There’s nothing like a double bunger birthday celebration to bring out the silliness in families, and we had a doozie last weekend, thanks to my lovely daughters.
Grandson Jack was turning 16 and getting his L-plates, Poppie Phil was turning blah-de-blah and getting his pension card. We had booze, we had cake, we had seriously adult soft drinks, we had a sunny afternoon and Spotify blasting out a Sixties playlist, we had socially-distanced seating arrangements and we had a dear mate visiting from Sydney with the loudest laugh in captivity … what could possibly go wrong!
Well, a bloke wandered up our street into our garden and he looked suspiciously like a magician I once knew. I looked once, I looked twice. Yes, a little greyer, a few crow’s feet around the eyes, but praise the lord and pull the rabbit out of the hat, it was indeed the mighty Sean The Magician.
When we came to live in Noosa in 1990, LA-born Sean Tretheway had been pulling rabbits out of hats and poking lit cigarettes through expensive shirts much to the shock and then amazement of the patrons of all of Hastings Street’s best restaurants for half a dozen years. He was a legend in the making, and when he first performed magic at our table, I made the mistake of asking him where he learnt to be a magician. The answer is Hollywood’s famous and exclusive Magic Castle Club, but on this occasion he came in so close that his red bow tie was tickling my whiskers, and he whispered ominously, “I am not a magician. I am a sleight-of-hand artist, a multi-disciplinary prestidigitator, from the Latin presto meaning quick, and digit meaning finger.”
By now I was getting ready to give our new friend the finger, but he turned out to be not only a remarkably skilled and entertaining, ah, prestidigitator, but a good friend who always put his hand up to raise money for a cause. When I turned 40, Philthy Phil’s Phortieth Phestivities at Palmer’s featured Doc Span and Ross Williams playing the blues and Sean pulling the rabbits. What a night it was!
Nearly 30 years on, Sean’s come to terms with the fact that magician is a lot easier to say, but the wow factor of his repertoire has lost none of its gloss. Courtesy of my girls, on our front lawn last weekend he had not just the four sceptical grandsons but the entire family gasping as cards and rabbits magically appeared in places they could not possibly be, long ropes grew short and vice versa, and, on request, a ciggie-burnt birthday shirt emerged undamaged from its smoky encounter with a true master of magic.
I can’t believe that Sean is still plying his genius for magic around Noosa, but he is, and I’m glad. You will be too if you have a party coming up. Flip him a mail at sean@thenoosamagician.com
Foiled again
Speaking of crazily-talented old mates, Maui’s Dave Kalama is not only one of the world’s greatest all-round watermen, equally at home towing into monster mid-ocean waves or fooling around with a dozen kids on a SUP, but he has been cracking up his wide circle of friends for years with his antics.
When I worked in Europe a couple of decades ago, Dave, Brian Keaulana, Titus Kinimaka and Mel Pu’u were our Hawaiian waterman team, and I had some wonderful times travelling and surfing with them from Ireland to Italy and all points in between. In Sardinia one year, when we lucked into a swell, Dave and Titus pulled out their new-fangled foils and put on a show, carving across big, chunky faces at high speed.
I’d never seen a foil in action before and I was amazed, but a decade later I hoped I’d never see another one dominating a surf break. I can see the attraction but the required skill level in the surf is high and too many learners are an accident waiting to happen.
So it was great to see Dave taking the mickey out of the foil scene in a recent post on social media. Tongue firmly in cheek, he wrote: “One of the things I love about foiling is that the rules aren’t written yet and I can really experiment with design and push the boundaries. I’ve been focusing on more volume lately and the boards are feeling great. Simplicity of outline has also been a focus lately. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve always had an attraction to rectangles and you can see the influence on my latest design.”
Yep, sure can.
The leopards are back!
Finally, it was great to see Number 4 grandson beaming last weekend, not just at Sean the Magician but because the mighty Noosa FC Under 9 Leopards were back in action after a three-month Covid hiatus, and rarin’ to go with a 4-2 win in a belated 2020 season opener. Go boys!
