Nice photos from the wedding back in May

"Don't show the card to me, but please remember your Ace of Diamonds"

I did some magic at a wedding about a month ago. There was a professional photographer there, of course. They were kind enough to send me some photos of me doing magic. I have very few photos of myself performing, since I am pretty busy myself and usually have no friends around when performing. After I was done with the magic, the people who asked me to perform came up and said roughly: "I am glad we asked you to come". That to me is one of the best compliments.

I like to use this magical picture book as my opener. It is quick, understandable even if you don't hear what people are saying, can be seen from far away, and is a mysterious effect.

Mind reading in progress

One of my favorite tricks; producing sushi from a t-shirt with a picture of a salmon eating salmon sushi.

Hiroshi desu

One of my friends is called Hiroshi. It was his birthday a few days ago. Since he seems to eat nothing but soup curry and Japanese curry, I gave him a t-shirt that says: "I love curry" (sold by the same company that makes the cannibal animal t-shirts I wear).

Another friend gave him a shirt with a photo of soup curry that also said "I love curry". It also had a photo of our friend on the back, with the text "I am Hiroshi", which apparently is something some Japanese comedian used as his catch phrase some time.

Inhuman eye color

I got a mountain of cold ramen and accessories

This week I stopped by the magic "snack bar" Ropossa again. It is always lots of fun. By chance, I ran into the woman who also owns a t-shirt with a pig eating pork again. She was hugely disappointed that I was wearing clothes that were: "completely normal". And I was wearing a pair of red trousers with silver cherry blossom embroidery, a pink t-shirt (also with cherry blossoms), and traditional Japanese sandals. Which is not "normal" even in Japan.

I got two hot dogs, though they were tiny (4 cm or so)

For some reason, the "mama" started talking about my eye color. She wondered what color my eyes are (it is a bit dark in the bar, so it was hard to see, apparently). I showed a photo and then they took photos of other peoples' eyes and checked them too. Looking at some of the photos of my eyes, the mama said something along the lines of "but humans too can have that"... As surprising as it may sound, I am in fact human too... which one girl who also works there pointed out. They are funny.

My non-human eye color

Ropossa: wedding stuff, girls falling for me, women touching me in strange places

Something cheese like made from the first squirt of milk from young cows after their first calvings.

Last week I dropped by the magic "snack bar" Ropossa, and it led to an interesting evening. I showed up wearing a pink t-shirt with a family of pigs eating deep fried pork, with very sad faces. A young woman there said: "Ah, I have the exact same t-shirt!". She had seen me wear another shirt in the same series (cows eating steak, hens eating fried eggs, a salmon eating salmon sushi, etc.) and had bought one with pigs for herself a while ago. She had never seen me wear the pig version she said.

Chinese deep fried dessert

I took this as a sign that even people with normal taste in clothes can wear these shirts, which I find to be very funny shirts. My friends keep telling me only weirdos would wear such shirts. I wrote about meeting this other person who also owns the same shirt on Facebook, and one more (Japanese) person chimed in that she also owns such a shirt. Both these two did however later specify that they would of course never wear these shirts where someone could actually see them wearing them, and they only use them as pajamas...

Someone had brought huge amounts of Chinese food to Ropossa, so I got a large serving of that. I also got something that was kind of like cheese and was apparently made using "the first squirt of milk from a young cow after her first calving", and thus quite rare. What is so special about this first squirt was unclear.

As often happens, I was asked to do some magic for other people. There was a young girl (12 years old, perhaps?) there with her mother. I showed her some magic tricks, and she reportedly became much more quiet and shy than normal when she was around me (I had never met her before, so I don't know how she normally behaves). But she seemed deeply impressed by me being blond etc.

The mama of Ropossa thought this was very funny, so she asked me to do the trick where the cards suddenly spell out "I love you" in Japanese to this girl. I did, and she became quite red in the face. Later she told her mother that it was the first time anyone said "I love you" to her, haha. Too bad it was some weirdo foreigner. She even asked for my physical address afterwards.

It turned out that the reason her mother was in Ropossa was that she had just had the girl who owns a pork eating pigs-shirt and the Ropossa mama witness and sign her marriage papers. She and her future husband were going to hand over these papers to the city office the next day to get married, and they were celebrating in Ropossa.

Later, a cake that said: "Happy Wedding!" showed up, and they were asked to cut the cake together (which is customary in Japan). The not so much like a cake-knife knife that they had to use did have a nice red ribbon. It turned out to be one of the magic handkerchiefs that they use for various magic tricks in Ropossa that had been re-purposed into a wedding accessory.

 I also ended up doing some magic tricks for the company boss of some company who was there with four of his staff. He was so impressed that he paid for everything for me at Ropossa. And for everything for the girl who claimed to own a pig shirt, despite her not being involved in any way and we having met by chance in Ropossa, haha. He also asked the only woman among his staff to come over to where we were sitting, and I did some magic tricks for her too. She was a perfect spectator, cute and amazed by everything and anything. I made a rubber band disappear and she started looking and feeling around for it with a confused face. Was it in my hands? No. In my sleeves? No. On the floor? No. The she started parting my legs, still searching. The girl with the pig shirt then stepped in and said: "This is not really that type of establishment!" and sadly stopped the other woman.

Late at night, a very funny man who also sometimes makes magic props showed up. Even later, a man I had performed for in Ropossa and then later came to see me in the magic bar also showed up. So I was asked to do some more magic. I did a new trick which involves giving away a present "randomly" determined by the spectator for one of them. The other one then asked if it would be a different present if I did it for him too, so I said "Of course, but I can only do the same trick once per day.", which is a well known "fact" about magic in Japan. He said: "Didn't you say you did this trick for the cute woman who left a while ago? And that she reacted in a funny way to it." As luck would have it, that happened at around 23:30, while these two showed up at 1:00, so I explained that since it was now passed midnight it was not the same day.

Before leaving, I also got some presents. I got a huge fake diamond, and an old American half dollar.

Weird T-shirts in Magic Bar Twister

People often tell me that they find the t-shirts I wear "weird" or "crazy". The one I wear the most when performing magic says: "I am not Japanese" in Japanese, which to Japanese people is very funny (because I am blond) and that makes it much easier to get started doing magic since everyone is already in a good mood as soon as they see my shirt.

Yesterday, I was wearing a shirt with a family of pigs eating fried pork and looking sad. My boss had found a shirt that he wore to "adjust to my level". It says: "I don't know anything" with a big "無" (meaning "nothing") inside the brain. No one commented on his t-shirt, though. But many commented on my pig t-shirt.

In Tokyo for a day

A shop selling such normal things as a yellow suit, or a doll like dress.

On Monday I had to go to Tokyo for a project meeting. That meant getting up at 6 a.m. and getting back home at 23:30, so I was a bit tired... The meeting was not all that fun either.

Some more Tokyo fashion.

I did have a fun stewardess in the plane to Tokyo though. I was bored in the plane and kept practicing some different ways of shuffling cards etc. She looked at me and seemed to be about to say something a few times during the flight but never did say anything. After we had landed and we were waiting for the doors to open she came up to me and asked: "Are you magician?" I answered in Japanese that it is not my main job, but that I do magic in a magic bar during the weekends.

She was very impressed that I could speak Japanese despite being blond, and after learning I was from Sweden she mentioned that she had a friend who married a Swede and moved to Sweden. She also said she would come to Hokkaido again next week, so I gave her the business card of our magic bar. It would be fun if she actually shows up in our magic bar.

A small part of all the high school students cramming into my plane.

The plane was otherwise full of high school students who had been in Sapporo on some school trip. There were more than 100 of them! (The line between Sapporo and Tokyo is one of the few domestic flights using Boeing 777-300s, so there was space to put all the kids). Another colleague who flew on a different flight said his plane was also full of high school students on their way home.

I had planned to have an hour of shopping in Tokyo (booking a really early flight) and having plenty of time to find the place of the meeting. My professor showed up on Friday afternoon and said that he had decided that we should have a meeting one hour before the project meeting in Tokyo, so my plans were destroyed. I did reschedule my travels and ended up having almost 30 minutes of shopping and a lot less time for travelling and finding the meeting place.

One of my favorite t-shirt shops.

I did manage to buy a few weird t-shirts. One shop owner told me that a guy who used to work in the same store had now moved to Sweden and was very impressed with the Swedish society.

Later, when trying to find the meeting place, I passed two European looking men walking in the opposite direction. They were speaking Swedish to each other! There are very many foreigners in Tokyo compared to Sapporo, so I saw several in one day, haha.

This vending machine was selling books.

At the meeting, I was supposed to show our system but my professor ended up using up all our allotted time (and some more) so there was no time to show our system. On the way back to Sapporo, the airline rescheduled me to an earlier flight, so I got home slightly before midnight instead of slightly after, which was nice. The stewardess on the way home also asked if I was a magician. She did not seem to have any friends who had moved to Sweden, but she had a father who did magic, she said.

Surprise at Seicomart

On my way home from our magic bar, me and a colleague who lives close to my place usually walk home. We also usually go to the Seicomart convenience store that we pass at 5 a.m. and buy breakfast/dinner. There is a very nice woman who works that shift who is almost always there when we shop.

Once she laughed a little at my t-shirt that had a salmon eating salmon sushi. My colleague said: "Yes, it is weird, right? And he wears such shirts on purpose!"

I said: "And the best thing is, if you do this, a piece of sushi appears" and produced a piece of sushi from my t-shirt by magic.

She made a very funny face, with her jaw dropping quite a bit. She seemed VERY surprised. We explained that we work in a magic bar, and then left. Probably that was the first time she knew we were magicians. And probably it was the first time someone produced sushi from a t-shirt in their convenience store.

Tokyo

After one day in Sapporo, I flew to Tokyo with a Japanese friend to stay the night in Tokyo and then get up ridiculously early in the morning and fly to Sweden.

We went to Harajuku to shop for funny t-shirts. I found a guy selling the "salmon eating salmon sushi" t-shirts that I wanted more of, which was nice. I also bought some "Starwars Coffe" (Starbucks parody), "Aji desu" (meaning "this is an aji (a fish)"; a parody of Adidas ("ajidasu" in Japanese), and a t-shirt that says: "I am not Japanese" in Japanese.

A magic bar where the magician was sadly not there on the Sunday we were in Tokyo.

I wanted to go to a magic bar that was close to our hotel, but it turned out that the magician was on vacation so we went back to the hotel instead.

The hotel room had complimentary slippers that were great to use in the airplane the next day!

Cannibalism

Hato sabure

Yesterday in our magic bar, a magician came and visited us. He has recently moved back to Sapporo from a long stay in Tokyo. Now he was back from another Tokyo trip and brought us "omiyage" (souvenirs, usually cookies) which is the Japanese custom (you have to give something to every person you have ever met, after each trip).

He brought "Hato sabure", dove cookies. This is a fairly famous Tokyo omiyage. My name, Jonas, also means dove. I have been asked by Japanese friends to always bring hato sabure from Tokyo since I am also "hato".

Yesterday, three Japanese friends of mine also were in the magic bar at that time, and they thought it was hysterical that I was eating a hato sabure, since my name also means "hato", and since I was (and usually am when meeting them) wearing a t-shirt with animals being cannibals (yesterday it was a family of pigs eating fried pork).

Later, another group of 5 people who are my friends also showed up, so more than half the people that came yesterday showed up because of me...

Cannibal Animals in Tokyo (again)

Today I went to our magic bar to return some DVDs that a friend handed over to me yesterday to give to our boss. In the magic bar, there were lots of people, and in the end I was asked if I wanted to show something to a group of four young women who were a great audience since they seemed to love any magic anyone showed them. So I did some magic tricks for them, and they were very happy.

Later, when I was about to go home, one regular customer showed up really drunk. He talked about all kinds of things, but also started talking to me. He said he recently went to Tokyo and then went out of his way and went to Harajuku just to look for t-shirts with cannibalistic animals. I usually wear t-shirts from this series when I perform in our magic bar, and he once asked me where I had bought them. I said Harajuku, and he asked for very detailed directions. He bought three t-shirts himself, because his girlfriend thinks they are very cute (if I understood correctly). He gave one to his girlfriend's (or his own?) mom, who did not like it at all, so now he was slightly upset with me, haha.

Here is a video (that I put on the blog before too) with me in one of these t-shirts; a shirt with a salmon eating salmon sushi (the others have things like a chicken eating fried eggs, a family of pigs eating fried pork, etc.):

New t-shirt, new magic trick: a chicken eating fried eggs

Yesterday I uploaded a magic trick based on a t-shirt showing a sad salmon eating salmon sushi. Today I wore a t-shirt with an equally sad chicken staring at two fried eggs. There is of course a magic trick to go with this t-shirt too, and just as yesterday, it is a very silly trick. I like silly tricks...

A famous zombie!

Me at the zombie walk

Today a group of eight fairly young men came to our magic bar when I was there performing. One of them asked me: "Didn't you participate in the Sapporo Zombie Walk three months ago?" Indeed I did. He even had a photo of himself posing with me when I was in my zombie make-up, in his cell phone. Small world. And quite impressive of him to see that it was me, and to remember me.

Me today

I also asked a colleague to take a movie of me doing a silly trick using my t-shirt. I have bought a fair number of t-shirts with animals being cannibals, pigs eating pork, chickens eating fried eggs, cows eating beef steak, etc. Today I wore a shirt with a salmon eating salmon sushi with a sad face. Recently I have started using these t-shirts for magic tricks. These are not very sophisticated tricks, more of a silly gag kind of magic, but they are kind of cute I think. People seem to like them too. Here is the salmon version.

And here is the salmon: