Texas magician convention opens downtown

• Video: Watch a magic trick

It's just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill, Uncle Sam-certified dollar bill. Or is it?

Gene Protas manipulates the greenback and, suddenly, there are two. Next comes a little fancy folding, a dash of razzmatazz and then, astoundingly, he holds two fives. After more faster-than-the-eye-can-fathom folding, Protas is once again holding a solitary, wrinkled buck.

Anybody can turn $10 into $1, you may think. Or, you may conclude the financial hocus-pocus is something Protas picked up in his 20-plus years as a banker. In both cases you would be wrong.

This is magic.

Houston's downtown Hilton Americas hotel took on a whimsical air Friday as magicians from around the nation dropped in for the first sessions of the annual Texas Association of Magicians convention.

More than 500 are expected to attend the three-day event, which will feature public magic performances in the hotel's grand ballroom Saturday and Sunday nights.

Something for anyone

Michael Blanco with his wife Jessica Blanco. The couple known as the Rhythm of Magic will be attending the Texas Associations of Magicians Convention at he Hilton Americas in Houston, Texas the weekend of September 1, 2012. less Michael Blanco with his wife Jessica Blanco. The couple known as the Rhythm of Magic will be attending the Texas Associations of Magicians Convention at he Hilton Americas in Houston, Texas the weekend of ... more Photo: Billy Smith II, Chronicle Photo: Billy Smith II, Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Texas magician convention opens downtown 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Attendees will hear lectures and view demonstrations by Jason England, considered a world expert in gambling-related sleights of hand and cheating techniques; Joshua Jay, who causes items to bend, twist and disappear; mind-reader Asi Wind; and a host of other magicians of international reknown. Sunday's lineup features a gospel magic service.

On hand Friday were Michael and Jessica Blanco, a newlywed team of ballroom dancers and illusionists. Lively on the dance floor, the pair turns dead-serious when it comes to the recent bride being cut in half.

"Magic," says Michael Blanco, "is the art of creating a moment of suspended disbelief and experiencing something that is not supposed to happen."

Present, too, was Houston magician Alex Rangel. A burly, bald man with rings in both ears, Rangel, 34, showed up in a T-shirt emblazoned with a gutsy promotion for "Zombie Vampires from Hell."

"It's a fake 1970s horror movie," Rangel says, chuckling. "People come up and say they remember seeing that film."

This year's state magicians' convention, the 66th, is being hosted by local chapters of the Society of American Magicians and the International Brotherhood of Magicians. Together, the Houston chapters claim about 175 paid members, although some hold membership in both organizations.

Protas is president of the local Society of American Magicians Assembly 19.

"When you watch a magic trick," he says, "you suspend disbelief and then you experience awe. When magicians see that, we get a visceral feeling. It's wonderful. Magicians love to be fooled."

Protas, 62, who holds a college degree in English and as well as an MBA, spent more than two decades in a bank's marketing department.

His skills as a magician, a talent he cultivated in college, aided him as an "ice breaker" in dealing with banking's suited set. A few warm-up tricks eased even the tensest meeting.

Now retired, Protas devotes his magic skills to brightening the lives of Houston hospital patients and their families. "If I can take their minds off their situation for just five minutes, it gives me tremendous satisfaction," he said.

Practiced with cousins

Rangel began dabbling with magic as a boy in Corpus Christi, practicing his beginner's tricks with similarly inclined cousins at family weddings and funerals. "While they'd be holding a wake, we'd be in the lobby doing card tricks," he recalls.

Later, while tending bar at a Pasadena watering hole, Rangel polished his magic skills in hopes of boosting the size of his tips. He entered the craft professionally after one of his customers showed him card manipulations that left him slack-jawed with amazement.

The mysterious drinker turned out to be the owner of a local magic shop.

High-tech changes

The tenets of magic have deep historical roots, but the art is advancing into the 21st century on the wings of technology.

"We're adding a jazz beat to rap music," Rangel says. "We're taking classical and making it modern. You're seeing old things incorporated with up-and-coming technology - iPhones, iPads and all the social media."

So, what was the story behind Protas' low-tech but clever greenback trickery?

He won't tell.

Magicians swear a solemn oath to secrecy. And it's never a good idea to cross someone who can make you disappear.

allan.turner@chron.com