(Hank) Moorehouse 1934 – 2011 - The Society of American Magicians

Louie Foxx
Earlier this year, I was looking
around on the Internet for a bullwhip
that I needed for a western routine I was
working on. I came across bullwhips.org;
not only did the whips look nice, but the
maker of these whips seemed interesting
as well. I sent an email describing what I
wanted and then gave a call to the whip
maker, Louie Foxx.
To my surprise, one of the first things
Louie said to me was, “Are you the same
Steve Marshall who writes for the M-U-M
magazine?” This delighted me; I was
happy to find out that he is a magician,
he’s a member of the S.A.M., and he reads
this column!
I have to say that after talking more
with Louie the term “magician” is a
little constricting for him, since he is
really a variety artist in the true sense
of the word; he uses not only magic, but
also juggling, shadowgraphy, silhouette
cutting, whip cracking, comedy and, well,
just about whatever it takes to entertain
his audiences.
He was born Isaac Louie, and still uses
this name when publishing his material,
such as his September 2008 and April
2011 Linking Ring parades. He grew up
in Seattle, Washington, and by the time
he was fourteen years old he was street
performing at Seattle’s famous Pike Place
Market, where he worked on a homemade
38 M-U-M Magazine
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cards at
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magic table that he had found the plans
for in the Mark Wilson Course in Magic.
While street performing, Louie
caught the eyes of Sheila Lyon and Darryl
Beckmann, the owners of the Market
Magic Shop at Pike Place Market; they
offered Louie a job working as a demonstrator
in the shop. “Over the years
working behind the counter at Market
Magic I learned so many pointers and
tips from Sheila and Darryl; I owe a ton
to them.” Another great thing that Sheila
and Darryl did was to sponsor Louie to
go to the first Bob Fitch workshop up in
Canada when he was nineteen. Louie
got to spend nine days with Bob Fitch
studying not only magic but also theatrical
techniques to make his performances
stronger. Or as Louie puts it, “This was
one of the things that changed my life.”
Another life changing experience
for Louie happened a few years earlier
when he was seventeen and he snuck into
a casino to see the juggling troupe The
Raspini Brothers perform. He credits
them for changing the way he looked at
show business. “Up until that point all of
the magicians and variety artists I had
seen were 1980s-style performers who
used the same lines and did the same bits.
The Raspini Brothers were cool and hip
and had original material and lines. It
opened my eyes to writing my own stuff
and making it funny. So a lot of my style
came out of them as well.”
Louie has gone on to become quite
successful in the magic and variety arts
fields. Today he can be found traveling and
doing everything from school shows and
summer camps for kids to comedy club
shows and casinos for adult audiences.
He builds a lot of his own props and
describes his character and his show as
“a bunch of stuff I learned to do as a kid.”
This theme forced Louie to build a lot of
his own props. As he puts it, “If I have
a nice, slick-looking magic prop onstage
it looks out of place with my character.
With that thought in mind, nobody makes
props that look like junk, so I had to start
building them myself.”
When asked about his thoughts on
creativity he said, “Sometimes you have
to have a lot of bad ideas before you have
a good one. The important thing is to
keep trying stuff; don’t listen to anyone
else if they tell you not to do something.
A lot of people told me I shouldn’t do
shadowgraphy in a comedy club, but I
tried it anyway; today it’s my closer.”
Some of Louie’s recent accomplishments
are breaking the Guinness book
world record by bouncing a soap bubble
on his hand eighty-eight times, writing a
book on the Svengali deck that has sold
over 2,500 copies to date, getting his
stand-up comedian robot “ROBO” on
the TV show America’s Got Talent, and
becoming a “rock star dad.”
Actually, when I caught up with Louie
to do this interview he was on the road
for three days doing summer library
programs; he had his seven-year-old
daughter Ella with him performing. “Ella
has probably done more shows at this
point than most adult amateur magicians.
She loves performing with me and is
constantly coming up with new and
funny bits for the show.”
As a matter of fact, we had to
finish our conversation because it
was time for Ella’s bedtime story.
A fringe benefit of working for Dad!
Facebook
Prediction
By Louie Foxx
by steve
marshaLL
effect: You have eight objects on
the table and a prediction on the back of
your business card. With the help from
someone in the audience you narrow
down the eight items to one (for this
example, let’s say it’s a watch). You turn
over your business card to show a barcode
and you do the classic gag invented
by Fumio Inagaki of Japan as you say,
“That’s the barcode for a watch.”
The barcode is then scanned by
someone in the audience with a Smartphone
and it takes him to your Facebook
fan page where your most recent update
is: “You will pick the watch.” Of course,