It seems small, in retrospect. It seems really small.
I met Joao on a whim. Well…
It started in Yorktown, VA; at the time a bit of an adopted hometown. I saw that there would be a magician doing a free show at the library. I love magic. So I went to the library. I wanted to see the show. He was alright. Nothing original, but it was a kids show after all. But he had a polish that suggested he’d done the show many times before.
After the show I lingered, like all magicians do. Before I introduced myself he said “you must be a magician.”
I said “yeah I am, but I’m not a professional.”
Who knows who said what after that. At some point he said his name was Chris. I must’ve told him my name was James. After all, that is how you usually get introduced.
He told me that later that night he was going to Hampton, to some taco joint to meet up with another magician friend of his named Joao. He invited me to come along. Of course I jumped at the opportunity, I never really knew any other magician types.
As I recall the taco joint was named after Diablo in some way and had an animated-devil-type logo. I remember thinking it was a fitting joint for some magicians to get up. That’s when I saw him. I walked in, shook hands, and took in the vibe.
“Hey James, this is Joao; Joao this is James..” Chris introduced us.
Joao had tattoos all over and a cool beanie. And was a damn good sleight of hand artist. I showed both of them some routines. They really seemed to like them. Then Joao showed me a coin trick (for the magi, it was a version of three-fly).
Until that moment I didn’t like coin magic. I only did two coin tricks and I only really liked one of them. I’d never really seen coin magic that I thought was good.
Seems small doesn’t it. Some guy showed me a coin trick. Seems very small.
As I left that night I got a message from Joao it read “...You’re going to go far with it!”
Over the years Joao and I only got closer. The magic only got better. And I started doing coin tricks all the time. He even gave me the Walking Liberty’s I use to this day.
In short he became one of my favorite people in the world. Many of my favorite memoires with magic have to do with him. Some of my favorite other people I’ve met are because of him.
And to think I met him on a whim.
It seemed so small. Meeting some magicians for tacos. It seemed so very small. I had no way of knowing it could change my life.