipment he had to bring in everything from curtains, lights, ladders and everything else
needed. It was very hard on him but that was the one tour he was most proud of during his life. He is
known for many wonderful illusions; one is his frightening version of the sawing in half in which he
used a buzz saw. He also made a lit light bulb float over the audience and through hoops. His vanishing
birdcage is a beautiful illusion. He would hold a small cage in front of him and have children from the
audience hold the top and bottom, he would count to 3 then instantly the cage would vanish while it
was in their hands. Harry also had a beautiful trick called the dancing handkerchief. He would make a
gentleman's handkerchief come alive and appear to dance on stage. Harry also competed with Houdini
over ticket sales at times and duplicated some of Houdini's escapes such as the bridge jumps and underwater escapes. Natalie and I were able to visit his grave while on the road performing. His grave is
in Colon, Michigan which is known for being the magic capital of the world. After his death the main
street was renamed to Blackstone Avenue. In his cemetery there are around 22 other magicians interred there. The local magic shop Abbots Magic holds a “Get together” each year that pretty much
shuts down the town because it is overflowing with magicians from all over the country. All of Harry's
Me at Blackstone's grave in
magic lived on through his son Harry Blackstone Jr. He continued to perform his father’s classics as
Colon, Michigan
well as some of his own magic. Harry Jr. was also know for touring with his own elephant which he
made disappear nightly.
The Magic & Illusion Show hits William Monroe High School
On February 21st at 7:30 pm Natalie and I performed our new Illusion show. Last year
was our first year performing at William Monroe High School. They sold over 755 tickets and the local paper had a huge write up on us. It was especially cool to me because
that was my old high school. This year we were hired by the Greene County Child Care
Center to put on our show for them as a fundraiser. They really worked hard advertising. They put up posters, had TV advertising, fliers & lots of word of mouth. This was
our first live performance of our new illusion show and everything went great. Natalie
shined during her parts and I had several magician friends in the audience who were
amazed with Natalie's performance. They said she came from nowhere and blew them
away. After an unusually long intermission, due to the fact that this was a fundraiser
and the audience was still spending money, I performed my newspaper headline prediction, the 100 foot rope escape, and several more magical effects before Natalie tricked me
into the box and stole the show.
Magic News /
The Greatest Show on Earth has become more Magical
Alex Roman does not look like your regular ringmaster you have come to expect
with the Greatest Show on Earth. You may expect a deep voice from a big man
comparable to Harry Blackstone Jr. Alex is none of these things at all, he is only
23, 138 pounds and only 5 foot 8 inches. According to my sources, he performs
some great magic from cutting clowns in half to producing doves & he even makes
a 4 ton elephant disappear. Alex is scheduled for a 2 year tour, performing 13 illusions nightly with 3 costume changes in a 2 hour show. This show even has a story
line in which an evil clown, Mr. Gravity, wants to bring everyone down literally.
He really does not like the acrobats. During one part of the show Mr. Gravity becomes violent and sticks two circus performers on the ceiling. It is all up to the
ringmaster to keep Mr. Gravity in check. Alex has no choice but to turn Mr. Gravity into a tiger, and this is just a
taste of this new show.
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The Magic & Illusion show season 3
On February 21st we kicked off our new season. Wanting to push ourselves, we created a bunch of new effects
for the season. I performed a cards across routine where 3 cards travel from one spectator’s hand into another
spectators hand who is standing across stage. I also be performed a 100 foot rope tie challenge where a spectator from the audience ties me to a metal chair. Natalie’s magic debut was pretty impressive. She came out guns
blazing. She took on a lot of work for this new show and put almost all of it square on her shoulders. She performed a complicated silk and dove routine and during another part of the show she needs to clean up a mess
that I make and she pulls out a ton of cleaning supplies & a full length push broom out of a shoe box. She is very
excited about this new show and is really happy to
have a more prominent role in this show instead of just
being the girl in the boxes that does a mind reading
trick. We also have a new opening illusion called a doll
house. The box is shown empty and I produce a 9 inch
Raggedy Ann doll. I place the doll into the doll house
and it turns into a 3 foot Raggedy Ann doll. That doll is
placed into the doll house and after some byplay Natalie is produced from this box complete in her own Raggedy Ann outfit.
Magic for Beauty Pageants
I have been performing for beauty pageants for 13 years now. I first got the job working
for Sunburst beauty pageant when the state final for Virginia was held in Charlottesville.
I worked for them and the rest is history. I have since performed for them in Tennessee,
South Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia, Ohio, Maryland, Kentucky, & of course Virginia, all of them several times over the years. I have performed for the state finals for
each of these shows and the crowds are usually around 300-700 people. Natalie & I have
also performed a few times for the international competition and there the audience is
around 2000 people. The Sunburst pageants have infants to 18 year olds competing. Since
working with Sunburst beauty pageants I have been fortunate to have been asked to judge
several times, (the talent portion only). I have also worked for other beauty pageants over
the years: Cover Miss, Junior Miss, Ultimate Miss and also have traveled all over the
East Coast with those. We have already booked Virginia and West Virginia this year for Me performing at Sunburst
in Georgia in 2008
Sunburst and we can’t wait to see all the kids again. Good luck kids!
Where is Houdini when you need him?
According to CNN, business is going great for some in a down economy. You will need to check your ethics at the door and
who knows what kind of damage you’re doing to the ones who are involved, but who cares when you can make $135.00 per
hour. What could we possibly be talking about? Psychics of course. CNN news said business is so good that some of these fortune tellers are actually charging $20.00 per minute. Times are tough out there we all know that, but come on if you just lost
your job spending $20.00 per minute or $135.00 per hour to talk to a psychic is not going to make you any better off. The top
three questions of psychics have always been love, health, and wealth, but nowadays it is almost all about money. People are
scared and are panicking over this economy. Houdini battled over these topics in the early 1900’s. He raged war over these
fortune tellers and mediums proving them wrong and exposing their secrets. I have a cool video that The Amazing Randi
was involved in. In the video he took a picture of Ted Bundy to a top psychic in Europe and said Ted, his loved one, was a
missing person and asked them if they knew or could tell him anything about him. The Psychic told Randi that this was the
most loving and compassionate man she had ever done a reading on, that he was alive and well with a new family and he
was an upstanding citizen, he just needed a new start. The reading took place 10 years after he was executed for brutally
murdering over 30 victims. I just hope Randi did not have to pay for that reading.
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Halifax County High School in VA
Preston Elementary School in MD
We had a crazy schedule on February 27th through February 28th. We had our illusion show at Halifax County
High School in South Boston, VA on the 27th. That show started at 7:30 and then after that show we headed
straight to Preston MD where we were scheduled for two illusion shows that next day, one at 2:00 pm the other
at 5:00 pm. We had worked for Halifax County before, but the show in Preston was brand new to us. The show
in Preston ended up booking 2 shows because they sold out for the first show right away. Our weekend started
on Friday morning when we left at 7:00 am to arrive at Halifax High school at 11:00 am. When we arrived we
met with Allen Lawter the athletic director and the contact person for the show. He had us go into the lunch
room of the high school and entertain the kids with some close up magic to get a buzz going about that night’s
show. I performed during two lunch periods and then we went to a elementary school where I went into each
and every class and did 5 minutes entertaining the class and telling them about that night’s show. Then we
went back to the high school and started unloading the illusion show to get ready for a 7:00 pm show time. Allen
was expecting a smaller turn out this year because of the economy but was pleased when the same number of
people showed up this year. The show went great and afterwards we took pictures with the audience, signed
autographs and packed up. It was around 11:30 pm when we headed straight for Preston, MD. Natalie and I
took turns driving while the other slept. We got to Preston around 5:30 am on Saturday morning, we went out to
breakfast and got to the school around 10:30 am to started unloading the show. They went above and beyond
with the games and concessions; they had everything you could think of there to make money. After the first
show the contact came to me and Natalie and said they had already made a substantial profit and everything
else they made was icing on the cake. We left Preston Elementary school at 8:00 pm and had dinner then left
town around 9:30 pm trying to outrun an ice storm. We got home around 2:30 am on Sunday morning and slept
for a little while because we had a couple of smaller shows that afternoon. Needless to say we were wore out, but
it was a fun adventure. There is truly nothing like show business!
Pictures are of me trying to escape
from 100 ft of rope, Natalie doing
magic behind my back, me signing autographs after our show.
Thanks again to Ron Schneider
for the great pictures!
Entertainment News / Britney Spears sawed in half
Britney Spears’ new ‘Circus’ tour will include some magic with the help of professional magician Ed Alonzo. The two have been rehearsing for the new tour and Ed says, "Right away, she
got into the boxes and into the magic contraptions to learn the stuff, and she's so excited about this tour and
all the elements that are in it.
“We're going to be doing the classics of magic but a little high-tech. We'll be doing a little dissection, transposition, a vanish and an appearance."
He told 'E!' News, “It's like watching a big Cirque du Soleil high-tech circus, but with a really focused star
in the middle of all of this. It's going to be an amazing concert for people to watch." Which sounds to me
like a stab at Criss Angel
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Teach a Trick /
Broken & restored toothpick
Effect: Have a tooth pick rolled up into a handkerchief and ask the spectator to break it in half and then
break it again and then again if possible. Ask the spectator to make sure it is broken then unroll the handkerchief and the toothpick is fully restored.
Secret: You will need 2 toothpicks and one handkerchief. You place one toothpick in the seam of the handkerchief, if you don’t have a seam big enough make a bigger seam yourself with needle and thread. Make
sure your seam is even all around the handkerchief so it does not look suspicious. Then with the one toothpick hidden you are ready to go perform. Lay the handkerchief on to a table and place a toothpick on the
handkerchief. When you bunch up the handkerchief make sure they can still feel the tooth pick through the
cloth and you are secretly handing them the toothpick hidden in the seam to break. After they are through
breaking it you un-bunch the handkerchief and the toothpick is back to normal.
Reset: to be able to perform this trick again pull all of the broken pieces out of the seam and place a new
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Good luck & enjoy!