Is there anyone who doesn’t love magic? You know you’re being tricked; but try as you might, you can’t figure out how. The only thing you can do is laugh and enjoy it.
Magicians have been delighting Oaklanders for more than a hundred years, when the Oakland Magic Circle was founded on July 25, 1925, by Lloyd E. Jones, Blue W. Williams and Alfred J. Battle, who performed under the stage name “Professor El-Tab.”
“That’s his name spelled backwards, dropping a T,” says the club’s oldest member, Castro Valley’s Byron Walker, 91, who learned the magic arts from Jones himself and now owns his huge collection of magic books and tricks.
“The basic principle of magic is misdirection,” he explains. “People will look where you look and where there’s motion, so if you want to make people look at your left hand, look at it yourself and keep it moving while your right hand does the dirty work.”
There are many magic clubs in the area, and on Feb. 3 the Oakland Magic Circle will host its annual Northern California Interclub Stage Dinner and Pasta Fest at the Scottish Rite Center on Oakland’s Lakeside Drive.
The clubs are sending the winners of their own contests to compete and be judged by a panel of pros. The top three will get cash prizes, bragging rights and, for the first-place winner, a trophy and a spot in the Magic Circle’s other big event of the year, the September Gala. Among the host club’s contestants will be its new president, Michael Nguyen.
“I’m known as a ‘manipulator,’ ” he says. “I perform silently, like a dance; and using choreography and the rhythm of the music, I perform sleight-of-hand using small objects like cards, rubber balls and coins. A lot of it is pulling things out of thin air: stacks of cards, make it vanish, make cards bigger or smaller. It’s a beautiful form of magic.
“The best part of manipulation magic is that it transcends language barriers. I can perform for anybody, including one of my high school teachers. He sliced his legs in class; and while we were at the hospital waiting for him to get a bed, I performed some magic tricks to distract him from his pain. Last Saturday, he finally got to see me perform on stage for the first time.”
Meriam Al-Sultan does another kind of magic: close-up.
“Small objects, like cards or coins, at a table surrounded by people. I can also tell you what you’re thinking of. If it’s an animal, I’ll show you an empty shoe box and a deflated balloon, then I’ll put the balloon in the box and close it. When we open it again, the balloon is inflated, and written on it is the word ‘animal.’ The audience don’t really want to know how it’s done. It’s magic!”
Her love of magic is obvious despite the blocks that were placed in her way when she was growing up in Saudi Arabia.
“Women had to cover their faces to drive a car. A man had to drive me to work, and I couldn’t perform on stage, period. Even the male magicians had to go through a lot of loops. They actually had to sit down with a religious cleric and explain how each trick is done before they were allowed to perform.”
She moved here 12 years ago and now has a daughter of her own who laughs excitedly when her mom reaches behind her ear and pulls out a piece of candy.
“Her real favorite is playing cards, though. She’s fascinated by them for some reason.”
Finally, San Leandro’s Parry Yan is a sleight-of-hand artist who keeps sharp by practicing his technique for 45 minutes each day.
“It’s still not where I want it to be, even though I’ve been doing this for 15 years. The magician’s job is to be foolproof. You want astonishment with every trick.”
His advice for newbies: Save your best stuff for first and last.
“Start off your routine with such strong tricks that if you mess up in the middle the audience will forgive you. Then I try to sneak in a couple of pieces I’m working on. I know it’s not going to be perfect, but you have to put it in front of a real audience to see it if falls flat. Besides, even if it fails you still have a good closer.”
For tickets online, visit tickettailor.com/events/oaklandmagiccircle/2027160.
Martin Snapp can be reached at catman442@comcast.net.
