Tuesday, July 08, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Magic World

Magicians at convention share secrets, joy of entertaining, being entertained

Local magician Dirk Losander levitates a handkerchief Monday at the Society for American Magicians' convention at the Riviera Convention Center. Photo by John Gurzinski. Magician George Kovari, aka The Great Kovari, demonstrates a card trick Monday. Photo by John Gurzinski.

Magic lets people briefly live the dream that says a 13-year-old boy can enroll in a school for wizards, fly a car across a field or hold a conversation with an owl, said George Schindler, past president of the Society of American Magicians.

"Magic shows them that this impossible thing can happen -- maybe, just maybe," said Schindler, one of more than 1,200 magicians from around the world in town this week for the group's annual convention.

But few who watch a magician work believe that what they are seeing is real magic, he admitted.

"The purpose is not to fool people," Schindler said Monday at the Riviera Convention Center. "If I wanted to fool people, I'd be a politician. It's about entertaining people."

The group was started by a small group of doctors in New York 101 years ago, Schindler said. The convention, he said, is a way for magicians to compare notes and get up to speed on the latest products and techniques in the industry.

The 7,000-member organization has held its annual convention in Las Vegas several times, he said. This year's event runs through Thursday.

"The biggest and the best magic in the world is in Las Vegas," he said.

Many of the magicians in the throng were locals.

"I'm just here to get in touch with some old friends I haven't seen in a long time," said Mac King, who performs at Harrah's.

There were no sightings Monday morning of Siegfried, Roy or Lance Burton, but Dirk Losander, a native of Germany who moved to Las Vegas about six months ago, did dazzle a small crowd.

Losander, who was manning a booth Monday in the trade show area of the convention, saw about a dozen people gather around him as he spun a "magic" wand around without appearing to touch it, or without it touching anything else.

The wand, which he sells for $99, levitated, and Losander seemed to have a "look, no hands," smile on his face.

He was trying to sell the other magicians his products, and he revealed the trick's secret, though he made a reporter promise not to reveal it.

Losander would not give up how he managed to levitate a purple handkerchief -- a "perfectly ordinary handkerchief," as some magicians might say -- by draping it across a bubble he had blown.

Keeping the secret a secret gives magic its allure, Schindler said.

Children, especially, are enamored with magic, he said.

That is what happened to Victor Cephas, who, with his wife, Diamond, has been a Las Vegas performer for a decade.

Cephas, 43, said a simple magic trick he got as a prize in a cereal box when he was a child growing up near Philadelphia changed his life.

The trick was nothing more than a small plastic box that seemed to make a nickel disappear, he said.

"I fooled everybody with it," he said.

Soon, his parents bought him a magic set as a Christmas present, and he was hooked.

"I got bitten by the bug right then," he said.

When he grew up, he went to college, worked as an electromechanical draftsman, and just did magic on the weekends. He had three sons to support and needed a steady job.

Eleven years ago, he and his wife decided to throw caution to the wind and pursue careers in magic, he said. They moved to Las Vegas soon after that, and they have never looked back.

"We've been doing it ever since," he said.