Best Magic School

There have been better times for magic, magician Larry Taylor admits. Fewer and fewer people are getting into the business of pulling rabbits out of, well, wherever. So Taylor, who's spent 35 years as a magician in Philadelphia and South Florida, is hoping to teach the next generation. Taylor gives one-on-one magic lessons for kids and soon-to-be pros out of his Boynton Beach magic shop, the South Florida Magic Company. The $50-an-hour lessons begin with simple card and coin tricks, eventually bringing the advanced student to Taylor's specialty, the ol' "cube zag." That's where Taylor sticks knives through his assistant (also his wife). Well, at least it looks that way. "That's the advanced stuff," Taylor says. After three or four lessons, Taylor contends, most students can perform for audiences. They'll need probably $500 for just the beginner's equipment and thousands more for technical tricks. But there are hatfuls of money to be made just in the bar mitzvah market, he says, and the big thing now is corporate events, where magicians make the rounds at company cocktail parties. Soon enough, however, magic may be back to the mainstream. "It's been around for thousands of years, and it's not going away anytime soon," the 65-year-old Taylor says. "It's going to come back before you know it." Maybe Taylor's just the man to pull the profession from his sleeve.