Magic takes many forms...to some, magic is a rainbow...to others, magic is the first kick of a fetus while still in the womb.....and for others it might be simply a sunset. To me, magic is well.. in fact, magic.
I think most people like magic. They will stare wide-eyed with mouths agape as the prestidigitator performs the unbelievable. the mysterious, the most baffling thing they have ever seen. Maybe as simple as making a coin suddenly appear out of a child's ear to a full blown Las Vegas spectacular with disappearing elephants.
My first encounter with magic as a serious interest occurred in the early '60s as I watched while Mark Wilson and his beautiful wife/assistant Nani perform mystifying routines on his black and white TV show the "Magic Land of Allkazam". I wasn't any good but I still loved doing little simple tricks that Mark would teach at the end of the show.
The first really good trick I learned was in one of the following summers in the '60s. A group of us, Eddie, "The Jer", Huey the Duck and some more would hang out at Loos School woods and each summer the school grounds had a camp counselor show up for the day for organized activities. One year, a counselor showed me a trick that I still perform today, some 50 years later, and, well I guess it still impresses people, at least they tell me that or they are liein' pretty good.
In high school at Fairview High, I could roll a coin through each finger and of course I would always do the disappearing act with a cigarette. I would ask a buddy standing outside the local eatery, The Mascot, if he wanted to see a cigarette disappear. He would oblige, give me a cig, and I would say, "See it's gone from your pack"...That was one trick you never showed twice.
As years went by, I would pick up a new trick every now and then, they weren't much, certainly nothing that I would do for anyone unless I had been drinking, but the fascination was always there. The friends around the bar, the strangers who I would entice with a challenge of a free drink if they could figure out the magic.....the routines always stayed with me.
Some of my gaffs, or tricked-up props would come from the back of a comic book...you know, the ad right next to the x-ray glasses and the hovering one-man helicopter kit. I fell for the scams. I'd pay 3 or 4 dollars for a piece of plastic junk, but in fact what I was buying was the secret.
I remember one year at the Montgomery County Fair in Dayton, Ohio. There was a hawker there doing card tricks impressing all of the rubes while he had this little plastic mouse run up and down his arms. It was great. I fell for it. I bought the mouse for 50 cents, a lot of money back then, and when I opened the box, there was the dumb little plastic mouse...nothing else. I looked dumbfounded at the hawker and asked, "How do I make it work"?...he said, "That will be another 50 cents. I told you I love magic.
Well today, I went back in time and spent about an hour in a magic store. I begged the magician working at the counter to please don't torment me anymore as he performed and as I begged for more...show me more. He did, I bought. He showed me more. I bought more. I felt renewed. I felt the excitement that I had when I saw my first bit of magic half a century ago.
I like bein' a kid again. I like havin' fun and makin' people smile with the look of "huh" plastered on their face. I love magic .....
.
No comments:
Post a Comment