Magic’s Rebirth

Without so much as an abracadabra! John George makes playing cards fly into the air and coins appear in other people’s hands. Think of a card, he pulls it out of his pocket. Watch as two intertwined rubber bands seem to melt through one another.

Doing his Saturday evening magic act at the Laguna Beach Brewing Co., George sees the looks of amazement; he grins. “Wanna see it again?” he asks.

They don’t know it, but in George, the dinner audience is seeing one of the best table-to-table, “close-up magic” acts in the world, as judged by an international magicians group earlier this month.

Even more than that, the 27-year-old magician from Yorba Linda is on the leading edge of a renaissance in classic magic taking place in Orange County, with one of the fastest growing population of magicians in the world as classic magic enjoys a resurgence nationwide.

Yes, ladies and gents, here, on the outskirts of Tinseltown, nothing up our sleeve, and, presto! a comeback by the old-time, sleight-of-hand magic act.

So George does the classic rubber band trick again. The people sitting around the table peer at his hands, his pockets--most of all his sleeves. It looks like magic as the two enmeshed rubber bands slip through each other.

“Here, I’ll do it backwards,” George says. They squint and gawk. He does it again, letting one of them hold one of the rubber bands. They stare intently. Each time, of course, they see nothing, as George knows they will.

“That was awesome,” says a beefy guy named Clyde.

Whether it’s parlor magic with small-scale illusions and rabbits-out-of-hats or close-up tricks with coins and cards, adherents say it’s an art form worth preserving.

“It’s poetry,” says Tom Clifford, founding president of the Orange County International Brotherhood of Magicians chapter, of traditional magic. “It’s beauty. It’s a little mystery. People want that feeling.”

The Orange County chapter, or “ring” as the clubs are known, is one of 330 such rings around the world.

“I like to work with my hands, and I like to make people say, ‘No way! No way!’ ” George says. “I like it when I get that stunned, mouth-open, silent reaction.”

Earlier this month, George won the national title for close-up magic from the magicians’ brotherhood. In the same competition, Matthew Jarman, a 15-year-old from Mission Viejo, won the national junior division title.

Both are members of the Orange County chapter, Ring 313 of the brotherhood.

Ring 313 is only 5 years old, but at 125 members, it already has grown into one of the largest in the world, behind Hollywood, New York and the lone ring in England.

“There’s probably 20,000 magicians in the world, and it’s growing by leaps and bounds,” says Bob Weiss, a professional magician and teacher in Marina del Rey and president of the brotherhood’s Ring 21 in Hollywood. “There’s no doubt magic is expanding. There’s such an interest now.”

Weiss says his club has grown 20% this year, to about 150 members, and said newsletters and trade magazines are growing in circulation as hobbyists swell the ranks of magic clubs.

The Orange County chapter includes hobbyists, amateurs and professionals, and is part of a sort of magic network in the county that includes youth classes through the Saddleback Valley YMCA and community college classes at Irvine Valley College and Saddleback College taught by well-known magic man John Fedko.

Participants don’t have to be close-up magicians to join; all are welcome, including illusionists patterned after the popular David Copperfield and others. Club members span the demographic scale from lawyers to laborers.

“Magic has a tremendous amount of power for youngsters--they love to see it,” says amateur magician and magic coach Kenneth Clark, a Mission Viejo stockbroker and a Paine Webber Inc. vice president who helped start the junior division of Ring 313 three years ago. “It keeps getting bigger and bigger.”

International title-holder Jarman performs at restaurants, parties, trade shows and conventions. At the age of 15, he is considered one of the best in Orange County and is one of the successes of the club’s junior division.

One recent weekday, Jarman stood in front of 35 fidgety grade schoolers at the Bathgate program center of the Saddle Valley YMCA, showing his magic. He paced through a series of tricks with drinking straws, cards, coins and a rope to the oohs and ahs of the young day-care center audience.

“You have to sit still and watch real closely,” Jarman warns.

They do. He pulls out a thick white rope, snips it in half, folds it into his hand, then pulls it back out--whole.

“Hmm, pretty good,” observes coach Clark from the sidelines.

He ties the ropes in knots, then plucks the knots off the rope and tosses them into the crowd.

At this show, Jarman shares the stage with 14-year-old Kelsey Clark, Kenneth Clark’s daughter, and Alex Jarman, Matthew’s 11-year-old brother. All have been doing magic for more than a year.

Kenneth Clark says youngsters not only learn the magic, but gain self-esteem and public-speaking ability. Someone who is able to pull a rabbit out of a box is not likely to shy away from presenting a speech in school or business later in life, he says.

“It’s the greatest self-esteem builder I’ve ever seen,” Clark says. “The kids blossom because people love what they do, and they’re good at it.”

Matthew Jarman’s interest in magic was ignited at his bar mitzvah. A straight-A student who also plays tennis and enjoys swing-dancing, Matthew Jarman is considered a shooting star in Ring 313. He plans to major in business administration in college.

“He is so advanced,” chapter leader Clifford says. “He’s been learning at an exponential rate, far beyond almost anyone else.”

Like Matthew Jarman, magician George eschews the vaudevillian corn, leaving that to the audience.

“You always here people say, ‘Pick a card, any card,’ or ‘Do that trick with your sleeves rolled up,’ ” George says.

You don’t hear magician lingo, words like “presto” or even “abracadabra.” George wears a suit to perform, but no top hat or white gloves. As younger performers seep into the age-old trade, they are modernizing the shtick and adding humor and sarcasm to the act.

George spreads a deck of cards between his hands in a 3-foot fan, then smoothly shuffles them. “Know what I call that?” he says. “Showing off.”

For George, magic is his living. He graduated at the top of his class in fine art from Cal State Fullerton in 1995, and began building sets for other magicians. Soon, he realized he would rather perform, and seamlessly made the transition.

A close friend who also is a magician, Douglas Brewer of San Diego, sat out the magicians’ contest so he could serve as George’s coach. A week later, George sat out a competition by another group, the Society of American Magicians, so he could coach Brewer, who won that national title.

“We didn’t want to compete against one another,” says Brewer.

In some ways, these are precarious times for magicians. A television series is exposing their secrets and besmirching their noble craft, in part, magicians believe, because magic is enjoying a resurgence in popularity.

“Astonishment is not an emotion you feel very often,” Brewer says. “How often, when you think about it, do you experience true astonishment? That’s why we do it.”

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For information about Ring 313, the Orange County chapter of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, about classes at Saddleback College, Irvine Valley College or the YMCA, or for other magic questions, call [949] 448-9533. Internet resources: https://www.ring313.org for the Orange County chapter or https://www.magician.org for the International Brotherhood of Magicians.