This Magic Moment

Anthony Capozzoli
Back of the House Manager for Restaurant Associates
Bank of America
New York City

Hometown: Astoria, Queens

Lives in: Selden, N.Y.

Single: Lives with his 135-pound Neapolitan Mastiff named Bella

After watching a David Copperfield special on TV one day, Anthony Capozzoli, back of the house manager for Restaurant Associates at Bank of America in New York City, became obsessed with many different types of magic. Here, Capozzoli talks about his favorite tricks and how he just wants viewers to sit back and enjoy the magic.

“Around 1994, I saw a David Copperfield special on TV, and ever since that day my interest in magic just snowballed. I remember being struck by Copperfield’s trick where he flies. I think that trick inspired me, as well as a lot of other magicians, because everyone wants to fly. For me, it just went from seeing that special to all my Christmas presents and everything I wanted had to do with magic. I just started doing all these card tricks and annoying my family with magic all the time.

About three years ago, I decided I could make some money off my magic, so I started a business called Reality is Deception. Now, I do private parties, birthday parties for children and motivational magic for companies. I probably work a couple of parties a month. I use Facebook and MySpace to get the word out about my magic. There are even some videos of me doing magic on YouTube.

I started out doing card tricks and levitating dollar bills, which turned into levitating people. I also do magic called mentalism, which is where I ask someone to think of someone significant in his or her life or a number from 1 to 10,000 and I’ll guess it.

I learned magic through books mostly. I read a lot of older books and I was always buying VHS tapes when I was little. I’ve also gone to a lot of magic shows throughout New York City. I’ve seen David Copperfield, David Blaine and Chris Angel perform. As far as inspiration, I have a tattoo of Harry Houdini, so I’m really into him because I think he led the way for close-up magic, which is my brand of magic. I can do parties for larger audiences, but my magic is really for smaller groups of people. I always try to keep everyone entertained.

People are always trying to dupe me. They’re always trying to find out how the trick is done, instead of really just enjoying the magic. That upsets me sometimes, but it also can be gratifying because I’m obviously doing something right if they are really trying to figure it out. That’s how I came to the name Reality is Deception.

My favorite tricks are the sleight of hand tricks and mentalism. I also like anything to do with getting a rise or reaction out of someone—that’s really my mission. I want to put smiles on people’s faces and create that moment of magic. Magic to me is not really about the tricks themselves; it’s more about creating that magic moment. As cheesy as that sounds, that’s what I live for.

My passion is really doing magic for children. I think it really helps to grow the art form. For kids’ parties, I really try to set a good positive tone. I try to do my shows only for kids ages 10 and up because my personality type works best with that age.

I do food-related magic at work. Something that I did recently was I had one of our managers think of any food item in the kitchen and then I had another one of our managers think of a piece of equipment in the kitchen and then I brought them both straight over to the correct items. I’ll also do things like levitate pieces of food or make things vanish and reappear other places. All the employees love my pre-meal employee meetings because I always try and throw a little magic something in there.”