Discourse in Magic

Geraint Clark runs one of the most popular magic blogs on the web and we’re super excited to have him on the show this week.  His entrée into the magical was a unique one.  He was early for a job interview one day and wandered into a local bookshop.  The night before he had watched the British magician Dynamo on TV.  It just so happened that Nicholas Einhorn’s book The Practical Encyclopedia of Ma...

We are long overdue for a catch-up episode!  Tyler has been jamming a lot by himself over the last two months.  His landlord has been giving him nothing but grief and that’s been taking away from his magical mind.   He successfully performed at the Fern Resort and has continues to collect a Noah’s Ark of pets.  Jonah, meanwhile, has been getting a lot of shows for the Christmas season.  He is goin...

Sean O is a master of cardistry and has achieved a lot at a very young age.  Sean is only twenty years old but has been honing his skills since he was in grade school. He did his first paying gig was when he was nine.  He first saw card magic when he was given The Trilogy by Dan and Dave.   He would also watch XCM battles and was obsessed with it.  Both of Sean’s parents worked in IT and he had ma...

Xavior Spade is making waves as one of the highest profile YouTube magicians.  He is using live streaming to connect with an every-growing audience.  Xavior found magic as a young person while growing up in Jamaica, Queens in New York City.  But it was magic that helped him to escape the ghetto.  It was incredible eye-opening experience to be treated as an equal in the magic community.  Eventually...

Garrett Thomas is an incredible magician, an opinion that was confirmed recently when Jonah saw him perform at the Buffalo 52 magic convention.  Garrett first fell in love with magic because of his father.  His dad was a huge fan of magic and was friends with the bar magician Eddie Fechter. W ho had a brilliant way of teaching people.  Fechter taught Garret’s dad a few tricks which were then passe...

We first came across Allan Hagen on Instagram , which has become a gold mine for finding new magical talent.  Allan grew up in Norway which didn’t have much of a magic community.  At 9 years of age he found a Norwegian language card magic book.  After learning English he discovered magic websites in the early 2000’s and his learning took off. Allan primarily works in card magic.  He quickly came t...

Demian Aditya has become world famous because of his insane escape acts.  Demian first became interested in magic because of David Copperfield who was on TV regularly in his native Indonesia.  He loves doing the things other magicians ignore.  The black art of Omar Pasha is one of the styles he first embraced.  Later he moved into escapes because they too were being ignored.  His escapes are incre...

We’re really excited to welcome Billy Kidd to the podcast this week.  Billy has gone from busking on the streets to performing for sold-out shows around the world.  She trained as an actor in Edmonton and was almost totally disinterested in street performing and magic.  That is until she saw  Nick Nickolas performing at the Edmonton Street Performers Festival nine years ago.  She was totally in aw...

On today’s episode, Mahdi Gilbert joins us to talk about the state of magic and not making excuses.  He first got into magic as a little kid despite not having much exposure to it.  He didn’t have a TV or internet but he had heard about magicians from other kids at school.  His childhood logic was that if he could learn magic he would be able to do anything.  Everyone told him that he couldn...

Lawrence Hass is the Associate Dean of the Magic and Mystery School in Las Vegas.  We wanted to invite him on to talk about the theory of magic at its deepest level.  Lawrence has a Ph. D. in philosophy and taught the subject for many years.  As he was finishing his Ph. D. he happened upon a David Copperfield performance on TV.  He immediately started thinking about what Copperfield was doing in a...

You know him from his incredibly popular videos The BC Shuffle and The Instagram Sessions .  Jeremy Griffith has popularized social media magic in a way no one else has.  His start in magic was similar to many people – an uncle bought him a magic set when he was just a kid.  His dad had been a magician’s assistant when he was young and booked Jeremy into a magic class when he was in middle school....

Jeremy Hanrahan is renowned in the magic community for his secret identity as @GaffGuy52 .  He started early and became completely obsessed.  At first, he was a sleight of hand expert before he moved into gaffing.  He started his career selling his gaff decks to Morrisey Magic in Toronto.  Then, his decks quickly became hugely in demand.  That lead to a 3000 deck order from Theory 11 .  He likes t...

Steve Reynolds is a renowned New Orlean’s card magician who is obsessed with keeping the history of magic alive.  Steve first got into magic as a kid growing up outside of Philadelphia.  He was about seven years old when he wrote a book report on Houdini .  Later, someone gave him the book How to Do Tricks with Cards which fit perfectly for him because he was already fascinated by cards.  When he...

Zack Mirza has created a remarkable career both as a professional animator and a magician.  He has animated a variety of children’s programs and his magic career was featured in the OLN series Illusion of Grandeur .  He has combined both those passions in a Kickstarter campaign to create his own unique deck of cards featuring characters based on Arabic folklore.  In this episode we discussed Zack’...

Harrison Greenbaum is the hardest working man in comedy and magic.  His unique act has landed him slots on Last Comic Standing and America’s Got Talent .  His career started early first as a stand-up comic who occasionally used magic in his sets when the jokes weren’t landing.  He was encouraged to focus just on the comedy but by the time he graduated college he decided that he wanted to combine t...

Our guest this week is Glenn West.  Glenn is a fantastic magician who started his love affair with magic after being introduced to the craft by his father.  Magic is constant presence in his life though he is not a working magician. Instead, he works as an animator in film and television.  Glenn’s magic is very visual and in your face and has a huge ‘wow’ factor.  His love of magic is directly rel...

In episode 69 we sit down with cardist Anna DeGuzman to talk magic, cardistry, content creation and much much more! Anna knows a TON about cardsitry and it’s place online. Cardistry seems to have grown alongside the growth of social media in the past few years. It was massive on Youtube (it still is), but then with the eruption of Instagram, that’s where many cardists live in a 2017 sp...

In episode 68 we sit down with long time friend Jason Dean. We’ve known Jason since back in the Sorcerers Safari days, and have been pumped to get him on the show. Jason is a rockstar magician. He is a rockstar – The drummer for Sidewise; a crazy metal band, as well as an accomplished and creative magician. Jason dives in with us to ways that you can benefit as a magician even if it isn&#821...

In episode 67 we sat down with the very brilliant Michael Feldman. Michael is a full time Lawyer as well as a recognized magician. He performs and creates fantastic magic that’s as knuckle-busting as it is baffling. We spoke to Michael about his journey in magic, specifically his unlikely path the Lawyer/ magician. With a love for creating and being on stage, and a slow reduction of free time. He...

In episode 65 of Discourse in Magic we sit down with old friend Ryan Edwards. We’ve known Ryan from once again, Sorcerers Safari, but we wanted to introduce him to all of you and give you a chance to get TOP NOTCH magic tools! Ryan does it all! He’s written and performed two of his own magic shows. He’s advised and built props for top magicians around the world, and he most impor...

Not all hero’s wear capes, and not all magicians live on the stage. Some can be found sitting at the table at the magic shop, shuffling cards, or creating some new magic. Jeff was an important character in the Toronto magic scene who had an impact on the on two young budding Toronto magicians (Tyler and I). He was at the magic store, at magic camp, and in all of the big time Toronto magic ci...

In episode 63 of the podcast we sit down wit Mark Calabrese to talk about what it takes to make it in magic. Mark is an incredibly accomplished performer. With multiple baffling card effects released on the magic market, as well as appearances on Wizard Wars and Penn and Teller Fool us. In this episode we broke down just that. We broke down his journey into full time magic, and his journey on thos...

In this episode we sit down with Canadian Comedy Magic Icon Matt Disero. Matt is a hilarious Canadian comedy magician, who has made his way up through the comedy circuit. Sitting down with Matt in person it gave us an opportunity to really interact, dig deep, and touch on some of the important nuances of comedy magic. I first found Matt when he was part of James Alan’s Toronto show: “M...

We brought on expert mentalist, hypnotist and rockstar entertainer Spidey. If you haven’t seen Spidey on Youtube, Facebook, or on TV you might have seen him at your local theatre. Guzzo Cinemas in Montreal to be exact. That’s how Spidey got his first pocket of fame. After many years of performing Spidey spun a deal with the theatre owner that he would make videos that play before the m...

In this episode we sit down with Marc Kerstein. If you haven’t used, or been fooled by one of Marcs magic apps, you’ve missed out. Marc is THE iphone magic app guy, and has been brought on to consult on multiple TV series including David Blaine’s most recent special. This is what I’m talking about: How did the effect work? Marc did it. YUP. So now it’s time to tune in...