magic
there's nothing like a good trick out of
a hat
enter the enchanting world of fortune
tellers magicians and tricksters
and watch them make the next 10 minutes
disappear
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it's like a symphony of manipulating and
spinning and flipping the cards in your
hands
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it's like each move inspires the next
and you're not even thinking about it
the cards are dancing
between the hands they're spinning
around they're flipping over they're
doing things you wouldn't even expect
them to be doing
it's just so surprising almost magical
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for as long as i can remember we've
always done things in tandem together
we both got into magic around the age of
12.
we would go to the library and check out
books by dia vernon guy hollingworth
just seeing the illustrations we're like
wow we can do this with playing cards
when we started practicing cardistry
it wasn't a thing
it has its roots in magic it comes from
card magicians who would use what is
called the card flourish and these were
used to accentuate certain moments in a
magic trick
so we took that and just ran with it
we were the first to embrace it and
really focus on it
and practice it as its own thing and
promote it as its own thing
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cardistry is very much like
skateboarding you know we practice these
tricks until we have them down perfect
you know we see other tricks and we're
like oh we gotta learn that
you have 52 playing cards and the
possibilities to to maneuver those
around are endless
you can hold a deck of cards in your
hand and it's one solid block now
imagine lifting up another block so now
you have two well what can you do with
those two blocks in your hands well you
can create more blocks and we call those
packets and you can start maneuvering
and spinning and flipping those packets
between your fingers
it's hard like it takes a lot of
dexterity
it's all practiced it's all rehearsed
and when you're truly a master you can
just start doing things on the fly and
you don't even have to think about it
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what kids are doing today with cards is
mind-blowing
if you would have told me that when i
was 14 years old i would have been like
that's the coolest thing i had no idea
it could even be this big
the ultimate goal would be to get people
to almost put cardistry first
when they see a deck of playing cards
you know it's no longer for games it's
no longer for gambling it's cardistry
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remember zoltar the fortune teller from
the movie big
the mysterious machine turned a young
boy's wish into reality
in real life there are hundreds of
zoltar's all over the country
you can trace them all back to this guy
my name is olaf stanton and i make
zoltar
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olaf runs characters unlimited a company
that makes animated talking characters
and one of those machines is the fortune
teller the fortune teller is probably
one of the oldest games there is it's
been around since the turn of the
century perhaps the most famous one is
zoltar
but just to be clear they didn't make
the one from the movie big the zoltar in
the movie big was basically a movie prop
it was never made to be a manufactured
game our zoltar has the talking come let
zoltar tell you more an eye movement and
head turning and spits out a card at the
end of the conversation and gives you
some good words of advice
every zoltar machine is custom made
first thing we do is get the cabinet
started then we'll cast the head out of
our latex material
we put the eyeballs in we paint the head
then it goes to our wig department
zoltar's goatee is put on the teeth are
put in which are actually my teeth wait
they're your teeth yes they're actually
my teeth i actually made a mold on my
teeth so every zoltar you see out there
has
my teeth in them
and then we put all the components in
that make the card come out and make a
talk and give the different messages and
then zoltar is ready to go
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although zoltar is the star of our
fortune terror line he's not the only
fortune tower that we make we have papi
we have the old pirate
and those fortunes that's all off too
we try to make all of our fortunes on
the lighter side good words of wisdom
and advice i think one of my favorite is
sometimes it's better to say too little
than to say too much and regret it later
there's a lot of good words of wisdom
that come out of zoltar i think people
just like to see something that they can
relate to and say oh yeah how did you
know that that's so cool
it really does bring out the child in
all of us to see your fortune on a card
well unless of course you're talking
about tom hanks in the movie big because
he gets well you know
big
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magic to me is the feeling that you get
christmas eve when santa claus comes to
your home and delivers presents
the smile on children's faces when the
rabbit suddenly appears they know that's
magic
it's my passion it's my hobby it's my
vocation it's everything to me
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welcome to colon michigan the magic
capital of the world i am john sterling
the owner of sterlini magic
manufacturing my name is rick fisher i'm
the president and ceo of the fab magic
company
i am greg bordner and i am the president
of abbott's magic
i brought a good book with me it's
called the bible
sometimes there's some really cool parts
in here there's really some fire and
brimstone
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there are three magic shops in coal in
michigan and we're about three blocks
apart
directly next to me is fab magic and
abbott's magic is located one block west
of us
there's a lot of little things here in
colon there are top hats in the street
with flowers blooming in them
we have one pizza parlor we have two gas
stations we only have one blinking light
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we have a magician's walk of fame it's
kind of like our very own hollywood walk
of fame
our high school mascot is the fighting
magi there's the magic city hardware
there's illusions hair care and we have
three magic shops all in a town of 1200
people
i'll share this with you if colon was
any smaller they'd call it semi-colon
bad joke yes bad joke
abbott's magic began doing the magic
convention 80 some years ago
we've had thousands of magicians from
around the world that gather here to
learn to share their their knowledge of
magic
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when you perform a magic trick and a
little kid smiles and he goes wow you
can see the magic in his face that's
really the best part
for that 15
20 minutes hour you hopefully took that
person from
this world to this world
i always said to my parents even as a
young kid i'm going to move up here one
of these days and i'm gonna own a magic
shop
so dreams do come true they do come true
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it starts with a yes or no question does
she have a crush on me will i pass the
test will the mets win the world series
while they may not have always predicted
the truth magic 8 balls are actually
inspired by a real-life
clairvoyant do you want to hear your
fortune
in the 1940s mary carter was a popular
medium best known for her mysterious
fortune telling invention it was called
the psychoslate essentially a chalkboard
with a cover when the clients would
visit mary would ask a question to the
spirits
the room would fill with the sound of
scribbling and then just like poof magic
mary would reveal answers from another
world mysteriously written on the
chalkboard
mary's son albert was inspired by his
mother and created his own truth-seeking
device but this time you didn't need a
psychic to tell you your fortune
he put a pair of worded dice inside a
tube filled with molasses each end was
clear so you could read the answers
sound familiar
albert hit the streets he partnered with
a couple local businessmen and opened a
novelty company where they specialized
in the miracle home fortune teller after
he died albert's partners took over and
redesigned the project numerous times
they ended up with a crystal ball like
shape with a die in the middle and a
billiards company took note they needed
a promotional item so they replaced the
crystal ball with the iconic black eight
ball
the promotion was so successful that
they rebranded the magic 8 ball this
time marketing it as a fortune telling
toy
today kids are still using magic 8 balls
to ask for their fortunes and for that
you can thank mary the clairvoyant
ah yes
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