Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm Dr. Todd and I interview magicians.
This is Magicians Workshop.
I recently got a chance to interview the amazing Carissa Hendricks. A lot of you guys know her as Lucy Darling. She has become super popular on TikTok, so when I got a chance to talk to her, I was over the moon. So this is my interview with Carissa Hendricks, AKA Lucy Darling. Karissa Hendricks is a respected magician and variety artist who brings magic and mayhem to the stage with their highly reviewed, semi improvised magic shows. This larger than life performer has earned accolades for their amazing magical stunts and delightful comedic Flair, winning over 15 different awards and thrilling audiences worldwide. Hendrix is well loved in the world of magic. Known for their circus skills, bubble sculpting and magic, Hendrix is a well rounded and accomplished performer who has been featured in the Guinness Book of World Records and Ripley's Believe it or Not.
Hendrix is the 2021 recipient of the Carlton Award from the Magic Circle in London, the 2019 recipient of the prestigious Alan Slate Award, and was recently awarded Stage Magician of the Year at the world famous Magic Castle for a historic second year in a row. Not to mention, she is my wife's favorite magician. Carissa Hendricks, thank you for taking the time to chat.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: No, I love it. I love being anyone's wife's favorite magician. That makes me so happy.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Yeah, we've been walking around the house for the last week going, oh, no.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: You know, Chapel Roan borrowed this saying from this drag queen of like, I'm your favorite artist, favorite artist. And I've been, I've been tempted to say, I'm your favorite magician's wife's favorite magician.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: It's, it's true.
And I mean just 100% we'll get into your character work, but it is just, it's amazing to watch the. How you, how you work a crowd. It's amazing. My, my kids have been asking if they could sit and watch. I was like, no, you guys are too loud, so we're going to have to. I'll let you watch after it's recorded.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Oh, it's sweet.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: So I want to start with your early inspiration and kind of move forward. And so I have a quote from your website. At 16, Hendrik's interest in the carnival sideshow was sparked by a chance encounter with an elderly sideshow performer and the misguided support of a high school chum. After a few months of training, they began doing small shows. And despite their astonishingly low quality, more bookings kept coming in. Can you elaborate on that story a little bit?
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Sure. So when I was young, I was considered or qualified for in Canada as a low income family. And so that luckily in Canada that gains access to a lot of cool programs. And one of those programs was called Art of Youth. And Art of Youth was a youth program that was ran over the summer. It was basically kind of an alternative childcare situation, but it was revolving around visual and performative art. And I was the last kid you would ever imagine would become a performer. I was fairly introverted, I was a little. I was bookish.
I didn't have the best social skills. And that summer I had gone to this Art of Youth program. We were painting murals and we were ushering at events and we were doing all this stuff. And we did a thing with stage left productions where we wrote a play with some people with different kinds of disabilities.
And it was a great program. And I learned like some basic performing skills. But I also met a handful of sideshow people because there were a couple of events that were doing these like, carnival shows. And so I met like a performer who had like the. I don't know what the technical term is, but like the flipper arm thing from the thalidomide cases who was from England. And he was really inspiring. He was really, really excellent performer. And there was another gentleman in that show who had come from Europe and he did like some other sideshow skills and there was like, like amazing circus people. And when the program was done, I was so fascinated by this sideshow stuff because I had been watching it with like a magician's eye because I had grown up, like, really interested in magic and had tons of, you know, experience like inventing magic tricks and so watching it, trying to figure out how it's done. And afterwards I went to go talk to some of the performers and I was like, yeah, it was amazing. Like the, you know, hammering nails into your face and all that stuff. Like I couldn't figure out the trick. And they both were like, oh, there's, there's no trick, you just do it. And that. My brain was blown. I was, my mind was absolutely blown. So later that summer, I also worked for, not worked for, but like volunteered at several other organizations. And I can't quite remember which organization it was. It was either Youth Week or Youth Volunteer Corps or some, some. One of those organizations. I, I volunteered for like a thousand of them.
And they had a thing where you could like go help these elderly people with disabilities at their home, like do some things. And the person that I was assigned to was one of the sideshow Performers and he needed help because he had like quite bad arthritis. His fingers were all kind of wonky. He needed some help sorting out the stuff in the garage. And I'm moving things and these are like big carnival masks and all this stuff. It's amazing. And he showed me a couple of tricks and he gave me access to some literature and it was enough to kind of get started. And another friend of mine at the time was also like kind of curious about that kind of stuff. So we started working on like fire eating skills mostly. Then I was learning how to walk on broken glass and do other skills. And then in beginning of October of that year when I was 16. So keep in mind this timeframe, right, like, like I do this thing in the summer, I go back to school in September, we start hanging out and like learning this fire eating thing. October, right at the beginning of October, I get kicked out of the house because it's just very stressful at home, especially with like low income and everybody was stressed out. And you know, I was a teenage girl, so I was like, maybe not the most respectful of the situation. So I kicked out of the house. And I'm very prideful and I have no skill to make any money. And one of my mentors at the time, Marcia Maido, also happened to be. She did a lot of work with youth, but she also happened to be the entertainment director for this haunted house in town called Screenworks or Screamfest. Screenworks was the company, Screen Fest was the show. And she offered me this gig and it was up like, like up north. I have to take a bus. There was like an hour long bus ride and it would be five, five hours a night. And every hour you would do a 15 minute show. And so five shows a night for 28 nights for 50 bucks a night. And for me at the time, that was more money than I could even imagine. And I needed money because I was now on my own. And I said, yes, I'll do it. Now keep in mind I am. I have no real performing skills of any kind. Like I was, I was sort of doing shadow cast work for Rocky Murray Picture Show. Like they do the Rocky Movie Picture show and I would like mull around on stage. That was like the most experience I had kind of, but like not really, like a little bit done that, but not a mull out of it. And so I start doing this thing and I can eat fire and I can do a couple card tricks. And this show is awful, like profoundly, terribly awful. But it doesn't matter because it's in a room with a bunch of carnival games, and it's really just something on the stage to fill the space. But failing that way when it's like, hey, if I get fired, I can't eat, was so motivating. And so I would go to school, and while I should have been doing my schoolwork, I'd be like rewriting the show and come up with new ideas. And by day 10, that's 50 shows. It was, it was fine. The show was fine, not good, not terrible. And by the end of the run, the show was kind of funny and kind of good. And I learned how to do my makeup, so I looked a lot older, so people were like, more receptive because I realized, like, oh, part of it is that I look like a child and they're not sure of me. And I remember they had a magician, they had a couple magicians walking around, doing. Walk around in the carnival. And this magician comes up to me and he goes, wow, you know, you're really talented. And we, you know, it's crazy. There's such a small. Calgary is such a small place. I would have thought I would have heard of you. And it's like, just working, whatever. Yeah. So he goes, yeah. Do you do balloon animals? Because we always need more people at Christmas. And I go, yeah, yeah, absolutely. No problem. Never made a balloon animal. Barely even ever seen a balloon animal. Never walked on stilts. Barely ever saw a stove walker. I have no idea what these things are, but I do have Google and I need money.
And I keep in mind, like, I also have two jobs. Like, I'm. I'm doing stock service at a, at a, at a pharmacy every morning. Like, I'm at a drugstore. I'm stocking shelves from 5am to 8 before school, and then after school, I'm working at a juice bar. And I'm still doing a full course load.
And I'm also like, trying to learn how to still walk. So I buy a bag of balloons because it's what I can afford, and I buy a pump. And I had no idea what the skill set was, right? Like, I didn't know. I didn't. I'd never seen people do balloons. So I thought, I'm like, okay, well, they're probably the most amazing balloon artists. So I look up, like the big sculpture. So I look up like, how to make a Mario and how to make a pink panther and all this big stuff and, and all these things. And I only have one bag of balloons to learn from because I have no Money.
So I watch these videos all the way through. I watch them over and over again. And then I let myself make the animal once because that's what I can afford. So I like make each animal once and I study it and I really study it and I book a bunch of balloon gigs and then I get book a stilt gig gig, and I'm like, okay, I could learn how to make stilts. So I look up how to make a stilt and I realized that if you don't take the tools out of the Home Depot, you don't have to pay for them. So I grabbed a bunch of lumber at Home Depot. I paid for it. I built the stilts in the Home Depot with the tools in the Home Depot. So I walked in with like $40 and I walked out with a set of stilts. And keep in mind, I don't know how to still walk yet. I just made them and I, you know, strapped them to my feet in the parking lot. And I kind of figured it out and I built a costume that I had to hand sew because I didn't have the sewing machine. And then I did a ton of Christmas gigs and I walk in with like quite a nice costume doing still walking. And I immediately book more gigs. But the balloon animals was kind of the real test because I was immediately high level balloon artist. I had no people skills. And, and I'm. Here's the thing, the balloons were not good. Like, I, I didn't have a lot of, like, I wasn't going fast because that's the skill. The real skill of balloon artistry is like consistency and, and speed. And I was doing none of that. But what they were noticing is I was making these big elaborate things. So they just assumed I was better than I was. And I was doing a lot of line work where you worked with like six other people. So they didn't really. Nobody really noticed that my line wasn't moving. They just saw I was making big stuff and assumed I was high level. So I booked a ton more work. And so very quickly, it took like six months. I. I was able to quit my job doing stock service for eight bucks an hour. I was able to quit my job at the juice bar working for like $6 an hour. And I was just performing. And for me, it wasn't like, I want to be a performer. It was like, I don't have time to work at McDonald's. I don't have time to work for $8 an hour. I need to go to school. So I have to do gigs that are a hundred dollars an hour because I, that's what I can do. And so I would, I'd do one or two gigs every weekend and it would be enough money to get me through the week.
And I did that till I graduated. I did that after I graduated.
And then I got a job at Boys and Girls Club and I this private school teaching, which is what I really wanted to do, but they didn't pay very well. So I kept performing on the side just to kind of supplement my income. And, you know, and obviously there was a moment when I was like, oh, no, I think, I don't think this is a part time job. I think this is actually like the thing I'm good at.
I think I'm supposed to think I'm supposed to do this. And it was hard because I love teaching, I still love teaching, but it was pretty obvious I was meant for something and it's hard to ignore that.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: Wow, that's amazing. And you said earlier that you were looking at the sideshow through a magician's lens, so you were obviously into magic far earlier than 16.
What was your first memory of magic?
[00:12:55] Speaker B: When I was little, there were these shows on TV in Canada, like Camp Caribou. I know that sounds like I'm making up a Canadian TV show, but that really was a show that existed and they had a magician on that show. And I, I worked my butt off to look up who this guy was. If anybody knows who the magician who did tricks on Camp Caribou was, please put us in touch because I owe him so much. And then also Max Maven had a show in Canada called Maximum Dimension and obviously like Copperfield specials and Doug Henning specials. And I watched stuff. I'm like five or six or seven. And my dad's a computer technician. My dad's a really smart guy. He likes to build stuff. And he really instilled a love of building stuff and making stuff in me and my brother. And I remember watching these specials with my dad and during the commercial break, my dad would look over at me and go, hey, so how do you think he does that? And then I would make up some crazy. Oh, it's springs and magnets and, and I would just go off and my dad would go, yeah, I think you're right. And I was never right. Not runs, not once, not in a thousand years was I right. But it was just so validating. And to me, it, it kind of taught me, like, oh, these are knowable things. And like, part of, part of what Magic is, because I loved magic, is. Is to, like, invent and figure things out. So no one bought me a magic kit. I didn't have a magic book. There were not. There was none of that. It was just I bought a deck of cards with what little money I had. And I would, like, do card tricks at school. And I worked at the library. I was a volunteer at the library. So I would, like, hide different cards in the book pockets, behind books, and then I would remember, like, which books had which card. And I remember, like, slipping cards into people's pockets and then, like, revealing the car, like, and pretending I stuck in the pocket. Or, like, getting my other friends to put stuff in each other's backpack. Like, there was no method. My method was I was a spy. And I just, like, completely insane. And everyone's like, how crazy? Car chase. And then hilariously, like, at, like, 15, I think it was, I finally found a couple books on magic at the library. And I was like, there are books on magic this whole time. These guys are making everything up from scratch. Every time they first waited, I was livid, absolutely livid. And then someone bought me, like, a real magic book, like a. Like a. One of those, like, encyclopedia things. And I just remember being, like, so upset that I had wasted all this time. So I had always been interested in magic, but from that perspective of, like, magic is something that is a puzzle. Magic is something to know. And I. So when people. I think a lot of magicians are a little bit uncomfortable or, like, they don't like people who come to a magic show and try to figure things out, but because I was that kid, I'm way more sympathetic. I just posted, you know, I'm doing Fairly well on TikTok right now. And I. They were like. The audience was like, wait, what magic videos? What magic video? So I posted a magic video. And there's not a lot of comments like this. Like, there were 600 comments saying, like, this is so fun. And there were two comments saying, like, oh, I saw the hands do the thing. And I posted on both of them, like, good eye. Well done, because that's what they want. And also, that was me. Like, I would have. I would have. I would have killed my own cat to have a magician go, you did it. Good job. Like, that's. So I'm. I have no reason not to validate them. Like, they are enjoying that for a different reason. And also, they're being very respectful. They're not saying, like, well, here's how it was done. They're saying, like, oh, I caught. They're just like sort of talking to code. And I'm like, okay, I'll reward that behavior. Like, that's kind of cute. So I. It doesn't bother me. That was very much who I was. And so by the time I saw a sideshow, my only context was magic. So I thought, oh, this must also be magic. And then it super. Was not. It was not magic at all.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Speaking of fire eating you, how, how did it come about that you have the world record for holding fire between your teeth? And first of. And also as a dentist, I have to ask why?
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Oh, it was bad. I'll tell you what happened. And you'll be, as a dentist, you'll be like, you shouldn't have done that.
So I was 23 at the time. 23. And I, I've been working as a sideshow performer. My act was mostly sideshow, had a little magic in it and I did a lot of like walk around stuff and I was doing really well. So. But you gotta keep in mind, like by 23, I've been in the industry now nine years, right? Or seven years, sorry, been in the industry one to three. Seven years. I did math bad. I've been in the industry either. So like by. So by 23, I've been in the industry seven years, making money at this basically full time. And that's about when around there I quit teaching to pursue entertainment full time. And some of my mentors at the time and some of my friends were saying like, oh, you know, one of the ways to hit the next level is to win some kind of award. And the thing is, inside show, there are no awards. Like, it's not like magic, magic. We're really good at congratulating each other. Sideshow, there's no like best fire eater category. Right. So you know, we're very. There's just not that kind of community. And so a couple mentors encouraged me to try to do a world record. And it just so happened that they were filming a world record show in Italy called La show de Record. And my mentors put me in touch with the producers. They asked if I wanted to do a fire eating world record. I said yes. The Guinness World Record people sent me three or four options. I tried to do all of them and I got pretty close on the torch teething, which. So the record is holding fire in your teeth for as long as possible. And they told me the record was 32 seconds. And I flew to Montreal and I trained with some people out there and I Managed to get myself, over the course of a couple months, up to 50 seconds. And I was like, okay, I got this. I messaged the producer and I said, yeah, booked the flight. I'm gonna go. I'm so excited. So I'm now, like, 24, and I'm really excited. I've never been to Italy. I've never even been to Europe. I'm so pumped. And like, a week before I leave, maybe less than that, the producer calls me. He goes, hey, I'm so sorry. We just took a look at the record to confirm, and we realized that the record actually has been beat since the one we sent you. The new record is a minute and 32 seconds. And I went, oh, okay. And then all I could think is, like, me going to Italy is not contingent on me actually winning, and I really want to go to Italy. So I just go, yeah, no problem. That's no problem. No problem. So I get on a plane, and I completely give up. In my head, I'm like, there's no way I'm going to win. Zero percent chance. I'm just going to have fun. So I am the calmest anyone has ever been to appear on a television show in the history of the world. I'm so calm, and I show up, and they don't have the fuel I need. And I'm so calm, and, like, the fuel is very dirty, and it's the wrong fuel, and it burns hotter than I'm used to. And I'm like, whatever. And I'm like, you have to, you know, you have to do it. For this photo shoot that we have, we're doing a photo shoot for the world record book in case you win. And I'm like, no problem. I do the photo shoot. I go way overboard. I burn my lips. Whatever. Doesn't matter. I'm not gonna win. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. I'm not gonna win. 0% chance I'm gonna win. And then the day before we shoot this thing, we do like, a little rehearsal day before we shoot it, and everybody speaks Italian, and I don't speak Italian, but I do speak French. So I can kind of figure out what people are saying without a translator. I'm kind of speaking French at them, and they're speaking Italian at me, and they explain, hey, it's really important to us that you actually beat this record. I want. Yeah, me too. And they go, no, no, it's really important because on this show, there's basically the way to explain it is there's two kinds of records. Either you are a record or you beat a record. Either you're the world's oldest woman. That is you just being a record. You're the tallest, you're the shortest. You just are a record, or it's a skill you need to accomplish. And for that year, they had found they were trying to have more even male female representation, and they had found some women who were records, but they had very few women who were gonna seat records. And so they said, like, in order to make our quota, you have to. And I went, cool. This conversation is unhelpful. Like, it's gonna just not happen. So I always tell you. And they're like, well, if they could do anything to support you. And I was like, well, you know, it's hard to practice because there's so much wind in the room, because it's a big room. And they're like, we'll shut off all the air conditioning. We'll do whatever you want. So now they're. They're, like, jumping through hoops, and I'm like, oh, okay, maybe I'll actually.
So I kind of. For the first time, I'm like, maybe I'll. Maybe I'll get this. This is crazy. And they're really helpful. And this guy named Marco Frigatti, he's the official from Guinness. He comes over to me the day before. He goes, what can I do to support you? Like, there couldn't have been nicer people. Also, they did my makeup, and it's the best I've ever looked in my entire life. Like, Italian makeup artists.
Perfecto. So I talked to Marco, and he goes, what can I do? And I was like, you know what's really helpful is that while I'm doing it, it's very painful. Painful. And it's hard for me to, like, keep track of where I am in space because I'm just, like, doing a breathing exercise. And so the breathing exercise slows time down. So I think time is longer than it is. So if you could give me my 10. So tell me when it's 10 seconds. Tell me when it's 20 seconds. Tell me when it's 30 seconds. I. That will help me, like, situate myself in space, and that'll help me focus and breathe through the pain. He goes, absolutely. And he's like. He offers to do it in English, and I'm like, no, I can figure it out in Italian. Great. Fantastic. So next day, I wake up, and somewhere I have this video. I videotaped myself. I wish I had it. I don't know where it is. I will find it. Of me, like, doing pep talk in the mirror of me being like, you don't get it. That's okay. You know, you. You didn't expect to get it, but we're gonna do our best. No, no, no. So I go out there, do my hair and makeup. I go out, and I still have this, like, raging burn on my lip, and so I can't practice that whole day. And so I'm icing this thing to try to give myself a bit of an advantage, and it's. It's just not helping. So I go out there. It's a live studio audience, and it's so fun, and they're.
They're the best. And it just gives me this energy. And I'm like. I have in mind, like, I'm gonna get this. So I If get down on my knees, because part of it is that you have to hold your head all the way back. And I learned, like, if I get down on the floor, then I'm not also trying to balance my body. Like, the more things I could eliminate, the better. So I'm on my knees, I'm on the floor. I put the flame in my teeth, and they start counting. And I Hear Marco Go, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. And then he starts counting. I'm furious. I'm like, I gave this man one job. One job, Marco. All you have to do is count. That's it. You suck. And in my head, I'm like, I have never wished such horrible, vile, awful things down on a man I barely knew before in my whole life. And so I'm good. So I go as long as I can. And then I think I'm going to go until the pain is. Is more than I can handle. And then I'm going to count three seconds.
One C3. And I take it out, and I spin in a circle. And, like, there's. You know, it's so hot that it's like an ember. It's like I was holding a piece of coal in my teeth. It's so hot. And I spin it in a circle, and this, like, trail of smoke goes. And I. Trying to present myself because now they have to do the after thing. And so I'm just smiling, and I'm. I'm in, like, crazy pain. And. And I just. I'm just thinking, like, I know there's medical help at the other end of the smile. And now I have a little thing in my ear because I don't speak Italian. And so they have Given me a translator to translate things. And so. Which means I find out everything, like, 10 seconds after they say it. So at one point they go, isn't she beautiful? And I just go. And then I hear that that's what I'm agreeing to. Like, yes, I am beautiful. So beautiful. And so then I'm just smiling and I'm trying to give my best. Like, Miss Congeniality. Like, I tried my best kind of smile. And then I hear them say, a new world record is set at 2 minutes and 1 second.
And I lose it. I lose it. There's a video somewhere of me, like, jumping up and down and screaming. And like. And I remember I'm on national television, like, and I kind of straightened myself up. I'd become friends with the. They had, like, some of the Harlem Globetrotters were out there, and, like, the boys were backstage to give me a big hug. And the medical crew checked me out, and it was so great. I got a medal. They put a medal on me, and I got a big certificate. And I was like. And I was in the book. I was in the book for 2014 that year. Like, the world record book. Like, big picture of me on the opposite side of a picture of Penn and Teller. It was crazy. And it really did change my life. It was like, overnight I became so bookable. I came home, and once we were allowed to announce it, I was in the national newspaper. I was on television every day. And my business just skyrocketed and. And I had to hire an assistant. Like, we couldn't keep up with the bookings. And like, genuinely, overnight, my life was completely different. But I had this money from the World Record show because they also pay you to do the show. And I thought, I have this extra money. I've never had extra money. What should I do with this extra money? And I've always wanted to do more, like, theater training, but I just didn't have time. And so there was this program in Calgary called One Yellow Rabbit Lab Intensive, which was this, like, three week theater intensive with this, like, avant garde theater company in Calgary that's really well respected. And it's this crazy program. And it's like one of those movies where, you know, they're like, oh, we need $2,000 to save the old barn. Look at this poster for $2,000. It was like that. Like, I. The exact money I got from Italy was the exact tuition for this thing. And so I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna plug my phone in because it looks like it's Gonna die. Okay, there we go. And so I. I go. I apply for this program, and I'm immediately rejected because I have no training. I have no training. They're like, you're gonna be so far behind. So Denise Clark, who runs it, calls me and to, like, tell me to, like, explain why I'm not. And welcome. And I'm like, okay. So, like, okay, that's fine. So she calls and she's like, well, explain why you want to go. And I said, you know, I. I got into entertainment as, like, to feed myself. And in the last 10. 10 years, it has gone from a thing I do to not die to, like, a thing I really want to make art with. And in the meantime, I had gone to art school on the side. I'd done, you know, a program at the Alberta College of Art and Design as a visual artist, but I also trained in some performance art techniques at art school.
And I was like, I think I'm missing the component where, like, I understand how to communicate through my work. And Denise goes, okay, we have a spot for you. And I was like, talked her into it, so I got to go. And it really did change my life. And one of the things Denise does every morning. I know I'm talking so much. We can edit this. One of the things Denise does every morning on this program.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: It's awesome.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: Okay, good. Is she. She looks at each student individually, and she looks you in the eyes, and she takes it. You. Takes a beat. And she. You're not supposed to respond to that. She goes, and who are you now? And it's so profound. And you just think about it like, who am I? Because that's part of what an artist does. An artist goes, who am I and how do I communicate?
And very quick, like, I didn't have an answer for the first week. And then week two, my brain started to say, I'm a magician.
And I was like, oh, that's weird.
I don't really do a lot of magic. It's weird that I'm thinking that it's super weird. And then I was like, I'll think something different tomorrow. And then it wasn't different, and it wasn't different, and it wasn't different, and it wasn't different, and it wasn't different. And for two weeks, my brain was like, you're a magician, dum dum.
And I was like, okay, great. Again, I think if you want to do magic. And it was such a weird. Like, I'm so grateful for that because it was. It was so hard to start over after 10 years of doing sideshow and doing circus and to go, okay, I'm gonna take all that material that I know works, that I know I can make money from, and I'm gonna throw it in the garbage. I'm gonna try to do this other thing that. That has way more competition that I don't really know anything about. That seems so much more difficult. And it was. But it. Obviously it was. It was worth it in the end, but it was just such a convoluted. If it wasn't for the world record, I don't. I wouldn't have been able to afford the program. And if it wasn't for the program, I don't think I'd be a magician.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Is that program the genesis for you creating the characters that you use in your magic shows?
[00:29:26] Speaker B: So you'd think so. I definitely got better at doing character work after doing One Yellow Rabbit. But I have always done character work, and it was not necessarily a deliberate choice. It's that I started still walking very early on, and I found it easier to still walk in character. So I had like, a bird character, and I had this, like, lady character that I would do this, like, with this grand dress and all these things. And so still walking is inherently sort of a character driven art form. And. And I really liked that about it. I liked that I could do, like, character work. And so that was a good way to practice because you're also on stilts, so you don't have to be super great at character work. And then I kept adding character elements to everything else I was doing. So, like, this sideshow character evolved, and I would do. I would be very different in my kids show. So then I had this kids show character I called Dee Dee. And it just helped to, like, define everything by giving them separate names. But also it helped with the marketing because nobody wanted to see, like, me do these crazy fire eating shows. And then they didn't want to hire me to do kids shows. So having different brands was really good for continuing to work. And then once I started doing stuff like One Yellow Rabbit, it was like, oh, this is character work. And so I always did it, but it wasn't. It didn't have any richness. It wasn't quite as deliberate or specific. And then after doing a little theater training, I was like, oh, I can, you know, I should dig deeper into this. And then I started doing things. Like, I went to Kadabra. I went to, like, a bunch of children's entertainer conventions, and I saw how, like, deep and rich those characters were and how much time people had put into making sure that the physical vocabulary of that character was really consistent. And I was very inspired to, like, take the work I had already done and sort of push it to the next level and kind of give them all different voices and different energies and.
Yeah, it was. It was a lot of little things, like little bits at a time to build characters. Lucy is the 22nd character I ever created.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: 22Nd?
[00:31:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: And now it's basically all I do.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: There any other notable other characters? Because I think Lucy Darling is taking over. But you have such a rich catalog of other characters. Are there any that you would. Any of. Would you say that you have a favorite other than Lucy Darling?
[00:31:56] Speaker B: I mean, Lucy's obviously my favorite. I loved being Dede. I loved doing the kids show. I loved it. I loved the silliness of it. I felt so free. It was so much less work than Lucy is. Like, Lucy is such a more elaborate and defined thing. It's harder.
Dede was so easy. It was such a simple idea. And it was so easy to stay in character. As Dee Dee, I did a character called your fairy stepmother. I loved being your fairy stepmother. I loved that as a concept. And I was like. Did magic as her. Listen, I want to make your dreams come true, but you got to want it for yourself. You understand? Listen, look at me. Look at me. Listen. So she. I created the chop cup routine for her, and then Lucy cannibalized it early on. Lucy was like, that's mine now. And actually, Lucy took a lot of her material. Lucy. Lucy inherited a lot of that. I love doing both those characters. I had a character that I did. It was a duo set of characters. There were two. One was the moon and the stars. And so I performed as the stars. There's still walking characters. I performed as the stars. And I had a character that was the moon. He was in gray. It was like a moon hat. And I was the stars. I had a big black dress that was massive, still walking. And it had constellations that actually glowed in it that were all like LEDs. And we would circle the room and long for each other. That's all we did. We just orbit. So we just take. And I would have. I had a bouquet of flat of white roses. And he had one single rose, right? Because I was a star, he was just the moon. And so we would like, long for each other and we'd send each other love notes and have people write notes for us. And, you know, I would like. He would Try to get his flower to me. And I would always, like, he would always end up with the flower back somehow. And it was this cool game we played with the audience. But it was so fun to just like, like, look, be love forlorn, and. And like, that was such a fun, simple concept, but again, super easy to do because there's not much to it, right? Like, it's a simple, simple concept. And I think that was. The thing is, so many of my characters were very one dimensional because they could be. And Lucy has to be like full person.
And that's much harder as an actor. That's much harder to climb into. And outside of, like, the acting work I did, which is not a ton, but I did some, you know, I did some acting. I didn't really have to do that in my work because, you know, still walking character can have one simple goal. You don't have to know who they are. But with Lucy, because I'm doing crowd work and doing improv in character, I have to know everything about her. I have to really, you know, it has to be intuitive and I have to be able to climb under that skin. And it's. It's hard. It really is. It's very difficult to stay inside that skin and not let. Not let anything throw you under any conditions.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: Now, I'm sure you've had to tell this story a billion kajillion times, but can you give us the origin story, including how you had to go halfway around the world to debut your character because you were worried about what people would say?
[00:35:05] Speaker B: Yeah, so I.
The same year I went to Kadabra, that same year, I went to my first magic convention, my first ever magic convention. I've been doing magic for a while. I wanted to learn more. And I went to Abracorn Dabra.
And while I was at Abricorn, Deborah, I met Stan Allen. I met a bunch of people, ended up being my friends, and loved it. Loved, loved it and loved it so much. I thought, you know what? I should go to another magic convention. And I asked Stan what convention he'd be at or if he's gonna go to more conventions. And he, you know, he recommended Abercror. He mentioned Cadaver. So I went to Kadabra. And then at Kadabra, people said, you should go to Atlanta Harvest. And so three magic conventions in one summer go to Atlanta Harvest. And this whole time, I had been thinking about this character that I wanted to work on for this new magic show. I've been doing magic for a while, and I kept Saying like, you know, I'd love to do a magic in character. Because I've been doing magic as me and all of my friends would go, no, no, because I did a lot of close up, I did a lot of walk around, I did a lot of coin stuff. I did a lot of like, fairly, very strong close up, right? Like not funny at all, like punch you in the face stuff. That was my goal. Did a lot, worked my butt off doing a lot of like weird stuff or things would. Anyway, it doesn't matter what it was crazy things and people loved it. And so my friends were very encouraging, like, no, keep doing that. Like, keep doing the knuckle busting stuff. People love that. The character stuff is all very vapid and it's, you know, just do what you're good at. And I was like, okay, okay, I get to Atlanta Harvest and Zabreki's there. And I'd never seen Zabreki, never even heard of him. I had no idea who this guy was. And I saw the action, I was like, good God, that is exactly what I want to do. Like, not that character, but the idea, right? The idea of like, everything goes together and it's a complete idea. And I was like, okay, I'm really inspired. Then I find out he's doing this extra, if you stay an extra day, he's doing this like one on one, ten person all day intensive. And that's, I don't know if you know, from the theater intensive. That's how I like to learn. So I'm like, okay, at this time I don't have a ton of money. So I, I change my flight, I stay, I get an extra day at the hotel. This whole thing is going to cost me like all of my fun money. And I'm like, that's fine, I'll eat macaroni for a month, it doesn't matter. So I go and I take it and it's a great class and I learn a lot and I pay pitch Zabrek. He's like, what do you want to work on? And I pitched this idea of Lucy and he goes, he's really listening. And he goes, that is a great idea.
And if you ever needed help with that, I'd be happy to help. And I was like, oh, amazing. And it was the first time and literally the only time somebody hadn't gone, that's stupid, don't do that. And it was all I needed. I just needed this like little, this little pebble. So I had this little pebble of thing and I Started working on the plane. I worked on it and worked on it. I worked on it for like two weeks. And then it was the Edmonton fringe. And I ran into what's his name, Nick. Nicholas street, performing at the thing. And I told Nick about this and I was like, nick, I'm going to work on this thing. And Nick had met me the year before. Nick had a couple of drinks in him and he goes, you're not going to do that.
Because you're not going to do that. You're not going to do it. You're not.
Nick, I'm going to do it. He goes, no, you're not. You know, I don't believe you. This is a cute idea. And you're not going to do it because here's the thing. Here's the thing you're not going to do. In fact, where I come from in Melbourne, Australia, there is a magic convention called the Melbourne Magic Festival. And that would be a great place to showcase it. And if you're not there next year, I'll know you weren't serious. I was like.
And like, there's no better way to get me to do something to be like, you're not gonna. That's the best. I'm just gonna do it. And so. And also everybody in Calgary that I talked to, a lot of people I talked to were like, I did not. So I thought, you know, what if I book this? I've never to Australia. I don't know anybody in Australia. If I go to Australia and I do this and it's terrible, no one will find out. No one's going to find out. This is perfect. So I do my Christmas season. I work more than I've ever worked. I squirrel away some money. I write the show. My, my. I was married to a woman at the time, and our marriage was not going great. And so I wrote a play with me and her. And so I wrote this Lucy character and then I wrote some music because she's a musical theater artist, that she could sing in the show. And I fly us both to Australia and we stay with. With Tim Ellis because I can't afford to, like, put us up in a hotel and we go to do the show and the whole flight there, she's mad at everything. There's a baby on the plane and the flight's too long and the food is bad and she's mad and I'm like, oh, okay. So I can kind of already tell it's not gonna go great. So it's not gonna go great. So the Night we land.
We were supposed to work this variety show to promote our show. We had a little. We had a little duo thing we could do. And she goes, you know what? I'm too tired. I can't go like, okay, now, I have never done Lucy in front of people ever.
Not once, not for 10 seconds. Never once did it, practiced, it worked with an accent coach rehearsed with my wife. Never did in public. I go to this Friday show and I have nothing. I have nothing because she's not coming with me. So I bring my fire eating stuff. I'm like, I'll eat fire. And I wrote some jokes and I was like, okay. And I go out and the guy who had done the act in front of me before me in this variety show had finished his act wearing nothing but a combo Hollander.
And also there was a full baby in the audience. Like, a full baby. Like a. Like a newborn baby who. In the whole show. And so I had planned to do this five minute thing, and I walked out and Lucy took over and she did six minutes on the colander and the baby off the top of her head. And I was like, oh, I was. And then I ate fire real quick because I was like, oh, I'm over time. And I remember going backstage and thinking, what just happened? What was that? Like, where did that come from? Like, who? Who? What?
And it was. I really realized because I had just done different work, right? I had. I'd hired an accident coach. I had done.
I had not created this character the way I normally do. I'd created this character in a more complete way. And she was very real in my body. It was so different.
And it's so funny because I watch videos now and, like, it's not refined, but she's really there. Like, you can see I'm not doing a good job of performing her, but she's dying to get out of my body. Like, she's so loud. I'm doing a job, but she's great. And so I'm like. I'm like, this is amazing. So the next day, we tech the show. I do the show with my wife. The next morning, we get up, we go to a coffee shop to do notes, and she loses it on me. Loses. Loses it. She's immediately screaming, she's so mad. She gets up and she walks out, and I'm like, oh, my God. And I go kind of to like, chase her. And this woman who runs a coffee shop comes and she sits down and she like, sits me down. This is a stranger in Australia. Never seen this woman, this beautiful woman. I call her Australian Oprah because this is her vibe. Her vibe was very Oprah. And she goes, I don't. I don't know what that was. I don't know who that woman is to you, and I don't know you, but no one deserves to be talked to that way.
So whatever that was, that's over.
It's over. And so I'm gonna. I'm gonna buy you a cup of coffee. It's my shop. I'll buy. You can sit here as long as you want, but it's over. Whatever that is is over now. And I'm like, okay, all right, Oprah. Yes. And so I'm sitting in my. Drinking my coffee, and I'm like, holy crap. I don't know anybody. And we have a show tonight. So I text him, and I'm like, hey, can I. Can I skip my show tonight? How many tickets do you sell? I was like, oh, it's only 15 tickets. I'll just move them to tomorrow. And I was like, yeah, I'll do the show tomorrow. It's fine. And then I'm like, who do I know? I know nobody. And then I realized, oh, I had met Simon Cornell at the Magic Castle a few months earlier. We'd hung out. I'm like, I kind of know him. I think I have his phone number. So I call Simon. Simon and I are not friends. I barely know this man. And I call Simon Cornell, and I go, my wife just left me right away, too. And he's like, oh, I'll come get you. So he comes to the coffee shop, and he's like. And he's not the best at comforting people. He's like, doesn't have that skill. So he's like, patting me on the head like, no cry, tiny woman child.
And then he just goes. He's like. And I'm like, can I have a show tomorrow? And it's like an actionable thing. And he, like, attends. She's like, okay, you have a show. You're gonna do the show. And I'm like, yeah, I have to do the show. I mean, I. I have to make money to get back to Canada. And also, I also booked a bunch of fringe festivals. So, like, Melbourne was the first in a tour we were going to do of, like, Fruit Chancellor. Like, I was screwed. I have to do the show. So he goes, okay, no problem. What do you need? And I was like, I don't. I don't know. He's like, what do you need?
Pen and a piece of paper goes, I can do that. They get pen and piece of paper, puts me in a different coffee shop. He sits me in the corner and he's like, write a new show. All you gotta do, just write a new show. I was like, yeah, I'll write a new show. So I write a new show and I. I don't have enough material because I only have what I was like, I was half the show. So I only have half a show, so I can do my material. Material. And so I'm writing extra jokes to, like, fill out the material. And then I was like, I'm still like 10 minutes short. You know what? I'm pretty good at crowd work. I did it on the street a lot as a street performer. I'll just do crowd work. Fine. Amazing. I tell Tim. Tim Ellis drives me around town. We pick up the new props we need for the show. I meet with this amazing guy who's the tech, who has since passed away. He's this incredible man, and for free, he retakes my whole new show. Next day, I do the show and it kills. Because it has gotten around that, like, my wife walked out on the show. So this is. It's massive, the show, and it kills. And then the next show kills, and they're packed and they're, like, sold out. And Tim adds another show to the schedule because, like, there's more people want to go. And I win the comedy award. And then I get to Winnipeg and it's like, five star reviews. Five star reviews. Five star reviews. Like, the show is killing. And then Tim calls Jack at the Castle and goes, we have this thing. You would need it. And I'll fly out and babysit this late, this person. And so, you know, and. And I do that now for people too. Like, if someone's never done the Castle, I'll call Jack and be like, I'll come do the same week and I'll babysit. Because the first week you do the Castle, it's super overwhelming. And so, you know, Tim flies out, I take a. I take a month off before I do the Castle in November, and I rework the show and I really hone this 30 minutes and. And then it's like, I did the Castle. And overnight, everyone knew who I was. Like, my whole life had changed. Every. So this whole plan of, like, going to Australia and doing the show in secret did not work. It didn't work. Everybody found out. And so. But the weird thing of that story is that Tim and Tim was putting out me and My and my now ex wife, and we were sleeping in the same bed. And when she walked out of the coffee shop, that was literally the last conversation we ever had. I would come in after my show, I would crawl into a bed where we slept together. She would not speak to me. I would wake up in the morning, she'd already be out of the house. She just went and had a vacation in Australia.
We got on the same plane, we were driven in the same car to the airport. She didn't speak to me. Never had a conversation again. And like, I went to. I flew to Winnipeg. I changed her flight so she could go back to Calgary to where we had a house together. And every other conversation we had after that was through text message entirely about her moving out and about, like, any financial arrangements.
That was the last conversation. Like, that woman was right. She's like, that's over. And I'm like, man, it was over, over. So. And then. So the other funny thing about this is that the next year I went back to the magic festival and I was like, I'm going to bring a great show because they deserve a show that isn't just me making stuff up.
And I absolutely killed myself to write this show. So the first show was called A Lady's Guide to Deceit and Debauchery. And the concept was Lucy's written a book, and this is her book tour, and she also happens to be a magician. So second year was called Tingling Sensation. And the concept was Lucy's book has gone mega platinum, and now this is her, like, victory lap. And so the show had, like, tons of magic in it, some really clever ideas. It was the beginning of the think a drink routine that I do now.
And it did well. It sold really well, but the reviews were not quite as good. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. And so I would ask people like, oh, what was it? And they were like, well, last year he did, like, all this crowd work and all this, like, improvised stuff. We just miss it. And I was like, yeah, well, I did that because I didn't have enough material. And so I, you know, I bought you beautiful material. And I like, yeah, yeah, we just miss the. We just miss it.
I was like, oh, okay, okay. And so then I wrote based on that feedback, I wrote Indulgence, which is the show I'm still doing, although I'm gonna retire that show here in a few months. But so I've been doing Indulgence for the next. The last three, four years. It's been the new show and that was the show I wrote after Tingling Sensation, that I was like, okay, people want the crowd work. They want the improv. They don't want. Because tingling sensation was trick, trick, trick, trick, trick, trick, trick, trick, trick. It was a thousand tricks a second. It was so many tricks, and they did not like it. They did. They were like, it's fine, but it's not what we're here for now. In an hour, I do six tricks, and it's too much magic. They still think it's too much magic. It's too much. They don't like it. They want less magic. They love the magic. They love the magic, but they're not willing to lose a second of the improv, of the talking, of the nonsense, of the character building. So I. It's almost. And I'm obviously obsessed with magic. And so the game now is to try to, like, sneak in more moments wherever I can. So every time I have a gag that people love, I, like, try to add a trick to it and see if I get away with it. But, yeah, the whole process was so crazy because Lucy was supposed to be. This thing I did for myself, you know, was not supposed to be commercial. It was supposed to be, like, a art project.
And it is the most commercially successful thing I have ever done by several orders of magnitude.
[00:49:23] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, just talk about TikTok, I think. What, in the last week or so, I mean, it was really, really recently, all of a sudden, Lucy Darling has taken over. I literally watched it happen when I was trying to see if. When Eric told me that I might be able to get this. This amazing magician, Carissa Hendricks. And then all of a sudden, I was like, you know, and then I looked. I was like, oh, Lucy Darling, I've heard of. And then all of a sudden, it's like, whoop. You know, you met Chris, and the world has now. I mean, did you ever think that you would create a meme that millions of people are doing?
[00:50:08] Speaker B: So we. So we. You know, I. I have a. I love my fan base. My fan base is amazing. I have the most incredible fans in the world. Genuinely, genuinely. Like, during the pandemic, there were people that saw the online show six, seven times. Lots of people, and people would, like, show up. We always opened the room early because people show up and talk to each other because they knew each other. And like, this summer, I officiated a wedding for these two beautiful men who were, like, big Lucy Darling fans. And I'm so lucky. And I already thought that was the best thing I could possibly have. I thought that was the most and that was fine. And then a good friend of mine, Meredith Levine, who is this incredible online strategy genius of helped me look at what I was doing and gave me some suggestions and was. And I was like, okay. And I thought, you know what? She's a genius. I'm going to do whatever she tells me. And I did. I for, you know, I did all the things you're supposed to do, and I did a little bit here and I did a little bit there, and I got to be. And I. In October, the end, kind of mid November, I kind of stopped doing as much because I just sort of ran the steam. You know, I did it for like two, three months, and then I got tired. And then I did this show in Chicago that I. We filmed. We had Jack film it. Jack is amazing. Jack is the guy who films stuff at the lounge. He filmed it to. For a project I'm doing with Vanishing Ink for the Rings that we're about to release. So he filmed the shows. And I had mentioned to Jack that I was doing this online thing. And so Jack edited this, like, cute little. The first Chris video for me. And I messaged Andy Gladwin and I was like, hey, do you mind if I post this early? Like, it's just a cute little Clara clip. And. And Andy was like, anything we could do just for you? Absolutely. And I posted it and I had a thousand five hundred followers on Instagram. Everything I've ever posted on Instagram has gotten like 200 views. And in an hour and a half, it had 200,000 views.
And Jack goes, I'm editing stuff right now. And Jack edited like nine more things, and I hopped in line and edited more things. And. And I was like, oh, my God, 200,000. That's the most crazy thing I could imagine. 200,000 is the most. Creates the inside posted Instagram. And the Instagram thing gets like 300,000. And then I go to sleep and I wake up and now it's at a million. Is it a million views? It's a million views. I don't know what. I don't even know what a million views is. That's the most insane thing I've ever seen. What is a million? I can't imagine a million. So we post two more and they do pretty well. And then we post another one. And then we post the one of me dropping the paper, and it gets a million views in like three hours.
And we just keep posting. And another one went viral, and another one went viral. I think we have 11 videos that are past a million views right now. Like, every third video gets a million views.
And, you know, Jack and I are scouring, like, I didn't plan for this. I don't have a huge backlog of stuff. So basically we're just pulling any archival footage I have at all. And he's trying to pull something out of it, you know, because mostly I'm a magician. I don't have, like, a ton of crowd work bits. So are putting these things up and it's going great. And. And now it's. It's worth. This is almost two weeks. Today is almost two weeks and it's 40,000. 40 million. 40 million views between all of the things. And like, 5 million, like, is bananas. It's absolutely. It's absolutely bananas. And. And the people are the nicest people. They're so fun. My comment section is funnier than the. Than the video, easily. The people in the comments are so much funnier than I am. It's a little scary. Like, it makes. Gives me imposter syndrome. And then this last weekend, I did five shows at Black Rabbit Rose, and I thought, you know, I'll invite people because I'd love, You know, I want to, you know, I have a little bit of clout. I'll support this show. I love Black Rabbit Rose if I can sell tickets. Great. We packed the house with people who saw me on TikTok. They stayed after. They took photos. They were so nice. They were so respectful. They were so funny and like, just genuinely beautiful human beings. One of them was this, like. She's like a postpartum doula. And she was like, yeah, I've had a bad week. And they. They brought me so much joy. And I'm like, try not to cry because I've got another show and it's going to ruin my makeup. Like, it's been completely out of control.
And I go to sleep and I wake up and there are 300 comments for me to read and answer. And I really try to read and answer as much as possible because, like, it matters to me. It matters to me that these people are being so supportive and so lovely, and they are, and I want to read them because they're funny, they're great, and they notice things, and they, you know, they really appreciate it. And there's stuff I do in the show that doesn't really get a laugh, but I think it's really clever. And it's amazing how much the TikTok audience. Those are the things they talk about. They're like, oh, that line's really clever. And I'm like, oh, this. These are my people.
They get it. Like, they get it in a way that, like, no live audience will ever be able to get it because it's just so subtle and they're kind of. Yeah. Anyway, it's got a life of its own. It is scary. I'm a little scared, but I am very positive. And I'm just gonna keep posting stuff. We've got, like, another four videos before I'm totally out of content, and then maybe the Internet will forget I exist, who knows? We're doing our best.
[00:55:42] Speaker A: Well, if anyone approaches you to do a. A bitcoin, I would say probably don't do that.
[00:55:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Luckily, Hawk Tua has taught me the ways. Also, I know my history, and I remember what happened to the tulips, so I probably won't be getting into bitcoin myself.
[00:56:00] Speaker A: Oh, and also, if you ever get a podcast, I want in.
[00:56:05] Speaker B: Well, I had a podcast with kayla for, like, four years.
[00:56:09] Speaker A: Oh, is that on your YouTube or is it on Spotify? Where can we find it?
[00:56:14] Speaker B: I think it's on Spotify. It's called Shizam. I only did it for the first, like, two years with her, and then she kept doing it on her own. It's a great podcast, like, about feminism and magic and, like, magic from a feminist perspective.
I couldn't do it after the pandemic because we did the online show and it was always Kayla's baby anyway, and she did such a good job. Like, she really didn't need me. She did such a good job without me. But it's a great little podcast. We're super cute.
[00:56:38] Speaker A: Awesome.
How long before I can buy a T shirt with a picture of Lucy Darling saying, oh, no, help?
[00:56:48] Speaker B: Yeah, Honestly, the comments are begging, begging for swag. And I do have swag. I've got posters and stuff. Merch. The problem with merch is that you have to live somewhere to ship it out. And I don't live anywhere. I don't have a home base. So I gotta talk somebody into doing the shipping work for me. So give me a minute.
I'm gonna need to build some infrastructure. Laughs I'll.
[00:57:20] Speaker A: I'll ask around because I could probably.
I. Are you still doing the Lucy Darling pins? I am, yeah. So you had a couple different types?
[00:57:33] Speaker B: Yes. There's three.
[00:57:35] Speaker A: When are we going to be able to get those?
[00:57:37] Speaker B: So I. Okay, so the gold ones, just to hand to you. Those are special. The silver ones, you can purchase the rose Gold ones are for some. I can hand the rose gold ones. I'm a little not as picky on the rose gold. Usually with the rose gold is you have to be. Have been in my show, like, I have to have helped in the show, and then you get a rose gold one. When I started running out, I just gave people whatever was left. So some people with silver ones did not pay for them, but very few. But mostly those are the rolls. And so I bought. I managed to get the pin guy. My pinky's amazing because the thing with these pins is, I don't think. I don't know if everybody knows, but the hair of Lucy, it says Lucy Darling in the shadow of the hair, and it's so tiny. I'll find you one. Hold on. There's one in my bag. Let me. Let me show you this. It's the best thing I've ever done. I am a genius.
Okay. So in the. In the hair, it says Lucy Darling in the shadow.
And we had a lot of trouble finding somebody who could do work that refined. And he's great. And so I do, you know, I do like 200 a year, and they're gone by the end of the year. So there are some. There's about 40 left, but we'll do another. We'll do another order. The stickers are good, the posters are good. The. My favorite thing that I ever made, though, and we still have a handful, are the fridge magnets. Do you know about these magnets?
[00:59:05] Speaker A: No.
[00:59:07] Speaker B: These are the best. So you remember as when we were kids, they had all those, like, dress up dolls where you, like, unfold the doll and then there'd be like, paper dresses where you could, like, dress up the doll. Yeah, the paper doll. So I did a set of fridge magnets like that. So it's Lucy, and then it's all of her most iconic dresses from the first five years of her career. So there's the dress I wore during the online show. There's the blue dress that Pam Thompson picked up for me. There's the dress from the original Lucy show. There's the dress from the first time I did the Magic Castle. And they're all there. And you could dress her up and there's like a little rabbit and like, the rabbit is the exact right size where you can kind of put the dresses on the rabbit too.
And. And I, I made like, the. Getting the die cut for, like they had to make a die for it was very expensive. And we're probably going to do another series because since Then Lucy's gotten four new dresses, so obviously we need to make the new dresses. So we're probably going to do another series of Lucy, probably in a slightly different body position as well. I'm not sure if we want to do two Lucy's or we're not quite sure. So the artist and I are working on it, but it's my favorite thing I ever made because it's just. It feels so clever.
So, yeah, so we're doing a redesign on those and we'll do like a reprint on those because we only have a few left.
But yeah, my. My goal. So do you mind for Del O. Dell the magician, Del Odelle?
[01:00:30] Speaker A: No.
[01:00:32] Speaker B: So I'm a little obsessed with Del Odelle. Del O. Del was this really incredible touring magician. She did a lot of her magic in rhyme.
She was really talented. She had a rabbit in the show. That's part of why on the magnet we have a rabbit. It's sort of like a Del Odell reference. And she was great. And she had this fan club and you would pay like a quarter or whatever at the time was a reasonable amount of money and you'd get a little gift every month.
And I'm obsessed with that. And so I. I have like, kind of sneakily been making like one cool new thing every few months because I'm an artist and so I try to make stuff and. But I want things to be cool. Like, I don't. I don't just want garbage. I want it to be like really cool swag that's like, really unique and special. Like, the posters are of a painting I physically painted. Right? Like, it's. I want things to matter. And. And the goal, sort of in the back of my head, which is a little bit secret, is that I want there to be 12 things so that there could be like a fan club. And then you sign up for the fan club and you get a new cool thing every month. Because I love the idea of, like, there would be a version of the pen that you could only get from that. There'd be like, there would be posters, but they would be limited edition posters where they were like printed differently or there was like an Easter egg in them. And so it'd be the stuff that already exists, but it'd be like special versions of it that are just for the mailing list.
I'd love to do that. But step one is I gotta make all this stuff. And I know how my brain is because, you know, I'm an artist and so everything's gotta be just like, it's gotta be able to. You have to be able to read Lucy Darling in the hairline. Like, nobody cares. Nobody cares about this stuff except for me. But I think that's part of why I'm so grateful for the TikTok stuff is. Cause I'm learning, like, you know, who cares about that stuff? TikTok cool. People on TikTok here, they notice. And. And I didn't realize that that was kind of who I had been creating for all this time. And now I'm realizing, like, oh, those were always my people.
[01:02:30] Speaker A: Wow.
I want to pivot real quick because I. I know I don't want to take up too much of your time. I will talk all day, but I'd love to hear you have an amazing take on the Z zeitgeist of entertainment. So I want to talk to you about meta modernity.
[01:02:49] Speaker B: Well, what's interesting is I. I'm kind of working on a new top right now because I think we've moved past meta modernity. I think we're in a new era of, like, we're in late stage capitalism. And art seems to be reflecting that. It's interesting because I, as, you know, so magic, my concept is that magic is the slowest to start making art about what's going on. So whatever zeitgeist we're in, it's primarily that zeitgeist is represented by art first. Because artists tend to be the first people that are like, the most in touch with what's going on. And so you'll see whatever the zeitgeist is reflected in visual art and then music and then plays, and then it trickles down to magic eventually. And you can see all of the most successful magicians that we really admire. One of the things they have in common is that they did an incredible job of making art that was deeply and profoundly present in that zeitgeist. Doug Henning could not have done that act. Now you watch it and he's a genius. You watch it now and you're like, oh, it's a little cheesy. It did not feel cheesy at the time because that was during an era where things were deeply hopeful and it was all about, like, the world and anything was possible. And. And Copperfield came on the other side of that. He did the more romantic version of that. Anything is possible. Love, technology, right? All that stuff. Then you get Penn and Teller, the bad boys of magic. And they're edgy, right? They're that, like, cool 90s, like, too cool for school. Kind of vibe, and they're hip and they're making interesting art and they're. They're part of like that zine culture energy, you know, that that's who they are and they're rock and roll and it's different. And then you move into, like later in the 90s, you get David. David Blaine. And David Blaine is like, you know, we're coming into an era where things are very.
We've moved away from hopeful and we've become a little bit sarcastic, We've become a little bit, like, unsure, and we kind of like, screw it, who cares? And Blaine is like a perfect representation of that, right? Because, like, he's like, he's too cool for school and he's, you know, he's got that Keanu Reeves, like, almost emotionless thing. We love that. Like, that's perfect of that era. And so you can see kind of the people really hitting this correct tone. And so this is something they should care about for two reasons. One, a lot of people want to be famous. That's not me. I'm not one of those people. I don't necessarily think that's a great thing to want. However, if it is something you want, knowing how to strike the right chord with a community at large is really, really important. So paying attention to the zeitgeist is really important. And two, whether you want me famous or not, which I do not, what I do want to do is communicate clearly to my audience, and I want to communicate about things that are in their world. And I want to. I want to say, I want to have art that says, hey, this is my soul. Does my soul look the way your soul looks? Do you feel how I feel like I want to make art. And part of the way we communicate is by speaking the same language and by knowing what, what the. What the soup we are making this art is. And when I did that talk, you could argue that we were moving into a phase of meta modernity. And what meta modernity is, is it's a little bit so modernity and post modernity. So when I was talking about, like, Doug Henning, a Copperfield, that's modernity. Hopeful, excited, blah, blah, blah. Post modernity is little sarcastic, little like, well, it's not going to work out. Things didn't work out little. It's a. It's. It's sarcastic, it's. It's meta. It's self aware. It's almost too self aware. It's like magic about magic, you know? And now we're tired. We're Feeling a little tired from post modernity. Post modernity is too sarcastic. It's too sarcastic. It's too. It's too. Screw everything. We needed a little hope, especially during the pandemic. And so then we ended up in a phase of meta modernity where we wanted you to say a beautiful thing and then go, nah, that's what we wanted. Like we didn't want. We couldn't go all the way back to modernity because that feels sacura and that feels over the top now. But being totally meta, being totally self aware, that also feels dated. So meta modernity became this like, ability to balance those two things. And we're still a little bit in that era. But I mean, I think you can see by what is popular now. You know, like Rick and Morty was at the height of metamaternity, and now we're less interested in things like Rick and Morty. Like what's successful now. Now what's successful is this, like, commentary and this knowingness and this very intelligent, like things like severance and like a lot of stuff that talks about being a cog in the machine or being part of capitalism or being like. Like a lot of it is talking about having no power or having. Having all these things. And so I. We don't really have a name that I know of for this new zeitgeist yet, but I can feel it. I think we can all feel it. Something's happening. And so my work has shifted with that. Like I did, I did a shooting a CEO joke in the show a few weeks ago, a week ago. And in a very, and I mean that in like, in a generous way, in a way that was like, very aware and was not disrespectful.
Ish. But that's sort of the great thing about crowd work is that I can keep in the flow of society. And I think part of why Lucy's doing so well is because what Lucy represents is a sense of like, knowing what's going on and surviving it beautifully.
Right. She knows she's not dumb. She knows what's going on. She's aware and she's fine and she's elegant and she's the smartest person in the room and, and, and she's just here to have a good time. And I think that kind of escapism, escapism that's still present in the moment escape where we don't leave, but we're here in a joyful way I think is really resonating. And sure, maybe I could have made that work by accident and gotten successful. But I think I was way more likely to hit the way I have because I chose to make work that would ideally affect people in the most consist, like most in the way that was the most consistent with where we are as a culture.
[01:09:13] Speaker A: Wow.
I, I can't. You can't follow that. That's. That's so.
[01:09:20] Speaker B: Well, I did, I did, I did sort of like get lost there because this is the first time I've really talked about this out loud. Like, especially since I did the meta majority talk, because lots of people ask for those notes still. And I feel silly sending them out because I'm like, well, this isn't even true anymore. Like, this is, this is dated. We've. We've moved on. Like we had a global pandemic and we lived through some crazy stuff. Like, you know, that's that horrible wish. May you live in unprecedented times. Like, I'm dying of times being unprecedented. I could handle some precedented times. I could handle it. We could all handle it. And so it might not have been the most eloquent in the way I just said that because I've quite literally never said these things out loud. It's just me on airplanes sitting quietly going, huh? Why? Why did that joke affect people the way it did? And, and, and how, you know, every time I do a bit of crowd work, I think what people don't realize is they're like, oh, you're so fun. You're so quick. And it's like, yeah, but I also. That's cause I do the homework. That's because when I leave, I don't just go, huh? What? What would have been funnier? I go, why was what I said so funny? Why. Why did it hit the way it did? Like, what? What was it? I don't just. I try not to take for granted that something just is funny. I try to go, okay, what can I learn from the fact that I made this shooting CEO joke and it absolutely killed. What, what can I get from the fact that I looked at an engineer and said, what is that? Like, I chose to pretend I don't. You know, Lucy's got this great ability to just be like, I don't know what the common people are doing. She's just, you know, selectively unaware of things because they don't interest her. She's not interested in engineering, so she doesn't know. And it's fun to get somebody to explain to you what that job is and just realize, like, oh, you know, people say things about what they do. And we don't really know what it is, and we don't admit that. And there's something really fun about, like, I remember some guy goes, I'm a banker. And I went, a banker? I don't know what banker is. Explain banker. And he goes, I. I take. You know, I take people's money. And I go, sorry, you misspoke. You meant robber. And it was just so fun to be like, oh, yeah. If you say what a banker is in the simplest words, it sounds wrong. And, like, that's where the humor is. But also, like, that joke killed because it speaks to a higher thing. It speaks more to the zeitgeist of, like, I think we all a little bit sometimes feel like maybe bankers are robbers. And so I was making a joke about what he said, but really there was, like, a bigger joke in the little joke. And I could have just gotten away and been like, oh, well, that was the joke. But it helped me to go, but what's the bigger joke? Like, what. What was so. That killed in a way it shouldn't have killed, But I think it's because it spoke to a truth. And sometimes what people are laughing at with Lucy is just that she's saying the thing we're all thinking.
[01:12:05] Speaker A: H.
So what's next for Lucy Darling and Carissa Hendricks in the world of magic? Where can people see you next?
[01:12:13] Speaker B: I will be posting my touring schedule to the best of my ability on January 1st, so you certainly see me on tour. I'm going to keep trying to keep this Tic Tac thing going. I'm learning and I'm learning. It's hard, so certainly go there. I think, you know, TikTok might get banned in a few weeks, so I'm also moving everything over to Instagram and YouTube, so those will be fun and follow that adventure, because I'm. I'm. I'm going to be as surprised as to what happens as you are, I'll tell you that right now.
[01:12:50] Speaker A: Fantastic. So thanks again, Carissa. You're amazing. You're an inspiration. Thank you for being on with us. So thank you for spending time with us, and I think that was really, really enlightening.
[01:13:03] Speaker B: Yeah, happy to do it anytime.
[01:13:06] Speaker A: I'm Dr. Todd and I interview magicians. This is Magicians Workshop.
That was Carissa Hendricks, AKA Lucy Darling. Make sure you check her out on all of her socials, including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and on her website.
