スウェーデン生まれの札幌市民のマジシャンの「ヨーナス」で~す。直訳したら、名字は「湖山」になる。Jonasはヘブライ語の名前で、平和の象徴の「鳩」という意味だ。湖山・鳩と申します。週末にマジックバーツイスターという店でマジックを披露している。僕のマジックに関しての考えてることのブログだ。
Originally from Sweden, I now live in Sapporo (Japan). My name is Jonas, and my last name which seems to be unpronounceable to both Japanese speakers and English speakers, means Lake-Mountain. Jonas means "Dove". I do magic in the Magic Bar Twister in Sapporo during the weekends, and this is my blog about magic things.
Today I did magic at a wedding at the JASMAC hotel here in Sapporo. Again, the bride and groom were very cute. I went around to all the tables, doing very short performances of magic at each of the 14 tables. Everyone seemed very happy with my magic, and some very young kids (3 years old?) sat with their mouths open in a very stereotypical look of surprise, which their parents thought was hilarious. Very cute.
I had a huge changing room all to myself, where I sat around waiting for over an hour before it was my turn to perform (they asked me to show up early but then the wedding schedule got a bit delayed). Lots of fun, and very nice people.
My boss in our magic bars has recently begun putting up short clips of magic on his Facebook feed, calling them "Today's magic". This is a fun idea, and I have been asked to participate from time to time. I figure I might as well reuse the movies and put them on YouTube too. The first to clips starring me show me doing the baguette production and the Tenyo Ghost Cards. Two tricks that work extra well for the camera :-)
Since these are shot with someone's cell phone, the image quality is not that great, and it is very much not widescreen... But the magic is still pretty nice.
Today I noticed that one of the stores in Sapporo was selling the new Tenyo props. I was looking for Halloween stuff, but walked home with two new Tenyo tricks instead. I bought the "Magical MRI" and the "Ghost Cards". I considered buying the "4D printer" too, but I will buy that from a different store instead.
The Magical MRI has a very clever gimmick. The effect is that the spectator puts things on his side of a metal plate (so you cannot see them) and you manage to figure out what is on the other side. Two dice are included in the box, and you can have the spectator put one of them on his side, with whatever number he wants facing up, and you put the other one on your side showing the same number. The spectator can use both dice on his side, and you can write down what numbers he chose (or just tell him). Basically, you can see things on the other side, so you can have the spectator put other things there too, and an idea with a playing card is described in the instructional leaflet.
You can hand out the metal plate with no fear of anyone discovering anything incriminating. You can hand out the plastic frame too, with fairly little fear of discovery too. There is also a stand to put the frame in, which can also be handled by the spectator.
This trick is my current favorite of the Tenyo 2014 items. It seems like it could be very useful.
The Ghost Cards are a fun effect, and look great on video. You have a few playing cards in your hand and you push a large part of them into your face. You can retrieve the parts that disappeared from behind your head if you want to.
This trick looks good live too, if you use the little plastic cover thing included. You can do it without the cover too, but then you have to have a fairly large distance between you and the spectator or they will see how the trick is done. The plastic cover is ungimmicked and can be handed out. The cards cannot be handled by the spectator (at least not all of them), neither before you push them into your face nor after. You can push the cards into anything, but things that are soft look best (like meaty parts of your body). The angles are pretty good, though the side of the cards have to be covered at some times. You can have people standing behind you without them seeing how the trick is done (though they will not see the effect either), unless you want to produce the cards from behind your head (which you could still do depending on what clothes you wear).
Today I got bored and decided to redo my video of the "producing a baguette from a suspicious looking hand" magic trick. I like this magic trick but rarely perform it. I have done it less than 10 times I think. I have problems coming up with an interesting story for presenting this trick.
My magician friend Shogo has got a new job in the magic bar "Red King" in Sapporo and the thought we should start having "magic mania meetings" again. Yesterday we had the first magic mania meeting in Red King with 6 participants.
Shogo himself has mastered a very nice bottom deal, but did not want me to upload a clip of him doing his bottom deal because he thinks it still needs more work. Instead, we did some gag type of tricks, and some flourish type things.
Here is a coin magic trick which is of the slightly "mania" type (i.e. difficult).
ちょっとマニアっぽい(難しい)コインマジックの動画。
A first time participant showed a difficult card move.
初めて参加した人が難しいカードのロールダウンを見せてくれた。
I like gag style magic, as do some of my friends. This is a friend who does some seriously difficult magic too, but this trick is just for fun.
僕はギャグネタが大好きなんだ。そういう友達もいる。この動画では難しいというより面白いことをやっている友達だが他に大変難しいマジックもする人だ。
This is me showing off a business card trick. One of our customers asked if it was possible to do a famous card trick called "Size Surprise" (I think) with business cards instead. I made up a set of business cards the next day, and the result was so-so. You can actually hand out any size of business card after you are done too (the original trick has a card of a certain size that you cannot really let people touch). It is a silly gag trick, which is just the type of magic I like most.
Last year at Halloween I dressed up as a zombie and visited the magic "snack bar" Ropossa here in Sapporo. They asked me to hammer a nail into my nose (and to drink tomato juice, bite people, eat gooey stuff, etc. etc.) so I ended up doing a card trick.
I had a card selected. Then I tried to determine what card was selected through mind reading. Sadly, the reception was not that great, so an antenna was needed. I took out an antenna that looked quite a lot like a normal nail. Since mind reading is done with the brain, the antenna had to be hammered into the head to reach the brain. Once the antenna was attached, the reception became clearer and I could correctly determine the selected card.
The card parts are completely missing from the movie, however, so it just looks like a weird person hammering a nail into their nose for no reason. With blood all over them... But there was a completely logical reason for all of this!