Magic Bar Twister

Me working

On my brother's last night in Sapporo, we went to Magic Bar Twister. I performed for a groups of people sitting in the sofa seats while my brother and sister in law saw the other two magicians perform for them at the counter. I also performed for them later, and luckily two other guests showed up and sat next to them at the counter. For my relatives, I have performed most of my material already, since they ask me to show them magic every New Year when we meet in Saitama.

Preparing for the night by eating nikuman

Our magic bar also serves some food, mainly spicy chicken. My brother and his wife ate some of the spicy chicken and thought it was very good (which it is). There is also the option of "Russian Roulette" on the menu. This means that among the five or six pieces of chicken, one or more are not just spicy but extremely spicy. And you cannot tell by looking which one it is. The bad ones are filled with a very hot sauce which I think is called Mad Dog's Revenge, though it may be a different but similar product. Anyway, even for people who are immune to spicy food, this physically hurts for about 20 minutes or so.

My brother does not eat food that is that spicy, though his wife orders super spicy food quite often. After some tries from me to get her to give up the idea, she got her will through and we ordered a Russian Roulette set with only one super spicy piece of chicken to use for the three of use. I was hoping I would not get the spicy one, since it makes it hard for you to speak for 20 minutes or so, and that makes it difficult to perform magic. As luck would have it, my sister in law got the super spicy piece in her first draw. She is much more resistant to spicy food than I am, but she kept saying it hurt on and off for 20 minutes or so.

She also thought that the magician Tsubasa should stop referring to her in the way he did, which was implying that she was older than him. As it turns out, Tsubasa is actually 9 years younger than her, so that was not that strange after all... He just looks like he is older than she is. She thought that was the most surprising magic of the whole evening.

When things calmed down in Magic Bar Twister, I took the rest of the night off and we went to Trick Bar Twister (the other magic bar in our chain) to meet my other magician friends. They also showed us some magic, and since every magician has his or her own style, it was nice to see both "mysterious" magic, "funny" magic, "lewd" magic, and magic "that makes you angry", haha.

My friends also thought it was great to get to speak to my brother about all the weird things I may or may not have done when I was younger, and to my sister in law about life as a Japanese living in Sweden etc. We also met lots of people I know, like some people from Bic Camera, and other regulars to our magic bar.

On the way back to the hotel, my sister in law commented that "you know so many people here!" Which my parents also said when they were here, since we kept running into people that came up and said: "Ah, Jonas. Long time no see" etc. But that week I had many more random encounters with people I know than normal. This time, we did not have that many, I thought. I protested and said that it was not strange to meet lots of people that know me when we were in a bar where I work, since everyone that comes to that bar can be expected to know me. As I was explaining this, a woman came up to us and said: "Ah, Jonas. Long time no see!"... which kind of made my argument seem unconvincing.