The Fresno Bee goes front and center with a preview of the Hocus Pocus' Second Annual Swap Meet and Get-Together scheduled for this weekend.

If you like Mark Wilson, and we Love Mark Wilson, this will be the event for our West Coast friends this weekend.  On the East Coast, the big doings will be in Columbia, South Carolina for SCAM.

Paul Gross owns the Hocus Pocus Magic Shop and is the prime mover behind the Swap Meet and Get-Together.  

"This year, we have expanded to Saturday and Sunday. What I would like is to get enough people to attend where we would then go to three days next year. What I would eventually like to do, if the magic swap meet keeps growing, is to turn this into a convention. We would look at moving it to a larger facility," he told reporters.

Surely he must be insane, however.  He is not charging admission to visit the swap meet.  He has already signed on more than 40 vendors for the area.

Doesn't Mr. Gross realize all magic conventions must make admission into the dealers' room contingent on the payment of some enormous registration fee? 

Why with his kind of thinking any magician could visit the dealers' area and buy things.  He needs to take a lesson from one famous national magic convention where the little-known David Blaine and his friend Daryl Hannah were refused entry into the dealers' room because they had not registered to attend the convention.

Well, we cannot protect everyone.  If Mr. Gross is not careful, he may find himself overwhelmed by the number of magicians willing to travel great distances to attend this event.  

Mr. Gross described "the swap meet as being like a stroll through a live magic show." He wants the event to be "open to those who have a passion for magic as well as those with just a passing interest."

Be careful Mr. Gross.  Statistics published The Journal of Experimental Child Psychiatry, supports what we have suspected: all magicians start out as non-magicians first.  

See, Claudia M. Roebers, Tim Gelhaar and Wolfgang Schneider, "'It's magic!' The effects of presentation modality on children's event memory, suggestibility, and confidence judgments," The Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Volume 87, Issue 4, April 2004, Pages 320-335.

We are not saying every person visiting the Swap Meet will become a magician.  

Nonetheless, there is a causal relationship between a positive encounter with the art of magic and one's desire to learn said art.  

The study's authors did not address whether it made sense to put up economic boundaries to exclude those with an interest in magic.  They looked only at the behavior of 241 kids.

"This is all very hands-on. The vendors will all be demonstrating their products. Even if you don't want to buy anything, there will be a lot to see," Mr. Gross told The Bee.

Whatever!

There is a fee for the lectures presented by Jay Leslie, Suds, David Regal, Daryl, Shoot Ogawa and Losander.  

We fear the small fee Mr. Gross will charge for the lectures will not be sufficient to keep out those with a new-found love for magic thanks to his free Swap Meet area.  As a consequence, there may be more magicians and interested folks at the lectures than one might expect if the lectures were not offered in conjunction with such a lay-friendly event.

Mark and the lovely Nani (Darnell) Wilson will be the Special Guests this weekend.  

Did we already mention how strongly we feel about Mark and Nani?  

To paraphrase Jerry McGuire, they complete us.

Mark and Nani introduced so many of us to magic during the 1960's.  His Amazing Land of Allakazam was a staple of CBS and then ABC from 1960 to 1965.

The Bee tells readers that Mr. Wilson "is very selective about public appearances. In fact, this is the only dealers' affair that the Wilsons plan to attend this year."

Why is this such a special event?

"We were there last year and had a good time." Mr. Wilson liked was the passion shown by those who attended.  In fact, the event is magic at its purest state."

Read the full article in The Fresno Bee here.

Be sure to visit Mr. Gross' Hocus Pocus web site here.

You can listen to Mr. Wilson on Windows Media by clicking here