The Amazing David Hall

By Eoin Gallagher

    In the Pettit Atrium, PCC was surprised and amazed by the magical talents of David Hall. He started out with a trick including the entire audience. He asked them to think of a three letter word. He then told his guests to take the middle letter of that word and think of a fruit that begins with that letter. Lastly, they took the last letter of the fruit, came up with an animal that begins with that letter, and thought of the color of the animal. He then showed us a poster that said one word on it, and it was the name of the animal that was pictured in everybody’s minds. The poster read “elephant”.

    For his next trick, Mr. Hall went around and the audience with a calculator. He asked that whoever he gave the calculator would put in a three digit number that was important to them, such as the beginning of a phone number. Others he asked to multiply that number by an important number to them. Eventually, he brought the calculator on stage and read the number aloud “14,040,373”. He then picked up the elephant poster and flipped it upside down. It now read “14040373”, the same number found on the calculator, even though the poster had been made long before the start of the show.

    After that, he performed an ancient trick, and even taught the audience how to do it, too. The trick was simple, three balls were placed on top of three cups. He would pick up each ball, and put it in his other hand, or so we thought. After he picked up a ball, he would open up his hand for the audience to see that it was, in fact, empty. But when he picked up the cup, the ball would be in there, no matter which cup he used. Do you want to know how he did it? Well, too bad, because a magician never truly reveals their secrets. After a few more acts, David Hall made his mind-reading Animal Planet star of a bunny appear out of nowhere. He called up several volunteers for Hocus to read their minds. Hocus was never wrong during his readings. Then, David pulled a dove out of a hat, and Hocus was put away after winning over the crowd’s hearts.

    Then, for his most astounding trick, Mr. Hall called up a volunteer. After signing and handing over a dollar bill, the student was given a choice — all of the money in a bag they were given, or whatever was in David’s briefcase. Of course, the student chose what was in the briefcase. When it was opened, all that was inside was a bag of lemons. He asked the volunteer to grab a lemon. He then cut it open to reveal the same dollar bill that had been signed before! But, it gets better! The volunteer then read aloud the serial number of the dollar bill. “14040373” he read, the same number that had been used before, bringing the performance full circle.