Welcome everyone to Episode 92 – our first episode of 2018! We both had a good New Year’s Eve. We relaxed with friends, some hors d’oeuvres and champagne. Last New Year’s we challenged ourselves to come up with some magical resolutions. Jonah resolved to work more on scripting his magic performances in 2017 – something he managed to achieve. Tyler, meanwhile, can’t remember what his resolution was. Though, he may have promised himself that he was going to perform more.

Felix Bodden has appeared on Fool Us and has created a really popular Instagram feed.  He first became interested when he was eight years old in 2001 – the same year that the first Harry Potter movie came out.  But Felix became frustrated when he realized there was no such thing as real magic.  His Mom took pity on him and bought Felix his first magic kit.  When you’re a kid everything is magical. 

We’ve been trying to get Tony Chang on the podcast for a long time and it’s finally happened!  Jonah and Tony spent some time together and NYC recently.  But this is the first time we have had the chance to talk to him about his history.  Tony first fell in love with magic when he saw a clown magician as a kid.  He got curious and he went to the public library in Idaho, where he grew up and found some books.  They were incredibly discouraging.  So he turned to some magic rooms on IRC in the early days of the internet.  He ordered a Hank Lee book and read it repeatedly.  His goal with magic is to create something incredible with imperfect means.  You can create an illusion using blunt mechanics to achieve something impossible. 

Geraint’s advice for a magician who wants to begin to sell illusions depends on what you want to accomplish.  Some people just want to make as much as possible.  But others want to be known and respected for creating quality magic.  Networking with the magic community to create something of value is hugely important.  But, he advises that once you conceive of a trick you should sit on it for a while.  Geraint has created tricks that he perfected over years before bringing to market.