How did you get interested with magic?

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Dynamike
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How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Dynamike » December 2nd, 2009, 9:47 am

How did you get interested with magic? I saw Marshal Brodien back in the 70s with his magic set for sell on tv. My mother purchased the magic set for me when I was 12. It was a hobby for me for the first 15 years. Next, it became my profession.

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Matthew Field
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Matthew Field » December 2nd, 2009, 11:21 am

I got tricked into it.

[Rim shot.]

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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Ian Kendall » December 2nd, 2009, 1:59 pm

Poz pulled an egg out of my ear on my fifth birthday.

Ian

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Tom Frame
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Tom Frame » December 2nd, 2009, 3:38 pm

In 1973, at the tender age of 13, my mother bought me a Marshall Brodien Magic Set. And the rest is histrionics.

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Francesca Moffet
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Francesca Moffet » December 3rd, 2009, 7:43 am

I say this guy called Derren Brown on TV doing a series called Mind Control and the rest is history.
Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, and they both take practice.

Mark.Lewis
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Mark.Lewis » December 3rd, 2009, 8:00 am

I stole a book out of the library.

DrDanny
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby DrDanny » December 3rd, 2009, 10:00 am

Me too! I found Hilliard's Greater Magic Library vol 2 in my university library and scarfed it up. I got the other 4 volumes as well. Later, I returned them, but that wasn't part of the initial plan.

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Efendi Kwok
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Efendi Kwok » December 3rd, 2009, 10:42 am

I don't remember who, but I remember the magician plucking a coin from nowhere, again and again and again and again.

My little mind when I was a kid was full of thoughts what I can buy if I can do that :)
Too much browsing, too much reading, too much learning, yet NOT MUCH practice ! *sigh*
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Paul Gordon
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Paul Gordon » December 3rd, 2009, 12:56 pm

In 1967, my uncle Reg made a coin vanish...and my eyes widened to saucer size!

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mai-ling
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby mai-ling » December 3rd, 2009, 7:31 pm

i was "born" on to the stage at Abbott's
Magic Get Together on the Saturday Evening
Show as the "encore"
you will remember my name
http://www.mai-ling.net
world's youngest illusionista


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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Duane Gillam » December 3rd, 2009, 11:06 pm

When I was 9 years old, Neil Foster married Jeannie, left the road and settled down in my home town of Lafayette Indiana to become the artistic director for the city parks department. That summer he organized an all star gala show at the outdoor theater featuring more that a dozen magician friends from all over the region. My father took me to that show, and by the time it concluded, I knew was a magician; I didn't know any tricks or how magic worked, but I knew right away that I was a magician. I am still working at trying to figure out how to make that a reality 55 years later.

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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby jhmagic1 » December 29th, 2009, 8:07 pm

Alot of people give the 'magic set story'. But, I think mine is in the family genes. My Grandad used to do the coin from ear trick, but he died before I was born.
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby 808 » January 17th, 2010, 11:35 am

Maybe from watching "The Magic Land of Alakazam" in the early '60s. Witnessing the guy with the Svengali deck at the Del Mar fair when I was seven or eight was instrumental, too.

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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby David Garrity » January 17th, 2010, 2:08 pm

Hello folks,

I am glad someone brought this topic up!

I got my interest sparked when I saw a magician live for the first time. It was on a family trip to Florida. We saw a variety dinner show called "Mardi Gras"??

It was in a shopping center in Orlando called "The Mercado." There was a magician in the show and seeing the magic live, just a few rows away, really had an impact on me!

Any chance anyone knows who this performer might have been? It was probably around 1983.

Thanks!
David
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DrDanny
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby DrDanny » January 17th, 2010, 3:10 pm

When I was a child in St. Louis, Ernie Heldman had a 15-minute TV show. I can't remember much about it except the opening title sequence - a series of color changes using blank cards with hand-lettered credits. This was mid-1950s, so my 7-year old's weltanschauung didn't include camera trickery, thus I was convinced it was real magic. Shortly thereafter my father took me to Gene Devoe's Magic Den, where I saw both a 5-ft tall guillotine(!) hanging from the rafters, and the color changing knives performed just inches from my face!!
That day I learned the paddle move, and there was no turning back.

Jim S.
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Jim S. » January 17th, 2010, 6:51 pm

Doug Henning.

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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Jonathan Townsend » January 17th, 2010, 6:52 pm

Jim S. wrote:Doug Henning.


What happened that Doug Henning affected you?
Mundus vult decipi -per Caleb Carr's story Killing Time

Chris Henderson
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Chris Henderson » January 18th, 2010, 9:59 pm

My Dad did magic and that got me started. So I was into it by the time a man named Doug Henning came to town back in the 70s. That sealed the deal.
"I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief"

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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Lee Almond » January 19th, 2010, 9:11 pm

Watching Marshall Brodien, I HAD to have that magic set. Also at the same time we had a magician perform at my school when I was in the fifth grade. The magician was the "Great Ben". I was hooked. I had the pleasure of meeting Ben thirty years later and blamed him for my addition to magic! We had some great times. RIP Ben!
Lee

Dennis Mahoney
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Dennis Mahoney » January 22nd, 2010, 7:35 am

1969 - 9 yrs. old - Vic Lawston Catalog - 'nuff said !

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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Jonathan Townsend » January 22nd, 2010, 8:08 am

Dennis Mahoney wrote:1969 - 9 yrs. old - Vic Lawston Catalog - 'nuff said !


What were you imagining as you paged through the catalog?

Dave Beutler
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Dave Beutler » January 22nd, 2010, 9:17 am

Dennis Mahoney wrote:1969 - 9 yrs. old - Vic Lawston Catalog - 'nuff said !
One from 1959 is available at eBay: http://bit.ly/4SxjsT

Terry
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Terry » January 23rd, 2010, 12:25 pm

My dad had done card tricks for us and we had magicians at school, but it wasn't until 1974/75 and seeing Marshall Brodien's TV Magic set commercials that I got interested.

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Doc
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Doc » January 23rd, 2010, 1:46 pm

First pro ever saw was Bill Neff spook/magic show in the '50s and Mark Wilson's Magic Land... on the tube.

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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Scott Burton » February 27th, 2010, 10:27 am

Grade 3, 8 years old. Teacher offered topics for a project. I picked "magic". Objective: write a 1-page report and perform a short magic show for the class. "Cool!" I thought. Never stopped and still think it's cool.

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Tabman
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby Tabman » February 27th, 2010, 11:08 pm

A neighbor kid showed me a red plastic ball and vase he got for christmas. I was excited by how the wonderment made me feel. He did it a few times and then showed me how it worked. I was even more intrigued then, with the trickery of it all. I told my Grandmother in DC about it and she took me over to Baker's Magic Shop in D.C. often, Garrison's Fun Shop too. My grandmother knew Harry Baker's wife, Dolly. It was around 1953 or so.

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John M. Dale
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Re: How did you get interested with magic?

Postby John M. Dale » February 28th, 2010, 11:50 pm

At age six, I was a fan of the "The Magic Land of Allakazam" & Jerry Lewis. While on a vacation around the same time, my folks took me to a bookstore & I stumbled across "The Jerry Lewis Book of Tricks & Magic" and began the dabbling I still do. The following year, I moved to a tiny farm town in Missouri, went on a 3rd grade field trip to the town library and came home with "The First Book of Magic." I never recovered.

JMD


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