Mario Lopez was just a kid when a friend put a lit cigarette into his fist and made it disappear. He learned how it was done and from that moment on he was in love with magic. He moved to Granada in his native Spain when he was 18 where he trained with one of the countries top magicians. He was taught the art of performance and how to create the magical moment. He didn’t teach young Luis any tricks specifically. It was all about how to perform on stage. Mario is incredibly dramatic on-stage which he says is a product of his environment. Clowns, actors and musicians are everywhere in Granada and they have all had an impact on his magic.

We’ve been trying to get Tony Chang on the podcast for a long time and it’s finally happened!  Jonah and Tony spent some time together and NYC recently.  But this is the first time we have had the chance to talk to him about his history.  Tony first fell in love with magic when he saw a clown magician as a kid.  He got curious and he went to the public library in Idaho, where he grew up and found some books.  They were incredibly discouraging.  So he turned to some magic rooms on IRC in the early days of the internet.  He ordered a Hank Lee book and read it repeatedly.  His goal with magic is to create something incredible with imperfect means.  You can create an illusion using blunt mechanics to achieve something impossible. 

This episode is packed full of questions that we want YOU to answer! Join in the fun, leave a comment and let us know what you feel about these deep philosophical magic questions!

Garrett Thomas is an incredible magician, an opinion that was confirmed recently when Jonah saw him perform at the Buffalo 52 magic convention.  Garrett first fell in love with magic because of his father.  His dad was a huge fan of magic and was friends with the bar magician Eddie Fechter. Who had a brilliant way of teaching people.  Fechter taught Garret’s dad a few tricks which were then passed on to young Garrett.  That instilled an obsession in him at a very young age.  His family has a history of addiction and Garrett feels that he funneled that addictive personality into magic.  

Allan thinks that young magicians should start out by learning from the masters.  It would be foolish to ignore the classics.  Work your way through Card College.  There is enough knowledge there to last a lifetime.  Eventually you will discover two or three pieces that resonate with you.  That will then help you discover what your strengths are.

Lawrence Hass is the Associate Dean of the Magic and Mystery School in Las Vegas.  We wanted to invite him on to talk about the theory of magic at its deepest level.  Lawrence has a Ph.D. in philosophy and taught the subject for many years.  As he was finishing his Ph.D. he happened upon a David Copperfield performance on TV.  He immediately started thinking about what Copperfield was doing in a philosophical framework.