Monday, April 30, 2012

Running into famous magicians ・ 有名なマジシャンとの出会いの日


Saturday was a day full of excitement. At lunch, a system I built at my last place of work was presented on national TV. It is a system that creates word play jokes (of a low quality, but still) in Japanese. You tell the system what you want it to joke about, and it outputs some joke vaguely related to that. Sadly, the part were my name was mentioned was cut (it was my previous boss that was showing the system on TV). The system worked so-so when they tried it live (reportedly, it worked even better before they started taping). Well, I guess if the system becomes famous that is good :-) The explanation of how the system works was not correct, though...

土曜日は刺激的な日だった。昼頃に前の職場で作った親父ギャグ自動生成システムがNHKで紹介された。日本語でくだらない言葉遊びのギャグを自動的に作るシステムなんだ。何に関してのギャグが欲しいかを入力して、何かのギャグが出てくる。残念ながら、僕の名前が言われた時はカットされていた…まぁ、システムだけが有名になってもいいことだけど、笑。前の職場の先生がテレビで色々なシステムを紹介していた。本番の時にシステムがまあまあのように動いた。本番の前にもっと面白いものが出てきたらしいが本番に変にならなくて良かった、笑。システムがどうやってギャグを作るとかに関しての説明は間違っていたけど。

In the afternoon I was visiting our local magic shop to talk to the owner, and then the most famous magician in Sapporo (probably) came to the shop (he is called Birdie Koyama). We did not talk though. I left when he came.

午後にマジックショップメビウスに行った。オーナーと仲いい。僕が帰ろうとした時に、札幌の一番有名なマジシャン(だと思う?)、小山バーディーさんが入ってきた。マジシャンから見たらの有名人のちょっとした出会いだったがバーディーさんと話さなかった。

Later that night in our magic bar, we had a night of great customers coming in large numbers. Every magician had great reactions over and over again! Then, at around midnight, all the customers left and no new customers seemed to be coming either. After an hour or so, we drew cards to decide who would have to go (me) and I went out to buy hamburgers from our closest McDonald's in the middle of the night.

夜に、マジックバーでいいお客さんばっかり沢山入ってくれた!マジシャン4人で皆凄くいいリアクションばかり。大声で話しても、隣の人たちが受けすぎて、僕が何を言っているか聞こえない時が多かった、笑。僕のお客さんもそれに負けないように同じく凄い力で驚いていたし…楽しいがずっと大声で喋ると結構疲れるね。24時頃、皆が帰って、急にお客さんが0になった。新しいお客さんが入って来なさそうだったし。1時間くらい片付けて、色々時間つぶしてみたら、皆ちょっとお腹空いてたから、罰ゲームで決めて、マック食べようって話になった。僕が罰ゲームを負けたから、近くのマックまで行って、3500円分のマックを買った。

The bar was really really empty. We ate huge amounts of hamburgers in our bar, cleaned up, and then started watching clips on YouTube etc. Our boss fell asleep on a sofa.

恐ろしい量ハンバーガーを食べた。また片付けて、ユーチューブの動画とかを観たりした。店長がソファーでちょっと寝ちゃった。

Then, the phone rang and someone who was very impolite and very drunk asked where our bar was located and said they were coming. When I got back from the toilet, two men were sitting at the counter, and one of them was a typical "Oh, no, this is going to be difficult" customer, haha. He was pretty drunk, and kept shouting that "everyone needs to be more fun now!" and talking about how they had come from Tokyo just to have fun in our magic bar (at 3:30 in the morning :-)

突然、電話が掛かってきた。相手は態度の悪い人っぽいし、相当酔っ払っているし、皆超疲れている時にこういう人が来るよねとちょっと思った。トイレから帰ってきたら、男2人がカウンターにいた。1人は大変そうな感じだった。酔っていたし、「もっと盛り上げようよ!何で誰も乗って来ないか!」とか「もっと面白いことして!」とか言っていた。わざわざここに見に来るために東京から来たよって。「そうなんですか?東京にもマジックバー沢山ありますね」と言ってみたら、「そういう話要らない!」って言われた、笑。

We usually do magic one at a time for the customers, and our youngest magician started performing for them first. One of them was quiet and a very nice spectator, the other was fairly loud, kept talking about other things, or saying things like "No, not that trick, I want to see something else." or "Call in the next magician"...

普段、マジシャン1人づつで10~20分くらいお客さんにマジックを見せて、皆順番で行く。最初アルバイトの若い(19歳)のマジシャンがマジックをやっていた。僕はお客さんがもう来ないと思ってて、前に道具を全部バッグに入れたので、バッグを取りに行ったがお客さんは誰だと気付かなかった。ただ、キョウヘイ君がマジックをやっている時に、1人のお客さんがいいお客さんでずっと観てくれるのに、2人目はほとんど観ていなくて、マジック途中でも突然僕に何か変なことを言ったりしてて、「あぁ、大変なお客さんだね」と思った、笑。「そういうマジック要らない。違うマジックして!次のマジシャンを呼んで」とかも言っていた。

I went to take out some stuff from my bag of tools, and another colleague went to fetch something too. I did not notice anything, but my colleague came back and said in a very quiet voice: "Isn't the closest guy <name of VERY famous magician>?" Taking a closer look, it could very well be him... And when he turned to me and asked if I was American, there was no doubt. One of the Gods of magic had showed up unannounced in our magic bar, haha.

もう1人の同僚もごみを片付けに行ったか何かしようとした時に、お客さんを見て、凄い顔したんだ。そして、僕の方に来て、小さな声で「あの人、○○さんじゃない?」って(日本で凄く有名なマジシャン)。僕がまた見て、後ろ姿しか見えなかったか、そう言われたら、そうかも。そして、その人が僕のほう見て、「アメリカ人?」って聞いてきた時に「あぁあぁ!本人だぁぁ!」って分かった。神様が店に来たぁ!

I started thinking furiously to find some tricks I could show that he would be likely to a) enjoy, b) not have seen a million times before, and c) not be able to figure out where they were going even before the trick started... That did not leave so many tricks, since he likely has seen most magic tricks ever invented.

焦った。どんなマジック見せればいいかな?神様が面白いと思うマジックで、何回も見たこともないマジックで、ちょっとだけ見たらすぐオチが分からないマジックって、ある?なさそうじゃない?普段やっているマジックで、マジシャンだったら結構知っているマジックが多い。一般人のうけがいいマジックがメインだよね。

Our young magician performed all his magic without noticing who he was doing magic for. He did things like hand over the most standard coin used by magicians and say: "This is an American half dollar. It is slightly bigger than a Japanese 500 yen coin. Please check it see what it feels like." That guy has been touching coins like that since before you were born! Haha. But not knowing may be the best. Then you do not feel nervous, at least. Even if he felt a little embarrassed afterwards of having explained really basic stuff to a magic legend, haha.

キョウヘイ君がずっとマジックをやってて、相手が誰だって気付かなかった!超うける。神様にマジシャンがよく使うコインを渡して、「これはアメリカのハーフダラーというコインなんです。調べて下さい」って。知っているよ!(笑)キョウヘイがまだうまれていない時からずっと触っているんだろ、笑。うけるが、多分そっちの方が一番楽だと思うね。気付いた私たちは超緊張してきたがキョウヘイ君は普通のお客さんだと思って、緊張しないでマジックやった。後で、「こういう人にああいうマジックを見せるのはちょっと…」とか、色々考えていたみたいけど、笑。

Next up, my other colleague went to perform for them, but they loud guy said he did not want to see his magic, so he came back and I went instead. I first hammered a nail into my nose to use as an antenna when mindreading what card the famous magician might have picked. Then I tried my true and trusted "lighter turns into a box of matches" trick that I did not invent but that I at least built myself from scratch and which is so easy a beginner can do it without fail after a few minutes of practice and which I have used over and over for two years. During those two years, I have only screwed up the trick once, but yesterday of course turned into my second, and largest to date, haha, failure during these two years... nice timing there. Maybe my hands were shaking too much?

次、つねと呼ばれる同僚がマジックをしに行ったがちょっと大変な方のお客さんが「あんた要らない。別のマジシャンを呼んで」って言ったから、つねが帰ってきた、僕がマジックをしに行った。最初、カードを引いて貰って、アンテナに使いたいから釘を鼻に入れた。アンテナがあれば、絵スパみたいに選んだカードはなんだって読み取れるっていうマジックをした。ちょっとうけたみたい。その次、ライターがマッチに変わるマジックをしようとした。自分で考えたマジックではないが道具は自分で作ったし、日本でやるマジシャンが少ないみたいし、初心者でも2~3回練習すれば失敗ほぼ出来ないマジックだし、ちょっといいかもと思った。2年間ずっと結構やっているマジックで、今まで1回だけ失敗した。そして、神様の前で2回目の失敗になった。大変な失敗だった!(笑)手震えすぎたからかな?今考えたら、またちょっと恥ずかしい、笑。こういう日はこういうことあるよねぇ…と思った。

The loud guy (who was the producer of the famous magician, and who has invented several very famous and popular tricks) said he was only interested in original tricks. I tried performing an original, but not that hard to understand for magicians, card trick that I think has a funny presentation, but the loud guy just took one card at an inopportune time and said: "This is the kicker, yes? This is how the trick ends?" and was uninterested. He was right, too, of course, but still a very difficult type of customer to perform for...

ちょっと態度悪い方のお客さん(神様がずっといいお客さんだったけd)が「オリジナルなマジックしか要らない」とかを言っていた。彼もマジシャンの世界で結構有名なんだ。色々な有名なマジックを考えた人なんだ。じゃぁ、と思って、僕のオリジナルなカードマジックをし始めた。特に難しいことはしないマジックで、マジシャンがだいたいすぐ分かるマジックだが見せ方がちょっと面白いと思ったからやり始めた。突然、触って欲しくないカードを捲ろうとされた!「こういうオチでしょ?」って。まぁ、そういうオチだったがそういうお客さんなら、何のマジックもやりづらい。

The two of them were very very funny together though. Whenever the loud guy said something rude, not necessarily to us but about some magician on TV or something like that, the famous magician would slap him or hit him over the head with the menu, etc. They were like a stand up comedy duo, and a funny one at that. After awhile, the loud guy who had seemed like a very very annoying type of customer turned into a very funny customer (still very annoying to try to perform magic for, but still). In the end, I liked him very much. The famous guy was a great customer from start, throughout the whole time, and seemed like a super nice person. Still a bit hard to perform for, because of nerves and the fact that he probably knows so very much about magic. And that they both are rarely fooled by magic so you have zero feedback when performing since they are never surprised or applauding etc.

お客さん2人で結構面白かった。態度悪い時に、神様が面白いように突っ込んだ。メニュー表で頭を叩いたりして、ビンタしたりしてた。結構痛そうだった。神様ではない方がテレビを出ているマジシャンの悪口(結構面白い話だったけど、笑)とかを言っている時、2人でコントみたいにビンタとかしていた。面白かった。どんどん、この人が態度悪い人や怖い人というより、この人が面白い人だと思ってきた。(まだマジックを見せる相手として、大変なお客さんだったけど)。結局、好きな感じの人だなぁの印象になった。

神様は最初から最後までいいお客さんだった。丁寧にマジックを見てくれた。面白い人だったし。神様の前でマジックを見せるのがまだちょっと大変だけどね。マジックの知識もスキルも凄いから何を見せればいいか分からないし、緊張するし。2人ともマジック凄い沢山見ているから、驚かないしね。知らないマジックを見ても先読めるんだ。反応が全くないのが結構きついんだ。他のマニアのお客さんやそこまで有名でもないマジシャンとかもそうだ。リアクションがないとどうしても違和感あるからやりづらい。

Anyway, I did another mental type trick where the loud guy picked a card, put it back somewhere in the deck, and I shuffled in a very fair way. I delt cards and one of them said stop, and of course the next card in the deck was the selected card. I also showed a stack of pictures of famous people (Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, etc.) and had the famous magician say stop and he stopped on a card with a picture of me every time. A trick I made last week. Finally, I also did a card trick with my hiragana practice cards, and I produced a salmon sushi from my t-shirt. The famous magician at least seemed to like it when I hammered a nail into my nose to figure out his card, and when I produced the sushi from my t-shirt showing a salmon eating salmon sushi.

その後、別のメンタル的なカード当てをした。カードを選んで貰って、好きなところに入れて貰って、トランプきって、カードを配っていって、好きなタイミングでストップと言って貰って、次のカードがお客さんのカードだった。他に、欧米の芸能人カード(ジョニー・デップとか、トム・クルーズとか)で、ストップの時に僕の写真が出てくるマジックもやった。先週作った新ネタ。ひらがな練習のトランプでよく女の子にやるマジックもした。「だから?そして?」と言われた(笑)。「これがオチでしょ!」と神様が言ってくれたけど、笑。最後にティシャツからサーモンの寿司を出した。それがちょっとうけたみたい。

Then my colleague that was first sent back did some magic too. He did mainly tricks that you would expect serious magicians to know, and the loud guy was complaining a lot ("Ah, not a Maya Issey trick, show us something we don't know...") while the famous guy was a very kind spectator.

前に「あんた要らない」と言われたつねがもう一回挑戦をしに行った。マジックをやっている人で誰でも知っていそうなマジックを何個かやった。「マヤイッセイのマジック要らない。オリジナルのをやってよ」とか言われた。でも、神様が丁寧に見てくれて、指差して欲しい時にやり易いところを指差してくれたりしていたし。

Finally, our boss did a fairly standard trick in a way presented on a DVD that is recently popular but very difficult. Both of them suddenly seemed very interested, and they were impressed. Our boss is of course very good at what he does, but making people like those two impressed is quite a feat I think. First our boss tried with: "What would you say if I did a trick with the Chinese rings?" but one guy replied: "I would punch you in the face", haha, so he did not do that trick.

最後に、店長が何かしないと行けないことにもなった。最初、「チャイナリングをやってもいいですか?」と言ったが「ぶん殴る」と言われた(笑)。最近、結構人気があるDVDからのやり方で有名なカードマジックをした。結構難しいやり方なんだ。店長がうまいし。お客さん2人とも感動したみたい。「うまい」と言われた。

We all talked for awhile, which was very nice and a lot of fun. The two of them also wanted to do some magic for us, and borrowed some cards. The loud guy went first, but it was a little unclear what exactly he tried to show (he was by then very very drunk). The famous magician then did a card effect where it turned out that a card mentally selected by one of us was located in the famous magician's pocket.

後で、皆で結構話したし。楽しかった。そのコントみたいなことも続いてて、超笑った。その2人もマジックし始めた。その頃、相当酔っ払っていたから最初に何見せたいかよく伝わらなかった。その後、神様が結構不思議なカードマジック1つを見せてくれた。頭の中で決めたカード1枚が神様のポケットから出てきた。

Then they left, and we sat down to talk a bit and calm our nerves.

お客さんが帰って、皆でちょっと座って、落ち着くまで話していた。

A very exciting night! It was very nice to have met him in real life, though thinking back now there are some other tricks I do that would probably be more fun for him to watch, and it was a bit embarrassing to manage to fail with my lighter... But he was a very nice person. The loud guy at first seemed like quite the opposite of a nice person, but turned out to be a lot of fun, and was probably not serious about all of the bad stuff he said, haha. I liked them both.

刺激的だった。神様に会えて良かった。今考えたら、「あれ?何でこのマジックやらなかった?やったマジックより絶対いいよね」とか、色々あるけど。ライターの失敗も恥ずかしいし、笑。でも、凄くいい人だったね。態度悪い人も、最初結構大変なお客さんだなと思ったが最後に結構好きな感じになった。面白い人だった。荒い発言、ちょっと冗談で言っている分もあったと思う。エレベータの前でつねが自分のティシャツとその人のティシャツを指差して、「ミキ繋がりだね」と言ったら、「そういう話要らない」って、また怒られたくらい、笑。

Their timing was not the greatest. Everyone had been doing lots of magic, and with really high tension, so we were all super tired. Then there was about three hours of nothing to do in the middle of the night, making everything worse. So if they had showed up some other day, we might have been even more fun to watch. But at least they did not show up right when we were eating hamburgers. Considering this magician is famously connected to hamburgers, that would have been weird but really funny :-)

タイミングがちょっと残念だったけど。皆だいぶ疲れていた時に来たね。早い時間にずっとテンション高かったし、3時間くらいのダウンの時間も余計に体がだるくなるし。他の日に来れば、もっと面白いマジック出来たかもしれない。まぁ、マックを食べている時に入るより良かったけど、笑。でも、神様もハンバーガーの繋がりが強いので、逆にその時に入ればうけたかもしれない。

Here is a clip of me doing the lighter trick properly on TV:
テレビで僕が失敗していない時のライターのマジックの動画:


Friday, April 27, 2012

Excellent card trick ・ 素晴らしいカードマジック


This card routine by Helder Guimaraes is incredible.

Helder Guimaraesさんのこのカードマジック、凄い不思議だ。感動。

Monday, April 23, 2012

Birthday party magic ・ 誕生日パーティーでマジックショー

Cute cake

On Sunday I did a short magic show at a friend's place. It was a birthday party for a five year old boy, so the audience was made up of kids of around four to five years, and their parents. Everyone seemed to enjoy the magic, and then there was cake, wine, food, etc. so I too had a great time.

Kids and parents
 
日曜日に友達の家でマジックショーした。5歳の男の子の誕生日パーティーだったので、観客は4~5歳の子供と親だった。皆楽しんでくれたみたい。その後、ケーキやワインもあったから、僕も楽しんでいた。

Home made banana bread based cake!

Food from fans ・ ファンからの食べ物


On Saturday, a girl who comes to our magic bar a lot (the same girl who judged our magic contest last week) showed up bringing food for all the staff. She works as a chef in a Chinese restaurant, so she had made gyoza and spring rolls for us. Very nice.

土曜日に店の常連さんの女の子(先週のマジックコンテストの審査員になった女の子)が手作り料理を持って来てくれた。中華のレストランで働いているので、中華が上手に作れる!餃子と春巻きをいただいた。

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Magic Clip: Offensive magic trick ・ マジック動画:酷いマジック


http://5secondfilms.com/watch/magic_show_volunteer

I laughed at this magic trick.

このマジック、酷すぎて、爆笑した。

New Ideas ・ 新しいアイデア


Yesterday I went to talk to one of my friends who is not a magician. His father was a magician, though, so he knows quite a lot about magic, and we often have fruitful discussions on new ideas for magic tricks, or interesting presentation ideas/stories for tricks I come up with.

Yesterday I showed him a trick I made myself. It has four cards that says "Win" in Japanese, and one that says "Lose". You can present it as a gambling trick, where you give the spectator 1000 yen for selecting any "Win" card, and have them pay you 50 yen if by some chance they happen to take the "Lose" card. You can shuffle the cards very cleanly, and then tell them that you will take cards from the top to the bottom, and whenever they want they say stop, and they get whatever card is on top. Really clean, very fair (or at least looks that way :-). Every time, they stop on the "Lose" card, even though the odds are greatly in favor of winning.

My friend, who knows much about magic and thus is rarely completely fooled (he usually has some idea of how you could do most tricks) thought it was very very strange and seemed to have no idea what was going on. We then discussed better presentation ideas than "Win" and "Lose". I will try to make a set of photos of popular actors (Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, etc.) and myself. Using this as "what is your ideal type of man", people will end up with me, every time. I also think "Slap me" vs. "Kiss me" cards could be fun.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Magic Maniac Competition ・ マジックマニアの勝負


Yesterday we once again had one of our pretty much weekly "magic maniac" meetings. The regular members consisting of me (computer science researcher), U (barber), and O (udon chef) were of course there. Since we were in the magic bar I go to during the weekends, two of the magicians there were also available, though one left early. There was also a farmer who I have met once or twice before who does mental magic.

昨日、またマジックマニア会の日だった。レギュラーの僕・う~さん・オさんが参加した、マジックバーのスタッフ2人もいたし、農家をやっているメンタリストも参加したし、楽しかった。

At around 1 a.m. all regular customers had left, except one young girl. She has been in our magic bar several times before, and I guess she likes magic quite a lot. We were having the maniac meeting, but since she was all alone we invited her to our table. Normally, we do some kind of game were you have 10 seconds to make a coin disappear, and then the others guess were it is. The person who fools the least number of people has do perform some high level magic trick for the others.

午前1時頃に、一般人のお客さんが1人以外皆帰ったので、本格的なマニア会が始まった。その一般人の女の子1人がちょっと寂しく見えたので、うちらのテーブルに誘った。それで、付いて行けない話とかもあったんだろが色々な面白いマジックもあった。店長がちょっと早めに帰らないといけない予定があったからその後マジシャン5人になった。普段罰ゲームみたいに、10秒でコインを消して、一番あてられる人が他の人にマジックを見せないと行けないゲームとかする。

This time, we decided to instead do competition rounds were everyone did one magic trick for the girl (and the other magicians), and she then decided which performance she liked the best. I had brought some new things aimed at maniacs, and had left all my "works really well on young women" stuff at home... And I had already done most of my normal repertoire for her the two times she had seen me perform in the magic bar before.

今回、勝負にしようって話になった。皆が1人づつその女の子にマジックを見せて、女の子がどのパフォーマンスが一番良かったかを決めることになった。僕がマニア会にマニア向けのネタしか持って行けなかったし、前にもマジックバーでその女の子が僕のパフォーマンスを2回見たし、見せていないネタがそんなになかった。

The competitors were me, my young magic bar colleague (our boss had to leave before the competition got going, though he was part of the normal maniac stuff we did first), U, O, and the farmer.

他に、僕のマジックバーの若い同僚1人・床屋さんの友達・うどん屋のマニア友達・農家のメンタリストも参加した。

The first round had lots of different types of magic. This was true for all the first three rounds. For example, the farmer did various mind reading/prediction effects; U did his one coin routine, a ring and rope routine ending with a huge (fake) diamond appearing on the ring on the spectators finger, a card trick were all cards were white but then turned into normal cards except one card from which a hamburger appeared; my colleague did a card effect with a strange lens, a "do as I do" thing with a sea lion, a "cut off finger in a box" thing, etc.; I did a card effect were all cards except the chosen one turned into the 9 of hearts, switched out a 0 yen fake bill for a 1000 yen bill that the girl had brought herself that she held in her hand, and something else; O did a card trick were lots of udon appeared, made Frisk breathmints turn big in several ways, and much more.

最初の1ラウンドに幅広くて、色々なマジックがあった。他のラウンドもそうだった。例えば、農家で予言や心理を読むマジックをした。う~さんがワン・コインも、指輪と紐(最後に女の子の指にあった指輪にでかい宝石が出てきた!)、白いトランプが普通のトランプに変わってトランプからハンバーガーが出てきた。同僚が変なレンズを使ったカード当て・アシカの可愛い絵を使ったマジックなどをした。オさんがトランプからうどん・フリスクが色々な意味で大きくなったとか、色々なカードマジックもした。僕が選んだカード以外全部ハートの9にしたし、お客さんの1000円札と僕の0円札っぽい名刺をお客さんの手の中で入れ替えたし。

The first round was won by a mental effect by the farmer. The second round I won, with my new 0 yen/1000 yen changing places in the spectator's hand trick. The third round was won by O with his udon produced from a deck of card trick.

最初のラウンドは農家のメンタルマジックの優勝になった。2回目は僕の手の中の変わる札のマジックになった。3回目はオさんのうどんのマジックが一番うけた。

For the fourth round, people were running out of new material. O suggested the girl could make a request, and then everyone had to do that trick in their own way. She said she wanted to see something disappear. This was a very fun challenge. The mentalist went first and had her write something down that she dislikes. He then divined what she disliked without looking, and told her that he had psychically made those bad things disappear. My colleague and O both made a whole deck of cards disappear. U made some coins disappear. I first made a rubber band disappear, but that did not go over well, so I took out a handkerchief and made a lighter, a box of cigarettes, and a 2 liter bottle of tea disappear. The tea won some appreciation by it being really big, but the other magicians disputed that that should mean I won, haha. I claimed victory by way of having the sense to pick the best trick to impress with, even if the actual disappearing may or may not have happened elsewhere.

4回目になった時に、結構ネタ切れって感じだったからオさんが「女の子からリクエストを聞いて、皆同じマジックをすれば?」と提案した。「何かが消えるマジック見たい」って。こういうチャレンジが超楽しかった!順番で、メンタルシトが紙に嫌なものを書いてもらって、見ないで何の嫌なことだったかをあてて、嫌なものが消えるマジックをした。同僚もオさんもトランプ1個丸ごと消した。う~さんが何を消したか、ちょっと不明だったがコインとか消えたと思う。僕が最初にうけ狙いで輪ゴムを消したがかなり滑った…皆が僕のすべりに爆笑(笑)。その後ハンカチを出して、ライタ・タバコの箱・2リトルのペットボトルを消した。2リトルのボトルがでかいから印象が一番強かったみたい。それで、ヨーナスの優勝になるか、不明だと他のマジシャンが言い出した(笑)。ネタを選ぶセンスが良かったから僕の優勝だと僕が答えたけど。僕が本当に自分で消したかもしかしたら誰か他の人が消したか、関係ないね!笑

The girl was probably very happy with having several hours of private magic show. I left at around 6:20 a.m. (I have to work during the days) but some people were still left then (more customers showed up around 4 a.m. too).

その女の子が普段のマジックのパフォーマンスを見てから、何時間もプライベートのマジックショー観れたのが多分ラッキーだったと思うね。僕が6時20分に帰った(昼の仕事しているから…)。何人かがまだやっていたけど。4時ごろに他のお客さんも入ったし。

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Magic Mania Movie ・ 久し振りのマニア会動画


Today I went to one of our magic bars to talk about The Walking Dead (which just finished its second season here in Japan yesterday) with one of my colleagues there. There were lots of magic maniacs there, though, so we did not have much chance to talk about TV shows. Instead, I managed to get a nice clip showing one of my friends doing a funny routine with flies.

今日、「ウォーキングデッド」というドラマのどシーズン2がちょうど今日本で終わったので、うちのマジックバーの1号店に同僚とドラマの話をしに行った。マジックのマニアの人がもういっぱい入っていたから、結局ドラマの話できなかったが楽しかった。マニア友達のハエ叩きのパドルの演技の動画も撮れた。

Sunday, April 8, 2012

The night when the sushi I produced from my T-shirt became real! ・ ティシャツから出てきた寿司が本物になった!

My fake salmon sushi, on top of some other magic props, looking more real than usual.
Yesterday I was wearing my "salmon eating salmon sushi" T-shirt and whenever a customer in our magic bar asked me about the shirt, I would produce one or two pieces of sushi from the shirt. These are not real sushi, though. Later, at around 1 A.M. when all customers had left to catch the last subway and the next wave of customers that turn up at around 3 or 4 A.M. (when many other places close) showed up, we were sitting down watching clips on YouTube etc. My boss told me: "Jonas, could you hand me those sushi you use."

昨日も鮭がサーモンの寿司を食べているティシャツを来ていた。お客さんがティシャツの話したら、僕がティシャツから寿司1個か2個を出した。本物ではないけど。午前1時に、皆終電で帰るから、マジックバーが暇になっていた。他の店が閉めてうちに来るお客さんが3~4時頃に来るので、その間ユーチューブとか観たりしていた。店長が「ヨーナス、その寿司渡して」って言い出した。

I reached over to my bag, on top of which I have some cards, a matchbox that used to be a lighter, some other magic props that I used during the night, and my fake sushi. When I touched the sushi, I noticed that something was off; it felt cold... I was very surprised and pulled back my arm quickly, much to the delight of everyone else... My boss was laughing like crazy. Upon closer inspection, my fake sushi seemed to have turned into real sushi! It was placed exactly where I had left my sushi, and was the same type, size, etc. Except, it was real. I was very surprised.

僕のバッグの上にトランプやマッチやマジック道具が置いてあって、そこに偽物の寿司も置いてあったから、取ろうとした。寿司触ったら、「あれ?感触違う!」って気付いて、ビックリした!驚いた姿に、他のスタッフ皆笑っていた。店長爆笑していた。よく見たら、本物のサーモン寿司だった。僕が偽物寿司を置いたところに置いてあったし、大きさも、形も、色もほぼ一緒だった。だけど、本物だった。ビックリした(笑)。

Apparently, while I was seeing some customers off at the elevator, my boss had pocketed my fake sushi and replaced them with real sushi. During the early hours before the big rush of customers showed up, he had gone to the convenience store to by more cigarettes or whatnot, and there he had seen salmons sushi. He then thought: "This is it! What a great chance!", and bought a 10 piece sushi set just to trick me 5 hours later. It is great to have colleagues like that, haha. Though I did have to wipe off some of my other props that had become sticky from the rice of the real sushi placed on top of them, haha.

店長が早い時間の暇な時にコンビニにタバコか何かを買いに行った時にサーモンが入った寿司のセットを見て、「これだ~!チャンスだ!」と思って、買ったらしい。5時間後に、僕がエレベータまで見送りした時に店長が僕のマジック道具寿司をどこかで隠して、本物の寿司を出した。全然気付かなかった。こういうことをやるだけの為に寿司10巻買って来る同僚が素晴らしいよね!(笑)。後でトランプの箱とか、結構拭かないと行けないこともあったけど、笑。


Monday, April 2, 2012

Disappearing nose!

My boss in the magic bar can make his nose disappear, which looks weird.

マジックバーの店長は、鼻を消すことが出来る。おかしく見える。