Meeting Mr. B

Today, downtown, in the far reaches of the festival circuit, I had the honor of conjuring alongside local magic legend Mr. B, or B-Magic, as he goes by. A sweet old soul with a Santa Clause swagger, this old mage from the charming streets of Downtown Gainesville is a master of silks. He can turn a red silk into a blue one with the snap of a finger, and multiply them in his bare hands at will. He can pull endless yards of streamers from his mouth, make sides disappear and re-appear underneath shells, and produce giant dice from thin air. He is a retired fire-fighter, the first African American firefighter in the city of Gainesville, and rocks a cool, mellow Jazz-man voice while performing. He congratulated me whole-heartedly after seeing my show, and took me aside to tell me that I'm swift with the pen. I walked with him to a busy corner talking magic like how magicians do, and suddenly found myself street performing alongside him! We hit duel card sets and racked in the crowds like fish in a net. We were surrounded, but we were rolling- a performing chemistry I have never even found among other magicians in the House! Kids and adults alike were smiling and stunned to see our art in action, brought to them by this young asian fellow and this jolly old Jazz man. What a strange combo! But we were smooth with it, and easily threw down some of the sickest duel mage sets of my career.

I was honored to be a part of Mr. B's magical legacy, even in his old age. He had been practicing longer than I had been alive, and his work has been enjoyed by generations of audiences all over town. "The kids I used to do birthdays fo', I'm now doin' they kids' birthdays," he told me. And sure enough, later a teen of about 19 approached him and said that he remembered him from when he was 6! His reputation is a humble one, and I was inspired by the way he treasured his magic.

I would open each set with the pen thing, because he'd excitedly grab a few passerby and tell them, "you gotta' check this kid out. Hey, show 'em what you do with that ink pen, show 'em, show 'em." That's how our sets began! And I'd twirl my prop into my manipulation piece, until the crowd became sizable. And then Mr. B would draw out his weathered old cards and perform a swift and jolly Monte for them! The way we transitioned and pulled the crowds in was genuine, and the way we'd ad-lib off each other was cake.

The art of magic is the art of people-meeting, and memory-making, and I'm still amazed at the encounter I had with Mr. B and his magic. Later that day I overheard him talking with some spectators after a set we hit about his true struggles, and his true magic, and that is going through what he has gone through. He had lost his daughter, and his family, years back to diseases. He had been diagnosed with cancer and had several operations here and there. He had grown up in the time before the civil rights movement, and was exposed to a great deal of racism and mistreatment being the first black firefighter in Gainesville. One of the only things he had at present was his magic, and he used it to conjure away his past and present troubles into the astonished eyes of the crowd watching at the moment.

The life of the itinerant conjurer is mine to behold. I travel the world this way, and let what falls in front of me fill my sights, as I tell each crowd I take care of to do nothing else but "watch."


-antidote