Discourse in Magic

This week Jonah connects with professor Richard Wiseman to discuss co-authoring his book with David Copperfield, debunking supernatural claims, and the ethical responsibilities that magicians have with their audiences. Go To The Library Richard’s introduction to magic was through his grandfather who, after performing a coin trick for him, told Richard to go to the library and find the answer to th...

This week Jonah shares with you three tips to help you get better at booking gigs. Over the course of the last two years Jonah has helped about sixty magicians book virtual gigs and over the past few months he’s helped a couple dozen magicians to book real-world gigs. Jonah will walk you through the three biggest problems that magicians struggle with when booking gigs. #1. Missing Authority At fir...

This week Jonah connects with Jeff McBride to talk all about the theatre of magic, the phases that every magician might go through, and his thoughts on the growth of virtual magic shows. Jeff comes from an era of magic when there wasn’t street magic and social media but a strong emphasis on theatre. Combining his love of various forms of theatre and rock icons like David Bowie and Alice Cooper, Je...

This week Jonah connects with Giancarlo Bernini to talk all about his journey navigating the pandemic so soon after his major breakout in magic on Fool Us and his innovations in bringing magic to cryptocurrency NFTs. The Year That Wasn’t When Giancarlo graduated college and soon after appeared on Fool Us the rest of his year in 2019 skyrocketed with more bookings and more opportunities than he had...

This week Jonah connects with Tyler Rabbit to talk all about his amazing work with coin magic and his thoughts on the suspension of disbelief and the rise of exposure videos. Tyler Rabbit is an incredibly talented coin magic performer, who has also performed at The Magic Castle . But it wasn’t always this way and this conversation Tyler shares with Jonah his love-hate relationship with magic and w...

This week Jonah connects with Colin McLeod to talk about his return to his live show at the Mirage in Vegas. Together they talk about his journey from comedy to magic, and the very different goals they each have with the audience, and his thoughts on making sure that his brand of mentalism is being presented to the audience in an entertaining but also ethical way. Comedy vs Magic Colin shares with...

This week Jonah has advice to help you succeed during the most important time of the year for a professional magician. This month, and the next three months, are very important months for your magic business. September, October, November, and December are ridiculously important months for your magic business. The Most Important People To Reach Out To So aside from doing everything with your market...

This week Jonah is thrilled to connect with the legendary Bill Malone. Whether you watched any of his DVDs or saw him on YouTube as a kid, or don’t know who he is yet, this is going to be an incredible conversation with someone who embodies the very aspect of Discourse in Magic.  Bill Malone is one of those guys in magic who basically has it all covered. In sleight of hand, he is absolutely...

This week we share with you an episode from the Between Dreams podcast with Chris Ruggiero, who recently featured Jonah as a guest.  Chris and Jonah have a lot in common as both have shifted from primarily being entertainers to now helping with production and advising other creators. Chris is a legend with a history as a professional juggler and an eye like nobody else, producing a really great sh...

This week Jonah offers up three tips to help you boost your magic creative output. Tip 1: Challenge Yourself Jonah is, right now with Ben, participating in a challenge they’ve called the Tarbell Challenge . It is a monthly challenge on YouTube from the Tarbell course in magic. Ben and Jonah take a book a month and come up with a trick from the book. They make it their own and then publish it on Yo...

This week we share a segment from the Three Questions with Jake Strong Podcast, in which Jonah was recently a guest on.  Jake’s podcast is a simple premise, he asks his guests three questions. That’s it! And in this episode he asked Jonah about the misunderstood aspects of running a magic business, the preparation that goes into interviewing his guests on Discourse in Magic, and his st...

This week Jonah sits down with Joe Rindfleisch to talk all about rubber band magic and hoe Joe is at the forefront of developing the language used to teach this style of magic and the classic magic he taps into to influence the new tricks he’s developing. “You got sixty bucks”? Originally Joe wasn’t involved in magic at all, but he did meet with friends to play cards and eventually every nig...

Ben and Jonah are back to get you excited about taking UnConventional.fun beyond the final frontier, that’s right, they’re going to space!  Of course we mean virtually, as UnConventional.fun is the premier virtual magic convention and the next one is happening on August 28th and 29th and tickets are still available at UnConventional.fun! In Space No One Can Hear You Sleep The first UnConventional....

This week Jonah connects with legendary “underground” magician Howard Hamburg. Howard has never been a full time professional magician but at eighty-three years he is a long-standing member of The Magic Castle and considers some of the greatest magicians of our time to be among his closest friends.  Howard shares with us his recollections of the heydays of the Magic Castle, how he &#82...

This week Jonah connects with Helder Guimarães, a prolific magician known for bending the expectations of what a magic show is capable of. In this episode they’ll discuss how to balance the artistic and the logical sides of your performances, why Helder requests that those who purchase his material not perform them on TV or online, and how he directed his love of performance and creation tow...

Ben Train returns to harass Jonah for another update from the Toronto Magic Company.  This week they discuss the winding down of virtual shows, what their first live show post-pandemic was like, how they’re planning for the future of in-person shows, how they’re consulting for other businesses, and how much fun they’re having the new teleprompter they purchased!  Are Virtual Even...

This week Jonah shares with you six tools that will make working with your team easier as you expand your magic business.   #1: Slack Slack documents your conversations. How many times have you communicated with a freelancer in an email thread that goes on and on and on and on, or have you shared information and you have to go and dig through it. Slack makes that communication a little bit easier,...

This week Jonah connects with Ekat, an incredible magician, youtuber, cardist, and so much more. Together they’ll talk about creating content online, the difficulty in marketing magic, and the challenges that come up when trying to ethically review magic products. You Gotta Join The Circus  Ekat was first introduced to magic while still living in Russia, where her favourite place was visitin...

This week Jonah connects with Cody Clark to talk about his sensory sensitivity shows for autistic audiences, performing with autism, and the obstacles that still remain in the magic community for minority and disabled performers. Won Over By Magic Cody shares with us the story of his autism diagnosis and the choices his parents made at the time to not subject him to harmful treatments but instead...

This week Jonah connects with John Gaspard and Jim Cunningham, the minds behind Sunday Night Magic and the Eli Marks series of mystery novels.  Together they talk about creating content adjacent to magic and the joy of creating works that are not intended to make any money.  Neither Jim or John identify as working magicians, but they both share a profound love the art form and have each found uniq...

Jonah is back with Ben Train with the Toronto Magic Company to ask him questions about how they’re handling the virtual slowdown during the summer, how they’re preparing for the future of Unconventional.fun , and what tools they’re using to run their business and coordinate with their growing team. The Virtual Slowdown Jonah and Ben share their feelings for the future. Will there...

This week Jonah connects with Peter Samelson where he offers up three questions we can ask ourselves to make our magic scripts better. Something Theatre Couldn’t Do Peter Samelson originally focused on theatre with an intention to do something with his life that was worthwhile and mattered. After training to become an actor and moving to New York to make an impact in the theatre scene he realized...

This week Jonah connects with Doc Dixon to talk about comedy in magic and the work that goes into getting those laughs. If you’ve been in magic for a while then you definitely know the name Doc Dixon. He is a creator, a thinker, a performer, and a worker. He has appeared on Penn & Teller’s Fool Us twice (and fooled them once!) and you’ve probably seen him at a convention or you’ve seen somethi...

This week Jonah shares three success stories from the Upgrade Academy.  If you want to super-charge your magic business and equip yourself with the skills and knowledge you need to host successful virtual shows you can sign up for the Upgrade Academy by visiting discourseinmagic.com/upgrade Case Study 1: Doc Dixon Doc Dixon is well known, you might have already seen him on Fool Us, and is absolute...

This week Jonah connects with Chris Cox to discuss his unique brand of mentalism, what it’s been like to go from touring every day to virtual shows at home, and why he loves magic but doesn’t find magic very interesting. Chis Cox is a mentalist who has performed on Broadway and on the BBC and toured as “The Mentalist” in the Illusionists. He’s also spent the past year crushing it in vi...