As a kid, I remember watching Thanksgiving magic specials on TV. I don’t mean those Charlie Brown specials that seemed magical, but the ones where mysterious men dressed head-to-toe in black, surrounded themselves with scantily clad women, only to reward them by sawing them in half. Magic. They would air every year on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

 

I grew up in Brooklyn, which meant spending three hours sitting in traffic on our way out to Long Island to spend Thanksgiving with the extended wrinkly members of the family. This was never really something to celebrate, but huddling in front of the TV with my siblings the night before was always the most anticipated event of the holiday weekend. That is until my cousin and I were old enough to devise a plan to raid the liquor from the grown-ups table. I remember using my own magic set as a distraction, performing tricks for the adults as my cousin absconded with the oh-so-delicious Manischewitz. Rum-running aside, I was hooked. It was the magicians I watched religiously that left me spellbound, anxious for next year’s surprises.

 

I was committed to becoming a magician. Tigers, bows and arrows, a deck of cards. I loved them all. But my favorite illusions were not the disappearing elephant, or the floating assistant with the hula hoop waved around her demonstrating that she was freely suspended. I was drawn to the more subtle tricks. The ones that twisted the fabric of reality just slightly, just enough to keep you in suspense, as the trick gently unfolded. Meticulous and patient. The elephant was here, now it’s not? First A, then B. That’s not magic. Magic is taking a journey from A to Z, and then back again while having your audience enraptured with every letter in between.

 

I wanted to tell stories. Stories that transformed something from mundane to magnificent. From start to finish, I would watch as a trick slowly unfolded, culminating in a final reveal that would flip your expectations on their side. The hat was no longer a hat. It was a portal to another dimension where bunnies and birds and that ace of Spades all lived! Storytelling made the transformation compelling. That hat has to mean something to someone in order for true magic to happen. The audience must be invested enough to care about the outcome.

 

I trained as any adolescent would – between cartoons, cereal and running around outside to avoid taking out the garbage or cleaning my room. I developed longer and more complex stories around the magic rings and the tin cups. Every item in my magic sets had a backstory. A dark and twisted lineage. The chintzy magic wand was actually unearthed centuries ago in the estate sale of a mysterious witchdoctor. Ignore the “made in China” imprint. More than I practiced the execution of the trick, I rehearsed and tested new stories. Every trick a new opportunity for transformation through narrative. I worked to keep the audience on the edge of their seats, teasing them through plot twists and hidden reveals. Backyard magic at its finest.  

 

As I got older, my magic sets began to collect more and more dust between uses. While I discovered magic elsewhere. Magic was in the books I read, the movies I watched, and the conversations I had with friends. Being a part of a conversation that related the Christopher Nolan Batman movies to philosophical writings of Nietzsche, became my magic hat. A conversation would start at point A and all of a sudden Z’s, Q’s and S’s are flying out. A new story would unravel at a moment’s notice. All of them unique but all containing that familiar enchanting quality. All were stories of discovery and transformation.

 

So, how to make that a part of my life? How can I do that for a living? How can I tell stories every day that transform the world around us, even if just for an instant? Advertising! Eureka! Ads were all around me, each begging for my attention, trying to tell their story of change. Whether in an instant or in a thirty-second spot, that magic filled the streets and sounds wherever I went. I knew one thing, I no longer wanted to wear a bowtie and white gloves.

 

Rather than attend the Magic Mystery School, highly touted as it may be, I decided to go to Boston University. I went to the School of Communications and selected advertising as my major. At the time, I didn’t know there was such a thing. But there is! So, I went! I got my first taste of the ad process when I sat down with a bunch of creative strangers and threw ideas at a wall, waiting to see what stuck. The conversations we had were like the ones I had previously loved. everywhere all at once. And then, you finally found it. An Idea. An idea that connected. It connected a product or a brand to a feeling. It transformed a bottle of water to a symbol of personal identity. A kitchen appliance to a warm nostalgia. A hat to...well we’ve been through that one already.

 

After graduating I was set. I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew I was capable of it. I moved back to my old stomping grounds of Brooklyn. However, my feelings of invincibility soon faded when I realized that having passion and a good idea sometimes aren’t enough. I bounced around a little, working at a small media company doing some copywriting and web stuff. I freelanced here and there. Wherever I could get some writing gigs. Then all of a sudden, I found myself in the culinary world, helping to open and operate a craft Ice Cream factory. What started as a conversation with a local chef about ice cream being a blank canvas for any culinary concoction, sped out of control to possible Batman and Bruce Wayne flavor pairings. I got to be a part of a product from the ground up. I worked to construct a brand identity and build a business strategy for a product I was literally making with my own hands. It was amazing. But, eventually, I missed the sensation of tackling a new creative challenge. Taking a brand and working tirelessly to tell their story from start to finish. Then doing it all again with something completely new. Every day a new challenge. Every product a new magic trick.

 

So, here I am today, doing whatever it takes to be the person who gets to help craft the big idea. I’m a passionate writer, whose goal is to tell stories that transform a product. Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. Taking expectations about what we perceive something to be, and revealing it to be something greater. Something we care about or feel somehow a part of. I’m still a fan of magic, and I try and make it every day.