And Now, for His Next Trick, Youthful Magician Hopes to Make Fame Appear

It wasn’t the same kind of magic, but Jason Alexander makes his original last name disappear like a silver dollar in his palm.

“I didn’t think Sytnyk would fit my image,” said Alexander, 19, of Newport Beach, about the last name he was born with. He hopes that Alexander, his stage name, will belong to a big, big star. “I’d like to take it to the top,” he said.

Alexander said he is trying to develop a style for himself and that the stage name fits his idea of his image better than his real name would. It’s also easier to spell and pronounce.

“I’d like to come off like a young James Bond figure. I think the world needs a classy young gentleman illusionist who sometimes performs in a tuxedo,” said Alexander, whose interest in prestidigitation goes back to the seventh grade and who as a teen-ager won two first place awards from the Pacific Coast Assn. of Magicians for his stage performances. “Ever since I got in magic, I decided it was going to be my life,” he said.

Alexander, a Corona del Mar High School graduate who is a marketing major at USC, is paying his dues these days as a novice magician. He works at children’s parties, trade shows, restaurants and local nightspots.

“Right now I’m working as much as I can,” he said, “and I’m looking to the future. I’m trying to improve my skills as much as I can in as short a time as I can.”

Alexander has appeared at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles, where he is a member of the nightclub’s junior magicians program. He credits Castle magicians for offering him some critical as well as some encouraging words.

But his studying at USC shows he has a realistic side. “I don’t ever hope to have to use it,” he said of what he is learning in the marketing program, “but it’s a hedge. Who knows what might happen? I might do both.”

With that in mind, it’s probably worth noting that he has a nifty floating dollar bill stunt.

He believes that one of his assests, besides the ability to perform slick close-up magic tricks with fire, is his age.

“Right now I have my youth and I think people like that, but I know it won’t be here forever,” Alexander said. “Now the excitement for me is to be on the stage and hear the applause. For me there is nothing better than the applause. It’s just heaven to me.”

Between his studies and his continual practicing of magic tricks, including some involving fire, Alexander auditions for roles in commercials and television.

“I’ve studied drama, and that helps when you’re on a stage,” he said.

Alexander also knows there is a lot more to magic than what he has uncovered so far. “There are a lot of people who do magic better than I, and I listen to them, talk to them and learn from them,” he said. “When a person is 19, he finds out how little he really knows.”

For the last six years, Jo Lindberg has been hugging people for a living with her Hug Grams business.

Now the Orange resident, who calls herself Cuddles the Huggy Bear, the Ambassador of Hugs, has formed the Hugs for Health Foundation, a nonprofit organization that concentrates on visits to facilities such as convalescent hospitals, senior citizen centers and retirement homes.

“The idea is to let people in those facilities know that someone cares for them,” said Lindberg, who dresses as a bear when she makes her rounds. “I give 17 different types of hugs,” for different kinds of people with different kinds of needs, she says.

The visits are called Operation Hug Day. During the a one-hour program, which costs $25, “I manage to give everyone a hug during the program and that includes residents, staff and guests at the facility I visit,” she said.

Her phone number is (714) 832-HUGS.

In 1987, Lance Gilbertson began an intense study of Holospira, a genus of snails, as part of his work as a biology professor at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

Holospira are about half an inch long and have both male and female reproductive systems. During one of his outings in some rugged high desert terrain two years ago, he discovered two new species.

But the Newport Beach educator is humble about the find.

“It adds slightly to the body of knowledge we have on the world’s mollusks,” said Gilbertson, who told of his discovery earlier this year at an international conference of malacologists--scientists who study mollusks--in Los Angeles.

“Lance is being overly modest. This really is a big deal,” said OCC marine science professor Tom Garrison.