Yearly magic duel

Every year at the university staff "new year party", a professor who is learning magic finds me and asks me to show him some magic. This is a lot of fun, and it happened in 2013 and in 2012, as reported on this blog. It happened this year too, and I wrote about it on my other blog.

毎年、北大の情報科学研究科のスタッフの新年会で、マジックを勉強している先生とマジックのやり合いになる。結構楽しい、ｗ。2013年の新年会でも、2012年の新年会でもやった。今年の新年会の話は僕の別のブログで書いた。

Visiting American magician

William Rader the mentalist, and me

A few weeks ago, I got a Facebook friend request from someone I did not know. Quickly checking his profile, I learned that he was a magician so I figured that was why he wanted to connect. He then sent me a message saying: "I am going to Japan! Can we meet up?" Since I live in Sapporo and most people that come to "Japan" go to Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, or some of the famous places in the south, I was a bit surprised. A few messages later, I learned that he was going to stay in Sapporo for three weeks or so, because his wife is from Sapporo and they would be here to visit relatives over the New Year.

何週間前に、フェイスブックでメッセージが来た。知らない人から「友達になって下さい」。プロフィールを見たら、マジシャンだったからそういう話とかしたいかなと思った。その後もメッセージで「日本に行くから会おう！」って。大体、日本の来る人が東京や京都に行くから、札幌に来ないんじゃないと思っていたが何回かメッセージをしたら、実は札幌に3週間くらい泊まると言っていた。奥さんが札幌出身なので、年越しは札幌の家族と。

Me, doing a Christmas magic show at Bottom Cafe

He said that he had been in Sapporo before, but that he had not managed to find any magic to watch at that time. This time, they had found my blog. When I told him there are at least six magic bars in Sapporo (and many many more in Tokyo etc.) he was very surprised.

前にも札幌に来たことがあるがその時にマジックの関係のことが何も見つからなかったそうだ。今回、僕のブログを見つけたから連絡とってくれた。札幌にマジックバー6つもあるよと言ったら、かなり驚かれた。

The university magic club performers of this years Christmas show

This time, his timing was very good and there were many other things related to magic to see too. He came to our magic bar (Magic Bar Twister) when I was working, and we went to the other magic bar in our chain (Trick Bar Twister) together too. He also came to see my Christmas Magic Show at Bottom Cafe, and he came to see the Hokudai Kijutsu Kenkyuukai (the university magic club) at the Christmas show. We also went together to the magic bar Hey Pola and to Cocktail Bar Harada and saw lots of magic there too.

今回のタイミングも良かった。マジックバー以外のマジックのイベントも色々あった。僕が出ていた日に彼がうちのマジックバー（マジックバーツイスター）にきてくれたし、一緒にもう一店舗（トリックバーツイスター）にも行ったし、僕がボトムカフェでやったクリスマスマジックショーも見に来てくれたし、北大の奇術研究会（部活のサークル）のクリスマスショーも見に来てくれたし、一緒にマジックバーヘイ・ポーラに行ったし、一緒にカクテルバー原田でマジックを見せて貰ったし、今回マジック沢山見れたね。

Hey Pola (magician Nihei)

Once we went out for soup curry (a Sapporo specialty) and discussed magic for a few hours too. He showed me a lot of things that he does when he performs, and I showed some things that I had not done when he saw me in the magic bar.

2人でスープカレー（札幌の名物）を食べに行って、マジックの話を何時間したこともあった。彼がアメリカでやるマジックを色々見せてくれたし、僕がマジックバーでやらなかったネタ何個かを見せたし。

The fluent in English magician Harada in Cocktail Bar Harada

He was very nice, and it was interesting to talk to someone from abroad about magic. I learned magic in Sapporo, and though I talk to my Sapporo friends about magic it was very interesting to hear what is "hot" in the U.S. now etc. I also got some gifts; American playing cards of different types. So blogging does pay off sometimes.

面白い人だった。海外の人とマジックの話をするのも面白かった。僕が札幌に来てからマジックを勉強し始めたので、海外ではやっているマジックとか、知らない。札幌のマジシャン友達とマジックの話をするが、海外の人とそういう話をするのがほとんどない（1回スウェーデンに帰っていた時にマジックバーストックホルムで会ったマジシャンと話したことがある）。プレゼントでアメリカのトランプを貰ったし。やっぱりブログをしたら、いいこともあるんだね。

Presents (and a heating pack the post office gave me for buying stamps)

Christmas, magic, miniskirts

December 23rd is a holiday in Japan (the Emperor's birthday), so recently people have Christmas parties on the 23rd (Christmas is not really celebrated here, and all the Christmas days are normal working days). One of my Japanese friends works in a bar called One Star Bar. He told me that on the evening of the 23rd they were going to have an event called "Sabisinbo Night", the night for lonely people. In Japan, Christmas is the season for going on romantic dates with your girlfriend/boyfriend, so this party was for people like him that do not have a girlfriend.

12月23日が祝日なので、友達が働いている「One Star Bar」という店でクリスマスパーティーがあった。友達は彼女がいないから、デートの時期のクリスマスに友達の為の「さびしんぼナイト」というイベントになっていた。彼女の居る人は来ちゃ駄目な感じだった。僕は残念ながら、セーフ。

He promised he would be working in a Santa costume, one made for girls. He also asked that I show up and perform some magic.

友達が「サンタのコスチュームで出るよ」と言って、「ミニスカートのね」って。マジックをして欲しいからおいでと言われたし。

When I showed up, my friend was indeed wearing a mini-skirt Santa outfit, and a blonde wig. His boss was also wearing a sexy Santa costume, and had a rope and two bells attached to his groin. They were a smaller version of the rope you use to ring bells at Shinto shrines in Japan (to make the gods aware of your presence so they can see your donation and hear your prayer). You could pull the rope and ring the bells if you wanted, without making any monetary offerings.

行ったら、本当にミニスカートと金髪のカツラで働いていた。店長が別のセクシーサンタのコスプレセットを着ていたし。神宮にある紐みたいなのも股間からぶら下がっていた。お金投げなくても引っ張っていいよと言われた。

When I was asked to do some magic, my friend suddenly decided (after a few tricks) that: "The rest is non-free! Who is willing to pay?" One guy offered to pay 2000 yen to see more, but my friend jumped in and started negotiating the price, so people ended up putting all their small change on the counter instead. Six or seven people pitched in, and together they got up to 767 yen... After starting at 2000 yen. My friend's negotiating skills are not great. I gave all the money to my friend (he charged me that amount for a drink he figured I had ordered for him to drink).

マジックをちょっとやったら、友達が突然「これから有料になるから！誰がお金を出す？」と言い出した。最初誰かが2000円を出そうとしたが友達がそこで入って、値段の話をし始めた。その後、お客さん全員が小銭を出し始めた。合わせたら、767円になった。2000円のスタートから…友達、お金の話が下手だなぁ（笑）。そのお金を友達にあげた。というか、僕が友達に買ってあげた1杯の料金になったが買ってあげる記憶がないなぁ、ｗ。

I did some magic at the counter and some more magic at some sofa seats in another part of the bar. I hammered a nail into my nose, and I produced a lot of sponge rabbits. My friend loves the "ambitious card", a very old card routine (a selected card is put into the deck but keeps returning to the top of the deck) so he also requested that I do that. I used to do a version of the ambitious card 5 years ago when I did table hopping in a restaurant, but nowadays my boss in the magic bar does his ambitious card routine, so I have not performed it in a long long time. It went over quite well, though.

カウンターでもソファー席でもちょっとマジックを披露した。鼻に釘をさしたら、スポンジのウサギを大量で出したりした。友達は「アンビシャス・カード」というマジックが大好き（真ん中に入れたのに、選んだカードが上に上がってくるやつ）で、それもやりなさいといわれた。5年前にレストランでテーブルを回ってマジックをした時によくやっていたが今マジックバーの店長がアンビシャスカードをやっているから、僕が何年ぶりにもやっていない。まぁ、慣れていなくてもうけたけど。

Who walks around with a lemon?

The magic bar I work in is relocating, so only one of our two magic bars is open. The staff of two magic bars are all in that magic bar, so there is little need for me to help out there (though since also the customers of both magic bars end up in only one place, it is more busy than normal) and also almost no space for me to stand, haha. I take this opportunity to take some time off and do other things. Yesterday I went to our big fireworks festival.

僕が出ているマジックバーが今移転中なので、うちのマジックバーで1店舗しか開いていない。ということは、2店舗分のスタッフがそこにいるので、僕が手伝いに行かなくても大丈夫だ。まぁ、2店舗分のお客さんも同じ店に来るから普段より忙しいけどね。でも、狭くて僕の立つところもほぼないから僕が最近週末に休んでいる。昨日、花火大会に行った。

On my way home, I stopped by our open magic bar to see what is happening. They turned out to be quite busy, and there was no free seat for me, so my boss asked me to come stand inside the bar counter (and work) instead.

帰りにうちのやっているマジックバーにちょっと顔を出しに寄った。忙しかった。座れるところがなかったから、カウンターに入ってねって言われた。色々働くことになった。

While I was away watching fireworks, a pair of customers I have performed for in our other magic bar showed up, and one of them had found my explanation of my name very funny. "Jonas" is not a name that Japanese people can relate to as a name. Japanese names are completely different, and the Western names they are familiar with here ("John", "Mike", etc.) do not include Jonas. So I usually explain it like "Younasu [what my name sounds like in Japanese], with the 'you' from Hokuyou Ginko [North Pacific Bank, a bank here in Japan] and the 'nasu' from the vegetable 'nasu' [eggplant]". Japanese people often explain what kanji they write their names with in this way, since there are several ways to "spell" the same name in Japanese.

僕が花火を観ていた間、僕のマジックを前に観たお客さん2人が入った。その時に僕の名前の説明が凄くウケたみたい。日本人は「ヨーナス」という名前になじみがないから、「ヨーナスです」と言っても「え？よーな？」とかになる。だいたい「ヨーナスです。北洋銀行の『洋』になすびの『茄子』」と説明する。漢字を使うのもおかしいし、例えがおかしいし、覚えやすい。

It is of course strange to spell out a Western name with kanji, and my choice of examples is also strange; you would not normally exemplify with the name of bank but with some mundane word. The customer that came yesterday, after hearing my explanation, now says "Ah, this reminds me of that weird magician" every time she walks past a North Pacific Bank office. They had been talking about this quite a lot with the other magicians before I showed up, and they went nuts when I entered the bar. It turned out that she even had a present for me!

昨日のお客さんはそれが凄い気に入ったみたいで、北洋銀行を通ったらいつも「あ！ヨーナスを思い出す！」とかと言っているそうだ。その2人が他のスタッフとそういう話をしていた。僕が入った時に、凄く盛り上がった、笑。お客さんにプレゼントも貰うことになった！

I very very rarely get presents from our customers (or anyone else, for that matter), so I was quite happy. I received a lemon. Why would someone walk around with a lemon in their purse? I do not know. But I ended up walking home with a lemon in my yukata sleeve on my way home.

お客さんにプレゼントを貰うことがめったにない。（他の人からプレゼントを貰うこともそうだ。）嬉しかった。レモンを1個貰った。なぜ、生のレモンを持ち歩いていたか分からない。僕も一応レモン1個持ち歩いて帰ったけどね。

Hanatare Nacs magicians gather

When I stopped by the magic prop shop here in Sapporo, I ran into several other magicians that I know. The whole day turned into a series of strange happenings.

マジックショップに行ったら、マジシャン知り合い何人かもいた。その後、色々な変なハプニングの日になった。

When I entered the shop, three magicians were searching the store for "boxes". Especially the owner was running around looking everywhere for these "boxes". I sat down on a chair in the middle to wait for whatever was going to finish, but they never seemed to find whatever it was that they were looking for. The owner kept saying he was sure these "boxes" were around somewhere and one of the customers were saying that since she even called before and asked if he had boxes available, she was disappointed that there were none.

店に入った時にマジシャン3人が「箱」を探していた。ショップのオーナーさんがあっちこっちに走り回ってて、必死に何かを探していた。落ち着くことを待とうと思って、僕が部屋の真ん中くらいにある椅子に座った。どこかに絶対箱があるよってオーナーさんが何回も言った。お客さんが「今朝、箱があるとゆったのに、何でないの？」ってクレーム言っていた（笑）。

After this going on for a while, I asked: "You are not looking for these boxes, right?" and held up a small plastic box that is built so it is hard to figure out how to open it. There was a big cardboard box full of these boxes right next to the chair I was sitting on, in the middle of the shop. This was indeed, what they had been looking for for quite some time...

何分経ってもなかなか終わらない。僕が座っていた椅子の隣に大量の開かない箱のパズルみたいなものが置いてあったから、1個取って、「ここにある箱ではないよね？」と言ってみた。店の真ん中に置いてあったから、そこにあるものではないだろうと思ったが、それだった（笑）。

One of the magicians left, and another magician I know showed up. Then they asked if I wanted to tag along to a soup curry place and have dinner. Since all four of us were on the same TV show doing magic, I was more or less forced to go along, haha.

マジシャン1人が帰ったが別の知り合いのマジシャンが入った。一緒にご飯を食べに行かない？って誘われた。よく見たら、同じ「はなたれナックス」というテレビ番組に出たマジシャン4人だったから、行かなきゃって感じだった。

Magician looking like a tourist, and a tourist.

On the way there, we ran into a group of tourists carrying huge bags of souvenirs, so one in our groups was almost mistaken for a tourist since he was lugging around a similar bag.

スープカレーのレストランを向かっていた時に、観光客の大人数の団体に囲まれた。皆凄いお土産を買っていた。よく見たら、マジシャン1人も観光客と勘違いされてもおかしくない姿だった。似たようなバッグとかも持っていた。

At the restaurant, two more magical people joined us. The master of the place also hang out with us a lot, and kept giving us free stuff (like desserts). Many strange things happened, like some suddenly producing and enormous flag. There was also some magic being performed out on the street during smoking breaks.

レストランに着いたら、他の2人もいた。店のマスターもよく遊んでくれたし。サービスで色々なもの出してくれた。何回も変なハプニングがあった。突然デカい旗が出てきたとか。店の外でマジックショーもあったし。

The restaurant was full of old sewing machines and other antiques. The most interesting thing was a hand pumped street organ that was programmed with ten different tunes. I got to try to play it, which was fun and loud.

店にアンティークのミシンとかがいっぱいあった。他のお客さんが帰ってから、うるさいものと遊んでも大丈夫だと言われた。凄かった。

Free desserts!

A huge flag suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Street magic

Antique street organ!

The organ has different programmed songs that you can switch between!

A variety of very spicy sauces.

In-Flight Magic?

When I was flying from Narita to Frankfurt (we had to go from Sapporo to Dagstuhl in Germany to do some computer science work), the PET-bottle of water they gave me opened up without the seal of the cap breaking. Without me doing anything. It was tempting to do a "signed card in unopened PET-bottle" in the plane, but since everyone else in the plane was sleeping it felt like a waste of a perfectly good playing cards so I did nothing :-)

Two man magic show at Art Hotel start of the new year party

Last year me and my boss went to a shinnenkai ("start of the new year"-party) for a company where one of our regular customers in the magic bar works. We did table hopping, walking around each table doing magic, during their dinner party. They seemed to like it, and they invited us again this year.

去年、マジックバーの店長と2人で常連さんの会社の新年会でマジックをやっていた。テーブルを回って、マジック見せた。皆喜んでくれたみたいで、今年も呼ばれた。

This time, we did some salon magic too, and table hopping. They had requested that we "not do the same tricks as last year", which made it more difficult to do really entertaining things. There was no place to reset any trick that might require any kind of set-up, and my most powerful effects I had already used up last year of course. I did some mental effects and a trick where a walnut pops out of a picture of a walnut.

今回、サロンマジックもテーブルマジックもした。去年と同じマジックは駄目だと言われたからテーブルマジックは何をしようか、悩んでいた。パフォーマンスとパフォーマンスの間に準備が必要なマジックは出来ないし、去年勿論一番うけるマジック全部使ったし…最近よくやっているメンタルマジックとクルミがカードから出てくるマジックを選んだ。

First I did a trick for everyone at once, where I had a card selected from a jumbo deck of cards and then tried to mind read what card that might have been. The mind reading signal was a bit weak, so in the end I had to hammer a nail (working as a mind reading antenna) into my nose to get a better signal and then I could correctly determine the selected card. Then we did some table hopping and finally my boss did some salon magic.

テーブルを回る前皆の前でマジックをした。僕がジャンボサイズのトランプから1枚選んで貰って、エスパみたいに脳から直接読み取るというマジックをした。ちょっとエスパの電波が悪かったので、エスパ用のアンテナみたいに鼻に釘を刺した。釘を刺したら、選んだカードは何のカードだったか、読み取れた。

My boss had a card signed and shuffled into a deck of cards and then tried to catch the signed card from the swarm of cards flying towards him when the spectator threw the deck at him, by hitting the cards with a PET-bottle wrapped in tape (sticky side out). That failed a bit but in the end the signed card was found inside the unopened (still sealed) PET-bottle. His t-shirt also changed from a black t-shirt to a t-shirt with the company name of the company we did magic for in an instant. For his table hopping, he started out by running to our changing room to fetch his deck of cards, which he in typical fashion had forgotten there...

テーブルを回ってから、店長が皆の前でサロンマジックをした。カードを選んで貰って、サインして貰った。サインしたカードをトランプの把に戻して、トランプをきってもらった。その後、お客さんがトランプを店長に投げて、空中で選んだカードだけペットボトルで（テープがべたべたな方を外にして巻いてあったボトル）取ろうとした。お客さんが投げたのに、一枚も取れなかったが結局最後にお客さんがサインしたカードがその新品（シール開けていない）のペットボトルの中に入っていた。最後に店長の無地な黒のティシャツが新年会の会社の会社名が書いてあるティシャツに変わった。店長がテーブルを回る前に一回控室に戻って、あそこで忘れたトランプを取りに行って来た。さすが忘れ物が多い店長！笑

Magic duel at the university staff start of the new year party

Last week we had the staff "shinnenkai" (start of the new year-party) at the university. One year ago, I met another guy also working at the computer science department who was very excited when he hear I was a magician. He had just started practicing magic.

先週、大学のスタッフの新年会があった。去年の新年会で、僕がマジシャンだって聞いたら興奮した先生がいた。同じ学科で働いている人で、そのころマジックを練習し始めたばかりだった。

This year, he found me again and he showed me three tricks that I had showed him last year that he had practiced since then. Two of them went fine, one not so fine. He also showed some other magic tricks, and asked me to show him some magic too. So we ended up having a magic duel during the party. It was a lot of fun, and the food was good too.

今年もその先生に見つけられた。僕が去年披露したマジックの中の３つ、今年彼に見せて貰った。去年見せて貰って、練習したよって。マジックの中、2つが大丈夫だった。1つはちょっとバレバレだった。他のマジックも見せてくれた。僕のマジックも見せて欲しいって言っていたから僕もちょっとだけマジックをやった。マジシャンバトルみたいな感じになった、笑。楽しかった。食べ物も例年より美味しかったし。

Unlucky guest from Hakodate

Guarana

Two months ago when I was in France on a business trip (or possibly when I was in Sweden because of my brother getting married), a girl who lives in Hakodate had flown to Sapporo to see me do magic. She and a friend had come to our magic bar, asking to see me. Since I was not even in the country, they were out of luck but still got to see three other magicians. But the girl coming by airplane to Sapporo was a bit sad anyway, I was told.

２ヶ月前、僕が出張でフランスに行っていた時かスウェーデンに弟の結婚の為に行っていた時か、僕が札幌にいない時に函館から飛行機で札幌に僕マジックを観に来たお客さんが友達１人とうちのマジックバーに来たんだ。僕が海外に行っていたので、残念ながら僕のマジック観れなかった。他のマジシャン３人がいたけど。それでもちょっとがっかりしたそうだ。

White "Black Sanda"

Apparently, the two of them came to our magic bar again during the O-Bon holidays (holidays mean even some Japanese people do not have to work, so they have time to fly to Sapporo to visit magic bars) but of course the magic bar where I perform was closed during the O-Bon holidays...

お盆の時にその２人がまたうちのマジックバーに来たみたいだが、お盆は店の休みだった。なかなか噛みあわないね。

They did a third try this weekend. They came to our magic bar on Saturday, and of course we are open on Saturdays. I am in the magic bar on Fridays and Saturdays unless I am out of the country or something exceptional like that happens, so I was there too. Unfortunately for these two girls, so were a LOT of other guests, so the bar was full when they showed up and they could not be let in...

３回目、今週また来たんだ。土曜日だったから、勿論マジックバー営業中だったし、僕が金土曜日にいるから僕もいたし、大丈夫そうだった。他のお客さんも土曜日にマジック観たかったみたいなので、函館からまた飛行機に乗って来たお客さんが来た時に、満席で入れなかった！運が悪すぎ、笑。

They did however come back later. Our bar becomes fairly empty after midnight (after the last subway), so when they came back at around 2 a.m. the bar was empty of guests. So she could finally meet me and see me do magic.

また遅い時間にもう一回来てくれた。うちのマジックバーは終電の後凄い暇になるから、お客さんが来た午前２時頃に、他のお客さんが１人もいなかった。やっと僕に会えて、僕のマジック観れた！

The girl from Hakodate even brought omiyage (souvenirs) from Hakodate for us! So we got something called "White 'Black Sanda'" ("Black Sanda" is a type of chocolate, and this was Black Sanda except made with white chocolate instead of the normal type of chocolate), which is a strange name. She also brought Guarana drinks from the Lucky Clown hamburger chain (a famous hamburger chain in Hakodate).

函館からのお客様がまさかお土産も持って来た！白いブラックサンダという矛盾なチョコレートも函館の有名なハンバーガーチェーンのLucky Pierrotのガラナもいただいた。美味しかった。

At around the time they came to our magic bar, it was time for the second wave of customers so 4 other groups of customers also dropped in and I had to go do magic for other guests too. So in the end, I forgot to ask why she wanted to see my magic or how she even knew about me before coming to our magic bar. This remains an interesting mystery, but maybe they will come back to our magic bar again :-)

その２人が入った時に、マジックバーの第２回のお客さんの入るタイミングだったから、ちょっとづつ人が入ってきて、結局他の４組も入った。僕が他のところも回ってマジックを見せないと行けないことになったから、そんなに長くは話せなかった。だから、何で僕のマジック観たかったとか、どうやってうちのマジックバーに来る前に僕のことを知っていたとか、色々気になっていたことを聞くの、忘れた！また来てくれるかな？また今度聞いてみよう。

They were funny to talk to and nice guests. One of the funnier stories of the evening was when they talked about how after last time the girl had gone through airport security with a PET-bottle of tea that also had a signed playing card stuck inside it. That also makes the tea turn black (the glue in the card is dissolved by the water in the tea, and the glue is black). And instead of putting it in her check-in luggage, she had it in her carry on bag. In Japan you can travel with liquids but you have to let the security personnel check your bottles. She got some very strange looks when handing over an unopened (sealed) PET-bottle of black liquid with a playing card floating around in it...

良いお客さんだった。面白い話もしてくれた。前回の函館に帰る時の話がうけた。マジックバーでお客さんがサインしてカードが新品のペットボトルに入った。そのペットボトルを函館に持って帰ったから、セキュリティの検査の時にかなり変なように見られた、笑。チェックインのスーツケースにペットボトルを入れれば良かったのに、持ち込みのバッグに入れた。検査の時にペットボトルを渡して何かの機械で危ないものが入っているかどうかチェックされるね。トランプの黒いノリがお茶と混ざってあって、新品のペットボトルに黒い液体が入ってて、変なトランプも中に浮いている…怪しいよね。

Magician's birthday

My boss in the magic bar has his birthday in August, so right after midnight the rest of the staff produced a birthday cake for him. There were only four of us in the bar at the time (3 staff and one of our regulars) and the cake delivery service had ran late so they had upgraded the cake to a larger size for free. There seemed to be so much cake that there were doubts as to whether we could finish all of it...

8月にうちの店長の誕生日がある。日にちが変わった時に、他のスタッフがケーキを出した。男4人（スタッフ3人と常連さん1人）しかいなかったけど。そして、ケーキ屋の人が遅れたから、無料でケーキをもっと大きいサイズにしてくれた。4人で食べきれるか、ちょっと心配だった。

A magical bloodbath ・ マジックで血だらけ

On Saturday, we had a small happening in our magic bar. A colleague of mine went to produce a bottle of champagne from inside an (empty) balloon. He blew up the balloon and stabbed it with a carpet knife. Unfortunately, since he has stabbed the balloon too loosely a few times (meaning the balloon didn't break), leading to slightly embarrassing magical results, he this time stabbed it too hard. He went through the balloon and nicely produced a bottle, but he also stabbed himself in the hand, went down to the bone, slit up more of his hand until the knife got stuck in the bone and the blade broke...

土曜日にマジックバーにちょっとしたハプニングがあった。同僚1人が風船からシャンパンを出すマジックをしに行った。風船をふくらまして、カッターで割った。残念ながら、前に何回か失敗で風船が割れなかったこともあったので、今回凄い勢いでカッターで刺した。風船がきれいに割れて、シャンパンがきれいに出たが力入れすぎて、カッターが手にも入った。指を切って、骨まで行って、もっと大きく切って、骨で止まって、カッターが折れた…

There was blood on the bottle, blood on him, and quite a lot of blood on the floor. I was sent to mop up blood from the floor, and wipe the bottle clean, and take over his magic show in front of the fairly surprised people holding a blood soaked bottle, haha. His hand did not seem to stop bleeding, so we sent him off to the hospital and did the rest of the night with only two magicians.

シャンパン血まみれ、マジシャン血まみれ、床血まみれ。僕が拭きに行った。そして、今だいぶ驚いていたお客さんにマジックを見せるのも交代した。同僚の手、血がなかなかとまらなかったので、病院に行った。それから、マジックバーで僕と店長が2人でやることになった。

He came back later and looked fairly fine. He had gotten a bunch of stitches and some bandages, and said that the thing that hurt most was when they shoved the anesthesia needle straight into his wound.

同僚が後で帰ってきて、割と大丈夫だった。何か所で縫ったけど。一番痛いところは麻酔の注射の時だったそうだ。

The doctor had also been curios about how he managed to cut himself like that.
"I cut myself with a carpet knife."
"How on Earth did you manage to make a cut this big and deep like that?!"
"I was trying to stab a balloon."
"What?!"
"I am a magician"
"Ah! But why don't you just snap your fingers to fix this wound then, haha?"
(My friend did not think that was very funny).

医者も、何でそういうこと出来たか、気になったみたい。
「カッターで切ってしまいました」
「え？どうやったカッターでこんなに奥まで行ける？！」
「風船を刺したかったです」
「え？！」
「マジシャンです」
「なるほど。指パッチして自分で怪我治せばいいんじゃない？（笑）」
友達が、そういうギャグ要らないって思ったらしい、笑。

Last week, our boss managed to stab himself in the hand when he made a mistake in a Russian roulette type of magic trick, which also led to quite a lot of blood. Now everyone thinks I'm next, since everyone else hurt themselves already, but I don't think I do any dangerous tricks like that...

先週、店長もマジックの失敗で怪我して、結構血が出た。次はヨーナスでしょってよく言われる…他の人が皆怪我したが僕はああいう危ないマジックしないから大丈夫だろう…

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：

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。

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.

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。

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。

The Frisk that disappeared and the magician that changed

On Monday, my magic maniac friends e-mailed me and said they were meeting at one of our magic bars in the evening again. I went to our other magic bar first, to hand over some souvenirs from Poland, and then went to the magic bar they said they would come to. They were not there, but three girls that said they know one of my friends were.

月曜日にマジックマニアの友達からメールが来て、うちのマジックバーの２号店で夜にマニア会やるって。僕が最初に１号店にポーランドからのお土産を渡しに行った。そして、２号店に行った。２号店に友達がいなかったが女の子お客さんはそのマニア友達知っているって言ってた。

I e-mailed my friend and said "you are not here, but someone who knows you is". He replied that they were instead in the other magic bar (the one I had just left) and would come in a little bit... It took them about 2.5 hours before they got to the magic bar where I was (walking fast, you can go between these places in 5 minutes, and walking slowly it might take 10 minutes).

友達に「知り合いが２号店にいるみたいよ」とメールしたら、「今マニア皆１号店にいる」って返信が来た…もうちょっとで２号店に行くって。もうちょっとって、結局２時間半くらい経った（速く歩けば、５分で着く、遅く歩けば、１０分掛かるかもしれない）。

Anyway, we still had fun without them. Two of the girls had met my friend, and they had also met our boss of the magic bar. They said they had met someone from our magic bar and that he had showed them a magic trick. Our boss said it was probably him, but they said no. They described the magic trick, and everyone kept thinking "Yes, sounds like our boss". After a few minutes of them adding more information and everyone still saying "Yes, this guy here in front of you!" and them not believing it, they finally said "And his name was something like 'Uchi ... ...'". Yes, our boss, Uchiyama-san. Apparently, he has gained so much weight in these two years that they refused to believe it was him, haha. We (the rest of the staff) laughed a lot at this, though it is not the first time this has happened. People come with a pamphlet with a picture of him doing magic and say to his face: "We want to see this guy!", "Yes, that is me", "Nono, THIS guy" (again pointing at a picture of him), haha.

まぁ、マニア友達がいなくても結構楽しかった。お客さん２人が僕のマニア友達に会ったことがあったそうだ。うちの店長も会ったことがあった。「このマジックバーの人も会ったことある」って。店長が「うん、多分私だ」って。「ううん、違う人だった」。どんなマジックを見せて貰ったとか、色々教えて貰ったら、スタッフ全員「うん、店長だよね」と思った。毎回そう言っても「違う」と言われたけど（笑）。「名前はうち○○、だったかな？」って。「内山だよね」（店長の名前）。それで、やっと認めた。２年間で結構太ったみたいで、同じ人だと気付かれていなかった（笑）。他の時にもそういうことがあった。雑誌を持ってきたお客さんが店長の写真を指差して
「この人に会いたい」って。
「私ですけど」
「違う！この人！」（また店長の写真を指差す、笑）

When my friend showed up from the other magic bar, he also had to do some magic for the girls. It turned out that the person who he gave his "huge Frisk breathmint" magic prop to was one of these girls. He complained a lot about giving that away, since it is a great and funny prop, and since it is no longer sold except in one very expensive shop... for about twice the price he originally paid. I finally got to meet the person who received (and apparently only used a few times) his Frisk. She was interested in learning some magic tricks, though, and even showed us a trick where she made a coin disappear and a card trick. I taught her how to make a business card levitate, kind of, which is what she is doing in the picture above.

友達が来たら、彼も女の子たちにマジックを見せることになった。彼が前に誰かの女の人にデカいフリスクのマジック道具をあげたってずっと言ってた。後悔してたみたい。新しいフリスクはどこでも売っていなかったし、やっととこかで売っている店を見つけたら、自分で買った時より倍高くなっていたし。僕がやっとそのフリスクを貰った女の人に会えた、笑。フリスクほとんど使ったことないと言ったし。マジックに興味があるけど。コインを消すマジックも、まあまあレベル高いトランプのマジックも見せてくれた。僕が名刺を浮かすマジックを教えてあげた。

After the regular guests left, we had a very entertaining mania meeting too. To decide who had to perform for the others, instead of drawing cards like we often do, everyone had to vanish a coin. Then the people watching had to guess where it went, and the person who fooled the least number of people had to perform magic for everyone. In a similar vein, everyone had to do the three card monte, and the person with the most people correctly guessing where the ace went had to do magic, and the person who fooled the least number of people with where the two sponges went had to perform etc. This was a great way to decide!

普通なお客さんが帰ってから、楽しいマニア会もあった。普段、カードを引いて負けた人がマジック見せないと行けないシステムでやっているが今回はコインをバニッシュして、他の人に一番ばれた人がマジックを見せないと行けないことだった。カードのモンテをやって、エースがどこにあるか、一番当てられた人がマジックを見せる。スポンジはどこに行ったか、一番ばれた人がマジックを見せる。このやり方で結構盛り上がった。

Birthday magic

On Sunday, one of our regulars in the magic bar celebrated his birthday, so we had a party at a restaurant with all the Twister staff and some other regular customers. There was a lot of good food, and this time there was also some party magic (normally, no one wants to do magic outside of work, so at our parties there is usually no magic). There was a bingo game were everyone except the birthday guy got bingo at the same time, there was a balloon swallowing contest (it was fun to see the non-magician actually managing to get around 40 cm of balloon into his mouth before gagging), and whatnot. I also did a magic trick where I divined which card the birthday guy had picked by hammering a nail into my nose (to connect this "antenna" to my brain, for telepathy reasons) and having him touch the nail. I also turned a 10,000 yen bill into a memorial bill with his face on it.

日曜日に常連さんの誕生日会があった。ツイスタースタッフ全員と常連さん何人か集まっていた。相変わらず美味しい食べ物が沢山あった。今回、珍しくてマジックも沢山あった。基本的にマジシャンが仕事以外にマジックしたくないからうちらのパーティーではマジックがだいたいない。今回、誕生日の人以外、皆同時にビンゴになるビンゴゲームもあったし、風船の早く飲むコンテストもあったし、僕もマジックした。僕がエスパみたいに選んだカードを当てた。脳で読み取るのが難しいので、アンテナが必要になった。釘をアンテナの用に使って、鼻に入れた。釘を触って貰ったら、選んだカード読み取れた。１万円札を誕生日の人の顔が載っている記念札に変えたし。

Birthday magic

Me wearing a t-shirt from Taiwan that says 単身 ("I am single" in Chinese) on the back and "I am single" in English on the front.

On Saturday I ended up sitting next to a girl who told me it was her birthday when I was eating. I have met her before, and she then told me that she and her friend (who has almost the same name) love magic, and even used to buy magic props, train a bit, and show random strangers in bars magic tricks! She wanted to see some "birthday magic", which I was not exactly prepared for, but I improvised some birthday magic tricks and she seemed very happy.

土曜日に食べに行ったら、隣に女の子が座っていた。誕生日だったそうだ。前にも会ったことがあって、友達と２人でマジック大好きで、マジック道具を買って、練習して、居酒屋とかで知らない人にマジックを見せたことがあるそうだ。誕生日なので、誕生日マジック見せて欲しいって言われた。誕生日マジックは用意していなかったが適当に誕生日マジックっぽいのを考えてやってみたら、感動してくれたみたい。