Artist Spotlight: Jim Pace

Jim Pace is a rather quiet, reserved man. I've seen him lecture, and he comes off as a very nice, very talented magician who is a real worker. This guy has worked restaurants so much, he wrote two books on doing magic in restaurants!

Aside from being a strong sleight-of-hand magician, Jim is also a pyromaniac. Now, I'm not a psychologist, but judging by the face that nearly every product he releases has to do with fire in some way, leads me to believe he enjoys fire effects.

I've used Jim's Hot Leads for years, and performed regularly with the Inviso-Torch back when I worked a restaurant (and college dorm cafeteria. Those were some awesome times).

Here are a few other products of his we highly recommend.

The Web: Jim's classic trick that will scare the pants off your spectators. You do have to be careful who you perform this on. But if your best friend is arachnophobic, just stand back and watch the fun!

Lucifer's Wallet: A traditional fire wallet, at an attractive price. Lucifer's Wallet is essentially a traditional flint-ignited fire wallet, manufactured by Jim.

The Prestige: A dollar bill, under the influence of some mysterious power, visibly folds itself into a tiny packet while the bill sits on the magician's outstretched hand. Held at the fingertips, the bill then visibly and instantly changes to a coin! Jim's awesome video instruction makes this one easy to learn.

All Stuck Up: Invented by Jay Sankey, Jim bought the rights from Sankey many years ago. A piece of already chewed gum is stretched between the magician's hands. It is thrown into the air where it visibly changes into a freshly wrapped piece of bubble gum!I performed this one in my busking days to great success.

Podcasts, Websites, and Sightings

1) Wow, what a response! I'm glad to know that people are enjoying the podcast. We've had a few submissions for the giveaway contest, but there's still time! Jan 30 is the deadline when we'll take all the correct answers and draw one winner. You'll have to listen to the podcast to find out what the question is.

The next recording is scheduled for Feb. 6, with the final product being posted a day or two after that. Tomas really is one of the busiest magicians in town, and since he's working so many gigs, it is sometimes hard for us to schedule a time to do a recording. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I'm still relatively unknown in this town, so I don't have nearly as many gigs as he does.


2) We are working on improving our website on a regular basis. Recently, I was able to add a "search by manufacturer" feature, allowing customers to browse products by their favorite magic maker.


3) I was checking out a show at Chicago's famed Second City last night, when one of the sketches in the revue was a spoof of a magic act.

The actress portraying the magician could not get any of the tricks to work, and when the props were handed to her assistant, he accidentally did the magic: changing a cane to two handkerchiefs, linking the rings (rather impressively, I might add, doing a two-person link) and producing what I immediately recognized as a FUN Inc-made 8' Appearing Wand. I smiled to myself.

FUNcast now on iTunes!

I was just double-checking to see if we made it on iTunes yet, and lo and behold!

FUNcast #1 is up!

Well, we finally did it. We were supposed to go last week when both Tomas and I came down with a severe case of apathy due to the sub-zero temperatures in Chicago (I believe the operative phrase was, "It's too cold, let's do it later.")

I've submitted the podcast to iTunes, but who knows how long it'll take for them to get around to posting it up. In the meantime, please use Podcast Alley to download our first episode.

If you like it, let us know, and we might actually consider doing more of them.

Enjoy!

Click here to download.

Make an impression!

I'm very happy that we have Jim Pace's Hot Leads back in stock. I've been using this product personally for years, and it's always gotten me a great reaction. I mean, if you were handed a business card that burst into flames, extinguished, and had no burn marks on it, you'd be impressed, right?

Jim, the enterprising, creative, talented pyromaniac that he is, has come up with many pyro effects over the years. Another one of my favorites (that I also perform regularly) is the Inviso-Torch.

Yes, you must exercise caution because it is real fire. I've always been careful, but a friend of mine nearly got burned. Fortunately, I was there to tackle him to the ground and extinguish the flames. His shirt only had a minor singe to it.

Coming Soon: Podcasting from FUN!

After our last taping of Magic Week in Review for iTricks.com, Justin Robert Young made an off-hand remark that stuck with me. "You know, you guys should consider doing your own podcast." Ever since then I've been toying with the idea, and now I'm pleased to say that we're finally going to do it!

"But who would listen?" I hear them saying. "No one reads the blog; what makes you think they'll listen to a podcast?" I tend to ignore these voices of negativism when I don't have an answer. Mainly, I think it'll be fun.

I don't have too rigorous a schedule planned - I was thinking maybe once a month - but, we'll wait and see how the response goes. Tomas and I will be sharing hosting duties. He and I riff off each other all day during work, and a fraction of it is pretty funny. I figured it would only be a matter of time before we started to record it.

Anyway, we're planning on recording this week, and, providing I can figure out how to make an RSS feed for it, it'll be up by next week!

Artist Spotlight: Angelo Stagnaro

We've added a lot of stuff to our catalog from one of the modern masters of mentalism. Angelo Stagnaro, publisher of the popular webzine "Smoke and Mirrors," has penned a series of books through German publisher Manipulix. FUN just happens to have several of them in stock.

Conspiracy: A textbook on practical mentalism and concentrating on partnered codes and other secret arrangements between a mentalist and his confederate.

Shibboleth: A collection of mentalism routines so powerful, Jeff McBride describes the information as dangerous to those who would wield it unwisely!

The Other Side: A textbook for the seance magician. If you've ever considered performing mental magic in a seance setting, or are simply seeking spooky effects to add to your repertoire, this is the book for you!

Something from Nothing: Exploring the topic of cold reading on a very practical level. The title expresses the idea that the mentalist should be able to come on stage unaided and, with nothing in hand, simply read a spectator's mind.

Card to Wallet is back!

As someone who recently became obsessed with the Card-to-Wallet (see my growing wallet collection as proof), I was disappointed to find that I came to FUN Inc. just after we ran out of our hip pocket-style CTW. I heard from a lot of folks about how much they loved this wallet, and demanded to know when we'd have them again.

Well, when I got here, I found out the chances of us having the Royal Card to Wallet again was next to nothing. I'm so glad to find out that was wrong!

Our Card to Wallet is genuine leather, suitable for using as your everyday wallet. The included instructions give you a basic handling, but with a little research, I'm sure you'll be able to find a structured routine that fits your style.

After all, the CTW didn't become a classic effect because it was unadaptable...

Pick up a Royal Magic Card to Wallet from your local dealer. And do it quickly...these things will go fast!

What is Shibboleth?

We're finally back into the swing of things with the holidays over, and an odd-titled book landed on my desk.

Angelo Stagnaro's "Shibboleth" earns its title from the story of an ancient password. The title is apropo, because those who don't know the password shouldn't be able to own this book: the material is way too powerful to be widely available.

You can read our full description for the book by clicking here. I had very little to go on when writing the description, but I think that it's about as accurate as I can give without having read the book. (it only landed on my desk this morning, so I didn't have time to read the whole thing!)