Mark Kalin and Jinger – Real Magic, Really!Inside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

Mark Kalin and Jinger

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the need for us Magicians to do real magic. Not ?real? magic or even real magic. No fluff or fuss, just getting up on stage and doing what a real magician would do if in fact he or she was a real magician.

A couple of days ago, I wrote about Rick Thomas? incredible performance at the Magic Live seminar. I told you that he performed two effects as if he was truly a magician and doing real magic.

Folks, I have now seen real magic. Not sort of unexplainable magic or magic you could probably do if you had hours to practice. I mean magic that is possible only if magic is possible.

Mark Kalin and Jinger changed my perspective on life in their presentation. They did real magic.

Read On . . .

Alan Wakeling?s Sawing a Woman in Half has been done before but on Wednesday night, in the closing show of the Magic Live Seminar in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Kalins took what was a phenomenal effect in the hands of two phenomenal performers and boosted it into the atmosphere.

Here?s the effect in a nutshell: the lovely Jinger lies on a surgical table ? it looked almost like a gurney made of polished sheet steel. She is bound around her ankles and around her neck by two bands which are then tied to cord that is pulled through holes in the table and held by the very gentlemen responsible for attaching the bands to her lovely ankles and neck. The rest of her torso is fastened to the table by straps that were used for a different purpose back when this very…

Mark Kalin and Jinger

A couple of days ago, I wrote about Rick Thomas? incredible performance at the Magic Live seminar. I told you that he performed two effects as if he was truly a magician and doing real magic.

Folks, I have now seen real magic. Not sort of unexplainable magic or magic you could probably do if you had hours to practice. I mean magic that is possible only if magic is possible.

Mark Kalin and Jinger changed my perspective on life in their presentation. They did real magic.

Read On . . .

A very small box is placed over the top and lower half of Jinger and the side panels of the box are opened to not only show that she is still bound to the table and hooked head and toe to the cords held by the committee, but also to show there is almost no room between her thin frame and the top of the box.

Mr. Kalin now saws through the center of the boxes with surgical steel blades. The blade closest to Ms. Kalin?s upper-torso does not slide into place and so he asks the committee member at the head end of the table to give the cord a gentle pull. He does and the blade slides down, into place.

The tables are separated and then reassembled. The blades are removed and Ms. Kalin is again seen through the side doors before the boxes are removed from her. She is still restrained to the table and to the cords held by the gentlemen at each end of the table.

Okey Dokey. I feel confident that this must be a trick of some kind. I mean, I was tempted to jump to my feet and accuse the duo of being ?Witches!!!? but I remembered why they won?t let me attend any Michael Ammar lectures anymore and thought better of it.

I looked over to Paul Emmick, formerly of the Weather Channel and now kicking major stuffing at RTV6 in Indianapolis. He seemed befuddled ? which is okay, because we were in Vegas where befuddlement has been legal since the late 1940?s.

It was such a wonderful feeling to not know how something was done. I didn?t even go into the ?figure it out mode.? I just enjoyed the feeling. The sincerity of Ms. Kalin as she was bound and her by-play with the men binding her made it seem an innocent science experiment that she had never before suffered through. She really is an incredible presence on the stage.

Jinger Kalin

She seemed to own her area thoroughly. She is undeniably beautiful and poised but she is also charismatic and fun. Mr. Kalin is similarly charismatic and exciting to watch. Even though we were all a bunch of magicians, he treated the illusion as if it had never been attempted before and seemed genuinely pleased at the committee?s preparations to ensure the integrity of the performance. He has seemingly boundless energy and yet seems a perfect counter-balance to Ms. Kalin?s fun, strong, coquettish but in control persona.

I was smitten by the act, by Ms. Kalin and Mr. Kalin (but in different ways ? not that there?s anything wrong with . . . never mind, grow up) and the trick itself. They have brought magic back to where it started or where we would like to think it started ? where the end of the effect is considered first and the method comes later.

I noted on the Kalin?s website ? which is fantastic by the way and will be entered into the prestigious Inside Magic Links of Fame ? that Joanie Spina choreographs the Kalins and it certainly shows. I know I will now learn that the only effect she did not choreograph was the Sawing. Ms. Spina has a remarkable sense of stage management and how to bring your audience into the act.

I want to write all night about the Kalin?s and I will follow up in the next few days with some more info that should interest you. I wanted to get this story up on the site, though, because it is such a wonderful feeling to be fooled and fooled so badly that you don?t want to know how it?s done.

Thank you, Mr. and Ms. Kalin.