Anything is Possible Read online

  The October long weekend finally arrived and Dad and I headed off to the airport. I very nervously checked in a sturdy 25-kilogram cardboard box carefully packed with the little table we had made and all my props, wedged with bubble wrap, and breathed a huge sigh of relief when it came through unscathed at the other end. I threw myself into everything the convention had to offer: the opening night gala, the lectures, magic shows, the exhibits from magic shops around the country. It seemed big to me at the time, though in reality it wasn’t at all; there would have been a couple of hundred people there at the most. But it felt special to be around so many other magicians and Dad got into it, too, even learning a nice little matchbox trick at one of the sessions.

  The competition was held on the second day. There were about a dozen entrants in my division and I was the youngest by a mile: most of them were at least twice my age with three times my experience. But maybe because I’d had some of the stuffing knocked out of me in the young magicians’ club I wasn’t nearly as nervous as I might have been in my first-ever competition in front of all the old hands.

  I did the routine exactly as I’d planned, throwing the lights and zig-zagging the Coke can and making canes appear, and I danced all the way through it, despite the little stage being carpeted. I got a really good response. The novelty factor that the junior group convenor had thought would be such a problem seemed to be one of the things that people really liked about it. Older magicians made a point of coming up to me afterwards and saying how good the act was. Later on, after we’d seen all the other acts, Dad rang Mum and said, ‘Paul did a really good job. I reckon he could win this.’

  Entertaining the guests at Nonna Pina’s eightieth birthday party.

  Cosentino family collection

  The awards were given out at the ‘gala dinner closing ceremony’. The MC announced the awards for Best Party Magician and Best Close-Up Magic and various other categories and then it was time for the winner of Parlour Room Magic . . . and he called my name. I wanted to win, I’d thought I had what it took to win, and Dad had thought so too, but even so we were both slightly stunned when it actually happened. I went up to the podium and collected the very large trophy, not quite sure if I was dreaming: real, professional magicians thought I was good enough to have earned this award even though I was just a fourteen-year-old kid.

  It was a huge confidence boost and it taught me one of the most important lessons of my life: stay true to yourself. Listen to advice but don’t slavishly take it — if you believe in what you are doing, other people will too. Nowadays when I judge junior magic competitions I have firmly in mind that memory of being told point-blank to drop dancing from my act. That’s why I’m at pains to make the contestants understand that the feedback I’m giving them isn’t gospel, it is purely my opinion. Informed opinion, yes, but still just opinion. I say to them, ‘The other judges here might tell you something completely different. Listen to it all, then use what rings true and leave the rest.’ In the end, the only way any of us can truly succeed is if we follow our own path. Commit to doing what you love. Believe in yourself. Then magic will happen.

  Wilson Du

  Cosentino family collection

  EGYPTIAN HALL

  How I would love to have walked through the striking portal of this building, that stood in Piccadilly, London. Known in its day as ‘England’s Home of Mystery’, it was torn down in 1905 but it still stands in the imaginations of those of us fascinated by the history of magic.

  With statues and other decorative flourishes inside and out inspired by the Ancient Egyptians, it was commissioned as a showcase museum of natural history and anthropology and also served as an art gallery. But the period in which I’d like to have seen it was the one that followed, when in 1873 John Nevil Maskelyne and George A Cooke took what was intended to be a short-term lease.

  Their demonstrations of magic and exposés of fraudulent spiritualists were so successful they remained at Egyptian Hall for three decades, and the stories live on more than a century later.

  GEORGES MÉLIÈS

  If you’ve seen the 2011 movie Hugo you know some of Méliès’s story. He is generally remembered as one of film’s earliest innovators but he’s also an important figure in magic history; in fact, his film breakthroughs arose from his love of magic. Born in Paris in 1861, he was apprenticed to a cobbler when he took off for London in search of broader horizons. He was a regular among the audience at Egyptian Hall (see previous page) and became a professional magician himself. When he eventually returned to Paris he bought the defunct Théâtre Robert-Houdin and reopened it. A few years later he was present when the Lumière brothers screened the first real films. Galvanised by the possibility of using the tricks of illusions and stage magic on film, Méliès pioneered special effects, film music, screen sight gags, sci-fi story-telling and much more, and made more than four hundred films. Like many innovators he was relentlessly copied and pirated, and he died in poverty in 1938. For nearly a century this remarkable man was all but forgotten. Then in 2007 Brian Selznick released a love-letter to Méliès in the form of the award-winning children’s book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, with Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning film adaptation bringing Méliès’s work to millions of people.

  Riding a wave of confidence from my win in Adelaide, I was getting bolder and bolder IN TESTING MY OWN LIMITS AND TRYING TO PUSH THE BOUNDARIES. I THREW MYSELF INTO MAGIC, BODY AND SOUL. EVERYTHING WAS EXPERIMENTATION, FROM TEACHING MYSELF BREAKDANCING TO BRANCHING OUT INTO ESCAPOLOGY. I’D BEEN FASCINATED WITH HOUDINI’S ESCAPES SINCE THAT FIRST DAY IN THE LIBRARY AND NOW I GOT A PAIR OF STEEL HANDCUFFS FROM A MILITARY SURPLUS DISPOSALS STORE AND TAUGHT MYSELF TO PICK THE LOCK. THEY WERE PRETTY BASIC CUFFS AND ONCE I’D MASTERED THE TECHNIQUE I COULD PICK THEM WITH JUST A BOBBY PIN. I OFTEN ASKED ADAM AND JOHN TO HELP ME PRACTISE, AND THEY WERE ONLY TOO WILLING, CUFFING ME TO THE BALUSTRADE OF THE STAIRS AT HOME AND LEAVING ME THERE TO GET OUT.

  They also helped me do my first underwater escapes by tying me to a chair and then throwing me in the pool — at my request, of course. They loved a crazy stunt as much as I did and would do things like build makeshift ramps to jump over on John’s motocross dirt bike while tied to the seat. When I decided to start trying rope escapes in water they didn’t need to be asked twice. I’d read about how Houdini did it, so I knew I had to take in a full breath of air and hold it, fully expanding my chest while the knots were being tied — that way there would be wriggle room once I breathed out. So we took a kitchen chair out to the edge of the pool and they tied me to it and pushed me in.

  Reading about it had taught me that I needed to go in backwards, the way scuba divers do. My plan was simply to hold my breath until I could squirm free. John was such a strong swimmer I never felt in any danger — I figured he’d just bring me and the chair up to the surface if it ever came to that. I was fortunate never to get trapped but it could easily have gone wrong so please, kids, file this under Do Not Try This At Home!

  I remember vividly the shock of the water, and the instinctive, panicky struggle to break free before I got my mind into gear. I felt the ropes start to loosen, which gave me the surge of adrenaline I needed to wriggle free. Finally the ropes fell away. I was able to kick free of the chair, my head broke through the surface and I saw the huge grins on my brothers’ faces.

  I took my brothers’ involvement and support for granted. We’d always been close and it didn’t occur to me that might change. Looking back, though, I realise how unusual it was to have John, by this point studying at university, and Adam, a high school senior, so tightly bonded and still happy to spend time all together. Family first for the Cosentinos. Meanwhile our parents’ attitude went way beyond tolerance. They were nurturing and encouraging, trusting us to experiment without causing permanent damage. They didn’t even shut me down when I decided to teach myself to eat fire . . . inside the house.

  I’d started accumulating books about magic and related subjects and I had a couple
dedicated to the art of ‘eating fire’, putting a burning object into your mouth to extinguish it, and the related skill of ‘breathing fire’, spitting out a spray of flammable liquid and setting fire to it to create a large flame. I was a fifteen-year-old boy which means I was drawn to the idea like a moth to a . . . well, you know.

  If you want to learn this ancient, spectacular and very dangerous stunt my strong advice is go take a circus workshop and learn from professionals. The potential consequences if you get it wrong are very bad indeed, including collapsed lungs, vomiting blood and, of course, severe burns. Not long ago an unfortunate young fire-breather made national news when he ended up in an induced coma after accidentally breathing flames in. I taught myself because I didn’t know any better but, seriously, do not try this at home.

  I blithely followed the instructions given on using a coat hanger and new mop strings to make the fire-sticks I’d be placing in my mouth. Thank goodness I didn’t follow the advice to keep the wadding in place using asbestos-covered fibre! I did, however, go with the recommendation that the best flammable liquid to use was lighter fluid (it even nominated a particular brand because ‘it tastes better’). It turns out there are strongly opposing views about using lighter fluid. Some of it has to do with whether you intend to eat fire, breathe fire or both (you should never, ever, use lighter fluid to breathe fire), but some is just disagreement between experts. I didn’t know any of that, but fortunately I stuck to fire-eating and I was okay. I wasn’t nervous about starting to learn because it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to master it. The fluid tasted disgusting — and the taste returned in burps for hours afterwards. I also got some nastily singed lips from the metal. But I hung in there, practising (sticking to the tiled areas of the house) until I had it down, then I showed it off to my family, who were suitably impressed. I was pretty impressed myself. I might not have been able to articulate it at the time, but being able to control something as elemental as fire made me feel very powerful.

  Despite my young age, my stage experience was growing. As an AdMagiCon competition winner I got included in a showcase at the Melbourne Comedy Club. There were half a dozen acts on the bill and, while they included a comedy magician, it was a variety show rather than a comedy one. It was my first time on a proper stage with proper lighting in front of a paying audience. I didn’t feel nervous, though. I was riding a wave of confidence from the competition and besides, I had my masks to hide behind. I did the same act I’d done in Adelaide — my ‘award-winning act’, if you don’t mind — and was introduced as ‘a future star’. From that performance, I got myself my first agent, Lindi Jane Hunter. A former child star, she offered to take me under her wing to guide me and protect me from the more ruthless aspects of the entertainment industry. I was happy to have all the help I could get and we agreed on a low-key agent agreement where she would look for opportunities for me and get a small cut if any of them were paid gigs.

  She helped me put together my first flyer and then sent it to a contact she had on ABC TV’s Recovery, who arranged for me to appear on the show. Recovery was made for young people by young people and it was a crazy mix of music, movies, interviews, stunts, variety acts and whatever else they could get away with for three hours of live TV in front of a hyperactive studio audience every Saturday morning. It was anarchic, alternative and had a devoted following among its target audience. Being invited on there was a big deal for me, especially when I turned up to the studio and saw the seriously cool punk-rockabilly band The Living End, who had just hit it big and were a favourite of mine.

  Introduced as ‘The Magic of Cosentino’, I did about three minutes’ worth of material mixing dance moves and illusions, during which I removed a series of masks: gold, black and white. At the end of it I was interviewed by laidback host Dylan Lewis. I was extremely nervous, but I got through it, and the following week at school my Recovery appearance went viral.

  Lots of kids were fans of the show and had seen me on it. Someone had video-taped it and the tape circulated through the school. It was the first most people there knew about my interest in magic. Not only could I dance, I’d been chosen to appear on this cult show: I was definitely considered cool now. It even influenced my teachers. For instance on my first sports appraisal after being on TV I got a much higher mark for fitness and athleticism than I ever had before. I was no more athletic than I had been a couple of weeks earlier but now the PE teacher saw me in a different light. Perception is a very powerful thing, whether it matches reality or not — a useful idea for a magician to ponder.

  Even though people now knew about my magic I didn’t go round performing tricks. With my two closest friends I’d occasionally relent if one had canteen money and they asked me to make a coin disappear, but beyond that, no. I was happy to put on a show in the right context, whether that was a family gathering, a retirement home, a magic convention or a TV set, but that was a completely different thing to just randomly showing off. I feel the same way today. I know there are performers who need to be ‘on’ the whole time, soaking up applause. I’m not one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting up in front of 3000 people and amazing them and getting that huge response. But when I take my final bow and walk off, the desire to perform remains behind on the stage — the idea of inserting magic tricks into ordinary situations in my everyday life makes me feel uncomfortable and shy.

  I continued to look for any opportunity to develop my skills. Adelaide had been a good first step, now I set my sights on the Australian Convention of Magicians, the big national gathering held every second year. In 1998, when I was in Year 10, it was to be held in Sydney over the June long weekend and I wanted to be there. This time it was easy to convince my parents it was a good investment of time and money — they’d seen how much magic meant to me and knew I had real potential, so they backed me the way other parents back children with sporting prowess, taking them to competitions all over the place.

  After some thought I decided to enter two competitive categories this time, the strictly three-minute performance known as Walk On, Walk Off (an open, all-ages category) and the under-18s. The three-minute masked performance was the act I’d done on Recovery. It was snappy and polished and tested. For the other category I decided to try something different, a brand new act that I called ‘Time Warp’, a tribute to music and dance through the ages. It had elaborate costume changes which had to be done in seconds — something that would only be possible with Adam participating in the act. He wasn’t crazy about the idea. If there had been another practical solution he would have preferred it, but there wasn’t so he agreed to help out and become my onstage assistant. Mum booked plane tickets for the three of us.

  Perception is a very powerful thing, whether it matches reality or not.

  The convention was much bigger than AdMagiCon. I eagerly took in everything I could, watching showcases, listening to speakers, browsing sale booths. Then it was time to compete (again I was billed as ‘The Magic of Cosentino’). The three-minute routine went over just as well as I’d thought it would, and with Adam’s help I pulled off the split-second timing that Time Warp required.

  The routine, in which I didn’t speak, began with me in an old-man mask, suit and top hat, dancing to ‘Singin’ in the Rain’. The music segued into ‘Greased Lightning’ and as it did I ducked down out of sight for a moment behind my props table, ditched the mask and reappeared in what looked like a 1950s-style leather jacket. The next segue was to ‘Staying Alive’, prompting a costume change to a wide-collared 1970s-style jacket, wig and sunglasses. Finally came a techno mix for which I did a choreographed change into a jumpsuit in full view, then ducked behind the table and re-emerged in an alien mask. Each segment had magic tricks that were somehow thematically linked — making canes appear in ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, for instance, or making LP records change colour and doing the Coke can Zig-Zag for the rock ’n’ roll era of ‘Greased Lightning’. (Despite all the effort Dad and I had put i
nto making a historically accurate bottle version, I’d reverted to using the can because audiences seemed to find it somewhat more in keeping with the era. Go figure!)

  It was a hit with the crowd, although the top award in the under-18s category went to a teenager with a really well executed comedy-magic act. I was awarded second place and would have gone home pleased with that but then, thrillingly, I was given the top prize in the open Walk On, Walk Off category. I was the one who got up to accept it but it really belonged to ‘Team Cos’ because without the unhesitating support of Adam and Mum and the rest of my family I wouldn’t have been standing there. I don’t know how Mum in particular managed it, but somehow she held down a demanding full-time job, prepared a beautiful home-cooked meal every night, took care of most of the rest of the running of the house and still always had time to listen to and help her three boys.

  The awards I’d won did what these kinds of awards are supposed to: opened more doors. Over the next six to twelve months I landed spots at community festivals and other events. I always got a great response; I was really learning how to work an audience now and how to give them a good time. Then I got my biggest gig to date, at an Italian club. Four hundred guests, including some of my extended family, were paying good money for an evening of dinner and entertainment. I had to put together forty-five minutes’ worth of material, I had to speak to the crowd and I had to have audience participation. I was being paid well and it was a huge deal for me. I took it very seriously. Dad and I constructed some new props and illusions and I wove together a show from some of my trusty material and the new pieces, all set to music in what had become my trademark style.