We were celebrating our 5th Wedding Anniversary (thank you, thank you very much) and that number just feels like you should make it a memorable one – Let’s make it friggin special, please!! I get pumped to plan (no offense to my sweet husband, but, I know how to plan a date to remember, ok!!) and I love to challenge myself to find a REALLY unique adventure.
So, at the time, we are living in NYC – in Manhattan – and there are SO many options for dates, right? We’re in the Big Apple – How do I choose what to do, there has to be something really different. We’ve already been seeing lots of Broadway shows, eating out at amazing restaurants, riding bikes, walking the Highline and catching the culture – what could we do that will leave a great memory?
So, as I do – I’m on yelp – researching this pie shop that’s near our apartment. We keep walking past and it’s all I can do to not shove these baked goods into my mouth. They have a sour cream walnut apple pie (it’s bonkers) do stop in – Little Pie Shop on W 43rd.
Anyway, I get so distracted by pie. . . . I find a yelp review that leads to another review and another and then . . . it catches my eye – Belinda Sinclair – Magicienne. Ok, now we’re on to something.
She does a very intimate Magic show out of her parlor on W 48th (wait – this is around the block from us – I take this as a clear sign) Plus her Yelp reviews say things like “Go back in time to the conjuring room, you will be enlightened and stunned” OK – enough said, these words are EXACTLY what I am looking for in an Anniversary date. I buy tickets immediately – I am so flipping EXCITED!!
(We also make a dinner reservation at an Italian restaurant – Becco – but I really don’t remember much about eating because we were completely put into a trance by Belinda Sinclair. The reviews were correct.)
The entire night seems like a mystical oddity of time travel – with a sprinkling of fun and human connection. There’s no sign out front of her walk-up apartment, you buzzer up and she lets you in. Offers you tea and cookies (she’s a great hostess) and the show begins. But it doesn’t really feel like a ‘show’ at all. It’s more like an experience. She does a lot of sleight of hand tricks and talks a great deal about the history of magic starting with women in this area of Hell’s Kitchen. It was riveting. And we loved every minute (or rather 3 hours) of it – We honestly have been talking about it nonstop since.
The moment that sticks out to both my husband and me, was this, it was our 5th Anniversary, but when we came in Belinda asked us how long we had been together and I said 8 years – factoring in dating time etc. . . by the end of the show, she had me pick a card from the deck and sign it. Put it back into the deck – shuffled it. . . then my husband picked a card and signed it – put it back in the deck. She shuffled and pulled out the one card with both of our signatures on either side – totaling to 5. WHAT – I understand, (sort of ) how this could happen, logically, but in the moment and to this day we’ll both be completely entranced by this trick. And have the memory and the memento forever. Now that is MAGIC.
Add Pic of Card we have.
NYT Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/nyregion/conjuring-the-magic-in-new-yorks-past.html
Image Credits: Earl Wilson for The New York Times
