Just Like Magic
Holding an ordinary coffee spoon, Devin Knight predicts he can make it bend.
With a steady hand and a furrowed brow, he squeezes the spoon between his fingers, then stares at the spoon intently until it bends to the shape of a V. Within moments, the angle reaches its limit and breaks.
“You can see where it bent and you can see where it broke, so it's no trick spoon,” said Knight, 55, of Grove City.
Without hesitating, Knight produces a half dollar and blows on the coin until it turns color.
“Look. A gold half dollar,” he said.
It must be magic.
A tricky jobKnight makes his living as a magician, working through an agent to host workshops and perform at shows and corporate events around the world. He also has written 27 instruction books, sold to professionals through magic shops.“I have never had quote a ‘real job' since I got out of college,” said Knight, who studied marketing.“I paid my way through college doing shows. By the time I got out of college I realized I was making more money a year doing magic shows than I ever could doing marketing.”Although Knight does close-up magic with sleight of hand card tricks and coins, he describes himself largely as a mentalist and psychic performer, using “mind power” for tricks like changing cloud formations or bending spoons.In recent years, he added a comedy hypnotism component after training in Las Vegas with Marc Savard, who bills his act as “the No. 1 comedy hypnosis show in Las Vegas.”
Knight also has hosted magic camps as part of the Butler County Parks and Recreation summer youth programs at Alameda Park.Other magicians who perform locally include 27-year-old Tim Kutch of Kittanning, who performed New Year's Eve at Butler's Ring in the Arts event; and 22-year-old Joseph Janeda III of Cranberry Township, set to teach a Lifelong Learning class this spring for Butler County Community College.Though not a full-time magician, Janeda supplements his income by doing strolling magic in bars and restaurants.“I actually go table to table: I do a little show at each table — a three- or four-trick set,” he said. “I like the close-up magic because you get to interact with people on a more personal level.”Janeda also specializes in what he calls “Halloween” or “geek” magic, with tricks like shoving a needle through his hand or swallowing a piece of thread and pulling it out his eye.“I actually play a game kind of like Russian roulette. It involves three cups and three boards — one with a nail through it,” he said, explaining how the trick involves smashing the two cups that are not covering a nail.“It's a very dangerous trick: If I mess up, I end up shoving a nail through my hand.”Kutch, on the other hand, makes his living as a magician, offering a variety of shows tailored to budget and venue. Those range from smaller close-up shows to escape stunts and big illusions with fire and spikes and levitating girls.One of his more unusual shows involves making live doves appear from inside bubbles and shooting them out of cans of Silly String. In one trick, Kutch takes one dove and splits it into two.“I went to Canada and studied for a year with Greg Frewin,” Kutch said of the schooling that led to those tricks. Frewin a Canadian illusionist, is called the “World Champion of Magic.”“He is actually the one who inspired me. He is one of the famous magicians I watched on TV. ... It's pretty cool that I got to go and work with one of the guys I watched growing up as a kid.”
Like Knight and Janeda, Kutch was drawn to magic in childhood.“I started when I was about 6 years old. I got a little magic kit for Christmas. From there I started practicing a lot. I would watch the magic shows on TV, and then I would videotape them — then just kind of study them and watch them over and over again. I also would go to the library and would check out all the books I could.”Knight began doing tricks at age 3, perfecting a show by grade school.“I was doing shows in first grade. When we did show and tell, I'd do magic,” Knight said, explaining how by second grade he was performing at school assemblies.Janeda got started in his early teens.“I'd seen David Blaine on TV, and I just grew up watching him. ... I learned a few tricks and took them to school,” he said. “Mainly I'm self-taught through books, DVDs, online. Everything I could find I took in. I also try to develop my own material now.”Kutch and Knight agree authentic tricks are the mark of a professional.“When I was 16 or so, I started doing the magic competitions. That really helped me, too — because I got to work with a lot of the big name guys. They would give me tips,” Kutch said.“(But) those things can only take you so far. If you want to get into the more professional, big-time stuff, you need to start thinking of your own things and creating your own (tricks).”By writing books for magicians, Knight has taken authenticity to yet another level. According to Knight, his book “Cloud Busting Secrets,” co-authored with Jerome Finley, is the only book of its kind — explaining largely how to read clouds and predict whether they will dissipate, appear or change shape — and then design tricks and predictions accordingly.“There are also devices you can build in your backyard to make clouds dissolve using orgone energy,” Knight said. But he also admits magicians rely largely on psychological manipulations.“If you can control someone's mind, you don't get caught,” he said.
Knight won't reveal trade secrets for his current tricks, but he does say observation and technology are sometimes a part of the show.Psychic predictions about newspaper headlines sealed before a show, for instance, often stick to commonly occurring events that likely will appear.“You become so attuned to the news and the trends and statistics you can be (correct a large part of the time).”“Part of doing magic is doing things that are so obvious they're not obvious,” he said. As a result, common products and science principles often go unrecognized when concealed behind a dramatic presentation.Even though freeze spray is sold for cooling electronics, for instance, no one suspected its use when he ran a tube down his sleeve in order to use the spray — and not psychic ability — to freeze his wrist watch on command.He embellished the trick by making wind sounds to mask the noise from the aerosol can.“In things I'm doing nowadays, I try to create the illusion that this is for real: How could it be a trick?,” Knight said.According to Kutch, most magicians guard their own secrets carefully. And even if they didn't, most tricks take years to perfect.“People ask me what I think of that ‘Masked Magician (Best Secrets Revealed series),' Kutch said.“Legally you can't reveal any trick that belongs to somebody else. It's protected by intellectual property rights. So you're not revealing any true secrets.“Usually, when people ask me (what's behind my tricks), I ask them if they can keep a secret. They say yes. And I tell them ‘so can I.'”
