Ian Kribs, 8, and his mother, Cindy Kribs of Eaton Rapids, laugh together as Ian performs a straw trick that he learned at Michigan Magic Day on Saturday.
Lansing — It may not be escaping from a straightjacket while underwater, but the Magicians Guild of Lansing, Ring 54, had some tricks up its sleeve for Michigan Magic Day on Saturday.
Adults and children 8 years old and older were invited to the Michigan Historical Museum, 702 W. Kalamazoo St., in Lansing, for two magic workshops taught by two members of the Magicians Guild of Lansing.
“The Historical Museum has been doing this for seven years,” said Ken Salzman, former president of the Magicians Guild of Lansing. “With kids we do impromptu kinds of things — the sort of things like you go to a restaurant and use what’s on a table.”
The Michigan Historical Museum hosts Michigan Magic Day in honor of magician Harry Houdini’s death on Oct. 31, 1926.
“It has nothing to do with Halloween,” said Jo Anne Arasim, educational development for the Historical Museum. “It’s that Houdini died in October, which is Magic Month.”
The Michigan Historical Museum held the event Saturday to do a joint venture with the Magicians Guild of Lansing.
“This is the first year I’ve done it, but we haven’t done it in a few years,” said John Sturk, president of the Magicians Guild of Lansing. “(Ring 54) doesn’t have as many performers as it used to.”
The goal of Michigan Magic Day is to spread awareness about magic and to share it with people, Arasim said.
“The Magicians Guild has been very generous with us, and they just like to share magic with everyone,” she said.
The children’s workshop, led by Salzman, taught a variety of different magic tricks such as a levitating pencil, a disappearing salt shaker and linking paper clips together with a dollar bill.
“If they’re real young, they don’t understand how it’s supposed to go,” Salzman said about teaching magic tricks. “We want them old enough to remember a sequence and then repeat it.”
The adult workshop was taught by Sturk, and the same magic tricks were utilized – with the exception of a coin vanishing trick.
“Teaching adults is different because when children are in that 8-13 age, they think they know how everything is done,” Salzman said. “If you violate those rules, it annoys them.
“You have to wait until they’re in their 20s before they’re polite enough not to take your stuff and show you how it’s done.”
After the one-hour workshops, everyone watched the masters at work with a magic show. To perform efficiently, the magician has to believe the trick is real, Salzman said.
“There is a group of people who don’t like to be fooled,” he said. “They think magic is rude.
“If I can be sufficiently amusing, my audience will forgive my rudeness.”
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