Dripping Springs – Magic, the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces. At least, that’s what the dictionary says it means. But for magician John Magic, it means so much more. “This place here came out of my sweat and blood, this place,” said Magic. “This place almost cost me my family.”
John was born and raised in LA but moved to Dripping Springs in 2005 after a magical career in Hollywood. “I started when I was 19,” said Magic. “I worked in film shipping at Disney when I first got started, and I worked on huge $200 million movies. And it was successful for me, very.”
Having the name Magic didn’t hurt. “If you’re in the movie business, if you got any kind of hook, it helps,” said Magic. “And I had the perfect one.”
Towards the end of his time in Hollywood, John wasn’t as enchanted with the business as he once was, but he still had a soft spot for sleight of hand. So he decided his retirement plan would be to open his own theater and museum on the backroads of Dripping Springs. “God, with his grace and mercy blessed us. You’re sitting in it, you see the outcome of it,” said Magic. “We just finished performing 11 straight years here at Magic’s Theater. So that’s a big deal. I mean, no one works that long and that steady, even in magic.”
So what exactly led Magic to love magic so much? “I was in the business already in the studio,” said Magic. “I couldn’t sing. I couldn’t dance. I was the first generation to grow up on television. I was born in 1953, so television was a big deal. I saw Jack Goldfinger. Goldfinger, the first Afro-American magician I had ever seen, and I saw Walter Zaney Blaney from Kingwood, Texas. Walter had created the greatest levitation trick in magic. He fooled every magician. No one knew how to do that trick but Walter. No one knew how it worked but Walter and I saw him do it. And then I saw Jack perform and it was kind of hip. It was Motown music, doing card tricks and stuff. And so for some reason, I had never seen the moment in a trick before until I saw Jack, and then I saw magic for the first time. It left an impression on me that I had to know how that worked.”
John was persistent in his pursuit of magic and would hone his skills right when he got off of set. “I practiced 12 hours a day for a long time and then I worked at the Magic Castle, which was rare,” said Magic. “I was probably the third Afro-American to perform there ever. And I remember before I performed there, I practiced 12 hours a day for about 30 days on the same 20 minutes. Just 20 minutes. Because you couldn’t make a mistake. You had to be perfect. I would invite the crew and the actors and everybody to the Magic Castle and it blew their mind because they’d go, ‘We didn’t know you were a real magician. We just thought your name was John Magic.’ It’s a moment where you go ‘ta-da.’“
Cards aren’t the only thing John has stacked, he also has an ensemble of artifacts dedicated to magic. From torture chambers to tributes to the past, you’ll find all sorts of fascinating props that lead to his big theater. Unfortunately the big theater doesn’t fill up as frequently as it used to. In his time of being a magician, John has seen spectators go from being enamored with his abilities to focused on other things during the performance. “It gets hard. Kids shows are hard,” said Magic. “Kids today, their attention span is short. They’re rude. They talk during the show. Their parents don’t tell them to be quiet. I remember my wife being floating in the air in the most beautiful levitation you’d ever see, and her head is laying here and her ear is here, and this whole row of kids are talking the whole time we’re doing the illusion about just anything but our show. I felt like they don’t deserve it. And it’s sad for the kids that did deserve it, but there’s a lot that they’re on their phone or whatever, and I’m thinking, ‘wow.’”
Turns out the audience can make all the difference. “When it’s good, it’s good,” said Magic. “When you got the right audience and all the props are working. I always kid at the end of a show, I got through another one. I think the most important part is the right audience.”
These days, Magic has adjusted the show to be a bit more intimate. “Up close and personal, and it’s not a kid family show,” said Magic. “It’s adults. I put in a lot of energy finding the best material, and I’ve accumulated a show from all over the world. Here, you’re two feet away from the magic. So the only way to see it is up close.”
In magic, it’s always what’s in the background that you miss. The little touch or extra something that sometimes seems so minute, yet plays such a huge role in the performance. For John, that something is his son Adam. Who unbeknownst to me was playing a bigger role in all of this. “Adam’s the best,” said Magic. “He’s the greatest son. He’s helped me every show. He was backstage every show. I owe him so much. I do. I’m sorry. He was a little kid. He’d be carrying the light and he was always… this Magic’s Theater is as much Adam’s as it is mine.”
Being able to get lost in a little magic always seems to make smiles appear. It’s fun to let go of notions of logic and just be amazed at how a quick sleight of hand or even something harder to explain can bring so much joy into so many people’s lives. “Thank you for coming to Magic’s,” said Magic. “Thank you very much.”