It amuses me that we live in a country where more people are following Britney Spears' Twitter feed than President Obama's (source: http://wefollow.com/top) If there's anyone who we'd want to have an up-to-date status of, you think it'd be the president. Oh well ... 

Tonight I had the pleasure of performing for the Damascus Community Fair board and their families, as they recapped this summer's successful Fair and make plans for the future.  Since I travel all over the state, as well as Virginia and into DC, it's a welcome change to have a show four miles away :-)

The audience was great, and performing on a raised stage is always fun since everyone can see well.  Unbeknownst to them (hopefully), the show featured a few firsts for me:

- The first time doing the brass ring and rope routine on stage
- The first time using my wireless iPod controller in a show
- New introductory patter with the padlock routine

Many thanks to everyone who made it a successful evening ... it's always fun to perform for an appreciative, responsive audience.

~ Peter

I had the pleasure of performing two shows for the Damascus Library this afternoon, each with a crowd of over 200, and very excited to be there and watching.  Since we're Damascus church-goers, I've an adopted sense of home when it comes to Damascus, and it felt good to be performing at the library where many of my first magic books were checked out.

A very special thanks to all of you who came out to see us, and if you missed the show, come see us for free on the 30th at Middletown's Independence Day celebration!  'Til then,

~ Peter

Matt and I just got back from our church, and we're exhausted.  But it was a fun evening!

Matt brought his awesome grill, Bad Angus, and helped cook burgers and hot dogs for the hungry peoples.  We also brought our lighting rig, so as the evening entertainments continued everyone could see.

We had a timeslot near the end of the night, and I was grateful that so many people (especially families with small kids) stuck around for our magic show.  Matt and I performed our Burned Sock Routine (with some new apparatus), as well as the Invisible Deck Revealed, always an audience favorite.

Just got back from a really fun wedding party on the Odyssey cruise out of the D.C. Marina.  It was the first time I've been a magician on the water!  The crowd was fun, and enjoyed the magic.  There were about 200 people, but I was there for four hours, so everyone got a good dose of magic.

I took a dinner break to enjoy some tortellini at a fancy table all by myself.  As the Odyssey looped out and back through D.C., we saw the Kennedy Center, Watergate Hotel, Washington and Lincoln Memorials, and plenty of low bridges that only the Odyssey could scoot under.

My feet hurt, I'm quite tired, but it was a memorable show

So I am pretty much nuts about this model: a hot, sexy model that's all mine.

I'm talking of course about a scale model … but it's not like a plane or car or something like that. It's a model of a box for a magic illusion that I cooked up. I've never seen anything like it before, so I'm hoping audiences will appreciate that originality.

The proposed effect involves this box, which sports a removable lid and walls that unfold. The front and back are made of clear plastic, the sides and lid are solid. The lid is placed on, and all four walls are folded up and attach to the lid. Not only is it assembled before the audience, but it remains in full view, and the audience can see right through it. The final version will also include a turntable in the base and four little spotlights, one in each corner.

In the full-size version (about the size of a suitcase), the box will be assembled, and an audience volunteer will choose a style and color of a vehicle, as well as find seven random letters and numbers for the license plate. We'll then fill the box up with some smoke, and yank the lid off (which in turn causes the sides to fall open).

There rotating on the turntable, gleaming in the spotlights, will be a model of their chosen car, accurate down to the license plates.

How cool will that be? Please note that this is still in the development stages, so the routine and working is subject to change before you see it in one of my shows. But I've been kicking around this idea for about a year, and the model has made me even more excited to proceed.

Thoughts? Feel free to share 'em, and I'll let you know when this effect makes it into the show!

~ Peter