LAS VEGAS — Johnny Ace Palmer and Loren Christopher Michaels have a few things in common.
Both are magicians, deemed among the best in the world by their peers, and both specialize in close-up magic, working literally right before your very eyes. Both began studying their craft as preschoolers, learning to read in order to devour magic books. Both live in Orange County, within a few miles of each other.
And both were among the half-dozen close-up magicians who performed during the opening weeks of Caesars Magical Empire, including last week's official opening of the $35-million magic venue at Caesars Palace.
According to Palmer, 35, landing the Caesars engagement wasn't like pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
"They've only invited award-winning magicians, and in magic to become an award-winner is difficult; it's a big thing," said Palmer, who lives in Huntington Beach.
Palmer returns to the Irvine Marriott's Champions Sports Bar on Wednesday, one of several weekly engagements he has in Southern California.
Michaels, who in his act pulls a hat out of a rabbit, doesn't take the Caesars engagement lightly either. He plays there through Aug. 18.
"To me the fact that somebody asked could [I] please come here and be part of this opening, that's historical," he said over the din of the casino near the Magical Empire entrance. "This place will be here for a long, long time, and I got the opportunity to be the first one to do the first show for the first audience," Michaels said. "I'm jazzed."
Michaels, 40, may seem gentle and gracious, but the Costa Mesa resident once worked as a bounty hunter and is billed as "sleightly dangerous."
He holds the Guinness world record for the quickest escape from a straitjacket--3.4 seconds--and once performed Houdini's straitjacket escape suspended upside down from a burning rope 150 feet in the air. He chain-smokes in conversation and in his act kept right on smoking--his thumbs, one of his many tricks with fire.
Palmer has two of the fastest hands in the business. Among his tricks in the Empire's Secret Pagoda, where observers are mere feet away, Palmer produced a pair of doves out of thin air.
In 1988, he became the first close-up magician to win the International Federation of Magic Societies' Grand Prix award. He's twice been voted best close-up magician at Hollywood's Magic Castle, thousands of whose members are magicians themselves.
