Issue date: 2/15/07 Section: A & E

Media Credit: Ashley Correll

Media Credit: Ashley Correll Magican Brian Brushwood plays with fire onstage for Cabrini students. Brushwood preformed at Cabrini in Grace Hall on Feb. 9, 2007.

Magician Brian Brushwood gave a performance at Cabrini on Friday, Feb. 9, that left the audience dazzled and delighted.

"I loved it! I say he's the best magician I've seen at Cabrini. I really liked his fire routine - it was amazing," Rizwan Ishmail, a sophomore Spanish major, said.

Brushwood, who opened his show with a home video of himself as a young magician, had a fairly interesting act that drew laughs out of the crowd along with a few whoas and an "are you serious?"

During the show, Brushwood made it very clear to the audience that he specialized "in doing strange and unusual things." Some of these "unusual" things include transferring fire from one torch to another using his tongue, breaking a concrete builder's block on his head and hammering a nail into his face while showing no sign of discomfort what so ever. He even manages to work in some extrasensory perception.

Two gentlemen were picked at random from the audience. One was blindfolded and the other was asked to draw a picture associated with a word he had picked from a pile of cards. After the picture was drawn, the blindfolded gentleman was asked to draw the image that came to his mind. He drew a star, a triangle and a box. When the other picture was revealed, the image was of a Christmas tree, which left the audience to decipher whether it was just a coincidence or actual ESP between the two individuals.

"I think it was not entirely expected of a magician, but the audience definitely reacted to each trick. It was a good time," Kathryn M. Roper, a junior graphic design major, said.

Brushwood said after the show that when he was in college, magic was "just a hobby."

When asked how Cabrini's audience compared to other colleges, bigger colleges, he said, "I would much rather have a small group of people that I know are totally digging the show than a bunch of people and not be able to tell."

Brushwood said, "This was easily the best show I've had while touring this whole week."

To learn more about Brian Brushwood visit www.shwood.com. Also, www.bbotr.com is a website with weekly video pod casts of his life on the road and other cool features like lessons on how to do magic tricks.

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