Magic’s ultimate local booster collects people and ‘toys’
Gary Darwin’s collection of magic memorabilia fills his eight-room house, surrounding and distracting him as he speaks from the sofa that is just about the last outpost of actual habitation.
I’m there to talk about him, specifically his 50 years of presiding over a weekly magic club. But Darwin’s life is so wrapped up in other magicians — and the books, posters, magazines, props and you-name-it relating to them — the conversation frequently strays to another artifact, and/or the magician who has signed one: “Norm Nielsen, you ever heard of him? He went all around the world doing the floating violin. He’s as crazy as me. He collects posters.”
But Darwin’s ultimate collection may be all the people who stopped in over the years to attend one of his weekly gatherings in countless backrooms or bars around town.