The Asheville Magic Festival

I never thought I was «really into magic,» but recently I started noticing that I was way, way more into magic than anyone else I knew. Some people are repulsed by magicians, the same way some people are repulsed by clowns. My reaction is the opposite. My reaction is «Hell yes, by all means, amaze me!»
So we should probably get that bit out of the way up front. If you hate magic, you won’t much enjoy a festival full of dozens of professional and amateur magicians. In my own case, I was thrilled.
These are not a bunch of Vegas headliners here. There are no Copperfields, no Blaines, no Penns, no Tellers.
There were big names, but not necessarily big names you’ve heard of. Asheville’s own Ricky Boone, performed. Ricky is generally considered to be one of the nation’s great close-​up magicians, in addition to having a very compelling personal story (he has a very noticeable physical disability, which only seems to add to the level of amazement he can stir up in his audiences).
The other big name was Kendrick McDonald (Ice), a flamboyant chest-​thumper of a showman in a purple denim steampunk duster. Ice made news last year when he was elected the first African American president of Society of American Magicians, one of the oldest and most prestigious magical societies in the world. Kendrick pulled an army of doves, seemingly out of nowhere (I think they came out of his sleeves), and they flew around the auditorium and acted… dovelike.
Arianne Black, a woman magician from Las Vegas, had an audience member handcuff her and seal her up in a giant canvas mail pouch, while panting «I love my job…» into the microphone. She looked a bit like a blonder version of Sarah Palin, in cheaper clothes. She escaped from the mail pouch pretty quickly, it should be noted.
My favorite act of the day, personally, was a Charlotte former street magician named Christopher Hannibal. Hannibal (he goes by his last name) is an imposing figure. Giant, scruffy, pale, neck-​bearded, in a threadbare dark suit and a bowler hat ½ size too small. He sweated under the stage lights and made off-​color jokes. And yet… His patter and flourishes were the smoothest and most elegant I’ve seen, live. I noticed on his website he claims to perform «inspirational magic». I guess I’d have to agree. Not in a touchy feely Tony Robbins motivational way. But in the way that it’s always truly awe inspiring to see someone so simultaneously in control of what complicated things he’s doing with his hands and saying with his mouth, always aware of whom he’s tricking, and how. I honestly have no clue how he performed any of his tricks. He was 6 steps ahead the whole time. Amazing act. I would pay real American money to see it again.
Then there were the young kids performing magic. They held their own remarkably well. Got laughs from the audience, and won over a few skeptics along the way. It is interesting to think of magicianship as kind of a lifecycle skill where young people are so amazed by a particular trick that the next year you see them they’re standing on stage with their own deck of marked cards, amazing the audience.
Look at the kids in the audience, mouths agape. Then look at people like Hannibal and Ricky, subtle and unflappable closeup masters. You realize that these world-​class magicians must have, themselves, sat in an audience at 8 years of age, been amazed, and then practiced in the garage until their fingers went numb for the next 20 – 40 years. Ricky did it to make his wheelchair «vanish.» Hannibal did it to make enough money to put his kids through college. No small feat for a street performer.
I guess what I’m getting at here is, wow, that was really a diverse group. The magicians were diverse. The audience was diverse. The acts were diverse. The only unifying thing was really cool magic. Everything else was up to creative interpretation.
When I was growing up as a kid, I used to think of magic as something that able-​bodied white adult men did with rabbits, while wearing tuxedos and top hats. Asheville Magic Festival kind of turned that silly notion on its ear, and I think the world of magic is better for it. Leave Penn and Teller in Vegas. Gimme Ricky Boone any day!