Local performer brings storytelling to magic show

Jim Keplinger has performed his magic for everyone from foreign dignitaries to passersby on the street. Tuesday at The Venue Fine Arts & Gifts, he performed for the first time in Bloomington.

“My lords! Most honored citizens, come hither!” Keplinger called to the audience, introducing his show. “We will visit death, disease, mayhem and other light-hearted subjects.”

Keplinger conducted a series of card tricks, encompassing each trick within a story. Eight-year-old Jane Tryon helped pick which of seven cards Keplinger had named would die of plague. After six had been selected, he turned over the last to reveal the ace of spades.

“Death is always a fun subject to explore while dealing with magic,” he said.

Tryon’s mother, Sarah Flint, signed a card, which became “Johnny Snake-Eyes,” a visitor whose encounter with the town’s bank manager led to his hanging. Keplinger wrapped a rubber band around the deck and threw it against the ceiling. The deck fluttered to the floor, but stuck to the ceiling was Flint’s signed card.

“He stuck my mom’s card on the ceiling,” said Tryon. “I don’t know how he did that.”
Audience participants said they enjoyed Keplinger’s card tricks.

“I liked the bloody card in the mouth, that was great,” said audience member Brandon Peterson, whose card was sentenced to the “Iron Maiden.”

Keplinger put the deck of cards in his mouth and, after removing the deck, pulled out Peterson’s card, which was folded twice and wet with mock blood.

Keplinger, 39, started performing magic at an early age, which he said is common among magicians.

“I began studying it very seriously when I was 5 years old,” he said. He said he can still remember his first magic kit from 1975, which came free with a large pizza from Gino’s East. His first trick was driving needles through a half-dollar coin, which he figured out without reading the directions.

“It just fascinated me that the effect could be done without knowing how to do it,” he said.

He performed his first show at age 10 and was able to pay for his tuition at the University of Minnesota by performing magic. After earning a degree in meteorology and becoming dissatisfied with his magic tricks, he said he enlisted in the United States Air Force, hoping to study magic in Russia. But instead of learning Russian, he learned Arabic and Chinese, working as a translator and eventually as a meteorologist for the military.

He continued his fascination with magic and performed for the U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea. He has also traveled to 30 states and five countries with his magic. The thrill of magic, he said, lies in engaging the audience and telling a story.

“I enjoy the attention,” he said. “I enjoy the interaction. I enjoy the joy of it, not just my own, but the audience’s.”

Keplinger has also published “Visions, The Online Journal of the Art of Magic,” a magazine for magicians, which gained 250,000 readers in its first year. Keplinger said one reader was an editor at Marvel Comics who suggested that Keplinger write comic books.

Currently, Keplinger is working on “River Ports,” a comic book in which Hurricane Katrina has unearthed all the buried magic of New Orleans.

Keplinger moved to Bloomington to pursue a degree in marketing at the Kelley School of Business, which he will begin in January. In the meantime, he will continue to perform his magic whenever he can.

“I’ve seen Bloomington,” he said. “I think Bloomington needs a good magician, and I hope I’m it.”