Bayer Corporation Annual Party
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
From: Dispatch from China 4 (3), April, 2005
M.A.G.I.C. GOES BIG TIME
“If you are not on the edge then you are probably taking up too much room.”
As spotlights scan Shanghai’s skyline, lines of people wait to enter the beautiful Grand Theater. The Phantom of the Opera has been playing there for a month and tonight another sale out crowd is already gathering.
Tonight I am approaching this Grand Theater with a full compliment of butterflies in my stomach. For it is tonight that I am to perform in the Grand Ballroom on the fifth floor for the Bayer Corporation Party. In the last Dispatch I mentioned that they asked me to put together a magic show in a week for this important meeting of the Board and several divisions. As I walk past the rows of people to the back stage door, I fantasize that this crowd is waiting to see me perform in my premier to the Big Time. This just makes me more nervous.
It has come to this, I will be performing with a very talented young Chinese magician. While young, she is an extremely professional magician. I met her when she was performing at the Westin Hotel at the Sunday Brunch (You see those Brunches are truly a business expense). I referred her to them saying that she was as good as they could get. While the people at Bayer and the young lady, her name is Shao Mei Lin (Erica) think that I am a professional magician, I kept telling them that she is the professional and I am the beginner. They have insisted that we perform together. So I created an interesting twist on the normal Magician and assistant routine – you know the magician with the beautiful assistants (that primarily serve as convenient distractions). My idea: Have the beautiful magician assisted by a distracting fool. So here is what we did:
First Act: I am seated on stage with big nose and glasses (the Groucho Marx ones) French beret, sipping a glass of wine and reading a newspaper. Enter Erica, she sees me and immediately snatches the newspaper from my hands. Shocked reaction from me as she proceeds to rip it to shreds. But before I hemorrhage she ‘magically’ puts it together and hands it back, I go back to reading. For her second effect, she takes out a six foot piece of rope, grabs the two ends, makes a loop, I take a pair of scissors and cut it (to get back at her). She ties it together with a knot, loops it again and calls up one of the Board members to cut it again- More knots, trimming and cutting the knots off (this is all being done two feet from the audience volunteer) and then she has the two of us grab an end and walk apart – THE ROPE IS WHOLE – IN ONE PIECE.
Act Two: This time she is to assist me. I have changed out of the goofy clothes. I show that I can play with rope too. While her rope insists on staying in one piece, mine keeps getting rigid – it will not stay limpÖ For my second effect, I look to the head table and grab an empty wine bottle and the cork. It is time for the old cork into and out of the empty bottle trick that I have been getting so much mileage out of here (Thank you Maya). Yes, I hammed it up a bit more – had someone sign the cork and the bottle so everyone knows that I do not switch them. This time, to make it more dramatic, I used a hammer and spike to pound the cork into the bottle – getting the cork in IS the hardest part of the trick. Once inside, I disappear behind a screen, while ‘my assistant’ grabs their attention with another rope trick. As she finishes, I appear from behind the screen with cork in one hand and bottle in another.
All of this was great fun and went over very well but it was nothing compared to the GRANDE FINALE. Erica alone created one of the greatest effects I have ever seen (I told you that she was a pro). She calls it ìflying cards,î for six minutes she produces hand fulls (faned) of cards, then individual cards one after another, hundreds and hundreds of them out of the air from nothing as she throws them into the air and onto the stage and into the audience – it goes on for ever – cards, cards, cards rapidly flying on and on and on – INCREDIBLE – and I have no idea how she does it.
Bottom line – IT WAS GREAT – SHE MADE ME LOOK GOOD !!
“Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily this is not difficult.” —Charlotte Whitton
Oh, one last thing – we were suppose to be finished, we had done our three acts. But some of the attendees were at the party the week before where I led the line-dance. A group of them grab me and take back onto the stage and want to do the line dance again – this time it’s a tux and evening gowns (instead of the Grade-B Cowboy movie outfits) – same steps – different feel, but it worked.