Our guest this week is a brilliant mind in the community. He’s a magician, a priest and a raconteur – we’re really excited to have Jared Kopf. Every child is born with a sense of wonder that gradually dwindles. For Jared it never dwindled. He doesn’t remember a specific moment when he fell in love with the art form. But by the time he was a young kid he had become totally obsessed. By 14 he was making pretty good money doing walk-around magic in restaurants. By the time he returned to magic after university he was much more interested in the art of magic rather than just fooling people.

I can happily say…They’re beautiful, the quality is out of this world, it’s got an inside joke on it from the podcast PLUS a fantastic design!

We made it! 100 episodes is a milestone we never expected to reach. Well, Jonah did. It’s why he started the numbering with 001. Even still, we’re super excited to have gotten this far. In this episode we reflect on how important the podcast has been on their own magic careers.

You know him from his Workers project, his book Paradigm Shift and his work as a consulting producer on Fool Us. In this episode you’re going to learn all about how to have a good presentation, how to have an act worthy of television, and how to make your magic better!

Mario Lopez was just a kid when a friend put a lit cigarette into his fist and made it disappear. He learned how it was done and from that moment on he was in love with magic. He moved to Granada in his native Spain when he was 18 where he trained with one of the countries top magicians. He was taught the art of performance and how to create the magical moment. He didn’t teach young Luis any tricks specifically. It was all about how to perform on stage. Mario is incredibly dramatic on-stage which he says is a product of his environment. Clowns, actors and musicians are everywhere in Granada and they have all had an impact on his magic.

Lloyd Barnes grandfather became a travelling magician shortly after the war. He developed many tricks over the years and passed those onto Lloyd. His focus was much more on sport as a teenager – especially boxing and gymnastics. His university career was less than successful – he was thrown out in his final year. But that ignited his interest in magic and soon he was selling tricks and illusions that he developed himself. He was broke and homeless for a time and slept on many friends and families couches over the next few years.

Lloyd now works with Ellusionist. He scouts tricks from other performers and from submissions to the company. He helps to make them more practical and performable. When you send a trick to the company, he’s the guy that reads the email. The other part of his job is to shoot and edit the trailers for the new effects. Along with his own performing career that keeps him incredibly busy.