Christmas Day, we took our daughter Kaye to see a magic show presented by Jeff McBride, a world class magician who is in Taiwan for a few shows. Our friend Michael Cheng and his son Gareth joined us. Kaye and Gareth have taken magic classes and some time ago I gave both of them DVDs by McBride in which he teaches some of his effects so it was very nice for her to see him perform live. Actually, they pretty much knew how to do most ot the effect he performed but it was truly wonderful to see the master perform them live as even some of the simple and straightforward effects look like magic when performed well . . . the kids and the adults all loved and enjoyed the presentation. He was joined on stage for a number of effects by his wife and longtime performance compantion Abbi Spinner whose percussion and shawl effects were very beautiful. Some readers of the blog may know of Abbi from her involvement with the fusion group Zingaia. Abbi performed one solo piece in the show, her rendition of the Houdini Straightjacket Escape which was quite interesting with the Indian music playing to set atmosphere and her trancery dancelike moves during the escape.

McBride is considered by many of his peers to be one of the best magicians working today. His official site is here. It was truly nice to see him in action. He came out before the performance and folks were taking photos with him but when Lorraine and Kaye went to ask permission to take a photo, there were just too many folks cutting in front of them and he left to go backstage just as they finally got to him. Unfortunately, he didn’t come back out after the performance as I am sure he needed to do prepping for his afternoon performance (we saw him in an extra mornong performance on Christmas Day). While she didn’t get the photo, she still had a wonderful time and the performance was well worth it . . . despite the hectic time we had getting there . . . Kaye hosts an annual slumber party for her classmates every Christmas Eve and this year we were going to just not have it as we knew we needed to get to the theatre in Taipei in the morning so it wouldn’t be convenient to have a bunch of screaming girls in the house . . . well, the girls actually had already made arrangements with their families and reminded Kaye that they were coming as they all look forward to her slumber parties (usually, Halloween, Christmas, and Kaye’s Birthday) . . . we had twenty-two screaming sixth grade girls and a couple boys . . . ten of the girls stayed the night but all of them arranged to have pickups well in advance of the time we needed to get out the house. I’m not sure any of them actually slept.

It was well worth the hassle as Kaye and her friends had a nice day of the Christmas thingie . . . started at Noon and ended the next morning . . . and McBride’s show was an experience well worth having for Kaye and Gareth (of course, the adults enjoyed it as well). McBride is an amazingly skilled card and coin manipulator and while this performance didn’t have the power of some of the ones we’ve seen when he does closeup coin or card manipulation, it was very entertaining . . .

Eugene Burger, another great contemporary magician, has some very kind words to say about McBride here here. McBride, Burger, and Spinner are also on the faculty of the Magical Wisdom Magic School, among other world class magicians and instructors.

While Kaye learns a bit of magic now, I promised her that when she hits sixteen I will teach her hypnosis . . . albeit, certain techniques and secrets will have to wait until she’s a little older.

All the best,
Brian