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erictan8888 Special user Singapore 517 Posts |
Hi,
I would just like to hear how you got started and introduced to magic... For me, it goes like this: When I was eight years old, my mum brought me to a large bookstore. Well, my mum gave me some money and asked me to go check out some books related to school...I was walking around aimlessly when I saw a counter at the corner of the store. I walked towards it and saw this magician practicing some card tricks by himself. He looked at me and asked if I wanted to see a trick. I said yes and he pulled out his deck and started to show me a trick with the Svengali deck. Obviously I was stunned and bought the deck on the spot. And that's my first close encounter with magic. I would like to hear your story... eric
"Fill you life with magic by making magic a part of your life." by eric tan.
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Tspall Regular user Lumberton, NC 147 Posts |
Probably like most people, my parents bought me a magic set for one of my birthdays. I don't remember exactly what age I was, but probably around seven or eight. It was an Adam's Magic Set, which I still have! I played around with it and was facinated at how these things worked and how people could be fooled. (Entertainment didn't figure into an eight-year-old's head.)
I watched magicians on TV (Doug Henning, etc.) and loved to watch them perform. My great-grandfather was accomplished at slight of hand. Mom says I take after him...Growing up, I read as many books as I could find from the public library, plus bought a few myself. I didn't get serious about magic until the past few years, with a very supportive (and patient) girlfriend. |
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jcards01 Inner circle Waterloo, IL 1438 Posts |
Saw John Scarne performing on TV and have been hooked on cards ever since.
Jimmy 'Cards' Molinari
www.jimmycards.com |
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Manuel New user Dockweiler - Germany 3 Posts |
First my brother started with magic. Then I wanted to do that too and with about eight years my parents bought Houdini's Magic Set so I practiced a bit but and bought little tricks with dice and stuff...But then I stopped doing it.
Years later, my brother started again (he stopped it like I did...). My interests in magic woke up again and now it's my love! But mostly I love cards.
"I don't think there are any good guys any more, people seem to be sick of good people"
-Bret Hart- "If the gods could built me a ladder to the heavens I'd climb it up and Elbowdrop the World" -Mick Foley- |
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placebo New user 79 Posts |
I grew up watching Paul Daniels on the TV, he was one of my earliest influences.
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Dbzkid999 Elite user Canada 407 Posts |
It was David Blaine who got me started wih magic.
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Dynamike Eternal Order FullTimer 24148 Posts |
I saw Marshal Brodien's commercial with a magic set for sale.
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jlareau Loyal user Henrietta NY / Chicago Ill 220 Posts |
The Klutz Book of Magic, age five.
'Nuff said.
Jonathan Lareau A.K.A "Jonny Card Trick"
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Albert Einstein Feel free to check out my website www.jonlareau.com |
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Halloween New user San Diego 9 Posts |
As a child (10 year's old), I broke every bone in both my hands when a steel plate fell on them. While recovering in the hospital, the nurse's gave me a tennis ball to exercise with. This was very painful to say the least...
My mother, with wisdom beyond her year's, gave me a deck of cards to play with. The rest, as the say, is history. John |
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Traylen New user 36 Posts |
I have always loved magic. I watched it ALL the time, well at least whenever it was on TV, and I still do . But we were at a toy store once, and there was a magician there, doing tricks from the magic sets they sold there. So I begged my dad to get it. And being the cute and innocent little kid I was , he got it for me. And I practiced with it a lot, but then after a while I kind of stopped using it, but I still loved magic.
Then one day one of my friends had a Svengali deck and did an actually really stupid trick with it. And for some reason that dumb trick got me completely and utterly into magic. Now I do it all the time.
What the eye sees, the ear hears, the mind believes.
-Harry Houdini |
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Emily Belleranti Veteran user Tucson, Arizona 349 Posts |
My father had always had an interest in magic, and he introduced me to it early on. I used to play around with it when I was a little kid, but I got seriously hooked when I bought Bill Tarr's Now You See It, Now You Don't.
"If you achieve success, you will get applause, and if you get applause, you will hear it. My advice to you concerning applause is this: Enjoy it, but never quite believe it."
-Robert Montgomery |
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magical65stang New user Turlock, CA 73 Posts |
I have always loved magic ever since I was very little. Every time I would see a small magic shop of some sort I would always sit and watch wanting to learn. The only drawback was that I didn't have the money to get started. Now that I am older and have some money of my own, I finally found a magic shop where I could start. Not to mention I had a built in place to start once I had practiced enough. I work at a restaurant where I could incorporate magic into my serving. I spent some money on DVDs, books, and of course way too many gaffs of some sort. Now I perform all the time everywhere and love it to death. My daughter is hot on my footsteps too.
"I'm not a liar, you just don't see the truth."
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r4bid Veteran user 386 Posts |
My start in magic was a summation of several factors:
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Jordan Piper Veteran user British Columbia, Canada 309 Posts |
Ever since watching magic specials on NBC during the 90's I have enjoyed it. However, it wasn't until I saw David Blaine on TV that I took an interest in performing. Because there are no magic shops nearby I have had to learn from books and the internet, but ever since my first trip to a magic shop (Tony's Trick and Joke Shop, in Victoria) I've been addicted.
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KJ New user Louisville, KY 97 Posts |
I saw Kirby Vanbuch (because of recent events involving police, alcohol, and other...stuff he is no longer my inspiration) perform when I was eight and I have been hooked ever since.
-KJ |
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cardfreax Regular user Australia 181 Posts |
I actually started my magic by watching illusionist demo videos...no no no. Please don't even start talking about that web, I don't want to star another war.
Yeah, that's the first thing that got me started into magic. That's why I used to think a pass is a basic move, because that's one of the first moves I came across. Cheers |
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Harry Murphy Inner circle Maryland 5444 Posts |
I never really thought about magic or that I would be interested in becoming a magician when I was very young. I grew up in Central and South America (military family). There were several full evening stage magic shows performing in the cities I lived in. I was fortunate that my parents enjoyed live performances and took me. In fact, I had the privilege of seeing one of the Branburgs full stage show (Okito) when I was eight or nine. Still I had no interest in magic. I wanted to be a cowboy!
However, I was “drafted” to become a magician and “trained” to perform a short, platform magic show when I was 12 years old. I had no choice! I have been addicted to magic and performing since. When my family first moved back to the USA from Latin America I had to spend several summers with my uncle. That was because both of my parents had to work to make ends meet and they could not afford “child care” for four kids. Each of us kids had the “privilege” to spend the summer months with various relatives. I was lucky; I got to travel with my father’s brother. He was a carney. That is, he made his living traveling with various carnivals in the southwest and south of the USA. He ran a flat show (a gambling joint that was a total cheat! I loved the old man!). Two weeks into my first summer, the “Ten-in-One” operator lost a couple of acts. He was desperate to fill the spots. He and my uncle decided that I should become “The World's Youngest Professional Magician!” I was 12, almost 13, and very small, slight and looked very young for my age (I’m still small but not so slight!). Just based on my size they called me eight years old! Hey, I could have passed for seven! The Ten-in-One operator gave me an Egg-Bag, a Die-Box, and a spool of rope. He taught me a routine for each and then spent hours drilling me on presentation and performance of my spot/act. His focus was on “selling” the trick. Three days later I was on stage and earning money as a magician. I got critiqued after each set (performance) by all the performers. I got competent fast! I earned extra money selling postcard photos of myself holding the die box and with my life story on the back (a total fiction!). The act consisted of a fairly good Egg-Bag routine with a lemon production finish, a standard die box routine, and a cut and restored rope (Al Baker’s “Flash Restoration” that Danny Korem and later Steve Bidwell used). There were two other effects I was “trained” to do. The first was the Broom Suspension. I performed that illusion "out front" to help gather a crowd. I would use one of the female performers (the snake charmer!) or a girl from the “Kooch” show (which was owned and operated by the same guy that owned the Ten-in-One!). Later in that first summer and for the next two summers I was trusted to perform the “Blade-Box” as a “blow-off” to make a little extra money inside. Again, some poor girl was drafted to be my assistant. My boyish prank was to reach into the box and pull off her costume after I had sectioned her with the blades. You paid a whopping 25 cents to climb on stage and look into the box to see how it was done. We made good money with that old gag! The broom suspension and the blade box belonged to the Ten-and-One operator and apparently had been abandoned by a previous magician who tended to drink a bit and just wandered off one night and never came back. The egg-bag was a heavy, red, wool flannel affair. It may have been home made and I still have it. It has a few spots on it that the cleaner couldn’t get out but is as functional as the day I got it. It was not new when I got it. The die box was a rather primitive affair. It did not have a sound gimmick (noise maker) or the fake door panel to show the die present in a compartment often found in the better boxes. It was small, the die being 2.5 inches cube, and the box itself only 6.5 inches by 3.25 inches (front to back) by 3.5 inches deep (top to bottom). The shell was made from steel! It was painted red. I still have it (hey I took the measurements to post here!) and still use it from time to time. In the early 70’s I discovered that the Rubik’s cube was the same size as the die. So I bought two cubes, painted the original shell a glossy black, peeled the colored squares from one cube and stuck them on the shell. Viola! Rubik’s Cube box! I added new brass hinges to the box at that time. The old hinges were painted and looked horrible! I still have the original die. I added to my repertory over that first summer and over the next few years. However, The Egg Bag, The Die Box (with original die), and a length of magician’s rope was all I had for my first magic show, and it was a paid show at that! I ran into a couple of other great carney magicians that spent time with me and taught me a thing or two. The one I remember the most was Don Boles. But that is another story for another thread!
The artist formally known as Mumblepeas!
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Maynooth Regular user Australia 105 Posts |
I have always loved watching magic and in my youth I learned a few tricks. That went mostly by the wayside but I kept my couple of tricks for the right occasions. Then about 12 years ago I, like jlareau, was given the Klutz Book of Magic and the ember was rekindled.
One of my few regrets is that I spent three years in Uncle Sam's army and I wasted time that could have been used practicing on a captive audience. Cheers Maynooth
The race is long and in the end it is only with one's self.
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rcad Loyal user St-Eustache 211 Posts |
I started off with Marshal Brodien's kits: first the one with the rice bowls and then, there was one called "Money Magic" if my memory is correct. I also bought a few books written for children. At the age of 10, I couldn't read English and the choice of French magic books was desperately limited.
Then I met a guy who became my friend for the first years of high school and he was heavily into magic. He knew about a magic shop and that Christmas I got several tricks that I still have. Yet, I still couldn't read English and the internet was just a military experiment at the time. Because of the amount of money I would have required and the limited choice of tricks I could buy, my interest slowly went dormant. A couple of years ago, I saw an infommercial (whatever you may want to call it) about a DVD showing how to do some magic tricks I had never heard of. I almost bought it but changed my mind...I must pause here to explain that because most magic tricks and books come from the US and the UK, and since very few are translated, magic is not a big thing where I come from. It is slowly changing but it is still something you don't see very often. This year, I had a heart attack. I had to spend six months at home, resting. Of course, the first few months I could only watch some TV before falling asleep but as I got better, I finally did what I had been promising myself to do for years: search the internet to see if there was anything interesting about magic these days. What a SHOCK! I became a kid again! In the past months I have bought several books and tricks, performed for friends and family, and now I read about magic, practice magic and search for magic on the internet every day! Looking back at my traumatic experience, I think it was a warning as to the way I handled life. I am now much happier than I was, soon to be a father and a "reborn" magician. I tell my wife that now I can put some "magic" in her life...And she loves it! Richard P.S. I also like to make miniature models but I must say that the magic community is much friendlier and much more open to newcomers than the modeling hobby. So thank you all for such a warm welcome!
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious." Albert Einstein
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Alikzam Elite user 434 Posts |
When I was eight years old I got a magic set from my uncle for Christmas. I put it away in the closet where it sat for months until one day when I was bored and I started to learn the tricks in it. Whenever my mom and I went to go pick up my brother from preschool I would show the staff a different trick. That's when I put together a 20-mintue show for them.
I went to the library and took out books and videos. Then I found a magic shop that was in Kelowna at the time and bought some new tricks from there. Then I kept doing daycares and senior homes by donation after that. I kept on doing that and now I've done over 600 shows and I'm 18 now. Over half my life. |
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