THE BUDGET SENIORS
TRICK
OF THE
EYE
Senior takes on unexpected magic hobby BY ANDREW PHALEN
STAFF WRITER
M
ost people who start to learn magic are inspired by a famous YouTuber or magician, but for senior Isaak VanMeter, his magic career started to spite a seventh-grade teacher. “I got a C- on a project about magic and decided I’d show him,” VanMeter said. “Hopefully, I’ll bump into him, and I can freak his mind.” VanMeter has learned tricks from websites and videos. While he doesn’t perform his magic for money, VanMeter did perform during passing periods, at family gatherings and parties. “I love being able to do subtle things in front of people’s faces they don’t notice and having the self satisfaction of being able to say, ‘Haha, I got you,’ ” VanMeter said. VanMeter’s favorite trick is called Backup Plan, which he described as a “card jumping” trick. He performed this trick over Zoom for me. He started by removing all the aces from the deck and having me select a random card to keep secret from him out of the deck. I selected the nine of spades, and it was placed directly back into the middle of the deck. While the aces were still out of the deck, he asked me to pick one of them. I picked the ace of hearts. Then, the trick began. “The trick is called Backup Plan because if I mess up the trick with the aces, I have to find your original card in a magic way,” VanMeter said. He stacked up the aces and said he would make the ace of hearts flip, without me seeing, three times. He successfully did it the first two times, but by this point I was quite impressed and very confused. The magic trick went on for several more steps, but in the end VanMeter sure enough flipped over the nine of spades — the card I picked at the very beginning of the trick. While VanMeter doesn’t plan to continue with magic after high school, he said it had been one of his favorite hobbies throughout high school. “Lately I had stopped doing magic, but maybe this time will inspire me to continue doing magic after high school,” he said.
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JUNE 1, 2020 |PAGE DESIGNED BY SOPHIA KAUFMAN