If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll know that I’ve just started wandering into the world of stand up comedy (If you’ve not been reading the blog, I detailed my first foray into the world of stand up here). It is similar and yet massively different to the world of magic, and I’m enjoying the …
I think everyone has, at one point or another, thought that they could do stand up comedy. It’s something that I’ve contemplated doing for ages, so thought I’d give myself a kick up the bum and set about it. I’m expecting stand up comedy to be a really tough cookie. Even though most people seem …
Magic, like most things, can be easy or difficult, Occasionally, it’s tempting to go for the easy, watered down trick, than it is to put the effort and dedication in to practice the stronger, but more technically challenging, effect simply thinking that the audience won’t notice the difference. So, rather than use a direct, but …
You can’t pick up a self-help book nowadays without reading the phrase “there’s no such thing as failure, only feedback…”. Ahhhh, lovely, isn’t it? The idea is to help people overcome their fears and anxieties about tackling new ideas or actions, by lessening the impact of negative results (you are no longer failing, you’re just …
Think Like A Magician: It’s not “Feedback”….you’ve failed! Read More »
In my earlier post, we looked at ways to set yourself up to be fun(ny). One of the key elements was about knowing what makes YOU laugh. You have to realise that if something makes you laugh, it’ll make others laugh too, so focus on that. You’ll “sell” a joke much better when you believe …
I’ve been appalling with the frequency of my blog posts, so I apologise for that. With hindsight, Christmas probably isn’t the best time to try to find a moment to sit down and do some typing! I do want to take the time to thank you for looking here, clicking there and supporting me in …
“Being funny is one of my greatest strengths. I can make girls smile when they’re down, and when they’re having a good time, I can carry on the joke.” – John Krasinski There’s a well known street performing saying that “Funny is money” – it doesn’t matter what you do (magic, juggling or eating gerbils), …
I can’t explain how the Hadron Collider works, but, put me in the place of a decent physics education for a couple of years, and I probably could. I couldn’t tell you how schizophrenia feels, but, put me in the role of a psychiatric worker for a while, and I’ll probably be able to tell …
As a magician, every trick I perform has to be impossible. Without impossibility, there can be no magic. Magicians get used to working within these demanding boundaries and constantly make the “impossible” possible. Without the ability to challenge the impossible, magic would not advance and tricks would become transparent. But they don’t. Women continue to …
Following a recent conversation with a colleague, in which I was asked to “think bigger” about what I wanted, I began to explore the idea of teaching ideas that, while based on magic technique and theory, have real world applications, and could actually prove useful to people. The more I looked into this, the more …