Recently, I went to a magic show: “An Evening with Joshua Jay.” I came across it while reading the newspaper. Yes, newspapers still exist in the paper form & yes, they’re still printed & read. When I saw the advertisement, I was like, I HAVE TO GO!!! I love magic. Anything can happen with it. 😉 Just like anything can happen with fiction. 😉 Something called me.

As Joshua Jay opened the show, he told us the theme of the night was time travel. He said we were going to go back in time. He then whipped out a bottle of bubbly out of nowhere. My panties nearly got wet. I like time travel & I love the bubbly! It’s strange, because as of late, I’ve been seeing more things about time travel. [I recently watched AHS season 8 among other things]. The venue was at the University of Chicago, the southside. Hey, the southside needs love, too! It’s not entirely bad. LOL. The university was founded in 1890. The date of the show was October 17, 2019. It was a Thursday. What I also learned/ discovered was the show was about numerology. I am nearly obsessed with numerology. The Number 23 changed my life. I’m telling you, I felt like I was meant to be there. The show was audience participation, obviously. Which one isn’t? Well… Anyhow, Joshua Jay picked a random person from the audience, & made it very clear they had never met, & had them state one of the addresses they lived at in their childhood. Prior to that, he gave another random person an unopened box. No one knew what was inside it. JJ then had another person who recently got a speeding ticket for doing 44 in the 30, let’s just say, come into the picture. He then got another person to randomly pick anything from a grocery store. This person picked M&M’s. You know, the candy that melts in your mouth & not in your hand?!?! JJ did some whacky calculation of the speeding ticket with the address of the random person & came up with a number. That number was concluded as 189010172019. The other random person opened the mysterious box given at the beginning of it all. Guess what the fuck was in there. It was a fucking pack of M&M’s candy. But wait, it gets better! [I’m reliving the moment as I am typing & it is fucking great!!!] Guess what the number on the barcode was. FUCKING 189010172019! OMFGG!! UIC was founded in 1890 & the date, 10.17.2019! OMFGG!!! C R A Z Y! That, my dear, is the art of magic. It was mind blowing! Again, all right in front of my Bette Davis eyes! I was seriously like, holy shit. I knew there was an explanation to it all, but how!?! What if the person chose a banana or something? Joshua Jay also did this really cool trick where he put some random guy’s wedding ring onto the stem of a wine glass. That was interesting. & he took it off, too, without breaking it. The art of magic!

As a part of his finale, Joshua Jay mimicked the record he has broken for memorizing cards. Everyone in the front row received a card, & he had to find it after shuffling the deck continuously. The last card, which was mine, had to be found after throwing the deck up in the air. I was the finale, finale 😉 & everything had to be done in under minute. Yeah, he totally did it. The irony of my card. HA! The king of hearts. Hahaha! Go figure! Anything can happen with magic, right? I wanted to keep the card as a bookmark, a souvenir, but the help wouldn’t let me keep it. Grrrr——

The saying goes, a magician never reveals his tricks. Well, in this case, Joshua Jay gave his audience the inside scoop on how to pull some magic tricks of their own. It was all very subtle. & people are so dumb they’re not paying attention to things going on right in front of their face to catch this guy fooling you. Essentially, you are fooling yourself. That is, the art of magic. One is so focused on one thing they forget the other. They say seeing is believing, but what exactly are you seeing? Is your mind on auto-believe? In case you need to be reminded, not everything you read on the internet is true, either. 😉 When JJ showed us how he performed certain acts, I was like, I am not paying attention… –& I WAS trying to pay attention! Maybe he’s that good. He is easy on the eyes. LOL. Distraction! That’s how he really gets away with it all. 😊 Anyhow, some of the tricks he didn’t give us intel on were mind-blowing. I was like, WTF!?! & I saw right from in the front row! My intentions were to catch him slipping but no! JJ was very good. What acts did he share on? A magician never reveals his tricks. 😉

It was an evening with Joshua Jay, not a night, so it didn’t last forever, sadly. Dude, that guy probably has soooooo many groupies! Like, no lie! & he is probably never lonely! 😉 After his performance, there was a Q&A. The audience got to know a little more about Joshua Jay. There’s your intimate “evening” part. Joshua Jay is from Ohio. There you go! A Midwesterner. Like a lot of artists, he experienced a tragedy & was able to overcome it & channel his hurt energy into something beautiful; he didn’t let anything affect him, that could. Had JJ let his tragedy of almost losing his hands permanently affect him, then he would’ve got nowhere. I appreciate his passion for his craft. He’s an inspiration. Another strong talking point that came about was the blurred lines of being a magician & witchcraft. It’s true & crazy! There are people under the impression magicians can do anything. Anything can happen with magic, right!?!?! Some people REALLY think that! It then made me think of the movie, Oz, The Great & Powerful & AHS season 3. Joshua shared on what it’s like having to come up with your own tricks & how the magic community reacts to “stealing” ideas or having tricks that are near identical to others. He also touched on how it was disappointing that there are less actual magic shops around & available; it’s a dying breed, I guess, which is true! But which stores, physically, aren’t dying down!?! But, I mean, magic is better live & in person. Don’t you think? Yes!

I was struck by it all. & I don’t starstruck, per se. You know, me already being a celeb & all… & because I overthink everything already, the setting, the place of time, all the numerology, everything hit me. It was great. Yes, the English in me came out: JJ/ Joshua Jay, M&M’s, in the southside, SS, me randomly picking up the newspaper. The whipping out of the champagne bottle, me sitting in the front row, the fact that I got the king of hearts card is more hilarious! Joshua Jay had us fooled, yes, as most magicians do, aside from con artists, but we’ll stick to magicians for now. Magic is all orchestrated. It is a form of science, everything boils down to something, but you must do it right. Not everyone can be a magician. This show has added extra excitement to me for an upcoming magic show that I am SUPER excited about. & yes, I had heard about the Chicago Magic Lounge before, but I was reminded when I saw an advertisement in the newspaper!!! —don’t underestimate the power of the newspaper! The Chicago Magic Lounge is having an All Hallows Eve special on All Hallows Eve! How exciting. I’m ready for that one! After the general show, if you upgraded your ticket, then one will be able to see an additional magic act & I guess that is like “opening the vault” for them. I decided to “treat” myself. Without a doubt, I’m going to be tricked.