Now You See It, Now You Don’t

I’ve always enjoyed watching magicians perform magic tricks. Detroit’s Milky the Clown used to entertain us youngsters, making things appear and disappear. It was mostly milk, and only after we said the magic words, “Twin Pines!” Twin Pines Dairy was his sponsor. He taught us to put the glass of milk to our lips, tip the glass up and tilt our heads back. Presto, the milk disappeared. And it tasted good!

I never learned how to do any real magic tricks myself. It seemed too complicated, but that was OK. I didn’t really want to know the secrets. It was much more fun trying to figure it out.

In 1992, I attended a David Copperfield show at Wharton Center in East Lansing. I sat on the aisle, and Copperfield came into the audience and stopped next to the woman directly in front of me. He was only a few feet away when he waved a handkerchief in front of her face and it turned into a long-stemmed red rose, complete with thorns. She was appropriately surprised and thrilled.

I don’t know where that rose came from, but I remember thinking that those thorns could have been a problem.

Some of the illusions he performed that night were just incredible. They were, indeed, all illusions. He didn’t really make things disappear, but it sure looked like it. Once he made the Statue of Liberty disappear on national television. Lady Liberty, poof, gone. Just like that!

He is still performing today in Las Vegas if you want to see for yourself.

Perhaps one of the greatest shows I ever saw was also in Vegas years ago. Sigfried and Roy at the Mirage Hotel, an appropriate venue for sure. The spectacular show had some eighty dancers and twelve acrobats – as well as numerous skilled animal handlers and technical staff – together with a large menagerie of big cats including white tigers, Bengal tigers, lions, snow leopards, spotted leopards, jaguars and black jaguars, a horse called Favorite and a very beautiful Thai elephant called Gildah.

During the show, they brought white tiger cubs in a basket into the audience for us to pet and fawn over. Big cats appeared and disappeared all during the show. But the most memorable part of the show, which I can still see if I close my eyes, was making the elephant disappear.

Gildah, the elephant, was standing only 20 feet or so from me. One of the performers raised the side of a mammoth box and instantly dropped it again. No elephant! There wasn’t even time for the elephant to drop through the floor. It was obviously still there…somewhere, but neither I nor the rest of the crowd could see where.

A few seconds later, in another part of the stage, they raised a very large drape of some sort and, presto, there was the elephant! How did they do that? I didn’t see any smoke or mirrors, but the illusion happened right before my eyes and to this day I’m baffled.

Gildah didn’t seem to mind at all. She performed throughout the rest of the show.

Over the years I have enjoyed many other magicians and illusionists, as I’m sure you have. I had lunch one day with Penn and Teller in the U.S. Senate dining room. We talked about almost everything except magic. I just couldn’t bring myself to ask them any of the secrets.

It was all harmless fun, but I must admit there are some things I wish we really could make disappear. Don’t you? Say the magic words!

Contact Rick at tct@pageone-inc.com