Magical memories

how igor ticks
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Being a dealer of smiles and wonder is a priority in my life, and magic is my instrument. This post details my history and some highlights

Early magic memories

  • Never really saw magic as a kid, but loved to be “amazed”. At a French bistro in Fremont, there was a roving magician. His finale was card to ceiling. Looked up and saw cards all over the ceiling.
  • At the table when Hannibal did Roadhouse and his perfect classic force.

How I started

  • Carl Bystrom’s class at magic with a French drop jacket routine (great intro Carl - thanks!)
  • Not knowing how to shuffle and thus having to learn to shuffle till my fingers bled.
  • Meeting the Emerald City Wizards, and the first night with professional magicians.
  • Meeting Felix, and then Jarrod.
  • Meeting Clive

Magic Get Together

  • First Magic Conference - 3 of clubs
  • Second Magic Conference - MagiFest

Highlights

  • Card to ceiling and the card:
    • Still being on the ceiling at Microsoft a year later, someone asked, “Hey Taft, why is your name on that card stuck to the ceiling?”
    • Still being on the ceiling at the gym locker room
  • Girl on the bus that loved my magic trick.
  • Girl at ice cream store who loved the trick, and jumped up and down in a circle because it was so awesome.
  • Failure at park where 10-year-old told me I got it wrong, but in fact I had done it correctly.
  • Ben’s son who carried the card around in his backpack for years.
  • Card to blouse for intern
  • Card across where thought I messed up with audience, but card stuck to guy’s ass
  • Giving out unicorn coins
  • Performing at Pike Place

People keeping the cards and coins

This young man kept this coin for over 18 months, through a pandemic and through a move sequence of Seattle, to Boston to Amsterdam. That’s magic.

Did a magic trick for a kid, kid kept the card in his backpack for a year, and always showed it to folks.

Anniversary card, a waitress saw me and some magicians at the bar, and said, “20 years ago, a magician did this trick, and I’ve carried this card in my wallet ever since.”

Bar Magic

Usually I just get to watch Clive perform, but I’ll get my own videos here eventually:

School magic

Amelia’s always proud I do magic. I was at her Kindergarten party, and suddenly they let the kids out and I was surrounded by 15 Kindergarteners who wanted to see magic. It was awesome! I did tricks for lots of them, had them write their names on cards, gave out rubber bands – was a wonderful experience.

Interview magic

  • Best ever - Interviewer was WFH over video.
    • Daughter crawls in, Mom tries to shew her away.
    • I say, stop, watch.
    • Daughter stands up, only mouth and nose in frame.
    • I get up and back palm.
    • Jaw drops.
    • Hard to beat that
  • Guy doing Full-CD said snap your fingers find the bug
  • Recruiters - Dream candidate and LinkedIn
  • Good candidate - Dream Job
  • TODO something with distraction, or setup card to ceiling

Video Album

That’s the coolest guy ever

One day I was walking downtown and ran into Colin and his kids. I love doing magic, so without introducing myself, I kneeled down and did magic for the kids and wandered off saying nothing else. I’m sure I enjoyed the moment, but didn’t think hard about it.

A few years later as I chatted with Colin, he brought that interaction up, and told me his daughter’s reaction after I’d continued on my way. His daughter said - “Wow, who was that?”, Colin answered - “My friend Igor”. His daughter cocked her head and continued “Wow your friend is the coolest guy in the world”.

I’m confident Colin exaggerated to make me feel good, but I’ll take his story at face value as it certainly makes me feel great and re-focus on my magic practice.

Family Magic

Amelia - Amelia starting to do brave reverse with card turning over.

Zach - Making up his own card trick for woman waiting on the bus. -

Purple Intern Magic

I like to do magic at bars, slightly drunk people seem to enjoy it more. To celebrate our 20 interns going back to college, we went to the bar across the street.

As usual, I was doing magic. On that day, I was doing my “I want you to imagine the card is in my pocket”, and the card would appear in my pocket.

After warming up by doing the magic for a few interns, I went to the bathroom (I do that a lot). As I came out the bathroom door, the waitress gestured me over and said “my boyfriend is a magician and does a way better version of that … wanna try it?”

“Always” I said, and she told me what to do. I went back to the table and Jeff, a cocky intern, told me he was gonna “catch me doing the magic”. (If you’re wondering, magicians hate that, it ruins it for everyone). “Sounds great” I replied, and got the attention of the other interns to see the magic.

I asked Jeff to sign the card and place it in the deck. I then asked Jeff to concentrate on my right pocket, and when he did, the card appeared in the right pocket. Next I asked Jeff to concentrate on my left pocket. But the card wasn’t there.

When the card wasn’t there, I told Jeff this magic is foolproof. If the card wasn’t in my pocket, then you must have been concentrating on something else. Jeff rolled his eyes, giving me the “you’re crappy at magic” look. Before he could open his mouth I said “Jeff, look I know you’re skeptical, but this magic is bulletproof. The only way that card isn’t in my pocket is if you were concentrating on something else. What were you concentrating on?” Jeff was going to answer when the waitress made a startled sound, and started patting her blouse. To Jeff’s surprise, and everyone else’s entertainment, the signed card was in the waitress’s blouse. Jeff turned very, very, very purple.

Freedom Magic

Magic is core to my identity. At my best, I practice 20 hours a week. I walk up to strangers and ask them to pick a card. That changed four months ago. One patch of ice, one bad landing, and magic transformed from absolute pleasure to searing pain. My wrist got better, but my magic was gone.

My fate changed three weeks ago. I saw a woman that looked beaten down by life. Like instinct, I patted the side of my bag, and pulled out a deck of cards that was untouched for months. I asked her to pick a card and write down what she wanted on it. She wrote down freedom. I was a bit disappointed, I like it when magic is personal, and I figured freedom was some political cause. I was wrong.

She placed the freedom card it in the middle of the deck. I told her to focus on her freedom, and her card jumped to the top of the deck. She was surprised. The second time the freedom card jumped to the top, some wonder began creeping into her expression. The third time she was smiling. I told her “Take this card, and remember whenever you concentrate on what you want, you’ll get it.” Surprised, she looked up, and said quietly “I really needed that - thank you”.

The next day the woman caught my attention while I was going by and said That magic thing you did was life-changing thank you. I figured she wanted to say something nice so was lying. “Glad you enjoyed it” I said without really stopping. But a lie can be enough, and I restarted my daily magic practice.

Yesterday I ran into the woman and thanked her - “When you told me the magic mattered to you, it inspired me to get back into magic”. She was like, “oh it was mutually beneficial then”. She went on ” Literally 2 hours before you did that magic, I’d finalized my divorce of 15 years, and was lost. She paused for a second, looked me in the eye and said - “When you gave me that card, you literally handed me my freedom”.

She got her freedom, I got my magic. What will you write on your card?

Training

Philosophical Questions

Wonder vs Joy vs Meaning vs Reactions

The theory of joy

See my theories on joy

Favorite Acts

Lennart Green - Superb Card Handling

Brian Gillis - Top shelf Sleight of Hand

Hannibal

I like lots of his stuff. Roadhouse is racy, but fantastic. Elph boots is great, and so is this poem

  • Carl: How do you fix it? You fix it by doing it right!
  • Carl: Stop - practice does not make perfect. It makes permanent.
  • Carl: That’s great, except for the part you’re flailing.
  • Felix: Uhm, that’s OK, just practice another 9,997 times.
  • Felix, Oh, are you new at magic, maybe try a double lift.
  • Hannibal: Failure is not an option, it’s a requirement. Failure is not a person, it’s an event

FISM 2022

The Olympics of magic. Every 3 years. Amazing time.

10 hours a day of magic Amazing magicians Dani D’Ortiz - best card magician I’ve ever seen. Class acts: _ Jay Sankey, looking at you deeply and finding something positive _ Eric Jones, walking through audience and thanking folks from coming * Tetro walking around saying surveying what are the best tricks to learn.

TODO: link to your FISM Post.