A Note from Montreal Magician Jean-Pierre Parent Who Fooled Penn and Teller

One goes about ones business everyday, doing what they do, but once in a while something happens to lift your spirits. JP Parent  who fooled Penn and Teller https://youtu.be/_-P4wjAROok took the time to write to me and with his permission I am sharing it with you. This is what he wrote.

“I love your articles you post !
The last one about being in heaven when you walked in the shop was my favorite. Ms Evelyn, you prob would not remember this if I told you ,but you where the first person to perform a magic trick for me in a magic shop.
I’ve never been in one.I had a magic kit and a magic book ,but never walked in a real magic shop!
I was 9 years old when my dad first took me to perfect magic.You performed a prediction involving a silk that had a queen of hearth printed on it. I was sold !
Little by little I was getting more and more interested and wanted to know as much as I could about the art.
Well long story short I got hired for my first cruise ship job at 20years old never looked back. It’s been 20 years this oct!
Since then I was lucky enough to travel the world, got to go on France got talent and fooled Penn and teller.
All this cause one time I walked in a shop with my dad and a sweet lady wanted to show me trick and gave me the bug!
All this to say , you never know what impact you can make on someone, even when he’s only 9 years old
Thank you so much !
All the best
Sincerely,
JP Parent”

Thank you JP. I’m sure everyone enjoys your success and is as proud of you as I am!

Magic and Language

Language is sort of a touchy subject in Quebec, not so much any more but it is an issue for performers. This does not apply only to magicians. Phil is a piano player. He plays ragtime and the old favorites from the 20’s 30’s 40’s etc. I get him the bookings at senior residences as they love the old songs. Besides selling magic in the shop I’m also Phil’s agent for music gigs. The people who are in charge of hiring in many places ask if the songs are French. If I tell them music is international they say no, they want French songs. One place said it had to be 50/50 both languages. So he has to learn French songs, but we don’t know which are the most popular, “two solitudes” as they say. So if anyone wants to volunteer to let us know what the old favorite French songs are we would appreciate it. ( See how I veered away from the topic I was writing about. )

Back to magicians. In Europe they had 2 cboices, learn a bunch of languages or do a silent act. Pat Gueller, from Paris, who I wrote about recently,  had a silent act with music. He could go anywhere in the world with it. A customer of ours from Israel, Eytan Ayalon, was fluent in 5 or 8 different languages and was going on tour across Europe last time I spoke to him. He was in his 90’s at the time so there’s hope. They say magic keeps you young.

Sometimes you may like an effect but it involves talking, like Chris Philpott’s fabulous mentalist effect The 100th Monkey. Fortunately it comes in 12 languages: Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish! The English version is sold separately.

Now Chris Philpott came out with a close-up version of The 100th Monkey callled NARCISSUS, also in multi-languages including French. The English one is sold separately.

DAVID STONE WORD(S) The New Wave Book Test was available in English, French, German,  and Spanish, but now our suppliers only have English, but I have 1 French version in stock.

Now Shawn Farquar’s SHEER LUCK  comedy book test is available in French and 17 other languages. We are expecting English and French ones any day. If you want them in another language, let me know.

DVD’s of course are easier because of the nature of the beast, but we have quite a few bilingual ones.

So these are the special problems for performers in a special province.