A current headliner at Hollywood’s globe-famous Magic Castle, magician and mentalist Andy Deemer provides his entertaining (and edgy) reside virtual display. Interacting with audiences through Zoom, Deemer performs card tricks, would make objects seem and disappear, and even mails out predictions that purportedly come genuine to audience contributors. How does he do it? Perfectly, a magician hardly ever reveals his techniques.
But Andy’s Tremendous Delighted Enjoyment Magic Show is extra than a typical parlor magic spectacle.
“I’ve been executing features of it for many years, but it did not come jointly into one particular cohesive total right up until the pandemic,” Deemer claims. “I was genuinely compelled to feel about how to carry out magic above Zoom, wherever men and women could not choose a card and items could be digitally enhanced. But with Zoom, every person receives a front-row seat, so you can observe all the things I’m accomplishing super shut and, hopefully, continue to be fooled and entertained.”
But there is a dark edge to Deemer’s demonstrate, which dovetailed with the rise of conspiracy theories in the mainstream consciousness of The usa about the past yr.
“It commences out as a very vanilla family magic show,” says Deemer, who portrays a edition of himself, a variety of alter ego, in the efficiency. “For the very first 60 or 72 seconds, it is very cheerful and virtually Pee-wee Herman-esque,” he says.
But, soon after that temporary foray into happy fun land, his change moi character realizes he has a captive viewers and delves passionately into conspiracy theories, employing magic tips to convince the audience that they are legitimate or “to prove that there is government thoughts command and that consuming this concoction of Pink Bull, espresso, Mountain Dew, and bear urine will essentially increase your memory.”
A person of the issues of which this magic-accomplishing theorist is persuaded: the John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln assassinations are linked to every single other, and linked, by some means, to present-day vocalist Taylor Swift.
“I’ve often been fascinated in conspiracy theories,” Deemer suggests. “I believe they’re superb and entertaining until eventually they turn into dangerous. And, more than the very last yr, right after I begun accomplishing the present, they’ve definitely become dangerous. QAnon has turn into a family conversation and panic of vaccines has become so widespread.”
Weaving conspiracy theories with convincing feats of magic is Deemer’s way of highlighting the “truthiness” — to borrow a time period from comedian Stephen Colbert — of statements introduced as details, regardless of evidence, logic, and demanding mental inquiry. Truthiness is, in a way, the very thing that keeps us believing in the veracity of parlor magic.