Imagine seeing a levitating table, self-writing chalk, a card inside an orange, and long, sharp nails all before dinnertime. No, you’re not dreaming, you’re at ACBU’s latest excursion.
This past Saturday, around 200 students packed into the Michel Student Center ballroom for an hour of magic and mischief with esteemed illusionist Joel Meyers.
Known from appearing on shows like “America’s Got Talent” and “Penn & Teller: Fool Us,” and for his Hollywood afterparty work entertaining celebrities, Meyers brought card tricks, escape art, mind-reading, danger acts and more.
The ballroom scene, brimming with curious chatter and the smell of sweetened popcorn, created an energetic atmosphere and thus a highly receptive crowd.
“We really wanted to do something different with this event during Welcome Back Week,” said Ian Fournie, president of ACBU and a junior public relations major.
Fournie was impressed after seeing Meyers at a conference.
“[We] wanted something that we thought people would be talking about, and we knew that Joel would be able to do that for us,” Fournie said.
Meyers’ acts included beating Harry Houdini’s straitjacket-escaping time. He did it in one minute and 59 seconds, as opposed to Houdini’s time of three minutes and seven seconds. He also hammered a long nail up his nose.
It wasn’t long before Meyers had students eager for the next trick up his black leather sleeves, thanks to his charm and his transparency about the audience’s choosing to suspend their disbelief.
“I’m an honest liar,” Meyers said. “I tell you I’m going to lie, and then I do.”
Meyers’ most engaging acts were done with audience members for them to experience and act as the “eyes of the crowd,” inspecting his props to ensure no previous modifications.
One such trick involved a student tearing a piece from a card, after which the rest vanished and resurfaced in the center of a randomly picked orange.
Another involved Meyers calling up sophomore political science and computer information systems double major Brandy Wayne for a stunt that had students squirming.
He produced four bags, one containing a long nail. Trusting Wayne’s instinct, he slammed his hand on the bags she deemed safe, and put her hand atop his to eliminate the final one. All were proven to be safe.
“I couldn’t help but laugh and kept a grin on my face,” Wayne said. “While I was choosing the bags, I hoped he had a backup plan if I chose the wrong one, but as we saw, I didn’t!”
The show’s surreal ending included Meyers reading a relative’s name out of a student’s mind, making the name of a randomly chosen late celebrity appear written on two chalkboards and making a stool float in the air.
“There was a lot of anticipation for it by the student body, and the turnout showed that,” Fournie said.
Audience members were pleased with the performance.
“It was every magic show I have seen combined in one and up close,” Wayne said. “To see the magic so close gave me a real-life experience like never before.”
