The entrance to the Chicago Magic Lounge is truly a magical experience. As soon as you step into the venue, you are transported into another world full of wonder and enchantment. The entrance is designed to captivate your imagination and set the stage for a night of incredible magic. Upon arrival, you are greeted by a grand and elegant doorway adorned with classic Chicago-style architecture. The intricate details and artwork that decorate the entrance create an ambiance of mystery and excitement. The door itself is a piece of art, showcasing the talent and creativity of the venue's designers.
The door itself is a piece of art, showcasing the talent and creativity of the venue's designers. As you make your way inside, you are immediately mesmerized by the twinkling lights that guide your path. The soft glow creates a whimsical atmosphere, making you feel like you have entered a secret world hidden from the hustle and bustle of the city outside.
A Little Bit O’ Magic in Chicago
You’ve heard of Chicago-style pizza and Chicago-style hot dogs, but what about Chicago-style magic?
By Lizzie Plaugic and Kaitlyn Tiffany Paul Windle September 25, 2023 ShareKaitlyn: We know it’s not called “the Windy City” because of the wind, but we don’t remember why it’s actually called that. Maybe it’s because, on our eighth annual fall trip, Ashley took me and Lizzie to her hometown of Chicago for a whirlwind tour of its most important sights. Hmm?
We went to the Bean. Though its plaza is under construction and it’s surrounded by fences keeping tourists about 20 feet away, many peered hungrily through the gaps to get an unobstructed view. We went to a combination liquor store and bar where we shared one shot of the city’s signature drink, Malört (70 proof, tastes like novacaine), and glimpsed a few minutes of a Bears game. We had deep-dish pizza and hot dogs with pickles on them. The one thing that we didn’t do—because it seemed dangerous and probably too nerdy—was drive really fast through the underpasses that provide the backdrop for the car-chase scenes in Christopher Nolan’s 2008 Batman movie, The Dark Knight, while listening to the Hans Zimmer–led soundtrack at max volume.
In short, we loved Chicago. After checking out the prices on draft Budweiser and huge apartments with river views, we resolved to invent a new type of modern woman who isn’t bicoastal (because the plane ride is too long and Los Angeles is just horrible); instead, she lives in New York and also in Chicago. (Just like Christopher Nolan’s Batman!) I guess it would be hard to figure out what to do about the winter, but she would come up with something.
Lizzie: Faithful readers may remember last year’s trip to Santa Barbara, when we “went Sideways” (by visiting all of the filming locations of 2004’s Sideways). This Chicago trip didn’t start out with quite the same level of thematic cohesion, but Kaitlyn did make sure the Batman franchise received several mentions (from her) as we touristed, and the movies’ consistent themes (like chaos, destruction, and deception) proved prescient.
Consider the night we went to the Chicago Magic Lounge, a venue dedicated to the art of “Chicago-style” magic. We went in expecting to be tricked, but we got so much more …
We began our evening at King of Cups, a gothic “craft-cocktail lounge” with an in-house tarot-card reader. By the time we arrived, there was already a waitlist for the tarot-card reader and no tarot-card reader in sight. Had he been made invisible by a Chicago-style magician? Or was this our first taste of deception? Perhaps both! While we drank happy-hour espresso martinis ($8), Kaitlyn wowed us with her own magic trick, which involved folding up a $1 bill and unfolding it until George Washington was upside down. You kind of had to be there. We figured we should keep this in our back pocket in case the Chicago Magic Lounge was holding auditions.
Kaitlyn: The Magic Lounge was the big event of the weekend. And that seemed to be true not only for us but for much of the city. When we arrived, there was a long line to get into what appeared to be a laundromat, but was in fact an Art Deco speakeasy where magic is performed. (I normally hate speakeasy culture, but this was different and not as annoying.)
Ashley had told us that Chicago was a city “full of girlies,” but I didn’t really know what this meant until we were seated at the Magic Lounge. All around us, there were girlies out on dates—one girlie wore a shirt made entirely of fake pearls; another sipped a cocktail that was the color of skim milk and garnished with a flower. They were extremely pretty and didn’t look mean.
Our first taste of “Chicago-style magic,” which is close-up magic performed right at your table while you sip a glass of lambrusco or what have you, was performed by a large man in a suit, who was wearing a pinky ring and made some self-deprecating comments about being sweaty and a deceiver. “We do call them magic tricks,” he said. He took five $1 bills out of his wallet, referring to them as his life savings, then flopped them around until they turned into $50 bills. He held one of the $50s up to the light so that we could see its watermark and everything. I was impressed and relieved. “I thought he was going to do my magic trick,” I whispered to Liz.
Lizzie and Ashley assisting a Chicago magician with a Chicago-style card trick. (Courtesy of Kaitlyn Tiffany)
Lizzie: That would’ve been something! In fairness to the magician, his trick was more impressive than Kait’s (though I’m sure he spent a lot more time practicing). One thing about doing magic tableside: You really have to have some people skills. We watched as our magician made his way around the room, stopping to perform different tricks mere inches away from skeptical ticket-holders, maintaining an incredible sense of enthusiasm each time. He didn’t have the authority of the stage or a choreography of smoke machines to keep us distracted. Add to that, he was performing for amateur magicians like Kaitlyn, and you start to get a sense of how high the stakes were.
Luckily, the tableside stuff went off without a noticeable hitch, and we were buzzing with excitement by the time the lights dimmed.
Kaitlyn: The stage show was hosted by an incredible woman named Jan Rose, who had corkscrew curls and was wearing a different sequin-covered blazer each time she appeared on stage. She ran us through a surprisingly bittersweet PowerPoint presentation about the history of Chicago magic. At a certain point, it seems, there was a good chance that walking into any random bar or restaurant in Chicago would result in seeing at least a little sleight of hand. But all of these places are now gone, and this made us regret being born into dull times. I was personally insulted by fate. Why, oh why couldn’t we have gone to Little Bit O’ Magic Lounge (“Fun, food, and prestidigitation”), or the Pickle Barrel, a restaurant in which every table was given an all-you-can-eat barrel of pickles, and there was also magic and also (according to a comment on a blog post I just read) bartenders who could make balloon animals?
This reverie was interrupted by Jan Rose sharing that, when she herself was a magician, she did a trick with another magician named “Heeba Hubba Al,” which involved a sugar cube, a pencil, and her right hip (at least I think that’s what she said). Obviously this reminded me, in a jarring way, of the famous “You wanna see a magic trick?” scene in The Dark Knight. (The trick is that the Joker smashes a pencil through someone’s eye socket and presumably into their brain.) According to an oral history published in New York magazine, they used a real pencil! No CGI. That’s movie magic.
Lizzie: As Jan ran through newspaper clippings of Chicago magic shows past, I noticed that one of them used the tagline “It’s fun to be fooled!” I can’t say that I 100 percent agree with the sentiment. Take April Fool’s Day, for example, one of the most popular times for fooling and being fooled. No one likes April Fool’s Day, except maybe the people born on April 1 who love presents.
But is magic actually about fooling people? I’m not actually being fooled by the tricks. For example, you may be surprised to hear that I understand that our table magician didn’t actually turn five $1s into five $50s, because if he could do that, he would probably quit his job at the Chicago Magic Lounge. And I know that Criss Angel can’t actually levitate. But I think it’s fun to see people do things you can’t do. This is why professional sports are popular.
Kaitlyn: The first stage magician went by only his first name, Fenik, and his hair was bright white all the way down to the roots. Jan said that he is very famous in Mexico. He was funny. He mocked the typical magic-show audience by rolling up his sleeves, saying he has to do this because whenever he makes a coin disappear, everyone says, “You put it up your sleeve,” and when he makes a lemon disappear, they say, “You put it up your sleeve,” and when he makes a watermelon disappear, they say, “You put it up your sleeve.” Haha!
First, Fenik did a trick in which a bunch of ropes start out the same length and then become different lengths, which I thought I’d seen before. At one point, he held up the first rope and said it was “as long as my body” and then the second rope—“as long as my legs”—and then the third rope—“as long as my … head!” Lizzie didn’t like that joke. She said it was not offensive to her, but it’s just not her kind of humor.
I have to admit, some of Fenik’s other tricks were a bit too involved for 11 p.m. There were multiple audience-member assistants—two of whom were named Blayne and Zayn—and I kind of lost the plot at a certain point. I started yawning around the time that another Chicago girlie led Fenik through the room with a pair of silver coins taped over his eyes. He stopped in front of some guy at a distant table to tell him he was pretty sure that the item in the guy’s hand was made of green plastic, but because we couldn’t see to confirm and the guy didn’t let out a shout or anything, it was hard to be that impressed. At the end, he read Zayn’s mind. That was nuts.
Does this scare you at all? (Courtesy of Kaitlyn Tiffany)
Lizzie: Yes, I was impressed by Fenik’s mind-reading. At the same time, I hoped he couldn’t read mine. He wouldn’t like it!
Our headliner was Ryan Plunkett, a Chicago local and founding ensemble member of the Chicago Magic Lounge. Plunkett told us almost immediately that he was going to be bullshitting us, which I appreciated.
He started with a trick almost like Three Card Monte, where an audience member had to decide which plastic cup a walnut was in. Plunkett said we would never win, because he was cheating, and we never did. From there he moved on to some coin and card tricks, ending with an “Is this your card?”–style finale. I liked him, and if he were ever performing in New York I might go, except for the fact that, from our minimal research, magic shows in New York seem to be a lot more expensive than those in Chicago.
On the drive home, we discovered that many of the highway entrances were closed off because of Mexican Independence Day celebrations, and there were no clear detour routes. More deception! Eventually, Ashley got us home and Kaitlyn did some light digging into Ryan Plunkett’s personal life before we all fell asleep.
Kaitlyn: The morning after the magic show, a thick fog rolled in over the city of Chicago. We observed it moodily from our borrowed apartment on the 36th floor while eating candy for breakfast. With help from some online forums, I tried to teach myself the bill-swapping trick, but it wasn’t to be. Unfortunately, success seemed to depend on deftness, dexterity, and flair. I had hoped it would be a series of simple steps I could just memorize and follow, as with everything else I’m good at in life.
While we waited for the weather to clear up, Ashley showed us how to pretend to levitate (amazingly, she knows this), and we watched some videos of David Copperfield. “Nathan says his dad took him to see David Copperfield once,” I told Ashley and Liz. Then we watched a clip of Copperfield putting a duck through a “Duck-o-Matic,” squashing him flat. (And un-squashing him later.) Lizzie was like, “What if the camera panned over and Nathan was in the audience, looking exactly like he does now?” This video was from 1986. “We would all scream,” I said. She wondered, further, if I would take a photo and send it to him and demand an explanation. “If I found out that my boyfriend was an immortal demon, would I text him about it?” She nodded. Well if that was really the question, then the answer was absolutely not. We would be off to the dustiest library in Chicago to flip through some heavy books on the occult and figure out what Nathan might be after. Geez. You have to be able to count on your girlies for that much.
Lizzie: To me, it seems like just asking him would be the most obvious first step. What does an immortal demon say when presented with photographic evidence of his immortality? Only after we hear whatever that is do we head to the library, unconvinced and unnerved.
For the rest of the trip, we found magic everywhere—in delicious cornbread, fuzzy textile art, and, again, $3 beer and $1,800 apartments right on the river (much of the magic was price-based). We’re magic people now! And we could probably be famous magicians too, if we just worked a little on our finger dexterity.
Kaitlyn: We took the “L” (elevated rail) to the airport, and would you believe it runs directly into the terminal? Chicago really is an amazing place.
Back in the grand but not always magical city of New York, Ashley’s boyfriend drove us all home from the airport. Then, from my own Brooklyn bed, I watched a bizarrely illustrated breakdown of how David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear. I was shocked because the explanation is so stupid. I can’t believe anybody fell for it. It just goes to show, you’re being hustled every minute in this town. [Shaking my head, chuckling.] Ah, but you kind of like it. We like it!
Lizzie: It’s fun to be fooled! Or something like that.
On Nobody Famous: Guesting, Gossiping, and Gallivanting, a collection of Famous People letters from the past five years, is available now from Zando Projects and The Atlantic.
We began our evening at King of Cups, a gothic “craft-cocktail lounge” with an in-house tarot-card reader. By the time we arrived, there was already a waitlist for the tarot-card reader and no tarot-card reader in sight. Had he been made invisible by a Chicago-style magician? Or was this our first taste of deception? Perhaps both! While we drank happy-hour espresso martinis ($8), Kaitlyn wowed us with her own magic trick, which involved folding up a $1 bill and unfolding it until George Washington was upside down. You kind of had to be there. We figured we should keep this in our back pocket in case the Chicago Magic Lounge was holding auditions.
The entrance is also filled with relics and artifacts that pay homage to the history of magic in Chicago. Vintage posters, old photographs, and iconic magic props are displayed proudly, giving a nod to the rich heritage of the art. These artifacts serve as a reminder of the incredible performers who have graced the stage at the Chicago Magic Lounge over the years. Beyond the visual spectacle, the entrance is accompanied by the faint sound of laughter and applause. It hints at the incredible performances and mind-boggling illusions that await you inside. It adds an element of anticipation and excitement, building the anticipation for the night ahead. Overall, the entrance to the Chicago Magic Lounge sets the tone for a truly magical experience. It invites you to leave the ordinary world behind and enter a realm where the impossible becomes possible. It captures the essence of what the lounge represents - a place where imagination and wonder come to life through the art of magic..
Reviews for "Step Inside the Chicago Magic Lounge: A Journey Begins at the Entrance"
1. John Smith - 1 star - The entrance to the Chicago magic lounge was a huge letdown. It was poorly marked and difficult to find, leaving me frustrated and confused. Once I finally made it inside, the atmosphere was lackluster and the staff seemed disinterested. The magic performances were underwhelming and not worth the high ticket price. Overall, I had a negative experience and would not recommend the Chicago magic lounge entrance to others.
2. Sarah Johnson - 2 stars - I was really excited to visit the Chicago magic lounge, but the entrance was a complete disappointment. There was no clear signage or indication of where to go, and it took me a while to figure out how to get inside. Once I did, I found the staff to be unfriendly and unhelpful. The magic performances were average, nothing special or memorable. I expected more from such a popular attraction. If you're looking for a truly magical experience, I would suggest looking elsewhere.
3. Michael Thompson - 1 star - The entrance to the Chicago magic lounge was a total nightmare. I spent a good amount of time searching for the building, as there was no clear signage or directions. Once I finally found it, the staff was incredibly rude and unprofessional. The magic performances were lackluster and amateurish. The whole experience left a sour taste in my mouth, and I regret wasting my time and money. Avoid the Chicago magic lounge entrance if you're looking for a enjoyable and professional magic show.