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A Magical Philosophy
A student magician earns extra money performing in the area

Story by Danielle Toth
Photos by Allison Pritchard

“Pick a card. Any card.”

The spectator takes his time deciding which card to pick and finally selects one from the middle of the fanned-out deck. With an enormous grin, he peeks at the chosen card, careful not to let the magician see it, and he places it back into the deck.

He leans over to me.

“Two of hearts,” he whispers, covering his lips with his hand, trying to contain his smile.

The magician shuffles the cards and holds them in his hand. Suddenly, they fly in all directions. All except for one.

“Is this your card?”

The two of hearts remains in the palm of his hand.

“Oh, my gosh, it was!” he says giggling in disbelief.

The wide-eyed look lingers on his face as he tries to figure out how the magician knew his card. And that look is what the magician, Mike Scarpino says he enjoys the most.

“I love to see people smiling and happy,” says Scarpino, a Kent State junior early childhood education major. “And when I perform for somebody, I can do that, and I like that feeling.

“The thing that I love the most about magic is that you can have someone who is having the worst day of their life, and you can do a trick for them, and at that moment, no matter what age they are, they kind of go back to their kid years and that suspension or disbelief, and everything’s kind of happy for them.”

Knowing he can provide his audience with that feeling is what Scarpino describes as real magic, and it has influenced his attitude and philosophy throughout his life. His love of performing inspires him to find and rehearse new illusions and to juggle school with shows.

Creating Illusions

Most of the tricks Scarpino performs are sleight of hand or close-up tricks, he says. He also likes to perform escapes where he’s tied up or handcuffed.

“I remember my freshman year this guy, Art, kept trying to tie me up, and my hands would turn purple, and he’s like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna get you this time.’ But I got out every time,” Scarpino says. “I’ve never been tied up that I can’t get out of yet so far. You just have to relax.”

Scarpino can stack a deck or guess a card, but he won’t cheat when playing card games with friends, and he doesn’t use trick decks.

“I like to play cards a lot,” Scarpino says. “I know how to work with cards well. I can control cards really well, but I don’t cheat because it takes away from the game. I like to play for fun.”

While many illusions seem challenging or difficult to an audience, Scarpino says it’s all about presentation.

“What people don’t realize is magic is really simple,” Scarpino says. “It just takes that presentation and the practice rehearsal. Anyone can do a trick, but when I do a trick and catch you off guard, that’s timing. That’s actually thought out.

“That’s why a lot of people say you can’t do a trick twice. Part of it is because someone might figure it out. The second part of it is it takes away that element of surprise.”

Preparing for the show

Scarpino gets a lot of his ideas for new illusions from the Internet. There are several Web sites to buy tricks from, and many show demonsrations of the illusion, he says. Scarpino watches the demos and figures out how the trick is done. Then he will figure out another way to do it and add new components to make it unique.

Scarpino doesn’t have a regular practice schedule so it doesn’t conflict with his schoolwork. He practices shuffling cards while talking on the phone or watching TV daily to keep finger dexterity. But for bigger tricks, he doesn’t practice much.

“When it comes to the bigger illusions, every time I do them it’s kind of like practice,” Scarpino says. “I go through it so many times in my head before a show.

“If I don’t rehearse it too much, it seems almost spontaneous with me, and it seems a little more magical because it doesn’t seem so rehearsed. And if I rehearse it so much and I have a set script, what ends up happening is if one little thing changes, it would mess up my whole illusion.”

Developing Magic

Scarpino’s interest in magic began at age 10 when he received a generic magic set from K-mart that involved making a ball disappear inside of a small plastic cup. He performed it for his family and liked the reactions he received. He figured out how to do the same trick in a different way, and they enjoyed that too. Soon he began reading magic books, watching magic specials on TV and visiting magic stores.

But Scarpino discovered that practicing magic could get expensive—up to $4,000 for some tricks.

“I’ve taken a lot of tricks and illusions I’ve seen and kind of altered them,” Scarpino says. “My tricks are pretty open-ended, depending upon how the audience reacts to them.”

Lining Scarpino’s suitcases are miscellaneous objects including a soccer ball, decks of cards, an umbrella, boxer shorts, a rubber chicken, handkerchiefs and a Harry Potter doll. Most of these props are used during the show, and Scarpino says he improvises depending upon what he pulls out of his suitcases.

For example, one of the tricks that Scarpino developed himself is a twist on the old “pick a card” trick and involves fruit and the rubber chicken.

An audience member picks a card and signs it. Scarpino then distributes fruit to the crowd. He is blindfolded and tries to guess the card by stabbing at them with the rubber chicken, then a butter knife, and finally a kitchen knife.

But the stabbing is just a diversion. The card the spectator picked is in one of the pieces of fruit.

Performing

Scarpino performs for many audiences, including children’s parties, schools and corporations. Locally, he performed table magic at Jillian’s club in Akron and made balloon animals during Lil’ Sibs weekend at Kent State in spring 2004.

He has also been on TV, performing an illusion at a Massilon-McKinley football game halftime show in front of his largest audience: 23,000 people.

Scarpino generates most of his business through word of mouth. He says he’s willing to perform for anyone, but he mostly performs around Canton, his hometown.

Scarpino charges  varying amounts for his shows, depending upon the audience, amount of time needed and the venue. A normal birthday party, complete with balloon animals, would cost about $75 to $80 for an hour show, which normally covers the cost of supplies.

Corporate parties usually cost around $150. Scarpino says he understands financial difficulties and will work with groups to determine what cost is appropriate for them.

“Really I do this because I have fun,” Scarpino says. “I just figure if I can make some money on it and have a little bit of extra fun on the side, I might as well do it.”

Fun aside, there are many factors can affect an illusion, including weather or accidents during the show. Scarpino recalls one time he was performing in extreme heat and humidity.

“Everybody was sweating, and we were all really uncomfortable,” he recalls. “I couldn’t grab the cards right to do what we needed to do. I dropped a card, and my brother went to go pick it up and bumped the table and the box fell over and the whole trick was ruined. They were a supportive crowd though, and they understood.”

The Assistant

Like all good magicians, Scarpino has an assistant—his girlfriend of four years, Katie Johnson, a Kent State graduate.

Johnson had no more interest in magic than the average person until she met Scarpino, she says.

“My initial reaction, I’m going to be completely honest, was, ‘Sure you are,’” Johnson jokes. “You know, a couple card tricks—we all learned those when we were kids. Then he started showing me stuff, and I was in awe. I think he has real talent.

“Something about his magic just makes anybody interested in it and want to learn more,” she says. “But after I met him and he showed me some things is really when my interest piqued.”

When Scarpino’s previous assistant couldn’t continue performing, Johnson stepped in and now is involved with almost all of his shows.

However, Scarpino doesn’t tell her all of his secrets, either.

“Every good magician keeps his secrets,” she says. “But I know more of the inside stuff than most people.”

The Future: A Magical Classroom

Scarpino says he plans to continue performing.

“Even if I don’t have shows, my first love of magic is just doing it,” Scarpino says. “If I never had another show again, I’d probably be disappointed, but it wouldn’t mean that much because I don’t do the show to make the money. I do it for the love of the game.”

After completing his degree, he’d like to focus on having a more stable career and a family.

 “It’s just more feasible. I’m a family-oriented person, so I don’t really like traveling and weird hours (of a magician) for a family.”

But Scarpino is planning on using his passion for magic in the classroom setting.

“I think some people get too stuck in the traditional ways of teaching,” Scarpino says. “Kids need to have fun. But if they can learn and have fun at the same time, then I think that’s the best combination, because then it doesn’t make school seem like one of those things they have to do. It makes it seem like a privilege.”

Practical Magic

The word “magic” can be hard to define. Merriam-Webster defines magic as “an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source” or “the art of producing illusions by sleight of hand.”

Scarpino blends the two definitions together.

“I think magic is everywhere,” Scarpino says. “It’s just your interpretation of everything. The leaves changing is really magical in essence. When snow falls, I think that’s magic.”

The natural occurrences probably don’t seem magical to most people, but Scarpino has learned to appreciate it as magic.

“I’m not a trickster. I’m a magician,” he says. “My goal when I do a trick is to actually do magic. I’m not trying to lie to someone. I’m not trying to say I have some supernatural power.

“Magic, in essence, is anything that’s out of the norm that happens or that mystifies you, or even if you see it a million times, it’s still amazing to you.”

CyBurr writer Danielle Toth is a sophomore magazine journalism major, and this is her second semester working for the Burr.

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