Magic?!? Or, Hogwash!?!

I watched this amazing show on television last night. Highly intriguing, it was called "The Secrets of the Street Magicians". How many times have you watched a magicain perform and wished that you knew how he did what he did!?! I know I have! Innumerable times, at last count!!! ;-) Boy, was I delighted when I chanced upon this show while boredly surfing through the million or so channels!

I must admit that I was more than a little surprised at learning that almost every magic trick has a pretty solid and logical reasoning behind it! Although, at first glance, there seem to be no wires, magnets, or other paraphernalia at work (play?), believe me, there almost always is some scientific knick knack aiding the magician perform his magic! It's funny, I can't even write "magic" without italicizing it any more! Quite a sceptic I seem to have become!

The show blew the cover off so many commonly performed tricks that the commercials irritated me no end!!! I couldn't wait to see the street magician bring another trick to light! For instance, he depicted how he could make a matchstick move and stand almost upright, with the use of a hidden magnet, concealed safely in his arm! Or, the way he made a card rise up, right out of the pack he was holding in his hand, again, with the help of a tiny magnet!!! It is incredible how the number of things that seem so fabulously miraculous at first sight, can be so easily explained with a dollop of science!!! Apparently, these magicians also take the help of many natural phenomena. The magician in the show made many onlookers, including the television audience, believe that he could tear the head off a poor dove's neck, and then fix it back! So much so that there wasn't a trace of the bird's head ever having been ripped off!!! The explanation given for the wondrous illusion was alarmingly simple and straightforward! Some of you may know that some species of birds can comfortably duck their heads under their wings, without so much as feeling even the slightest tinge of pain. The magician just aided the bird do something that came quite naturally to it; hide its head under its wing!!! He then used a plastic lookalike head to fool the audience by making them think that he'd actually ripped the head off the bird's neck!!! Add to that, some of the traditional mumbo jumbo that so characterizes, and is so a part of every magic show; and voilà, you have the severed head of a bird in your hands! To fix the head back onto the neck, he only had to release his grip so that the dove could bring his head out from under his wing again!!! Charming, isn't it?!? Or, take for instance, the trick of getting a housefly to fall asleep by placing it in a cold freezer, and then reincarnating it by placing it in the palm of your hand and giving it some warmth in the bargain!!! ;-) The fly awakens from a deep slumber, only to find that it is apparently a rebirth for him/her!!!

However, the icing on the cake was surely the answer to the levitation trick, a trick that has baffled and befuddled many, for way too long! The magician only creates an illusion that he is rising above the ground. All he does is stand with his back to the crowd of onlookers, place his right heel a trifle in front of his left, lift only his right foot and left heel off the ground, leaving the front part of his left foot firmly planted on steady land! This gives the impression that the person is actually rising upward! With the aid of the natural darkness of the night and some special lighting, the magician creates a more dramatic impact! Of course, it is but natural that a live audience is much more harder to fool, than a television audience. So what does our dear magician and his magical troupe do to create a greater effect on the television audience?!? Well, after the crowd disperses, a member of the crew, wearing a jacket/shirt/coat similar to the onlooker who had been standing at the edge of the crowd, poses as that very onlooker, while, with the help of those oft-suspected wires (yes, wires!!!), the magician is lifted off the ground, not one or two inches, but, a solid twelve!!!

The last words of the narrator of the show rang in my ears for long after I'd put out the lights and gone under the covers. He said, and I quote from memory, "..the next time you think someone is actually doing magic, think again! But, if you're really convinced that it is indeed magic, give us a call, we'd like to meet him too!!!"

Here's where you can watch some videos of the show on the net: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSbWbO0PFk4

Er, care for a magic show anyone?!?