Scrappin NC

So much has been written about Antoni Gaudi and his organisation with Barcelona that it’s just about inconceivable to venture to that pearl of the Mediterranean without at least passing some time admiring the sinuous extravagances of the architect’s whimsical imagination. But Barcelona is full of unusual shops, bars and cafes which have been going about their business since before Sr. Gaudi picked up his first pencil. There are also lots of great Barcelona Apartment Rentals to explore the town like the great designer used to.

At number eleven Carrer de la Princesa, a painted be-turbaned head glares out from the curve of an enormous blue query mark. Below it a glass display case holds playing cards, puzzles, wands and complex clarifications of the illusionist’s art. This is El Rey De La Magia, set up in 1881 and the oldest sorcery shop in Spain.

Shortly before Gaudi began work on the Segrada Familia, Joaquin Portagas became charmed with the arena of illusion. After a trip to South America where he learned some new tricks and systems, he made a decision to take a full-time step into the sorcery world and opened El Rey de la Magia, a brave step at a point in time when only a few folks accepted and practiced the illusionist’s art. At that time wizardry was typically performed on street corners, in markets and bars – it wouldn’t become really popular till the 1930′s, when it eventually entered the theatres and became a major hobby.

In the store, and the small museum of wizardry nearby, posters returning to the earlier years of the last century publicize the famous sorcerers of the day, numerous them wearing flowing Chinese robes. The bright costumes were seen as terribly exotic when they first appeared, and besides – there had been plenty of space to hide things!

In 1933 the first sorcery group in Spain was started in Barcelona, the Asociacin Catalana Illusionistas – and met in Quatro Gats, the same caf where Picasso, Joan Mir and other artists, writers and poets would meet. Magic was seen by many as an element of the humanities in those days.

When Jos Maria Martinez took control of the shop the wizardry business had been in decline for a considerable number of years – there had been even talk about changing the property into a bar. At that time he and his spouse, Rosa Maria Llop, were professional actors but included wizardry in their specially produced performances, something they do today.

Magic is now a seriously well-liked spare time interest again, and although most people quite like the very grand David Copperfield-type illusions, it’s still the close-up, more intimate stage performances that folk truly prefer. And you aren’t getting much more close-up and intimate than the performances held at their little theatre, where infants to granddads goggle in amazement at the ‘magical ‘ Sun. shows. Why not rent some Apartments in Barcelona to practice your own wizardry tricks in the city?

The theatre is a part of a museum of historic wizardry props ( where you can see Rosa’s grinning head mysteriously suspended in a glass case ), but in the workshop below, Jos Maria works creating new tricks for buyers worldwide, though in the world of sorcery nothing truly changes.

Basically wizardry is defined by a few rules – levitation, changing colour, shape or place, and breaking something apart and putting it together again. Even if you are slicing somebody’s head off you still need to put it back again or where is the sorcery? There is not – it’s then known as murder!

The most important thing in sorcery is making the truth of something that does not exist. That boils down to technique, you want to focus the public’s attention where you want it. One of the most difficult illusions to do is levitation because it need roughly 4 mins to set up, in full public view, and 4 mins is an especially long time for a sorcerer to stand on stage and do nothing.
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tkscrapper Scrapbooking Paper Barcelona, Spain, travel