Gadgetory

we brought up we're in : michigan the magic capital of the world then the town fathers just flipped open the dictionary and soft : and he said that's it you know I called the lower bowel of the state and it's also the upper digestive tract of magic it's a town of 1,200 people and it doubles in size during magic week a lot of people say it's like Vegas coming to Mayberry it's just a deal a wonderful thing that happens when we got here everybody just shows up here you guys are leave you compare it to like music festivals this is like the Woodstock it's so also this is Christmas to me I would skip Christmas for this for real okay I'm Greg Bordner and I'm the president of Abbot magic company here in : Michigan my name is Rick Fisher I'm the owner and president of the fab magic manufacturing company here in : Michigan my name is john sturly knee and i own sterling ii magic manufacturing here and beautiful : michigan i mean we have one stoplight may have three magic shops and go figure my dad came along in 1934 he was the money behind Percy Abbott so they started the Abbott magic company downtown : my dad took over in 1961 and he'd passed away in 1981 and I've been running it ever since my folks brought me up here in 65 my sister and I we did some fishing it took me over to Abbott's I was 7 years old got a couple of magic tricks came home absolutely fell in love with magic could not get enough of it the Abbott children were good friends of mine and so they were the first to jump on board and say what can we do to help you open up a new magic company as some of the other Abbott family wanted to help him along start the fab magic company so he has been separate from us and completely different from us ever since this is like his tenth or eleventh year in business one year after they get together Saturday night I thought hey I wonder if there's a building available for sale here in town next week came out and checked it out buddy or later we moved in I feel animosity I mean you know this is my home the owner there but it seems think that they have no right to be in town well this is United States of America anyone can I don't want to get into that I mean to me it's where I grew up I mean I played on a football team with a fighting rabbit on my helmet oh it's like I know the people in the cemetery personally they had an open house when they started in 1934 and they called it the get together and they've invited magicians that they had knew in the area to come and have fun and have like a party and see their newest shot but they had a great time they had fun and really that's the whole basis of this whole thing even to this day 80 years later it's like a big family reunion that you want to go to it the magic is secondary here the people that come here they were coming 20 30 40 50 60 years and it's all about the the relationships if people have here it's the camaraderie that's that's more important than the magic it takes place in the middle of cornfields we're surrounded by lakes I love to fish I love boating I love water I love magic and this is what it combines my mom used to bring me up here and I was 13 years old it was for the 50th get-together back in 1987 so these are people that aren't just magicians they aren't just friends I consider them family because we've grown up together the get-together itself hosted by Abbott's magic is four days it's Wednesday through Saturday there are lectures during the day there's a dealer room where we can buy new magic and then each evening there's a big show in the high school there's magicians on that act for the top cruise-ship entertainers have Vegas entertainers it's a top notch show that you see my first time I was here is 1974 and then I came back the following year and I started to be in the competition like I'm going through town in Michigan you know should have like you know set your watches back 200 years I'll go on stage and people go all we know them it's like just coming home it's like in your own living room that's what this is like to me it's very homey hey doc come here they want to interview somebody really important that's actor SMO Lars he's the local dentist magic is not illegal but when you stop in the middle of the road to do your trick then it becomes illegal so yeah magic week is always a big influx of people in tower you know normally we have a couple horse and buggies going through during the day we don't have fights over parking spots or you know things like that so but it's never a major problem but for the locals that is serious they want to get their mail things like that people stop in the middle of the road to go talk to somebody that they haven't seen since last year and I believe it was in 2003 we had a magician start crossing the street and actually get hit because he just got so excited about seeing somebody he just walked out and luckily the car wasn't going fast bail you know everybody has their routine here you get the same people at the same restaurants at the same time every morning and then you have this influx of additional people that take up their spot at the restaurant or their spot parking at the the post office you know we deal with it it's four days a year and we're okay a town of 1000 people in the middle of absolutely nowhere halfway between Detroit and Chicago has three magic shops I don't think they have that many in New York City I'm not sure for a while there there was some cooperation we don't see that cooperation now and that's too bad because we want to see it's for the betterment of Kohler there are the new kids on you know I trespassing if you will but I guess it's just too big I can't stop it you know in the magic capital there should be magic everywhere if you go to a antique Capitol Laurie and city is known for antiques there's more than one antique shop you know it's not a competition it's let's try to enhance what we can for the community for the magic community and take it from there I got it 29 December 21st 2009 people that know me just accompany to go here you can hear now I was winning because you're talking so much better I was going from profoundly hard-of-hearing to death between the age of 17 and 20 so that's when I found magic at the same time when you lose one of your sentence like that and it's find her death people close down you know they avoid social interaction or they're feeling comfortable but because I've been into magic I created it in front of people to do magic for them so that kind of kept me out of my show and I didn't have to hear them I became center of attention so they listened to me so if I didn't go deaf a hobby win here in addition right now like I say wiggle wiggle wiggle I was a bully as a kid I used to pick on this one kid one day he just went off on me and beat me up and changed my life and so I thought well what is I gotta figure out a better way and then one day I went to school and there was a big circle around this one kid and I went over and he was doing a very basic trick that he'd gotten from the drug store so I asked him I said hey can you show it to me and then he showed me how it was done and it was right then in there I was 11 years old I said well this is what I do I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life guaranteed you want to get out now buddy no you don't I never got the opportunity to come here until I was old enough to get myself here get the money to come here and I'm not sure if this town didn't exist if I I might be putting gas lines in mobile homes hate in my life right now I did that actually for a while I think everyone as a kid has a magic set or gets a magic set and then we either stick with it for some reason like we did or we didn't you know I'm 19 years old I'm a freshman in college right now I actually started to do magic when I was in seventh grade as a way to pick up girls no joke just like as an icebreaker and it really you know it didn't work too well the word train spotter in England is a guy that stands on the end of the station and when the trains come through writes down the numbers on the trains they usually have it they're a bit mad and they're what we called train spotters in England magicians I think a one step above train spotter you know we have that strange fascination and that ability to work on some little tiny card slide so that's kind of what it is we're doing something which we really enjoy and we get a buzz out of doing it perfectly and that's kind of what the magic God is all about Oh Johnny Carson was a magician and he said he liked being a magician even though he was very shy it allowed him to be the center of attention without being himself it kind of gives them a confidence that they can they can express to a group of audience yeah they probably all had some kind of complex when they were younger you know what I mean in in the hobby maybe the outlets to compensate for it and so you grow with it and then you through magic you become a totally different person at the end you know one two three and four it's really fun just for you if they change I think magicians always want to show people something that they've never seen before and I love to make people laugh I love to entertain them and I think when we get together here there is that Brotherhood of magicians you know we live in a world where things are changing so rapidly and every year when we come to : there's things that are still the same you know magic is bigger than you might think I have somebody else's heart and it really is touching to be alive today I mean God said you must keep this going it's how I feel you know really I've been chosen to keep this get-together going magic is such a universal thing it's so amazing you can take someone who's a genius and they're fascinated by the puzzles of it the magic happening you can see little kids their mouth falls open their eyes get big when you do the easiest smallest of tricks it brings back a sense of childhood again I got goose bumps on my arm talking about it santa claus used to come and visit me every year of christmas and dad is like the most magical thing in the whole world and i think every magician you try to capture that you try to this is something it's just not possible but yet i'm doing it for you and creating that wow that was cool if you can create something and do it in their hands right in front of them Wow we're gonna have some fun right now we were gonna forget about everything that's going on in life and just be kids again when you're smart when you're smiling the whole world you when you're laughing when you're loved the funny mom but when you're crying you bring on the rain most of your slide the RV Biman I lost when your side you