The Magic Castle

So, as it turns out, the Castle is only 6 miles or so from the apartment, so it was a quick drive.

It's amazing, and yes, you really do have to say "Open Sesame" to get in through the hidden bookcase-door. The entire place is rather confusing, and the rooms don't really seem to lead where you feel they should. Everything is covered in gaudyness, but it works amazingly.

We had dinner, which was fantastic. We got to sit in the Dante room. The walls were covered with old (reproductions? I dunno) posters from Dante's shows. The thing that kept bothering me was there were two windows side by side to the other room, and I would watch people walk past and then when they got to the third window, they had vanished!

I knew of course, this was a mirror. It wasn't exactly a secret either; the mirror was huge and hung in the room we were dining in and framed with gold scrollwork. It was just the angle that I was at you expected to see people continue to walk through, and they never did.

The entire place was fantastic, and the magicians were wonderful. I saw one of the best manipulators I have seen in a long time as well as the MC of the show who could juggle ping-pong balls with his mouth...

Long story short, it was amazing.

And yes...Irma plays any song on request.