Fun at the Magic Castle

A week ago tonight, Polly and I went to the Magic Castle to see Chris Korn. He was working behind the WC Fields Bar entertaining the crowds from 8-12PM. We arrived shortly after 9PM, the downstairs bar was packed and all seats taken. We watched most of his set from the side.

Near the end of his set, a couple of seats at the bar opened up, so we bellied up and took a couple of ringside seats.

I’ve known Chris Korn since he was a teenager. We met in 1986 at a National Magic Convention in Louisville, KY. It’s been a rare pleasure to watch him develop, mature and make his dreams come true.

His set consisted of his signature coin and card work including his interpretation of John Kennedy’s “Translocation” as well as some other nifty routines, like a transposition effect where a selected card changes places with a bar napkin. The folded up bar napkin ends up in the deck while the spectators card ends up in the stack of bar napkins off to his side.

The funniest thing he did, was close his show with an outrageous card trick. A sort of card sword routine where after having a card selected, returned and lost in the deck, the cards were sprung into the air and with lightning speed he thrusts his leg with a shoeless and sockless foot into the air to catch the card. The card trapped between his wiggling toes. Then as an after thought, he asked if that was her card. She said yes. Then chris asked if she was sure and told her to take a good look at it. To make this possible, he rips off his leg (the card still clutched between his toes) and tosses it over the bar. Then he fell over. Very funny routine.

While downstairs we popped into the library to visit Billy Goodwin. Also ran into Jon Armstrong who was working the Parlor. I’d only met Jon once before and wanted to see his set. So we went upstairs and enjoyed his set.

A couple days later I found myself back at the Castle watching the taping for a pilot called Tricksters. Aaron Fisher was the MC and on the bill was Chip Lowell, Dana Daniels and Ed Alonzo. It was interesting to watch how they do a 3 camera shoot in a room as small as the Palace of Mystery.

Tonight I’ll take in Max Maven’s one man show "Thinking in Person. An Evening of Knowing and Not Knowing". He’s performing every Friday night at the Steve Allen Theater for the next 2 months. Should be fun.