Illusion of Grandeur

Johnny Ace Palmer and Loren Christopher Michaels have a few things in common.

Both are magicians, deemed among the best in the world by their peers, and both specialize in close-up magic, working literally right before your very eyes. Both began studying their craft as preschoolers, learning to read in order to devour magic books. Both live in Orange County, within a few miles of each other.

And both were among the half-dozen close-up magicians who performed during the opening weeks of Caesars Magical Empire, including last week’s official opening of the $35-million magic venue at Caesars Palace.

According to Palmer, 35, landing the Caesars engagement wasn’t like pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

“They’ve only invited award-winning magicians, and in magic to become an award-winner is difficult; it’s a big thing,” said Palmer, who lives in Huntington Beach.

Palmer returns to the Irvine Marriott’s Champions Sports Bar on Wednesday, one of several weekly engagements he has in Southern California.

Michaels, who in his act pulls a hat out of a rabbit, doesn’t take the Caesars engagement lightly either. He plays there through Aug. 18.

“To me the fact that somebody asked could [I] please come here and be part of this opening, that’s historical,” he said over the din of the casino near the Magical Empire entrance. “This place will be here for a long, long time, and I got the opportunity to be the first one to do the first show for the first audience,” Michaels said. “I’m jazzed.”

Michaels, 40, may seem gentle and gracious, but the Costa Mesa resident once worked as a bounty hunter and is billed as “sleightly dangerous.”

He holds the Guinness world record for the quickest escape from a straitjacket--3.4 seconds--and once performed Houdini’s straitjacket escape suspended upside down from a burning rope 150 feet in the air. He chain-smokes in conversation and in his act kept right on smoking--his thumbs, one of his many tricks with fire.

Palmer has two of the fastest hands in the business. Among his tricks in the Empire’s Secret Pagoda, where observers are mere feet away, Palmer produced a pair of doves out of thin air.

In 1988, he became the first close-up magician to win the International Federation of Magic Societies’ Grand Prix award. He’s twice been voted best close-up magician at Hollywood’s Magic Castle, thousands of whose members are magicians themselves.

According to Palmer, his activities at the Irvine bar, where he’s been performing for six years, are “totally” different from the show he puts on at Caesars and at fund-raising functions for organizations including South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa.

“The act is the act,” he said, whereas the Irvine gig is “walk-around magic--coins, cards, group to group, person to person, table to table. . . .

“In the act I’m still the focus. In the walk-around stuff, the people are part of the focus. It’s a group show; we’re all doing it.” He does the walk-around stuff Wednesdays from 5 to 7 p.m.

Michaels holds the record as the most-booked act in one year at the Magic Castle, where he also performs a high-impact stage illusion show; he’ll return there when his Caesars’ run ends.

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Though Castle founder Milt Larsen is a consultant and inspiration for the Las Vegas enterprise, the two venues are quite different.

“The Magic Castle is an exclusive private club for magicians and their guests; it doesn’t advertise at all,” Michaels noted. “You perform quite a bit for your peers as opposed to the general public. [Caesars] draws a more international audience. It’s like a tremendous attraction, a ride, but not in a cheap way. . . . You’re taken into this entirely different world.

“The Castle is like visiting an old mansion, and you do get the feeling of being taken back in time to that extent. Here [at Caesars] you’re taken back to the Egyptian pharaohs, to Roman times, to a Chinese pagoda, to the Arabian nights. . . .”

While Hollywood and Las Vegas now boast two of the country’s hottest magic venues, Michaels and Palmer cite a single reason for living in Orange County: It’s a great place to raise a family. Indeed, Palmer counts himself among the one-third of Orange County households that, in a recently released federal housing survey, rate their neighborhoods a perfect “10.”

“I can live anywhere and make a fine living doing magic,” said Palmer, who was born in Ohio. “But I believe Orange County is the most beautiful place on earth. Huntington Beach is just gorgeous. My wife is third generation here.

“I believe in my heart that in order to be very successful in anything, you have to have balance in your life, and I work very hard to spread out my interests. I don’t become obsessive about magic, and I could--I could do magic 24 hours a day.” Instead, Palmer spends time with his wife, Susan, and his 2-year-old daughter, Whitney.

Michaels was born in Upland and has a 9-year-old daughter, Ashley. He used to tour more than half the year--touring activities still include regular jaunts to Japan--but with his daughter in mind, he’s trying to keep a lid on engagements away from home. Teaching takes up some of the slack: He has a studio next to his home where he sees half a dozen students (no beginners) from age 14 to 40.

Family was how both got started.

“My dad used to make a penny disappear,” Michaels recalled. “He wasn’t a magician--basically he just had me look away and put the penny under his leg. What he did, though, was to spark [my interest]. When I asked him how it was done, he said, ‘I can’t tell you; that’s a secret--but you can read about it.’ So I learned to read before I went to school. He was a big advocate of education, thank God.”

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When Palmer was a year old, his grandfather would hide a marble in his ear. “He’d say, ‘Where did it go?’ That got me curious,” Palmer said. “I learned to read so I could read magic books. I was able to do card tricks at 4. I always sought out magic and magicians everywhere I went. I was put on this earth to do magic.”

Magic may be all about deception, and Michaels may be jazzed about the Caesars opening, but he doesn’t deceive himself.

“For the longest time we were right there with the geek-show/sideshow people,” he said. “While magicians constantly fight the stigma of the headwaiter who pulls a rabbit out of a hat, that’s not what we are any more. I wouldn’t even say magic is in vogue any more--it’s become a staple. Now [it’s seen] as an art form.

“But let’s put this into perspective,” Michaels said. “I’m not painting ‘The Mona Lisa.’ I’m not [anthropologist L.S.B.] Leakey. I’m not going to invent a new heart valve. . . . This is a variety act. But to me it’s the highest form of expression I can do, a combination of personality, music and magic. It’s what I’ve chosen to paint my picture with.

“Still, people don’t have to take me so seriously, like I am changing the world. I’m changing their world only for the moment they get to sit there.”

* Johnny Ace Palmer appears every Wednesday at Champions Sports Bar at the Irvine Marriott, 18000 Von Karman Ave. 5 to 7 p.m. Free. (714) 724-3616.