 We're in Colon, Michigan, the magic capital of the world. One of the town fathers just flipped open the dictionary and saw colon. And he said, that's it. You know, I call it the lower bowel of the state. And it's also the upper digestive tract of magic. It's a town of 1,200 people, and it doubles in size during magic week. A lot of people say it's like Vegas coming to Mayberry. It's just a wonderful thing that happens. One week out of the year, everybody just shows up. Here you guys are. If you compare it to music festivals, this is like the Woodstock. So awesome. This is Christmas to me. I would skip Christmas for this, for real. OK, I'm Greg Bordner, and I'm the president of Abbott Magic Company here in Colon, Michigan. My name is Rick Fisher. I'm the owner and president of the Fab Magic Manufacturing Company here in Colon, Michigan. My name is John Sterlini, and I own Sterlini Magic Manufacturing here in beautiful Colon, Michigan. I mean, we have one stoplight, and we have three magic shops. Go figure. My dad came along in 1934. He was the money behind Percy Abbott. So they started the Abbott Magic Company downtown Colon. My dad took over in 1961, and he passed away in 1981, and I've been running it ever since. My folks brought me up here in 65, my sister and I. We did some fishing. They took me over to Abbott's. I was seven years old, got a couple magic tricks, came home, absolutely fell in love with magic, could not get enough of it. The Abbott children were good friends of mine, and so they were the first to jump on board and say, what can we do to help you open up a new magic company? Some of the other Abbott family wanted to help him along to start the Fab Magic Company. So he has been separate from us and completely different from us ever since. This is like his 10th or 11th year in business. One year after the get-togethers, Saturday night, I thought, hey, I wonder if there's a building available for sale here in town. Next week, came out and checked it out, and about a year later, we moved in. I feel animosity. I mean, this is my home. The owner of Abbott seems to think that they have no right to be in town. Well, this is United States of America. I don't want to get into that. I mean, to me, it's where I grew up. I mean, I played on a football team with a fighting rabbit on my helmet. You know, I mean, it's like I know the people in the cemetery personally. They had an open house when they started in 1934, and they called it the get-together. And they've invited magicians that they knew in the area to come and have fun and have a party and see their newest shop. But they had a great time. They had fun. And really, that's the whole basis of this whole thing, even to this day, 80 years later. It's like a big family reunion that you want to go to. The magic is secondary here. The people that come here, they've been coming 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years. And it's all about the relationships that people have here. It's the camaraderie. That's more important than the magic. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. And this is really beautiful. Yes. And there was no tradition that had been popular back here. This was a mixture of traditional and traditional and traditional. Mary Mary And this is what was brought me up here. This is where I grew up. I did something that I love to do. I love to fish, I love boating, I love water, I love magic, and this is what it combines. My mom used to bring me up here. There's a dealer room where we can buy new magic. And then each evening, there's a big show in the high school. There's magicians on that act. The top cruise ship entertainers, top Vegas entertainers. It's a top-notch show that you see. My first time I was here was 1974. And then I came back the following year, and I started to be in the competition. I feel like I'm going through town. Oh, welcome to golden Michigan, you know. You should have, like, you know, set your watches back 200 years. I'll go on stage, and people will go, Oh, we know him. It's like just coming home. It's like in your own living room. That's what this is like to me. It's very homey. Hey, Doc, come here. They want to interview somebody really important. That's Dr. Smolarz. He's a local dentist. Magic is not illegal. But when you stop in the middle of the road to do your trick, then it becomes illegal. So, yeah. Magic Week is always a big influx of people. In town. You know, normally we have a couple horse and buggies going through during the day. We don't have fights over parking spots or, you know, things like that. But it's never a major problem. But for the locals, that is serious. They want to get their mail, things like that. People stop in the middle of the road to go talk to somebody that they haven't seen since last year. And I believe it was in 2003, we had a magician start crossing the street and actually get hit. Because he just got so excited about seeing somebody, he just walked out and luckily the car wasn't going fast enough. You know, everybody has their routine here. You get the same people at the same restaurants at the same time every morning. And then you have this influx of additional people that take up their spot at the restaurant or their spot parking at the post office. We deal with it, it's four days a year and we're okay. A town of 1,000 people in the middle of absolutely nowhere, halfway between Detroit and Chicago, has three magic shops. I don't think they have that many in New York City, I'm not sure. For a while there, there was some cooperation. We don't see that cooperation now. And that's too bad. Because we want to see, it's for the betterment of Kola. There's a new kids, you know, trespassing, if you will, but I guess it's just too big, I can't stop it. You know, in the Magic Capital there should be magic everywhere. If you go to an antique capital or a city that's known for antiques, there's more than one antique shop. It's not a competition, it's let's try to enhance what we can for the community, for the magic community, and take it from there. I had a cochlear implant. I got it turned on December 21, 2009. People that know me, just a couple days ago, came here. You can hear now? I was wondering because you're talking so much better. He didn't even know. I went from profoundly hard of hearing to deaf between about the age of 17 and 20. So that's when I found magic at the same time. When you lose one of your senses like that, whether it's blind or deaf, people close in, you know, they avoid social interaction, you know, so they feel uncomfortable. But because I was getting into magic, I craved to get in front of people, to do magic for them. So that kind of kept me out of my shell, and I didn't have to hear them. I became kind of attention, so they listened to me. So if I didn't go deaf, I probably wouldn't be in this thing right now. Go like you say, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. I was a bully as a kid. I used to pick on this one kid. One day he just went off on me and beat me up and changed my life. And so I thought, well, what is, I got to figure out a better way. And then one day I went to school, and there was a big circle around this one kid. And I went over and he was doing a very basic trick that he had gotten from the drugstore. So I asked him, I said, hey, can you show it to me? And then he showed me how it was done, and it was right then and there. I was 11 years old. I said, well, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to do this for the rest of my life, guaranteed. You want to get out now, buddy? No, you don't want to get out? I never got the opportunity to come here until I was old enough to get myself here, get the money to come here. I'm not sure if this town didn't exist. I might be putting gas lines in mobile homes, hating my life right now. I did that actually for a while. ¶¶ I think everyone as a kid has a magic set or gets a magic set. And then we either stick with it for some reason like we did or we didn't, you know. I'm 19 years old. I'm a freshman in college right now. I actually started to do magic when I was in 7th grade as a way to pick up girls, no joke. Just like as an icebreaker, and it really, you know, it didn't work too well. ¶¶ The word trainspotter in England is a guy that stands on the end of a station and when the trains come through, writes down the numbers on the trains. They're usually a bit, ooo, they're a bit mad these days. And they're what we call trainspotters in England. Magicians, I think, are one step above trainspotters. You know, we have that strange fascination and that ability to work on some little tiny card slide. So that's kind of what it is. We're doing something which we really enjoy and we get a buzz out of doing it perfectly. And that's kind of what the magic world is all about. ¶¶ Whoa. Almost. Almost. Johnny Carson was a magician and he said he liked being a magician. Even though he was very shy, it allowed him to be the center of attention without being himself. It kind of gives them a confidence that they can express to a group of audience. They probably all had some kind of complex when they were younger, you know what I mean? And the hobby gave you the outlet to compensate for it. And so you grow with it and then you, through magic, you become a total different person at the end, you know? One, two, three and four. This is really fun. Just for you. As they change. We're going to be 400s. That's whatever we want, right? I think magicians always want to show people something that they've never seen before. And I love to make people laugh. I love to entertain them. And I think when we get together here, there is that brotherhood of magicians. We live in a world where things are changing so rapidly. And every year when we come to Colon, there's things that are still the same. ¶¶ You know, magic is bigger than you might think. I have somebody else's heart. And it really is touching to be alive today. I mean, God said you must keep this going. It's how I feel. Really I've been chosen to keep this get-together going. ¶¶ Magic is such a universal thing. It's so amazing. You can take someone who's a genius and they're fascinated by the puzzles of it, the magic happening. You can see little kids, their mouth falls open, their eyes get big when you do the easiest, smallest of tricks. It brings back a sense of childhood again. I've got goosebumps on my arm talking about it. ¶¶ Santa Claus used to come and visit me every year for Christmas. And that is like the most magical thing in the whole world. And I think every magician, you try to capture that. You try to, this is something that's just not possible, but yet I'm doing it for you and creating that wow, that was cool. If you can create something and do it in their hands right in front of them, wow, we're going to have some fun right now. We're going to forget about everything that's going on in life and just be kids again. ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶
 We're in Colon, Michigan, the magic capital of the world.
 One of the town fathers just flipped open the dictionary and saw colon.
 And he said, that's it.
 You know, I call it the lower bowel of the state.
 And it's also the upper digestive tract of magic.
 It's a town of 1,200 people, and it doubles in size during magic week.
 A lot of people say it's like Vegas coming to Mayberry.
 It's just a wonderful thing that happens.
 One week out of the year, everybody just shows up.
 Here you guys are.
 If you compare it to music festivals, this is like the Woodstock.
 So awesome.
 This is Christmas to me.
 I would skip Christmas for this, for real.
 OK, I'm Greg Bordner, and I'm the president of Abbott Magic Company
 here in Colon, Michigan.
 My name is Rick Fisher.
 I'm the owner and president of the Fab Magic Manufacturing Company
 here in Colon, Michigan.
 My name is John Sterlini, and I own Sterlini Magic Manufacturing
 here in beautiful Colon, Michigan.
 I mean, we have one stoplight, and we have three magic shops.
 Go figure.
 My dad came along in 1934.
 He was the money behind Percy Abbott.
 So they started the Abbott Magic Company downtown Colon.
 My dad took over in 1961, and he passed away in 1981,
 and I've been running it ever since.
 My folks brought me up here in 65, my sister and I.
 We did some fishing.
 They took me over to Abbott's.
 I was seven years old, got a couple magic tricks,
 came home, absolutely fell in love with magic,
 could not get enough of it.
 The Abbott children were good friends of mine,
 and so they were the first to jump on board
 and say, what can we do to help you open up a new magic company?
 Some of the other Abbott family wanted
 to help him along to start the Fab Magic Company.
 So he has been separate from us and completely different
 from us ever since.
 This is like his 10th or 11th year in business.
 One year after the get-togethers,
 Saturday night, I thought, hey, I
 wonder if there's a building available for sale here in town.
 Next week, came out and checked it out,
 and about a year later, we moved in.
 I feel animosity.
 I mean, this is my home.
 The owner of Abbott seems to think that they
 have no right to be in town.
 Well, this is United States of America.
 I don't want to get into that.
 I mean, to me, it's where I grew up.
 I mean, I played on a football team with a fighting rabbit
 on my helmet.
 You know, I mean, it's like I know the people
 in the cemetery personally.
 They had an open house when they started in 1934,
 and they called it the get-together.
 And they've invited magicians that they knew in the area
 to come and have fun and have a party
 and see their newest shop.
 But they had a great time.
 They had fun.
 And really, that's the whole basis of this whole thing,
 even to this day, 80 years later.
 It's like a big family reunion that you want to go to.
 The magic is secondary here.
 The people that come here, they've
 been coming 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years.
 And it's all about the relationships
 that people have here.
 It's the camaraderie.
 That's more important than the magic.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 Oh.
 And this is really beautiful.
 Yes.
 And there was no tradition that had
 been popular back here.
 This was a mixture of traditional
 and traditional and traditional.
 Mary Mary
 And this is what was brought me up here.
 This is where I grew up.
 I did something that I love to do.
 I love to fish, I love boating, I love water, I love magic,
 and this is what it combines.
 My mom used to bring me up here.
 There's a dealer room where we can buy new magic.
 And then each evening, there's a big show in the high school.
 There's magicians on that act.
 The top cruise ship entertainers, top Vegas entertainers.
 It's a top-notch show that you see.
 My first time I was here was 1974.
 And then I came back the following year, and I started to be in the competition.
 I feel like I'm going through town.
 Oh, welcome to golden Michigan, you know.
 You should have, like, you know, set your watches back 200 years.
 I'll go on stage, and people will go,
 Oh, we know him. It's like just coming home.
 It's like in your own living room. That's what this is like to me.
 It's very homey.
 Hey, Doc, come here.
 They want to interview somebody really important.
 That's Dr. Smolarz. He's a local dentist.
 Magic is not illegal.
 But when you stop in the middle of the road to do your trick, then it becomes illegal.
 So, yeah.
 Magic Week is always a big influx of people.
 In town.
 You know, normally we have a couple horse and buggies going through during the day.
 We don't have fights over parking spots or, you know, things like that.
 But it's never a major problem.
 But for the locals, that is serious.
 They want to get their mail, things like that.
 People stop in the middle of the road to go talk to somebody that they haven't seen since last year.
 And I believe it was in 2003,
 we had a magician start crossing the street and actually get hit.
 Because he just got so excited about seeing somebody,
 he just walked out and luckily the car wasn't going fast enough.
 You know, everybody has their routine here.
 You get the same people at the same restaurants at the same time every morning.
 And then you have this influx of additional people that take up their spot at the restaurant
 or their spot parking at the post office.
 We deal with it, it's four days a year and we're okay.
 A town of 1,000 people in the middle of absolutely nowhere,
 halfway between Detroit and Chicago, has three magic shops.
 I don't think they have that many in New York City, I'm not sure.
 For a while there, there was some cooperation.
 We don't see that cooperation now.
 And that's too bad.
 Because we want to see, it's for the betterment of Kola.
 There's a new kids, you know, trespassing, if you will,
 but I guess it's just too big, I can't stop it.
 You know, in the Magic Capital there should be magic everywhere.
 If you go to an antique capital or a city that's known for antiques,
 there's more than one antique shop.
 It's not a competition, it's let's try to enhance what we can for the community,
 for the magic community, and take it from there.
 I had a cochlear implant.
 I got it turned on December 21, 2009.
 People that know me, just a couple days ago, came here.
 You can hear now?
 I was wondering because you're talking so much better.
 He didn't even know.
 I went from profoundly hard of hearing to deaf between about the age of 17 and 20.
 So that's when I found magic at the same time.
 When you lose one of your senses like that, whether it's blind or deaf,
 people close in, you know, they avoid social interaction,
 you know, so they feel uncomfortable.
 But because I was getting into magic, I craved to get in front of people,
 to do magic for them.
 So that kind of kept me out of my shell, and I didn't have to hear them.
 I became kind of attention, so they listened to me.
 So if I didn't go deaf, I probably wouldn't be in this thing right now.
 Go like you say, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.
 I was a bully as a kid.
 I used to pick on this one kid.
 One day he just went off on me and beat me up and changed my life.
 And so I thought, well, what is, I got to figure out a better way.
 And then one day I went to school, and there was a big circle around this one kid.
 And I went over and he was doing a very basic trick that he had gotten from the drugstore.
 So I asked him, I said, hey, can you show it to me?
 And then he showed me how it was done, and it was right then and there.
 I was 11 years old.
 I said, well, this is what I'm going to do.
 I'm going to do this for the rest of my life, guaranteed.
 You want to get out now, buddy?
 No, you don't want to get out?
 I never got the opportunity to come here until I was old enough to get myself here,
 get the money to come here.
 I'm not sure if this town didn't exist.
 I might be putting gas lines in mobile homes, hating my life right now.
 I did that actually for a while.
 ¶¶
 I think everyone as a kid has a magic set or gets a magic set.
 And then we either stick with it for some reason like we did or we didn't, you know.
 I'm 19 years old.
 I'm a freshman in college right now.
 I actually started to do magic when I was in 7th grade as a way to pick up girls, no joke.
 Just like as an icebreaker, and it really, you know, it didn't work too well.
 ¶¶
 The word trainspotter in England is a guy that stands on the end of a station
 and when the trains come through, writes down the numbers on the trains.
 They're usually a bit, ooo, they're a bit mad these days.
 And they're what we call trainspotters in England.
 Magicians, I think, are one step above trainspotters.
 You know, we have that strange fascination and that ability to work on some little tiny card slide.
 So that's kind of what it is.
 We're doing something which we really enjoy and we get a buzz out of doing it perfectly.
 And that's kind of what the magic world is all about.
 ¶¶
 Whoa.
 Almost.
 Almost.
 Johnny Carson was a magician and he said he liked being a magician.
 Even though he was very shy, it allowed him to be the center of attention without being himself.
 It kind of gives them a confidence that they can express to a group of audience.
 They probably all had some kind of complex when they were younger, you know what I mean?
 And the hobby gave you the outlet to compensate for it.
 And so you grow with it and then you, through magic, you become a total different person at the end, you know?
 One, two, three and four.
 This is really fun.
 Just for you.
 As they change.
 We're going to be 400s.
 That's whatever we want, right?
 I think magicians always want to show people something that they've never seen before.
 And I love to make people laugh.
 I love to entertain them.
 And I think when we get together here, there is that brotherhood of magicians.
 We live in a world where things are changing so rapidly.
 And every year when we come to Colon, there's things that are still the same.
 ¶¶
 You know, magic is bigger than you might think.
 I have somebody else's heart.
 And it really is touching to be alive today.
 I mean, God said you must keep this going.
 It's how I feel.
 Really I've been chosen to keep this get-together going.
 ¶¶
 Magic is such a universal thing.
 It's so amazing.
 You can take someone who's a genius and they're fascinated by the puzzles of it,
 the magic happening.
 You can see little kids, their mouth falls open,
 their eyes get big when you do the easiest, smallest of tricks.
 It brings back a sense of childhood again.
 I've got goosebumps on my arm talking about it.
 ¶¶
 Santa Claus used to come and visit me every year for Christmas.
 And that is like the most magical thing in the whole world.
 And I think every magician, you try to capture that.
 You try to, this is something that's just not possible,
 but yet I'm doing it for you and creating that wow, that was cool.
 If you can create something and do it in their hands right in front of them,
 wow, we're going to have some fun right now.
 We're going to forget about everything that's going on in life
 and just be kids again.
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