DIY
Learning Magic Tricks in 1985
With the help of books, kits, family, and friends
Did you ever have unique obsessions as a kid, stuff that no other kids you knew particularly cared about but was deeply important to you? For a time, I really wanted to be a magician.
I knew this was something I’d have to work on myself. I’d read a kid-version of Harry Houdini’s biography from the school library, and I knew how many hours magicians spent working on their craft, learning and practicing old tricks and developing new ones.
My idol was Harry Blackstone, Jr. He used to have TV specials or appear as a guest star on different shows. He also had his name on magic kits that came with a selection of tricks and an instruction book, and I loved the one I received for Christmas from my grandparents.
Thinking back, I don’t remember seeing any female magicians on TV. There was Harry Blackstone, Doug Henning, and David Copperfield. They often had female assistants who got cut in half or stood by the magic equipment and pointed at things with a flourish like Vanna White or the ladies on The Price Is Right. I always pictured myself in the attire of the male magicians, something classic with a black bow tie and maybe some kind of cool accents on the back of my jacket like an embroidered white rabbit.
We had a novelty store at the mall called Joker’s Wild that sold magic tricks, and I remember my mom buying me small kits there that had the supplies and instructions for individual tricks. My favorite was the one with three balls where I could make one or more of the balls appear or disappear in someone’s palm. I practiced that trick a lot, not just my hand movements but also the “patter,” which is magician-speak for what you say during your act to distract the audience’s focus.
I had a magic wand, too, and a hat. Now that I think of it, I had two hats: one black and one white. Both were second-hand from my grandpa’s friend Jane who gave us a bunch of her old hats from the 1940s-1960s. These were better for using as props than for wearing, but it wasn’t easy to just find any hat you wanted before the days of eBay. The wand had removable ends, all the better for more tricks.
I was going to dress as a magician for Halloween in third grade. I had a black bow tie (vintage from my grandpa), black vest, and black cape! But then I got the chicken pox. Imagine my disappointment as I’d planned to go around doing mini performances all day at school and then in the evening around the neighborhood, too. I mean what kind of magician were you if you weren’t ready to do magic on demand?
In fact, I did little performances all the time, especially card tricks as it was easy to carry a deck of cards in my backpack. We’ve always played a lot of cards in my family, so I never had trouble finding decks. My grandma even brought me the official casino ones from Reno.
My friends gave me magic-related gifts for my birthday that year. I got a set of magic linking rings: I could tap the rings together and join them into a chain. I got a book of card tricks and a special magic deck. I got a mini-kit with five or six tricks in it and another magic trick book.
Eventually I had a cupboard in my room filled with magic tricks. I learned enough to do a show for my family on the backyard patio with my brother, on our makeshift stage which my mom created by hanging a blanket on the clothesline so that we had a curtain to make our grand entrances and exits.
My family clapped for our shows and volunteered as our assistants as they sat at the picnic table my dad and our neighbor Cooper built. I remember dad and Cooper putting in the patio, too, with the help of a hired cement truck.
We never talked about the idea of DIY — it was just what we all did. If you wanted to learn about or do something, you found a book or bought the supplies to help you, and if possible you asked someone who knew more about what to do.
A former girlfriend asked me once if my family ever just goes to the store and buys something for a project or if we always call around to each other first. We’ve always called or dropped by because one of us often has something on hand that can help with the project or idea somebody else has in mind.
And if we don’t have something to help? We offer to come along for the ride to Joker’s Wild or the hardware store or wherever one of us might need to go to be able to do what we want to do. The older I get, the more I understand that this is a kind of magic, too.
