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The appointment is at 18:00 Spanish time. The instructions, very clear: a number to access Zoom, the video call app, and a small list of items to keep on hand: a deck, a coin and a roll of toilet paper . The latter is strange, but we are confined at home and they have proposed a magical afternoon. What have we got to lose?
The proposal is from Airbnb, which yesterday launched a series of online activities designed in places around the world that anyone can access from their computer . Beyond their tourist apartments, now at a standstill, this is a new window for hosts and users to shake hands, learn and learn different things.
At the moment there is a catalog of 50 virtual experiences : from meditation with Buddhist monks to virtual trips to see the Chernobyl dogs. From cooking and learning to make grandma's Italian pasta, to a cocktail workshop with experts, and to a bike tour with Olympic athlete Alistair Brownlee. Many are especially familiar, such as learning the secrets of magic, the experience we have signed up for.
"Discover the secrets of magic from the hand of a magician who has achieved a Guinness record. You will learn to do tricks with everyday objects , such as cards, mobile phones, rings ...", read on the platform's page. The host, that is, the one who offers his house in the slang of Airbnb, or in this case the experience is Martin Rees.
A quick Google search gives us an idea of the character. Rees actually holds three Guinness World Records. He is the man who has performed the most magic tricks in a minute blindfolded . The BBC shows the images of the 11 tricks he performed while parachuting , which helped him put on another medal. The other was obtained in a wind tunnel, one of those free fall simulators.
FROM 'PARADISE'
Deck in hand, the Briton awaits us at Zoom at the agreed time. We are five participants in this experience. All of them from home, although some of them have set up one of those funds that the application allows and that makes us think that they are calling from a heavenly beach . Then we will see that it is actually, like the rest, inside a room with its curtains and things.
The session lasts an hour. Rees is very skilled, a talented magician, and very likable. He has been with Britain's Got Talent , he tells us, and participates in Spread a smile, an organization that takes magicians to hospitals to entertain sick children.
Gerard, the one from paradise, is actually in Berlin . Monique in the UK and Sanet in South Africa . The first thing we all learn is that the Ace of Spades and Queen of Hearts are the most recurring cards people think of when a magician asks you to think of a card. Although we soon find that Reed is capable of guessing anyone ...
THE TRICK OF TOILET PAPER
In the next few minutes we will see in the foreground how Rees burns his wallet, turns old receipts into sterling bills and physically goes through one of them with a lollipop and even with an Oreo cookie , all without breaking it ... Magic! We will also see coins disappear and missing cards appear in the center of a deck. And a trick with "a very precious object these days," as Rees stresses when he takes a piece of toilet paper to rip it apart and, a second later, show it without a scratch .
The magician will repeat one of his six world records: guessing 19 cards and his order taken randomly from a deck, which will make everyone present applaud (virtually) on the other side of the screen during this time of total evasion. And even, in the last minutes, the magician will reveal some of his tricks and will teach, step by step, how to perform them. A masterclass to "escape the new normal" and also ensure the mood. As Rees points out, "health is a serious matter today, but mental health is also going to be tomorrow."
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