I always enjoy sharing a few stories. I thought I'd share the one I e-mailed Wayne. Hope you all enjoy it.
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Hey Wayne,
First off, I'd like to admit that I'm a fan of your work and contributions to magic. I figured I'd take your holiday giveaway as an opportunity to come about and introduce myself. My name's Romeo, and I'm 25 years old. I've honestly dabbled in magic all my life with a particular emphasis in close-up material. Although I have a wide array of books in my library and even performed a few professional gigs, I never really took magic seriously until I performed for a group of servicemen after a year-long deployment in Iraq. I'll share the details on that later.
Like most, I was introduced to magic at a young age. In elementary school, a teacher slammed a salt-shaker through a desktop and unintentionally created a monster. My curiosity and enthusiasm left me spending hours in the public library reading basic beginner books authored by the likes of Bill Severn, Bob Longe and Mark Wilson. My parents, impressed with my determination to perform simple tricks, encouraged my habit in reading and developing my creativity. They bought me Royal Road to Card Magic. For a young kid, it was too demanding of a read so I abandoned magic for a while, fully satisfied with the few card tricks and coin tricks I'd learned so far.
A few years later during a trip to New York, I saw a street magician performing for tips in a subway terminal. I never learned his name, but I distinctly remember him tranforming a deck of cards into a solid block. In attempt to search how it was done, I referred back to Royal Road and learned the basics of card handling in great detail. I visited my local magic shop again and was introduced to David Harkey's Ah-Ha. That small book was a definitive turning point in my experience to learning magic. I learned how to transform a deck of cards into a solid rock along with other offbeat plots in all realms of close-up. After studying Harkey, I was introduced to Paul Harris' work where I learned of his more streamlined Solid Deception along with other very personal effects like they Anything Deck and Counterfeit Spectator. The magic of these two gentlemen opened my eyes to an entirely new and different realm of creativity. I was also eager to learn and read as much as I could-- I added a variety of books to my library to include Hollingworth, Fisher, Ortiz, Kaminskas, Kaufman... and although my library expanded immensely, few of the books I owned compared to the wonder I felt in studying David Harkey and Paul Harris' material.
After using magic to make a humble living throughout college, I gave up on it again in search of something more stable and fulfilling. Despite having a college education in mass media, I held a variety of dead-end jobs ranging from working as a public-access television production assistant to a freelance newspaper photographer. I didn't acknowledge how important magic was in my life until I covered a story about a group of Army Soldiers coming home from Iraq after a long year abroad.
I was trying to take heartwarming pictures of fathers being reunited with their families, but the experience wasn't nearly as pleasant as I imagined it would be. In fact, the atmosphere actually felt tense and rigid. The majority of the kids present at the park appeared very shy and weary of their fathers returning home. It was kind of sad. I encountered a little boy on a swingset with his family in the distance watching him. His father was an infantryman who'd been on several deployments already, and it was evident that his commitment to serving the country took a toll on his personal family life. This kid didn't seem to have much of a relationship or attachment with his father, so he just kept to himself through the festivities of the party. I offered to do some magic just to lighten the mood.
I didn't have any usual props, so I ended up performing a lot of impromptu magic using pebbles and leaves and whatever I could get my hands on in the immediate area. I made an impression on the little boy-- the wonder that Paul Harris speaks so fondly of. The boy immediately went to his dad to bring him over to watch what I could do. The soldier sat on a bench with his wife and his son sat comfortably on his lap. I performed some basic ring manipulations ending with Harkey's Goldenfinger penetration, where a borrowed ring visually passes through my finger. The soldier seemed to enjoy it all a lot. I followed with some other simple tricks, including the amusing arm effect that gets everyone involved with their hands stuck in a crossed position in front of them. I decided to end the entire experience with the Balducci Levitation. The entire family was in the right position and the lighting of the location was perfect. Although the effect is admittedly nothing spectacular by today's standards, it wasn't improtant. What was important was the reaction it created. After landing back to the grass, all I heard behind me was a blend of laughter shared by father and son. The mother applauded. It was a small, intimate performance with very simple magic. Not many people saw it and not many magicians would probably give the magic the time of day. But for me-- personally--it really felt like I brought people closer together. It was cool.
I decided to do magic full-time again and volunteer my work at places that I felt needed it: hospitals, churches, shelters. I'm honestly really happy with what I'm doing, and I can only attribute my satisfaction to that one performance. I'm constantly searching for new ways to make magic mean something more and resemble the impact it had that day.
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So that's a little bit more about who I am and how I got involved in magic. I'm actually interested in knowing more about some of the members here. Anyone else care to share their background and stories?
RS.