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| "You're five years old? When I was your age, son, I was six." |
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| St. Paul Katie and her amazing poker pal. |
Kathleen was delighted to see "The Amazing Hondo" billed as the entertainer at a corporate event the other night. She plays poker with the schoolteacher-turned-magician and knew that he worked these kinds of events, but she had never actually seen him on stage. He performed recently at the 3M Championship Pro-Am Party at the TPC Twin Cities; a Delta Airlines fundraiser and a Notre Dame Hospitality event in Ireland.
While it may seem foolish to play poker with a master of deception and sleight of hand, special rules apply when Hondo plays with friends: he is not allowed to deal the cards or shuffle the deck. In his defense, Hondo claims his losses are ample proof that he plays the game straight up.
Anyway, Katie greeted The Amazing Hondo warmly before the performance, then sat down to watch the act, while two audience members unintentionally shred a couple of his carefully-crafted routines. In one trick, a five-year-old picked a card and was specifically told not to show it to anyone. He promptly showed it to the entire audience. A patient Hondo asked him to pick another, the boy did, then showed it again.
Then he refused to leave the stage.
Later, in a mind-reading stunt, Hondo instructed an adult volunteer to draw a card and then go to that page in a book. She drew the Seven of Diamonds. . . then went to page 9. It took a while to sort things out.
The Amazing Hondo soldiered on, inserting a hat pin into a balloon then out the other side, lengthening then shortening a rope, moving a $100 bill into a sealed envelope, and other magic schtick. The audience loved it all and gave him an enthusiastic round of applause at the finale. We went behind the stage to congratulate him on a stellar, entertaining performance under duress, but we couldn't find him anywhere.
The Amazing Hondo had disappeared.
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| Let's see here. The Amazing Hondo eventually read their minds, but it wasn't easy. |
