It’s Magical – We Enjoy Our Membership at Magic CastleInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

The Magic Castle bestowed on us a kindness that we will not soon forget. The greatest magic club in the world, overlooked our nervous, shaking hand and sweat-covered brow to grant admission as a Magician Member Monday night.

It has been such a whirlwind since Monday night when we auditioned before the likes of Shoot Ogawa and Gay Blackstone that we have not had time to update this humble news outlet. In the past few days, we have seen great magic performed by the best in our business like Whit “Pop” Haydn and Nick Lewin at the Magic Junkyard in Simi Valley Wednesday night and so many of the performers at the Magic Castle this weekend. We are tuckered-out but it is a good kind of tuckered-out.

We anticipated the audition process for the Magic Castle would be difficult and it was. The judges were kind and compassionate and tried to set an atmosphere to allow the performers to do their best. Still, it is an unnerving process performing for such esteemed peers.

We were on cloud nine (or its Metric equivalent) all week and visited The Magic Castle Friday night – our first visit as a Magician Member. There was a lot to take in. We visited The William W. Larsen Memorial Library and met the very helpful and knowledgeable Lisa Cousins, our guide for all that the center had to offer – and it offers so much.

From instruction sheets to videos and recorded material, lecture notes to rare magic tomes, and just about every essential magic resource a studious magician could need populate the well-adorned library shelves and reading areas. We camped out in the stacks, listened to the more experienced members discuss topics of interest and picked the brain of Ms. Cousins about The Magic Castle.

Tonight (Saturday), we decided to perform. Magician members can show their stuff in The Hat and Hare Pub and The Gallery by coordinating with the Host. We performed the same card routine we used for the audition and the first show went well. We were nervous but excited in equal parts. The nerves got under control for the next two sets in The Hat and Hare and held together for our last set in the larger Gallery. The audiences were enthusiastic and kind and we had a great time.

Our routine depends on our second deal, two false shuffles and a successful breather crimp. We figured out just about half-way into our second set, the crimp had stopped breathing. We lost control of the selected card but somehow managed to find it without too much embarrassment. We tried to rehabilitate the breather but nothing was working. Our last set was breather-less. We kept the same routine but had to figure out a different method of control.

It is late at night as we type this on our old Remington portable typewriter here in the West Hollywood editorial office of Inside Magic. The Olympic® Games are being broadcast silently on a television set we can see across the alley. Life goes on around us and we feel fully alive having lived a dream harbored since our youth.