One Evening at the Magic Castle

Ever since I turned 21, every year, I would try to complete a summer ritual, that is visiting Los Angeles to hang out with my friends there and stopping by the world famous Magic Castle during the hot, sunny California summer. 

This year, my brother in magic, Frankie Foti, was very kind to host me while I was staying in town, and he brought me into the Castle as his guest on a Tuesday night. Besides just catching up on shows with friends or tasting creative cocktails that are named after famous magicians, I was lucky enough to sit down at the Vernon table with legendary Howard Hamburg to see his amazing work on card magic and hear his stories about the times he spent with Dai Vernon, Charlie Miller, Michael Skinner, Alex Emsley, and Jimmy Grippo. We also talked about magic for a short time. 

I put down some notes to remind myself of what I've learned and to share some of the wisdom I've received from a legend in magic to see if this might be helpful to someone out there: 

-"To perform a simple magic effect well is probably one of the hardest tasks for us as magicians."

-"They (audience) probably won't be able to remember all the crazy stunts and moves you do at the end of the day, but one thing they will be able to take home with them for sure is the moment. So ask yourself, what's the moment you want your audience to take home with them? 

-"Sometimes we are too obsessed with all these little moves that they (lay-audience) aren't going to care about, and the reason is simple. It is our Ego that tells us, 'oh yes, because you can do that', and then we fail to see things through their eyes to know what they really care about."

-"Most of us stop thinking way too early."