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| Mat Black says he knows his illusions with cards and dollar bills are a success when he sees people's faces get that look
of wonder that a 5-year-old gets when looking at something for the first time. Richard Brian/Special to The Christian Science Monitor |
There's magic in Las Vegas rank-and-file talent
Legions of entertainers land in Vegas, and Englishman Mat Black is one desert transplant making a living at his craft.
from the March 3, 2008 edition
Page 2 of 3
The mystifying feats that master magicians like Penn and Teller or Johnny Thompson offer in showrooms up and down the Strip are a fundamental part of the city's promise that regular rules don't apply here.
But Black wants to take the craft down a notch. In a town where magicians use big production staffs and huge stage illusions, Black's magic is refreshingly pragmatic. He can turn dollar bills into 20s. He can teach you how to cheat at poker and stack the deck with aces – though you'll still lose, because Black can make any hand a royal flush, and that's not a secret he's willing to share. His tricks have context, stories, and lots of jokes.
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Black says he has been a performer all his life, milking moments of comedy and drama since he was a child. He discovered magic when his parents gave him a few tricks – "ropes, plastic props, horrible things that weren't too complicated." He performed for his family, but says, "They were like, 'You ain't foolin' me kid, but I'll clap anyway.'"
When he was 10, he encountered the thing magicians talk about in hushed tones of inevitability: magic shops. If you're destined for the world of wizardry, "you just feel special when you walk into your first magic shop," he says. His was Davenports, a 110-year-old store tucked in the Charing Cross subway station. Black was impressed by the tricks, the books, and the old guard of magicians sitting in the corner, trying to uncover other magicians' secrets.
By the time he was a teen, Black was good enough at magic to put it to work for him. Performing at birthday parties earned him more pocket cash than any of his friends had, and his talent for wonder attracted girls. But the real fun began when he was 17 and found a partner.
"I was standing at the bus stop ... and I look over, and there's pretty much a shorter version of me standing there," he recalls. "I was wearing a pinstripe suit, and so was he. We both had on black shirts." Black pauses and delivers the next line like a detective in a 1950s movie: "He also had a case ... so I reached in my pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. I stood at the bus stop, flourishing" – he demonstrates fanning and contracting a deck of cards effortlessly – "just doing card moves, which is the mating call of magicians. Sure enough, he came over."
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