For Michael Quintin (’25), magic isn’t just sleight of hand — it’s the glint in another’s eyes.

“They have that look of wonder when they realize they don’t know how I just did something but really enjoyed the fact that they don’t know,” Quintin said. “That’s the greatest part of performance.”

Before picking up his first deck of cards, Quintin was already an entertainer. Whether it be through theater or singing, Quintin said the stage was always his.

“That performative thing has always been there,” Quintin said. “I’ve always liked to talk to people and perform, you know, make them happy, make them enjoy their time a little bit and give them a break from everything.”

He said it wasn’t until he was 9 years old that he found himself “stumbling into magic.”

One day, Quintin said he was looking through a basement closet when he found a book called “Campfire Magic,” which contained simple acts for children.

“I tried out a couple of card tricks and they went well, and it all just spiraled into today,” he said.

After learning more tricks from the book, Quintin said he began to practice them on his sister.

“She quickly realized that every day I was gonna be forcing her to pick a card, and like, this new card trick that I had learned, and it grew old very quickly,” he said.

From then on, magic became one of his favorite forms of expression. While he is self-taught, Quintin said he learns his tricks from observing other magicians or purchasing their magic sets online.

He said while magic may seem beyond most people’s reach, it’s quite the opposite.

“Magic is much more accessible than people think,” Quintin said. “It’s not this, like, mysterious craft that only the lucky few will follow.”

For the last seven years, Quintin said his magic has become a regular act at every Student Spotlight assembly.

“Unofficially, I kind of have a slot,” he said. “It’s just like, ‘Michael, you do magic. Come, here’s your five minutes.’”

Quintin said while he occasionally experiences jitters before getting on stage, performing in front of his peers is incredibly satisfying.

“It may be nerve-wracking for the first two minutes before I step out, but once I do, I forget about everything and it’s the greatest relief in the world,” Quintin said.

Additionally, he said one trick consisting of separating cards into four piles has become a fan favorite.

“The best magic tricks end with this big spectacle,” he said. “The four cards one, it ends with this really nice big closure, and, you know, it impacts people.”

Quintin said the best tricks are done in front of the spectators’ faces.

“Magic secrets are usually hidden in plain sight, just no one’s looking there,” he said. “The magician knows you’re not looking there because they have a great patter.”

In addition, Quintin said during an act, the magic trick itself happens fairly quickly, and the remainder of the time is “just showmanship and fluff.”

In the days leading up to a Student Spotlight performance, Quintin said he prepares frequently for fluidity in his act, giving the audience a “magic trick you can’t figure out immediately.”

Admittedly, Quintin said he has backup tricks in case the one he is performing goes wrong. It wasn’t until a Student Spotlight assembly last year, where a trick requiring a phone connection began to malfunction, that he started to come prepared with an alternative performance.

During that show, the volunteer on stage began to receive phone calls. Quintin said he used it as an opportunity to save face.

“I tried to blame it on the friends, like, ‘Why are your friends calling you?’” Quintin said. “I tried to make use of the moment.”

However, he said the obvious mistakes that occur on stage are normally choreographed by magicians who would otherwise find ways of staying discreet.

“If you ever see a magician make a mistake on stage, I guarantee that was not a mistake,” Quintin said. “You might think that, you know, it’s a human performance, it’s free-flowing, everything is down to the spectators. The whole time, the magician is in control, and it’s very deeply choreographed.”

In addition to harnessing unpredictability, Quintin said the audience plays a crucial role in any successful show.

“Performance is play,” he said. “You want to give the people the escape of play, the ability to forget about everything and just enjoy the moment. You do that by ricocheting off of them and working with them while also simultaneously doing your act and choreographing the magic and making sure the script is right. You’re making sure that everyone is involved in some degree.”

Quintin said all of his performances are rooted in the people and in pursuit of their enjoyment.

“As soon as I walk on stage, I can’t describe it, but there’s a different mode of being that I switch into,” Quintin said. “I don’t think about anything other than my singular goal here for the next five minutes is to achieve this magic trick and to give people the best experience I can.”

Alongside Student Spotlight performances, Quintin showcases his magic at children’s birthday parties. He said one memorable moment was when a child who had watched one of his birthday performances showed enthusiasm for magic too.

“They poked me on the knee, and I recognized him and I was like, ‘Hello,’” Quintin said. “He whipped out a deck of cards, and he started shuffling, and I was like, ‘Oh, we’re doing a magic trick. Okay, yes, I’ll watch.’”

After the experience, Quintin was left wondering if his performance was what encouraged the child to start practicing magic.

“I’m hoping that my act had some part in that because it was really inspiring to see that there was someone else I could have inspired,” he said. “Good magic keeps you thinking, like that mystery, ‘How the h**l did he just do that? How does that work?’ That thinking sparks passion because then you go, ‘Okay, well, I want to do this myself. I want to know how he did that.’”

Quintin said as magic is an unconventional craft, many people have different assumptions of what it is.

“People don’t realize that it can be more than, like, a dorky magic set,” he said. “You can do it with real things like coins and cards and mental tricks as well.”

Quintin said eliciting wonder is at the forefront of his performances, which stray away from traditional magic acts.

“When people first see me do something that isn’t like that, you know, surface level 3-year-old magic set kind of thing, it’s more of a contemporary real magical style of work, it’s really eye-opening and it’s really fun,” Quintin said. “It’s a play because I’m asking you, ‘How did I do it?’ And it’s your job to figure it out.”

However, Quintin’s audience members aren’t the only ones who have questions for him. He said he occasionally gets stopped at airport security for carrying magic supplies or equipment used for contact juggling, another hobby of his.

“I had this crystal ball with me in the airport and, like, airport security obviously takes it out and are like, ‘Why the h**l do you have a crystal ball in your bag?’” Quintin said. “So, I’m in the middle of the airport, and as everyone is brushing past me, to prove my innocence, I have to juggle this ball around my body.”

The impracticality of magic goes beyond getting questioned at airport security. While Quintin said he would love to pursue magic as a career, it’s simply not realistic.

“It’s one of those romantic careers that odds are is not going to work out at all,” Quintin said. “I kind of need to be a little more pragmatic with mine, with my career path.”

At the same time, Quintin said magic has taught him invaluable skills, such as continuous speaking, that help him in other avenues of his life.

“Waffling is a very useful skill, to continue speaking even when you don’t have ideas until you get to something substantive,” he said. “In magic, you need to continue speaking.”

Additionally, Quintin said he has noticed his memorization strengthen from magic preparation, which has been useful for school work.

“Whether I’m memorizing, you know, eight cards in a deck from eight different spectators that they chose, or I’m memorizing vocabulary terms for my AP Spanish Literature exam, the memorization carries over,” Quintin said.

Above all, Quintin said the carefully coordinated nature of magic has trained him to discern the less apparent.

“Magic taught me to be able to look a little past the surface level,” Quintin said. “I can appreciate and acknowledge how things have been created and curated for me, you know, whether it’s an article in a newspaper, whether it’s a speech, whether it’s a class curriculum. There are things that people are always trying to crack subconsciously, and I think magic lets you have a little window into that.”

This story was originally published on The Standard on March 7, 2025.