While sitting at a table near the Rez waiting for a magician to appear, it's hard to know what to expect. Eli Cushner entered the way a normal person would. He trotted up the stairs of the campus center and introduced himself. But after that, the whole mood changed.
He first did a simple card trick, but then he began reading minds and making coins seemingly teleport several feet in an instant.
Cushner, a sophomore engineering psychology major, has been doing magic since the seventh grade when his dad bought him a magic instructional video.
"At first it was difficult to learn," Cushner said. But he practiced with a magic kit that he found in his basement until he knew every trick in it.
Now in college, he continues his affinity for magic and brings a trick with him wherever he goes. As a now-experienced magician, Cushner enjoys performing purely for the sake of entertaining his audience.
"Magic at its core is really simple ... It is not a means to fool people -- as Jerry Seinfeld said, 'Here's a coin, now it's gone, you're an idiot,'" he said. "Instead, I attempt to bring out people's emotions."
While he has performed for as many as 500 people, he prefers entertaining in a more personal setting. In small groups, he is able to understand and use the emotions of the viewer better. He explained that he achieves his goal of surprising, exciting and astonishing his audience by maintaining a close relationship with the spectators. Always eager to show the authenticity of his tricks, he's happy to let his audience touch the cards when skeptical and flip the deck in search of hidden ones, which he feels makes the impact stronger.
"There is a range of emotions. Some people call me the devil; others say I am very professional for a young man. I have even had a guy slap the cards out of my hands in excitement," he said. "I hold on to them tighter now."
Performing in small groups comes naturally to Cushner.
"When I was young, my dad forced me to do magic for everyone we met," he said. "In restaurants I would have to do it for the waiter, the people sitting around me and even the chef."
With the portable, spur-of-the-moment nature of his magic style, many of his tricks focus around cards because they are convenient and allow him to operate in small group settings at any time of the day. "I open up a new pack each week," he said.
In addition to his private shows, Cushner attends conventions and has studied under Jeff McBride, a Las Vegas magician, in order to expand his knowledge of magic.
"There is no college of magic, although some magicians have proposed such an idea," he said. Instead, he operates within a small network of professional and semi-professional magicians from across the country.
"It's not networking to get a job, but instead to improve magic," he said. "We look for holes in each other's tricks or say, 'Why don't you try it that way?'" As part of his network, he also enjoys talking with other Tufts magicians, such as junior Dan Millstein and sophomore Marcell Babai.
Cushner also enjoys taking tips from popular magicians, both real and fictional. "I like [David Blaine and Criss Angel] along with movies like 'The Prestige' (2006) and 'The Illusionist' (2006) because they give a lot of good publicity, and they don't reveal the secrets," he said.
He does not, however, enjoy the emergence of popular videos that reveal tricks to the public, as he takes the secrecy of magic very seriously. And though he sees the value in educational videos for aspiring magicians, he thinks that such exposure should be limited.
"YouTube is a double-edged sword," Cushner said. "People should learn magic only if they want to hold the ethical standards of secrecy. Once people learn how a trick is done, they become disappointed. I get over this by showing other people my own tricks and living vicariously through their awe."
In addition to performing, Cushner likes to create his own illusions.
"[I do this] usually in the period when I am waking up and usually over vacations. I keep a booklet of ideas," he said.
While it may seem difficult to invent tricks, Cushner follows a specific process.
"[When creating a trick,] you should think of the effect before the method," he said. "For instance, I am working on a trick to get someone's card into a Rez muffin. The effect is card in muffin, but the method is to be determined. I'm sure it will violate some health code, though."
Lately, magic has fallen on the backburner because of his other responsibilities, but Cushner continues to practice constantly. He maintained that when preparing an illusion, he gets to put together his own story.
"I will definitely do magic forever," he said. "You are your own director, actor and fashion designer."
