New Magic Detective Group Page on Facebook, Please Join!

I've recently created a GROUP page for The Magic Detective on Facebook. I already had a PAGE, but there were some things I wanted to do that the PAGE wouldn't allow. So I opted to add the GROUP page. I know it's probably a bit confusing but there are methods behind the madness.

The pandemic has not been kind to the blog or podcast, because so much of my research material is in a location far (600+ miles) from where I am. But that will be changing soon. I've got some podcasts in the works, some new blog articles as well. And as far as the group page, I've been trying to add magic history material from other sources. Thankfully there are some in the group who have been contributed cool images to the page. All are welcome as long as they are magic history related. 

One thing I'd love is that when a podcast goes up, if members have material related to that person, maybe they'd be willing to share their photos. I know this happened with Tarbell, Leipzig and a few others. It just enhances the existing articles. 

One new feature coming to the podcast will be INTERVIEWS! I have toyed with this idea forever, but resisted it. Thankfully, I have the tech to do it easily now. Thanks to my work with Zoom Magic Shows, I've got what I need. I've been doing Zoom Shows since June and they've been a blast. I've even had some Magic Detective listeners buy tickets and join in as well. I probably have the only Zoom Magic Show that features a bit of magic history during the show. Most of it however is interactive magic, between the audience and myself. If you're interested in checking out a show, go to ZoomMagicShow.com for more info and ticketing. 

In addition to the Interviews on the podcast, I do plan on doing something special with the Group Page, but I don't yet have all my ducks in a row for that. So I'm still keeping that one under wraps for now.

I do want to say, thank you everyone for the comments regarding the blog and the podcast! Please please join the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/MagicDetectiveGroup/

Fetaque Sanders Posters

The most recent podcast, Ep 54, was on Fetaque Sanders. In the course of the podcast I mentioned the fact that one of the reasons we know about him is because of what he left behind, posters! He spent a lot of money on advertising his show and it paid off in his life time.

In fact, in later years, he even sold a packet of his advertising materials through the Linking Ring Magazine. Valuable for both collectors and for those who wanted to study what a real pro used to advertise his show.

Every once in a while one of his posters comes up on ebay. My favorite of the Fetaque Sanders posters is the one with the two sets of eyes. This was a common marketing trick among the magicians in the 40-50s. They would put up posters with his face looking normal and then a couple days before showtime, replace this posters with an exact copy, except below his eyes on the poster was a second set of eyeballs. It made you stare at the poster and wonder if something wasn't wrong with your own eyes! Genuis.

This poster below is currently available on ebay.  https://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Fetaque-Sanders-Magician-Poster/372411155808?hash=item56b56f4560:g:aEgAAOSw51xepfcm

The Magic Detective Podcast Hits 10,000+

The Magic Detective Podcast is going strong. A month or so ago I finally hit the 10,000 download mark and the hosting company has given me this 'badge' to promote that event. Though, now I'm closer to 12,000 downloads (roughly about 300 short of that). 

Since the pandemic, it's been rough going because I've been separated from my library. Yet despite that situation, I still have been able to get out some interesting podcasts. Among them were, Episode 50 on the Hooker Rising Cards and The Men Who Fooled Houdini, sort of a two segment episode. Then #51 was Hereward Carrington, a name that shows up a lot in Houdini biographies but how many people really knew a lot about him? So I did some digging and found him to be quite a fascinating character. 

Episode 52 of the podcast was on Nate Leipzig and thankfully I had Dai Vernon's book on Leipzig here with me to rely upon. Askalexander.org was also full of great content on Nate, the gentleman conjurer. 

On Episode 53, I thought I was going to get away easy, because I had previously done a blog article on KIO. But there wasn't quite enough info on there for a podcast. I could have done a short podcast, but I've not done one of those this season and am going to try and avoid that. Thankfully, I was able to get a book on KIO as well as rely upon Askalexander.org and a russian friend who helped me through some of the translations (spasibo for that). 

Finally, Episode 54 was on Fetaque Sanders (pronounced FEE-TAKE), a wonderful magician of color who was popular in the 1930s-1960s. His story was amazing and inspiring. I loved the fact that he was born right here in Nashville, where I currently am. And he really did it all, from schools and churches to even working on Broadway. 

I've not yet begun to work on Episode 55, trying to get a couple other projects done first. IF the pandemic continues the rest of the year, I may add something NEW to the Magic Detective World, but you'll have to wait on that for now.  

Speaking of adding something new, I've been doing Zoom Shows for a while now. One of the things I did on my weekend evening shows was to add some stories. The last one I did I told the story of Lafayette and Beauty, I also shared a fictional story of Houdini and Charlie Chaplin which has been a routine in my stage show for almost 20 years. And I included a presentation for the antique Coffee Vase trick. So MY Zoom shows are quite different from what everyone else is doing. Granted, there are elements that are the same, I have a lot of interactive routines as do other performers. I think this is imperative when doing this sort of show. But I like including history into the show. Those are ticketed shows on select weekends. More info can be found at zoommagicshow.com