Day 19 - 26. 6. 2020

[Ondřej Pšenička]

David S had an early performance at the exam because he had to leave early. He was a little late but then he performed a 14 minute one man show and it was nice and full of references to the magic course.
Then I started preparing for my performance. I couldn’t find the double stick tape I use to attach a tic tac to the box so I used a different one which seemed to work better since the tic tac stuck really well to it. With the other one I was always scared that it will fall out and it also happened during the rehearsal so I would have to change the tape quite often.
Amanda and Guille came to see us. Also Mattias and Hanna came.
In the first third of eight sutdents the most interesting for me was Joni with very magical coloring banana trick and Carl with a very fun routine. Leif had a very nice story idea as well where he found a grain of dust on his jacket which would constantly keep multiplying while he was struggling to clean it off.
Second half started with Stefan whose personality makes anything nice and although not that magical, the act was very artistic and made complete sense storywise. He was the last one I saw before I went to get ready for my act.
The next one on deck was David P who had a great success and everyone has been talking about his act after.
Then I missed René and just partially saw David T from the side and want to see that on video because it looked really good.
Then I watched Balasz’s performance which looked nice. He used the same close-up pad as I was using, so I immediately sneaked it away and got my chair ready to the left wing.
Lionel was next and I was really curious how will be his effect perceived by the audience. And they seemed to like it actually.
Then it was my turn and it went really well. Just one thing was a struggle and that was the double stick tape which I haven’t really tried if it works. I couldn’t get the tic tac off of the box - it was too strong. But other than that - it went well.
The following acts were John-Henry with a nice funny absurd story, and Lauri was also quite original.
In the last third, Jerome had a minimalistic effect of a phoenix raising from ashes.
Axel performed his three leg act, Erik with his too fast table top routine. It’s got great effects, but there is no pause for the audience to take any of it in.
And as the last one came the FISM competitors - Simon with an already upgraded act. I’m curious how much will it improve until the competition.
Jakob then performed his cups & balls full of callbacks and surprising effects - this time with Amanda as his spectator.
And finally Hakan with a hilarious beginning and after all… the act is actually very funny. With original jokes and gags.
Then we all took a group picture, received pink beach balloons from the school as a gift and went on with packing everything, cleaning the workshop, returning the chip and straight to the Magic Bar to party.

First we talked a little, then we ate dinner of three courses. Tom did some tricks for us and showed us videos from his YouTube channel. Then he taught me a trick which I don’t remember a name of. Two black fives. One on the right of the table and the other one on the other side. You put two black queens on one of the fives and two red queens on the other - everything is face down. When you turn the piles face up, both fives are on the right and the queens end up on the left.

Then we split who would like to perform on stage, who wants to do a close-up show and who is going to do table-hopping. I thought I could do the Tabary rope routine on stage, but Mikael wanted to do the same so I let him do it. After all he was the official entertainer of the evening. So I was going to do my edge trick in the close-up show then.

Carl was a very good MC of the stage show. Martin was the first one to perform, drunk - pretty bad. His attitude toward the audience was rude and arrogant and I really didn’t like it.
John-Henry did a pantomime act and it was really good.
Erik is a very funny character.
Balazs did razor blades and Mikael the rope which was spoken with background music and nice. He said it’s been his closer for 8 years.
And David P performed hic vacuum cleaner act so I got to see it and it’s a really fun idea. Cool.

After the performance I showed some tricks including clocking to some guys in the back room and John-Henry got killed by clocking so I reconsidered my choice and decided to do that instead of the edge trick in the close-up show. Then it started.

Johan as the MC, Rene was first up - messed up his trick and we all felt pretty bad for him. Then Edith performed with rubber bands followed by René who made up for his first appearance.
Stefan then did a very good ambitious routine with a great kicker in the end.
Jerome did his classic gambling stuff and a king-ace two phase production trick.
Lauri in the end of his act did this amazing trick when two people chose cards from different decks, red and blue, signed them and he torn them in three places and twisted them into each other. But then he untwisted them, showing that they fused into one another, one being backs and one being faces. And then he took this square shaped canvas where he glued them both and signed it to leave it somewhere at Magic Bar for everybody to admire. Very cool.

And then it was my turn. I am not going to write about it in length, but first I took a selfie with everyone, then did clocking with a borrowed deck, announcing a red card missing. But it wasn't it. Then I found out that the deck - even though the owner claimed otherwise - was incomplete and the eight of clubs was missing as well.
So I decided to do it again with a different borrowed deck, this time I made a mistake in counting. So I decided to do the edge trick. I gave the Texans to the first spectator (Johan magician) to shuffle after he selected and returned a card. He reversed the halves during a riffle shuffle and destroyed the one-way order of the deck. Note to self - Observe how people shuffle even if you don’t intend to do anything for which it would be relevant, and if you see someone who is about to shuffle like that, take the cards immediately from their hands, return the halves to the right way and give them to someone else.
Then when I confirmed that the one-way order got destroyed, I just apologised, made a comment about a successful show needing a low moment before the grand finale, people laughed, and Eric went on to destroy the audience with his crazy and powerful presentation and I went to sink into a divan and think about my first real failure in many years.

After the show some people came to tell me that they still really liked it. Especially David T. So at least that. I guess it’s true that magic can be entertaining even without the element of magic. That unfortunately is not really what I strive for.

Then I showed it to both Davids because I wanted to prove that I can do it I guess. And then I was just sitting around talking to people and saying goodbye to those who were leaving. It was an amazing day, great three weeks and I will see most of them in just a week in Rimini.

Tom told me that he is nominated for FISM award for creativity so I assumed I will see him in Italy as well and he told me that he is not going because he can’t afford it. That hit me for a minute. It’s kind of sad, weird, and unfair. He told me that he won’t win anyway, that Finn Jon will get the award. He is probably right. Well, we’ll find out soon.

Now for the first time in a month I will sleep for a very long time. We left the Magic Bar at 2:30am.