Inevitably a guest will exclaim, “My kid would love this!”

When I ask how old their child is, the answer is usually six or seven. 

Never mind that I’m appearing at a corporate event or social function in a sharp suit and engaging with challenging close-up magic or reading minds from the stage. It still happens.

Don’t mistake this for complaining. I’ve been passionate about magic since I was 10 years old and I’m grateful to have it as my profession for over 25 years.

I’m just wonder why.

My kids live in a world of wonder and joy. Everything they experience is magical. But eventually society will tell them it’s time to put childlike things away and grow up. Sadly, magic will be added to that box and buried in the backyard. 

“So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and hold on to that childlike sense of wonder about what makes the universe exist.”

— Stephen Hawking

We grown-ups need magic now more than ever. That’s why we go to the theater, visit the museum, read a novel, or listen to music. These things pull us out of our daily grind. That’s the power of magic; it puts us face-to-face with a mystery. 

If only for a few moments and even if it’s a simple, well-executed card trick.

CONJURING WONDER celebrates National Magic Week with a special performance on October 26th

OAKLAND, California — San Francisco Magician Dennis Kyriakos currently offers the only close-up magic show in the Bay Area. Fans are lining up to experience CONJURING WONDER – Magic: Up-Close & Personal each month at the Claremont Club & Spa in Berkeley.

Since May, Kyriakos has been entertaining sold-out audiences at the Claremont with his high-caliber magic and mind reading show. His next performance is scheduled for Wednesday, October 26th at 7:00 p.m. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit conjuring.live or watch the highlight video:

“To celebrate Halloween, our October 26th performance will feature an act rarely seen by modern audiences,” Kyriakos explained.

“More importantly October 25 - 31 is National Magic Week, which celebrates the charitable contributions made by the Society of American Magicians throughout the years. In that spirit, all proceeds of this month’s performance will go to the Jazy and Angel Scholarship Fund.”

Jazy and Angel Sotelo Garcia, two Berkeley HS students and brothers were shot and killed at a house party in Oakland on October 1st.

Asked why he decided to donate ticket sales, Kyriakos said, “I’d like those affected by this tragedy and our community to know that even though there may be darkness in the world, you will also find joy and wonder and light in equal measure.”

For the past 25 years, Kyriakos has provided entertainment at corporate meetings, incentive weekends, trade shows, fundraising gala, and high-end private events across the country and around the world.

He has been a featured performer and host of Monday Night Magic – New York City’s longest-running magic show – and Magical Nights at Feinstein’s at the Loews Regency – The Nightclub of New York. He has been a repeated guest lecturer at NYU's Psychology Department and at Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California, talking about "Visual Perception in Magic" and "Lying and Deception." He has also been featured on the popular website The Art of Manliness.

Kyriakos is available for interviews and demonstrations for reporters at television stations, radio, and newspapers.

For more information, visit conjuringwonder.com. He can also be followed on Instagram and Twitter at @conjuringwonder.

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Tickets for this SPECIAL EDITION of CONJURING WONDER are on sale now!

The world of Magic is filled with larger than life personalities, impossible miracles, and legendary stories that border on myth.

This recent article in the New York Times tries to capture all that with the story of one man and his Holy Grail.

David Berglas is famous in our little world for many things but nothing comes close to the legend that’s been created around a trick known as Any Card at Any Number. To be more specific, The Berglas Effect.

It goes like this. You’re asked to name a playing card in a standard deck of cards. Another person is asked for a number from 1 to 52. You’re then asked to pick up a deck of cards sitting on the table — untouched by the performer — and count down to the number named. The card you asked for is found exactly at the number named. Fucking miracle.

Most magic tricks go from Point A to Point B to Point C and eventually reach an astonishing climax. It happens the same way every time, so essentially the performer needs to follow the steps.

But not The Berglas Effect. It’s almost impossible to teach or explain because, depending on the method used, it’s never the same twice. It requires spontaneity, an open mind, and a set made of brass.

It’s rarely seen because it’s hard to do but I’m not necessarily speaking about technique. There are many versions of the trick. Have you noticed new video banners on the redesigned website? The final moments of those two card tricks you see there is a version of ACANN. There’s also a different version in my virtual show.

The challenge is creating the space so the power of the effect can exist.

It would be so easy to post the entire video of those performances but that would be a disservice. You’d miss out on that feeling in the center of your body when the bottom falls out. Who am I to deprive you of that?

No. Better if you ask about it when next we meet.

One of the first and most memorable gigs I had came soon after we moved to the west coast in 2012.

The venue was a “maker space” in the Mission District of San Francisco. It was my first time in that part of town and had no idea what to expect. As I parked the car and walked around the corner to find the graffiti filled front door, I thought “well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

The place was filled with tables, shelves, and workspaces of electronic gear. It looked like the laboratory of a mad scientist except it felt like there was some method to it all.

At the time, I was temping to support my family and rebuild things here in The New Frontier, using skills I developed while studying and working as an actor in New York City. But I was also taking any magic gig I could get my hands on.

This particular evening was a short performance before dessert for a group of about 20 gathered to celebrate a friend who was changing jobs. For years the guest-of-honor had worked as an editor for gay porn films and now he was starting a new gig at a company that made straight porn.

And man, did they roast him. They even had a custom cake made that looked like…er, on second thought.

As it turned out, it was a fun group to entertain and we had a blast. Yeah, I’ve been wrong about these things before.

Anyway, as I stood in the back of the house waiting for an introduction, my eyes drifted around the room taking in the audience, the set up of the performance area, the decor, etc. Eventually I noticed something scrawled on the wall.

If you weren’t standing right next to it you would have missed it. I snapped a picture and it was my cell phone wallpaper for over a year.

Recently, I was having a conversation with a friend. He’s a semi-pro with a solid “day job” who does magic on the side and regularly produces his own one-man show, which has quite a following.

We were on the phone some time in May talking about what we were going to work on while shut down and sheltered-in-place. He had a plan based on the fact that, as things began to open up, people would be interested in hosting smaller, more intimate events and he asked what I thought about his idea.

“Does doing that or anything else you’ve done in magic make you happy?” I asked.

I don’t think it’s about “the marketing plan” at all. That’s a necessary evil to get your work seen. The question that needs to be answered is “does it bring you joy?”

Everything else lines up around that.

Actual size. Almost.

At times, the “problems” in my business or personal life seem so immense. There would be no way to surmount them or even know what steps to take first and move forward.

It’s just me, you see.

I still building the habit of consistently using a to do list to stay organized, balance family/home life and business, and still find ways to stay creative in magic and express oneself. I struggle with it. Something about the chaos of (for lack of a better word) “the artist’s” mind?

It seems logical that when you’re passionate about something you should devour everything you can about it. That might mean reading a lot of magic books, periodicals, and visiting websites. Keeping abreast of the latest new magic product and following people on social media.

But there’s something to be said of leaving the space and looking beyond your tiny world.

Back in NYC, one of my senpai (seniors) once told me that I’d never get good at aikido because I had too many other interests. “You’re into magic, you’re working as an actor, and practicing aikido? You’ll never progress quickly. You have to focus.”

At that precise moment, Sensei joined the conversation and commented, “too much aikido makes a dull person.”

The dojo is where you might “train” yourself but it’s outside of that space where you learn. It’s in the real world where we test the principles and apply them to life. You do your best to see how it all works then come back to the lab, do more research, make course corrections, adjust, and get better at what you do. Then you go and test again.

I also found it laughable that senpai didn’t even consider that any of the other arts or self-imposed courses of study I was interested in didn’t inform and expand on any of the others.

How many artists — painters, musicians, actors, writers, film makers, <fill-in-the-blank> — are solely practicing their art and have nothing else, I wonder?

Right now the competition are all doing the same thing and striving to be first.

What if you were to be the only?

There’s a ton on information out there right now about what you “should be doing” during this time.

Take care of your self. Work on that project. Don’t waste a good pandemic. Did you know there are dozens of new Facebook groups in the magic community where everyone has the answer and we already experts on virtual magic?

Easy. Easy.

Opening up and listening, I still hear the same message: slow down.

Yes, being forced to isolated — with my wife and kids, who are all safe and well — can be useful if done right. But check in with yourself and absorb it all for a moment. It’s exhausting, isn’t it?

We each have our own set of unique circumstances and to try and live up to any expectations right now, whether your own or society’s, is not only impossible but also really stupid.

One thing that had to change were my 2020 goals. I’ve given up on everything I wanted to accomplish by the end of the year. There are now only daily and weekly goals.

Yesterday, I called Sensei and he relayed his impressions. He does that.

The message is clear and unwavering. Work on “inner/finer.” Take care of yourself and everything around your falls into place. Change yourself and the situation changes. It’s universal.

There’s nothing new here. That message appears in my notes countless time since I met him in 1996. It’s a basic.

You can’t control or change anything out there. Even in the martial arts, you can’t really control an attacker. You can only control and change yourself. Do that and things around you naturally line up and fall into place.

There is only one project I’ve formally taken on.

I always resisted making content for public consumption. So, I made a decision to put out one piece of magic every week to about 200 people on my mailing list. After the first couple of episodes, it dwindled down to every two weeks and now it’s about every 2-3 weeks.

There was a moment when I got upset about backsliding on the timing. I’d look at what my peers were doing and came down hard on myself for being lazy and unprofessional.

Easy. Easy.

They have nothing to do with you. Allow yourself to change and the world around you changes.

David Ben - Photo credit Paul Alexander

David Ben is the Artistic Director of Magicana, an arts organization dedication to the exploration and advancement of magic as a performing art.

And he’s always up to interesting things…

Magicians and Fake News

Here’s an interesting opinion about Magicians and Fake News contributed to The Global and Mail.

“This is more challenging in the digital age, when people prefer answers immediately – even if they are based on false memories and narratives – rather than embark on a journey to the realization that perhaps there are some things better left unexplained.”

— David Ben, Artistic Director, Magicana

Illusions: The Art of Magic

Adolph Friedländer, Comedians de Mephisto Co. Allied with Le Roy-Talma-Bosco, 1905.

David has also guest curated Illusions: The Art of Magic, which runs from February 22nd - May 18, 2020 at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The exhibition includes some amazing experiences, including live talks, performances, films, and other events.

Magicana

David’s organization, Magicana is a fantastic resource to explore — whether you’re magician or not.

Enjoy.

I grew up watching reruns of The Rockford Files but never realized how much of an impression Garner made on me until I read his obit. That's the way it goes sometimes.

“Mr. Garner disdained the pretentiousness of the acting profession. “I’m a Methodist but not as an actor,” he wrote in “The Garner Files.” “I’m from the Spencer Tracy school: Be on time, know your words, hit your marks, and tell the truth. I don’t have any theories about acting, and I don’t think about how to do it, except that an actor shouldn’t take himself too seriously, and shouldn’t try to make acting something it isn’t. Acting is just common sense. It isn’t hard if you put yourself aside and just do what the writer wrote.”

— James Garner

Precisely the way I was taught to approach the profession and the craft of acting. And it certainly informs me a magician, as well.