The Lost Art of Magic | Justin Willman

I was a 12-year-old kid.

I broke my arms one, one summer, uh, riding my bike.

Fell off down a hill, and my doctor recommended card tricks as physical therapy.

Uh, and that's how I got into magic.

That's kind of like, you know, my origin story in a nutshell.

But I was at this place and time in St. Louis, Missouri, early '90s, and I was the only kid in my s- my junior high who did magic, only kid in my high school who did magic.

I lived in a city that happened to have these, like, magic clubs.

It was like a subculture that would meet in, you know, in a back room of a Denny's or a-

Mm-hmm

... church basement.

And so I was able to kind of, like, deep dive down this rabbit hole of this art form that somehow I was the only kid in my orbit who did, and it made me feel, like s- like, special and, you know, unique.

It's like an em- it's an empowering art form, obviously, to be able to learn how to do stuff that fools your friends and also fools your teachers, you know, and amazes your parents.

But, uh, it quickly did become a, a job just from the entrepreneurial aspect of people need entertainment at parties.

So by 14 I had business cards, had a briefcase, and I was, uh, hustling.

Let's take it back in that chronology.

I want to dig a little bit deeper on this broken arm bit.

Yeah.

So, like, I'm getting this image of you, and I think the story goes you had roller skates on with your bike.

Rollerblades on a bike.

I sometimes leave out the Rollerblades 'cause people are distracted by, like, "Wait, wait, wh- what?" I was like, "No, no, no.

Yeah, I was an idiot."

Double threat.

I was an idiot.

That's not the point.

Yeah.