I know that's the one word I shouldn't use to describe my experience at the Magic Castle, but that's really all that comes to mind. But start to finish, the whole experience was down right, freaking MAGICAL. The fact that I even got in, magical. Participating in a show with my boyfriend, magical. Grilled salmon over lemon risotto... not quite magical, but certainly good enough!
Hopefully this means I have all my "magicals" out of my system, so now I can get on with telling you about my... AWESOME... evening at the Magic Castle in Hollywood.
The Magic Castle is an exclusive magic and supper club, pledging to "encourage and promote public interest in the art of magic with particular emphasis on preserving its history as an art form, entertainment medium, and hobby." However, they aren't so keen on letting just "anyone" from the public come in and enjoy the magical arts. To even get into the building, you must have a personal invite from a "member" of the castle. And to be a member, you have to be affiliated with the Academy of Magical Arts (aka be a magician), or be able to afford a $1000-a-year membership. So for the most part, I really thought that this was the most unattainable goal on my entire list. I don't know anyone involved in "the magical arts" and I certainly can't afford the membership fees.
But luckily for me, I am blessed with a really amazing network of friends. I was at coffee one Sunday morning with my old office manager and dear friend Chanon, and was telling her enthusiastically about my list. She has lived in LA forever and knows everyone, and was delighted to tell me that one of her friends is a member at the Magic Castle. She said she would see if he could get me an invite. I had the invitation (good for me + 7 people) in my inbox Monday morning!
I first had to decide on a guest list... which was tough because I have so many friends that I wanted to share the experience with. Obviously, I invited my bf Ronny, who had never heard of the Magic Castle but was more than interested once he looked it up on Yelp and heard great things about their lamb dish. Next was my friend Kaio, who was actually the first person to ever tell me about the castle and had been wanting to go forever, and his lovely girlfriend Regina. I had to include List regulars Meaghan and Tracy, since they are always game for new stuff, and rounding out the bunch was my roommate Jannine and her good friend Erika.
When I called to make the dinner reservation (required if you want to see the shows) they had me on hold for 10 minutes. Which wouldn't have been all that bad if I could have listened to music or something, but instead I had to listen to a voice recite the dress code to me over, and over, and over, and over. So by the time they actually picked up my call, I knew the very strict dress code by heart. Formal attire, no denim, no jackets with zippers (?), men must wear a tie, but an ascot or "jeweled collar" (??) would be acceptable. Hollywood is weird sometimes.
I was so excited that I had a reservation at the Magic Castle (!!!) I called my mom to tell her all about it. I guess when she was at lunch the next day, she mentioned it to one of her coworkers, who just so HAPPENS to be a life member of the MC! So random but unbelievable! As soon as she heard that I was going, she was giving my mom lots of tips to tell me, like how to dress (she was once sent home for being dressed too casually and didn't want that to happen to me!) as well as menu options, etc. She also gave my mom a VIP pass, which would waive the $25 door fee for me and Ronny. So now I have $50 to spend on another thing from my list. Thanks Judy!!
When the date of our magical (sorry) evening arrived, we all dressed in our fancy best and carpooled up to the castle. Our dinner reservation wasn't until almost 10:00pm, but we arrived around 8:00 to catch a few shows. In order to enter the club from the lobby, we had to whisper "open sesame" to a bookcase, which then opened into a door. Pretty cool. The castle is set up in a maze-like way, with twisted hallways and steep staircases and secret doors. There are several bars, which on a busier night I can just imagine being filled with glamorous looking people whose fancy shoes are too uncomfortable to stand in for very long. We ordered a round of drinks from the main bar and got in line for our first show.
Also, it's worth noting that the week we went was the "Magic of Spain" week, and most of the performers that week were from Spain (with a few from Portugal). So all of our magicians had pretty thick accents and were very charming.
The first show we saw was in the "close-up" gallery, which is mostly sleight-of-hand card tricks. And I must preface it by saying, if this was the only show we had seen, I would still feel like it was worth my time, money, and effort to get into the castle. The things we saw in this show, were straight up, jaw-on-the-floor, your-logical-mind-is-trying-to-explain-it-but-you-just-have-to-resign-to-calling-it-magic AMAZING. The magician sat at a table, with about 20 people sitting in front of him, and proceeded to pretty much blow our minds. Mind you, we were sitting less than 10 feet away. There were tricks where someone picked a random card (a king) and then the next 3 cards the magician flipped over were the other 3 kings. Or when he waved a 7 of spades and it literally turned into a 3 of hearts in front of our eyes. WTF!!?!! But the best, the very best trick, was what he called "oil and water" where he had about 8 cards in his hand, mixed red and black, and he would snap his fingers, and when he turned over the 8 cards they were sorted into all blacks, all reds. Then he did the same thing with 4 cards. Then, he tapped the top of the rest of the deck, turned it over and the entire deck was sorted. He hadn't even touched the deck in almost 5 minutes! I just know my words aren't doing justice here, but when we walked out of that room we were all completely speechless.
The next show we saw was a bigger show, with maybe 50 people in the room, and one magician on a small stage in front. He started off the show asking for a "bill" but with his thick Spanish accent, not many people understood him. Ronny understood him and pulled out a dollar bill and waved it. The magician asked him to give it to his lady friend (he pointed to Tracy, who is Filipino, because obviously the 2 Asians would be the ones dating) but of course Ronny gave me the dollar to take down to the magician. The magician then asked me if I would participate in his next trick. HELL YEAH!
First, he handed me a scarf, which had a green border and was plain white in the middle. He then asked me to fold, fold, fold the scarf, and when it was small enough to fit in my fist, to put a rubber band around it and hold it tightly in my right fist. He then asked me to call down another participant from the audience, and was debating which of my friends to call down, when Ronny gave me a big ol' wink from the audience. It was so cheesy and cute, so of course I called him down to help. The magician then presented Ronny with a deck of cards, asked him to shuffle and then pick a card. The card was a queen of hearts. He then had Ronny wave his hands around the queen, then told me to open my fist. The green-bordered scarf was still there (I had been holding onto it the whole time) but when he asked me to unfold it, I started unfolding, and instead of being plain white in the middle, a queen of hearts was now printed on the silk. WTF?!?!! I was RIGHT THERE and I still don't know how he did it. Amazing.
For the magicians next trick, my friend Kaio got called down, and blah blah blah ended up pulling an 8 of clubs out of an orange. The card had a corner torn off of it, and that corner piece perfectly matched a scrap that had been in Kaio's hand since the beginning of the trick. Pre-tty crazy.
After that we headed to dinner, and as you can see by my below post about Matsuhisa, I'm not very good at reviewing restaurants. But I can say that I had a very enjoyable dinner. The restaurant part of the club is in the middle of the second floor, but seemed very intimate and fancy. The food was a bit expensive, but the grilled salmon over lemon risotto that I ordered was really good. Ronny loved his lamb, and Regina and Meaghan both were loving the butternut squash ravioli. We did have a very interesting appetizer called "Portabello fries" which I immediately said no thanks to, since I gave up french fries for lent. But it turns out these were actually grilled Portabello mushrooms, which were then rolled in beer batter and fried. Deelish.
Our food took quite a while to come out, so by the time we were actually eating we were already late for our scheduled show (with a dinner reservation, you are guaranteed 1 show, all the other ones are first-come-first-served). Since we were guaranteed that show, the entire show had to be delayed so we could finish our meal. Which is fine, it's what we paid for, but it was a little annoying having the wait staff breathe down our necks to finish.
The third show, which is supposed to be the "spectacle" show, is so flashy and Vegas-y, and was truly just so, so cheesy! Sleight-of-hand to me is just so much more fascinating and requires more skill. But these flashy shows are all the trick contraptions, and loud music, and the "hot" magicians assistant (but this one was pretty busted, honestly). I guess I will just never look at those kinds of magic shows the same again after seeing Gob on Arrested Development swing his hands in the air and create "illusions" with "Final Countdown" blaring in the background. This show was slightly more refined, but I still would have rather just sat in the close-up gallery instead.
After the big show, we tried to catch one more show before leaving. This show was a bit different, in that instead of a designated start and stop time, its just a room where you can take a seat, order a drink, and every couple minutes a different magician will come out, and they rotate all night. But when we went to that lounge, it was already full and the people there weren't budging. So we called it a night.
When we were waiting for valet to bring around our cars, our heads were just swimming! Kaio and I were still trying to explain how the queen of hearts showed up on my scarf, and he thinks he knows how the 8 of clubs ended up inside the fresh orange (I call BS) but it was a lot of fun to digest the whole experience.
If anyone ever has the opportunity to go to the Magic Castle, I would question why they would hesitate for even a second. Yes, it's a bit expensive with the mandatory dinner and the $25 door fee, but it was WORTH. EVERY. PENNY to be entertained and see things in a way you can't really see many other places. The Magic Castle is world-renowned in the magician community, and it is considered a crowning achievement of ones career to perform there. So these performers are truly the best of the best. I hadn't even left the place when I was already thinking how I was going to ask Judy (Mom's coworker) for another pass!! Highly, highly recommend!!!
All of us in front of the "open sesame" bookcase.
It's an illusion Michael.
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