January 12, 2007 - 2:18 PM

Oh Oh It's Magic! You Know...

A few days before the holiday break, I was invited by the Fox internet guy with whom I liaise, to a gathering at the Magic Castle. Imagine an exclusive "members-only" club with three stories, parlors and multiple bars, and a descent-sized dining room, decorated in a style reminiscent of the late 1800's/early 1900's. Lots of richly-hued tapestries and rugs, gold-lacquered carvings and ornamentation, deep-brown wooden construction- a real oil-lamp yet ornate feel. Then realize that it's a "members-only" club for magicians. Right now, you're either giggling because that seems so geeky, or you are slobbering at the mouth because it sounds so cool.

T, who was celebrating his last day as a Fox employee (moving on to better things, I hope) had been a bit of an amateur magician in high school (which is incongruous now because he's an ex-marine), and his father had given him a membership to the club as a gift. He figured that he'd take along his co-workers and friends as a last hoorah, since he was probably going to let the membership lapse soon. In order to visit the Magic Castle, you have to be a card-carrying member/magician, or you have to be invited by a member. No outside guests can come otherwise.

LDBL had taken Nick and Mer there several years ago, and they had raved about it, leaving me to stick my hands in my pockets and kick at the dirt aimlessly while hanging my head. When I received the invite from T, I nearly peed my knickers and immediately said yes. Magic! We love magic!

Well, not all magic. There are three rooms where they have performances throughout the night. The large theater, which has 3 showtimes, and showcases 3 different larger-scale prop acts; a medium sized "Parlour of Prestidigitation" where 2 performers do 3 performances each of various sleight-of-hand and prop-based illusion; and the small "Close-Up Room", which is all misdirection and skillful hands presented by 2 performers at 3 separate times each. This was by far my favorite room.

I don't think there were more than 20 people seated in this room, so we were nearly on-top of the magician as he performed for about 15 minutes. He had various tricks with coins and cards that required a lot of manual dexterity; while there were many times where I could figure out how he was pulling them off (partly because I was sitting slightly left-of-center, and thus could see when something was tucked into a palm), his skill was so good that I didn't mind. And there were several times when he just gobstopped me.

Where that small room's performance was all about manipulating with the fingers and calling attention to one hand while the other hand pulled something out of a pocket, the 50 person capacity Parlour was more about slow-build presentation, props, and audience participation. This magician was very entertaining, energetic, and hip. Among his arsenal were the standard rope lengths trick, a vanishing/transported ring trick, and a choose-your-card-then-have-it-appear-inside-a-grapefruit trick. Not as jaw-dropping as the other room because the small-room tricks required lots of skill, whereas this one required more preparation of props before-hand. Still, a lot of fun.

The large room, however, was a disappointment. The first and third acts were very glitzy, Vegas-style magicians who relied exclusively on trick props. Having watched a number of magic acts on TV growing up and seen the Fox special about revealing the secrets behind many illusions, I knew how almost all of their tricks were done. And sometimes they were so poorly done, you could actually SEE where they were hiding things in their sleeves or in their pants or behind their fingers. The second act wasn't so much a magician as he was a comedian who did strange things like balance a wheelbarrow on his chin or make a cheeseburger spin on top of a parsol. Funny and entertaining, but not up to par with the other rooms.

*********
Speaking of Magic, Liz and I saw both the Illusionist and The Prestige last year. I think I have to give the slight edge to the Illusionist, mostly because it was more cleanly executed. The Prestige had a lot of "wow" to it, but it was also fairly muddled and took some turns that strained my credulity; the Illusionist played things out at a better pace (although the turns in that movie were more easily anticipated by me).

Now Listening To : Madder Rose- Swim
Random Thought : Thanks to Y for the research and advice on RLS. I keep forgetting that she went to Pharmacy school.

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