Enchanting Bargains at a Magical Swap Meet

How's your drawer of linking rings looking? A little light? Make for Hollywood.

Pick a card, any card, look at it, memorize it, show it to the audience, slide it back into the middle of the deck.

Now, if all goes well, some fizzy fantastical magical waving of the hands will summon your card to the top of the deck. That is, of course, if the deck is in good shape, and not missing any queens or aces, and is ready to dazzle.

Having good props and enchant-ready items is key to every magician's kit, and it is essential to making magic at the most famous abracadabra club on the planet, the Magic Castle in Hollywood.

But where to find a whole marvelous mess of linking rings and scarfs and books and other doodads, many of which have been pressed into the service of predigitation in the past? We tipped our hand on that one: It's the Magic Castle, again.

The mysterious landmark throws an every-so-often swap meet open to magicians of every stripe. Want to peek inside the proverbial top hat, to see if there is really a rabbit at the bottom? The Magic Castle Swap Meet presto-change-os on Saturday, Sept. 13.

Oh, and, hurrah, non-members are welcome, too. The club, which keeps a famously tight wrap around enchanters and their guests, opens its doors during the swap meet to people who don't carry the Magic Castle member card.

Admission? Eight bucks.

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Attendees shall stroll the castle and check out the antiques, collectibles, and yes, magic tricks. Is your "nothing up my sleeve" routine rather rusty? Probably time to talk shop and pick up some new, or gently used, props.

This is a daytime deal, by the by, which makes it a little unusual, too, for the nighttime-loving mansion. Oh, and did we say that the Magic Castle is merely *in* Hollywood? Our mistake. It perches above the heart of Hollywood, raven-like, like a gloomy fictional bird up in a dramatically limbed tree.

There. Glad we corrected that. The Magic Castle is actually magic and thus must get its proper due, description-wise.

Abracadabra!

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