by Nick Li ’17
After two years of funny hypnosis shows, Elliot Zimet had big shoes to fill here at US. His website says that he presents “a unique blend of mind blowing magic, heart pumping illusions, exotic birds, mentalism, humor, audience interaction and today’s hottest music!” After watching his show, I concluded that he has accomplished only one and a half of those things he listed, as well as leaving me with the gnawing question of what he means by “mentalism.”
To be fair, I judge him harshly because I have seen many, many magic shows, making me hard to impress. I also don’t like the way he dresses. Grrr… I could smell the obnoxiousness wafting off his fleece pullover days before he arrived.
The first thirty seconds of performance consisted of him doing a magic routine with his birds while Skrillex music blasted in the background. This was not too bad. The tricks involving the turtledoves were quite impressive, especially the one where he ripped the bird in half to make two birds.
After the routine ended, he grabbed the mic and made awkward small talk to the audience while he preformed his next trick, which was threading a needle by swallowing the needle and holding the thread line to his neck. It was slightly gross and traumatizing in a weird way, but still impressive. The show goes downhill from here.
The time between his tricks were all very long and the “punch line” to each one was not as exciting as the last. He seemed to have a hard time finding equipment and the rest of the routine gave off an air of causality a bit too uncomfortable for a show like this. The tricks themselves were all prop-heavy and he needed a bit too much time to find all the things he needed. The most memorable part of the rest of the show was when Firas walked onto the stage to help move equipment, or the time when the mic broke and Thomas had to run down from the box and fix it
The way Elliot communicated with the audience was often awkward and not humorous, as he would have liked to believe. It was disturbing when he kept inviting girls to the stage and passively flirts with them before the trick. Along with that, I was disappointed by the lack of flair I encountered. The videos of him in the internet were full of gimmicky LED lights and bright sparks and flames that shoot everywhere. He didn’t even show the parrot he had the tattoo of.
Elliot Zimet put up a very vanilla show that would be considered acceptable at best, and a disappointment if one was feeling very saucy. And saucy is exactly how I’m feeling right now.
I rate him six parrot tattoos out of ten.