The Mystery, The Energy
PHOTO: MICHAEL CAIRNS
By Gabe Fajuri
As he launched the deck of cards toward
the ceiling, the audience held its collective
breath, teetering somewhere on the brink
between belief and disbelief.
The set-up sounded preposterous.
The magician strode out onto the platform and suggested the impossible.
Unwrapping a brand new deck of cards,
he tossed a pillow into the crowd. After
a few more throws to ensure a random
selection, a willing spectator was asked
to merely think of a card and keep its
identity a secret — that is, until the
deck was airborne. Then, the magician
PHOTO: MICHAEL CAIRNS
promised, the thought-of pasteboard would
stick itself to the ceiling!
Eat your heart out, Michael Ammar.
On the count of three, the deck flew from
his hand, headed on a quick upward trajectory toward the ceiling some 30 feet away.
No one seemed to believe what was happening. This must be a gag. At the same moment,
the chosen-at-random spectator called out in
a voice loud enough for the audience of 300
to hear it clearly, “Six of Spades!”
This has to be a gag, right?
HOLD THAT THOUGHT…
Kostya Kimlat, his first name pronounced
Coast-ah, was born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1983.
At 22 years old, already he’s able to build tension, create moments, and stun spectators
with the ability of a seasoned professional.
Why? Because he is a seasoned professional. He’s a full-time worker with a full
calendar. And his date book isn’t just full of
lectures for the local IBM ring or the occasional $50 birthday party; it’s dotted with
corporate shows and walk-around gigs as
much as it includes engagements in front of
the magic-minded masses. He’s at home as a
performer under nearly every circumstance,
in any surrounding — on the trade-show
floor, cozying up to a table at a restaurant,
lecturing or performing to magicians —
whatever the situation.
Kostya immigrated to the Orlando,
Florida area with his parents, sister, and
grandmother in 1992, at the age of 9. His
parents wanted to raise their children away
from communism and away from Chernobyl
where, when Kostya was three years old, the
family fled their home when the nuclear
plant accident struck. They also wanted to
raise their children in a country where their
religion — Judaism — would never be
drawn into question. Kostya was the first
child in two generations of his family to
celebrate his Bar Mitzvah publicly.
It was about that time, as he became a
teenager, that Kostya was bitten by the
magic bug after watching Jeff McBride and
Bill Malone on The World’s Greatest Magic.
Shortly thereafter, he started working, performing for the first time at a restaurant at
the age of 14. It wasn’t long before he cut
his teeth as a demonstrator in various tourist
magic shops, kiosks, and destinations in and
around the Orlando area. Additional inspiration came in the form of all eight volumes
of the Tarbell Course in Magic, which he
not only devoured, but also made an easily
searchable, personalized index of, granting
quick access to his favorite effects.
By the time Kostya was a freshman in high
school, he’d started an on-line magic newsletter, The Magic Express. It was through that
newsletter he met San Francisco magician
Walt Anthony, who suggested different ideas
to Kostya, not only about what to perform,
but what to read and how to think. To this
day, the two stay in touch and Kostya cites
him as a major influence in his growth as a
performer and as a person.
At the age of 15 Kostya found himself
doing walk-around magic for five hours a
day at a 21-screen movie theatre opening in
Orlando, ending each evening with a movie.
In Kostya’s mind, things couldn’t get any
better: he was doing magic, getting paid for
it, and the movies were free, too.
Then, he says, things changed when a
meeting with Jon Racherbaumer in 1996
opened his eyes to a maxim that colors his
work to this day. Racherbaumer phrased it
simply and succinctly: mystery is energy.
Jon and Kostya met and talked at Magic
on the Beach, a convention held in Florida.
his time — his free time, away from high
school, and on summer vacations, that is —
soaking up magic in every possible form. For
one month, he served as an assistant to John
Calvert. Dai Vernon appeared on his literary
horizon, and so did Paul Harris. Meetings
with Florida magicians like Paul Cummins,
Chad Long, Bill Malone, and Jim Swain,
coupled with visiting lecturers like Guy
Hollingworth and Chris Power, also fanned
the flames.
By the age of 17, with those varied experiences under his belt, Kostya took the
next logical step any other magic-minded
teenager would have taken: he delivered his
first lecture.
His mentor, Walt Anthony, had booked
him for the Oakland 75th Anniversary
Convention and introduced him to Alain Nu,
who invited Kostya to lecture at his Phoenix
Kostya’s love of ideas, of history, and of magic,
not to mention his genuine attraction to and ability
to interact with his crowds, are what make his
performances transcend the ordinary.
It was at that point that Kostya was devastated by two card tricks Jon performed —
tricks that would send him searching for
answers in the works of Ed Marlo, Al
Sharpe, and Eddie Fields, and through the
literature in general. The mystery Racherbaumer brought to Kostya was translated
into energy in the form of his personal
search for answers, information, and further
inspiration, one that would last for the next
year and a half.
“Uncovering the methods behind those
effects was the least important part,”
explains Kostya. “It was the search for them
that was of the utmost importance. In that
year and a half I slowly came to hundreds of
ideas and conclusions, hundreds of methods,
and thousands of thoughts that still inspire
me to create to this day. In that time, I gained
respect not only for magic, but also for
teaching and learning.”
Kostya’s eyes were opened to the magic
world at large and, at the same time, he was
instilled with a sense of enthusiastic reverence for his forebears, a sense that’s apparent whenever he discusses their magic or his.
You can’t help but be impressed by a 20something who loudly and proudly acknowledges the rich history that inspires, fuels,
and motivates the magic he performs.
PREPARE TO BE CULLED
For the next two years, Kostya spent
Gathering convention later that year. His first
lecture tour, which he booked on his own
by simply calling up one magic club after
another, was something of an adventure.
Instead of driving or flying from place to
place, Kostya made the trip by Greyhound
bus. He took dozens of routes from city
to city, including a 25-hour ride from
Richmond, Virginia to Peoria, Illinois. “My
parents have always been very supportive,”
Kostya says. “Whenever I wanted to travel
to a magic convention, there was never any
question that they’d let me go — alone. As
long as I called home, they were happy to
hear of my adventures on the road.”
The question is: what does a 17-year-old
kid know about magic? What can he teach
someone in a lecture?
Enter the Roadrunner Cull. While demonstrating the finer points of a Stripper Deck at
one of Orlando’s magic shops, Kostya suddenly realized that he’d forgotten to reverse
the pack. He’d typically perform a Triumphlike effect with the shaved cards, stripping
the face-up and face-down cards apart with
one deft move. Not this time. He was forced
to think quickly, and in the process, devised
the bare bones of what is one of the most
astonishing versions of Vernon’s classic
ever devised. In his lecture notes, the trick
is referred to as Cull-igula, The Hardcore
Triumph. Read the following description.
Then read it again. It is this good. And this
kid is this good, too:
The set-up is extremely fair. As usual, a
card is selected, noted, and returned to the
pack. Then, the spectator shuffles the pack.
In fact, the spectator does all of the shuffling. The cards are dovetailed together
in the usual fashion. Then they’re mixed
together face up and face down. For good
measure, Kostya then invites the spectator
to go wild. The pack is tossed on the table
or floor, where the mishmash of backs and
faces are further mixed. Kostya, all the
while, is completely hands-off, though he
wears a slight grin in anticipation of the
eye-popping finale that’s about to come.
Once the spectator is satisfied with the
altered state of the deck, Kostya squares it
up and quickly recaps the situation. Running
through all of the cards in no more than 10
or 12 seconds, there’s no question that the
cards have been hopelessly mixed together,
face up and face down. Nothing could be
more certain.
Finally, with no strip-outs, shuffles, blocktransfer work, and with no fishy funny stuff,
Kostya spreads the pack between his hands.
As if guided by Vernon himself, the pack has
miraculously righted itself. All of the cards
are face up. All of them, that is, except for
one: the spectator’s selection.
The crowd, wherever it happens to have
congregated on this particular occasion,
goes nuts.
The secret to this miracle of near-biblical
proportions? What Kostya discovered that
afternoon with Stripper Deck in hand was
that he’d refined the traditional Hofzinser
Spread Cull to such a fine degree — modifying it to suit his own purposes — and created The Roadrunner Cull. In less than a
quarter of a minute, no matter what the condition of the cards, and under the guise of
what appears to be a casual stroll through
the pack, the Roadrunner Cull allows Kostya
to cull multiple cards incredibly quickly.
Reds separate from blacks. Face-up cards
melt apart from the face-down ones. It happens faster than you can believe.
Both for magicians and lay-audiences,
Kostya’s close-up shows often involve petty
larceny.
On occasion, Kostya will invite a prominent spectator to assist in a card effect. After
mixing the pack, seven cards are produced.
When the audience volunteer is asked if the
selected cards mean anything to him, they
are revealed to, in fact, make up the digits of
his phone number! Not bad — for starters.
To follow up that strange “coincidence,” he
asks the spectator to make random marks with
a pen on a piece of paper on which Kostya has
written out the alphabet and the digits one
through nine. He then asks if the letters and
numbers that the spectator’s pen passed
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through hold any significance to him. The
spectator is usually at a loss. So, in an effort to
jog their memories, Kostya brings into play a
prediction, which has been sitting on the table
throughout the lecture, sealed in gift-wrap.
When unwrapped, the prediction turns out to
be the license plate of the volunteer in question, removed off the back of their car!
Bob Elliot, David Oliver, and Hank Lee
have all fallen victim to the license plate
trick. In one instance, after the plate had
been stolen off the car of a corporate client,
it was discovered that the client had driven
off, none the wiser that the plate was gone.
Luckily, before he got too far down the turnpike, Kostya was able to reach him via
cell phone and coax him back to the show,
where he concluded the trick.
[Top] Kostya caught in the act, preparing for
his famous license plate miracle. At age 14
[above], performing his first show, and presenting his first lecture [left] just one year
later. Kostya amazing patrons at The Garlic
[below] and posing with his latest book of
lecture notes [facing page].
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MAGIC
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2006
NEW TRICKS, YOUNG DOG
All of this gushing about Kostya’s finger
flinging in the cull department shouldn’t lead
readers to believe that he’s merely a one-hit
wonder. Yes, pasteboards are both his first
love and his strong suit, and he has wowed
the magic set with them at events like
Fechter’s, The Magic Castle, and MAGIC
Live!. However, his work for the lay public
includes a wide range of material, from closeup classics like the Chop Cup to a Mentalismheavy stand-up act geared toward corporate
clients. Other favorites of his ever-changing,
ever-evolving stand-up show include classics
from Malini, Tarbell, and Corinda, and more
modern effects inspired by the likes of Eric
Anderson and Barrie Richardson. All of these,
however, are carefully interwoven with material that Kostya has developed on his own,
tricks that he has used successfully in closeup settings. “I’m surprised how well some
of my close-up effects work on stage,” he
says. This means that card effects, including
his Cull-igula Triumph and the license
plate trick, often find their way into his
real-world work.
Yes, the kid has corporate clients, and yes,
the kid works trade shows. After hitting the
magic circuit and lecturing, working at conventions, entering contests, and publishing his
effects, Kostya began building his client list.
He graduated from walk-around gigs and
family shows to corporate cocktail parties
and trade shows, two areas of his business he
continues to develop. Along the way, he has
consulted for theatre groups, designed illusions for a dance company, and has had his
hands featured in a nationally televised calling-card commercial. In the last two years,
Kostya has traveled the country working for
clients that include Absolut Vodka, IBM, CVS
Pharmacies, RaceTrac, and SunTrust Bank,
and last year he made an appearance with
Marco Tempest in an episode of his TV program, The Virtual Magician. This month he’s
trade shows, creating not just new magic
and sales presentations, but entire marketing
campaigns for his clients. And if time allows,
he will continue to share his thoughts and
his magic with the magic fraternity.
AND NOW BACK TO OUR REGULARLY
SCHEDULED CARD ON CEILING…
It seemed ludicrous to the crowd that
the trick had gone this far. What Kostya had
proposed, and was apparently going through
with, seemed to be the ultimate effect. Not
even with the most complicated of apparatus
(unless a gaffed ceiling were involved), could
such an impossibility come to pass. Who
could stick a thought-of card to the ceiling
of a theatre with 300 well-posted magicians
watching the proceedings? Apparently this
young man was about to do it — or he was
putting everyone on.
As the deck thumped against the ceiling
and fell toward the floor, it became obvious.
There was a solitary pasteboard stuck up
there. But it was stuck with its face toward
the ceiling. The crowd exploded with laughter, releasing the built-up tension. Everyone
breathed a deep sigh of relief, as this clearly
had been a put-on.
Or had it?
Kostya stared at the card, looked at the
spectator, and then scanned the eyes of
the crowd. “Okay, you have to believe me.
That is the Six of Spades.” Then, a smile
came over his face and you could sense an
idea had materialized. “Wait, where’s the
deck? We never shuffled the deck! Sir, please
come up here and help me out. You will act
as the eyes of the audience.”
With that, Kostya picked the deck up
from the floor and took off the rubber band holding it together.
He ran through the first
block of cards, the
Hearts, handing
them to the
spectator.
They were all there, in new deck order.
The same went for the Clubs and the
Diamonds. Each card was in place. Finally,
he came to the Spades. He spread through
them slowly — too slow for any funny
business — and revealed, as the crowd had
both been hoping and dreading, that indeed
only one card was missing from the pack –
the Six of Spades.
The audience erupted in a burst of
applause and cheers.
The crowd was convinced that the six
was stuck up there, and yet the mystery
remained. The card looked down on them
for the rest of the show, a playful reminder
that the beauty of magic is in mystery; that
the unknown can be both captivating and
entertaining. For Kostya, that mystery is his
energy. And for his audiences, that mystery
is highly contagious. ◆
M AGIC
PHOTO: MICHAEL CAIRNS
working at the Magic Castle and will lecture at the inaugural Session Convention in
England. The following months are already
filled with corporate events and a host of
stand-up engagements. And when he’s not on
the road, he performs at The Garlic, a beautiful, family-owned Italian restaurant in New
Smyrna Beach, Florida.
When it comes to running with the right
crowd, magically speaking, he’s in good
company. This past summer in Toronto,
Kostya was invited to 31 Faces North,
where he both lectured and performed in
front of 30 members of the glitterati. To
say that the group of magic celebrities was
impressed with Kostya’s work would be a
gross understatement.
His sincere enthusiasm demonstrated
what Max Maven likes best about him:
“Kostya has chops, but he’s also learning
how to think.” John Carney echoed Maven’s
thoughts: “I was impressed with his clear
effects and clean routining. But no less
important was his manner. He’s neither cloying nor arrogant. He genuinely connects with
people. As Leipzig used to say, ‘People like to
feel they’ve been fooled by a gentleman.’”
Carney’s sentiment is perhaps the best way
to describe the manner in which Kostya goes
about fooling a crowd. Yes, the magic is
strong, and the technical foundation he bases
his tricks on is strong, too — very strong. But
the gentlemanly part of his personality, the
genuine smile and joie de vive emanating from
him while delving into philosophy, art, theology, house parties, or any of the other varied
topics he touches on while discussing card
tricks, doesn’t come across as mere patter or
part of a script. Kostya’s love of ideas, of history, and of magic, not to mention his genuine
attraction to and ability to interact with his
crowds, are what make his performances transcend the ordinary. You, as a spectator like
him because he likes you.
It’s a philosophy that seems simple
enough to write about, but isn’t nearly as
easy to put into practice. Yet Kostya, already
in his career, has learned this lesson well.
“When I first decided to perform professionally, I was afraid it would become too
much of a job and I would get burned out,”
says Kostya. “Now I’ve found that although
I spend a large portion of my week taking
care of business, when I go on stage, it’s the
most pure and wonderful experience, where
I think of nothing but the moment at hand.”
Recently influenced by Juan Tamariz,
Penn & Teller, and numerous musical and
theatrical acts, Kostya is writing his oneman show. He hopes to find a quiet time in
the near future where he can perform art for
art’s sake and develop this show outside of a
business environment. At the same time, he’s
also getting ready for another busy season of
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