...When All is Said and Dunn

I have always enjoyed prestidigitation. For the vocabulary handicapped out there that’s a big word for magic. From Houdini to David Copperfield there is this childlike feeling of awe and wonder that sweeps over me when watching a good trick done by one of the best magicians.

The current wave of high profile magicians are not so much magicians as they are illusionists. These illusionists have elaborate sets and props that take on the look of a Broadway show, like Copperfield and Lance Burton. How they present their magic is fine and dandy with me, providing that the end result of the illusion is worth all the hoopla that it takes to get you there.

A couple of weeks ago David Copperfield, the king of the gigantic illusions, used as a corner piece of his TV special the “Tornado of Fire”. He placed himself in a manmade wind tunnel of fire for about a minute. After the illusion was completed, I was not left in wonderment but in a state of wonder, as in wondering why bother? While it was impressive to a certain extent, the tricks he did leading up to it were far more amazing.

The big stage presentations that started back in the 70’s with Doug Henning are fine if you are going to a Las Vegas show. Personally I prefer the close up conjuring and slight of hand. There is something about having tricks done right in front of your face, with something you can relate to like a deck of cards, that leaves me shaking my head.

The best hands with a deck of cards may be someone you have never heard of, author, actor, cardician, and magic historian Ricky Jay. If you have never seen his Obie award winning play, “Ricky Jay & His 52 Assistants”, which has been shown more than once on HBO, find someone who has it on tape. It is one of the most interesting and informative shows on the art of slight of hand and is also incredibly entertaining. Even though Jay is showing you tricks that have been done for 100 years, you still are left scratching your head wondering how he did it.

Mr. Jay’s knowledge and expertise with cards and cons is so extensive that he started a company, “Deceptive Practices”, that act as advisors for films dealing with the cards and cons. He has also acted in such films as “Boogie Nights”, “Magnolia”, and “Tomorrow Never Dies”. And as a bizarre little side note, he holds the Guinness Book of Records for throwing playing cards 195 feet at 90 miles per hour. During the aforementioned HBO Special, he throws a card so hard that it sticks in a watermelon’s outer skin. This is truly the Renaissance man of magic.

Then you have the darker side of magic, the bad boys if you will. The most infamous is, of course, Penn & Teller. These guys are far and away one of my favorites, not as much as magicians, but more as comedians who happen to do magic. Their black humor and twisted feats of legerdemain are not only scary but also funny at the same time. Even though they put on like they don’t care in their approach to their tricks, they always make you laugh at the sheer outrageousness of their stunts.

For a while they even exposed some of the secrets of some of the tired old tricks that had many magicians up in arms. Giving up magic secrets is a major no-no in the brotherhood of magicians. Truth be told, the ones that they exposed weren’t that good to begin with. David Copperfield was even quoted as saying that “Penn & Teller should be killed!” You know you must be doing something right if you piss off the biggest name in your business.

I think David may have been overreacting a bit. If he wanted Penn & Teller dead over exposing a few old tricks, then once he got a load of the “Masked Magician”, you know the guy that had a few Fox TV specials exposing lots of tricks, he probably would want to put him naked in the Tornado of Fire doused in gasoline.

But the man who is at the top of his game and the one that is being called the “Magician For The New Millennium” is David Blaine. This young gun is what made me write this article. He is daring, dazzling, and is changing the rules of the game. If you have not had the pleasure of watching one of his three television specials you have definitely missed a chance to be mystified and entertained.

His much-advertised bigger illusions like being buried alive and being encased in a 6-ton block of ice don’t last a paltry few minutes, they last for days. If they are nothing more than an illusion, they are at least illusions that require endurance. That in itself sets him apart from the rest of the pack.

When you first see him you know that you are not in for your average bunny out of the hat act. This guy is not wearing the typical tux or suit, he is in a black t-shirt and jeans and more times than not is wearing sunglasses.

His patter does not sound overly prepared or contrived, which works perfectly with the type of magic he does. He refers to it as “street magic”.

You see, he does not do his magic with the benefit of a theatre, he takes it to the street. Believe me, you have never felt goose bumps until you’ve seen someone levitate in front of bystanders on a city street. If you think that you get freaked out watching it on TV, you should see the reaction of the people on the street.

How would you feel if this guy walked up to you asked what you would wish for? You tell him to win the lottery. He hands you 3 bucks and tells you to go buy 3 scratchers at a nearby liquor store. You do, he tells you to pick one of the 3, and use his magic gold coin to scratch it off. You do and you win $1,600. Now that type of magic I would like to have happen to me. We even see the guy go to the lottery office to claim his prize because he didn’t even believe it was happening.

This low-key approach to magic is not being lost on the heavy hitters like Copperfield either. In his last special he even copied Blaine’s approach by doing some magic on the street in a blatant attempt to copy his style. While his illusions were effective, I couldn’t help thinking of Blaine and how he must have felt. Well, they do say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

The naysayers all claim there is no magic and they are nothing more than tricks. They say why believe in what these entertainers are showing us. For me it’s simple. I would rather suspend my belief for a little while and be mystified by something that makes me smile. I don’t care how they do it, just please keep doing it.

For me it’s a chance, no matter how fleeting, to remember the wonderment I felt as a child. It is a feeling that I feel far too seldom and wish I could feel more.

The Shrub Speaks: “It is time to set aside the old partisan bickering and finger-pointing and name-calling that comes from freeing parents to make different choices for their children.” Washington D.C., April 12, 2001