Welcome to Colon, Magic Capital of the World..
Very in-depth article by Kyle Chayka for The Verge..
On a high school auditorium stage in front of a packed house on the evening of August 6th, a goth magician named Dan Sperry dressed in ripped black jeans and platform boots swallowed a few razor blades, then pulled them from his mouth daisy-chained on a string. He picked up a grotesque baby doll, made it pee on his face, then spat the pee back on the baby before throwing it away. Doves appeared from nowhere, vanishing to bursts of flame and a grinding soundtrack of Incubus. During the finale, Sperry sawed through his own neck with a piece of floss. At some point during the emo-metal haze, it occurred to me that I might actually prefer a stuffy old man in a tuxedo waving a magic wand.
This surreal performance happened in Colon, Michigan, a sleepy, one-streetlight town somewhere between Detroit and Chicago that proudly bills itself as “The Magic Capital of the World.” (The name comes from a pair of nearby lakes shaped like the punctuation mark.) It’s home to around 1,000 residents and holds at least 30 dead magicians in its single small graveyard. The Colon High School mascot is a giant bunny rabbit. Though it lacks the soaring Gothic cathedrals of Hogwarts, it just might be the most magical place in the United States…