If you’ve been to an event and seen a tall, animated man walking around with a deck of cards, some foam balls and some rope…that man might be Christian Manahl.
Also known as Discord Illusions, Manahl has practiced magic, at least part-time, for the past decade…mainly close-up and parlor magic. However, the Iowa native says he left his job at Spirit AeroSystems to become a full-time magician.
“Yeah, my day job was engineering as a stress analyst at Spirit. …I left that January 11. So June 11 will be six months, that [this] has been my full-time job. People always [said], ‘Oh, it's not a good time economically to make the jump.’ Well, it hadn't been a good time to make the jump for five years. So it was figuring it was never going to be a good time. So I might as well do it.”
You might ask: Why would someone leave a day job to do magic? The 27-year-old says the conventional workday just wasn’t a fit.
“I'm not sure … if it was dissatisfaction with the job, specifically Spirit, but dissatisfaction with the normal 9-to-5,” Manahl says. “I don't think I'm built for it.”
Manahl does miss having co-workers.
“I don't miss my job, but I miss the people there,” he said. “There were a lot of fantastic coworkers there who I miss getting to see every day. But …I don't miss not being able to make my own hours.”
So what does a magician do with his free hours? Manahl says there is a lot of clerical work to do between gigs.
“I get up. I write a bunch of emails. I make a bunch of phone calls. I write contracts and invoices. I'd say … half of my day is doing boring adult work like that. And the other half of my day, I'm either getting ready to perform or performing or rehearsing or writing new material.”
Manahl says being a freelancer is a solitary endeavor. But he makes a concerted effort to try to be around like-minded people.
“People probably think that I'm not a lonesome worker because, you know, when I'm at the gigs I'm surrounded by people,” he said. “Most of the time I am alone in my home office. Sometimes I mosey down to the Commerce Club to get my work done there. … It is lonely, so I [also] make sure that I meet up with other magicians often to talk shop.”
The transition from engineer to magician was a natural fit for Manahl. He says he’s always been fascinated by how things work, and one thing both professions require is analytical thinking. However, Manahl says he finds that practicing magic full-time requires a little bit of showmanship.
“That kind of left brain … problem-solving approach is one of the things that's fascinating about the technical side of magic and being interested in magic, but it doesn't help at all in terms of like the intrapersonal,” he says. “Like, I'm, I'm charming on a stage, but when it comes to being a salesman and getting, you know, leads and stuff like that, it's a different ballpark.”
And Manahl is no stranger to the stage. He has a background in improv and stand-up and likes to incorporate comedy into his magic routine.
“When it comes to comedy, it's just it's a very straightforward thing to add to magic, because magic is about surprising you. Comedy is also, ‘Oh, look, there's a surprise,’ you know, and that's why it's funny.’”
Manahl says one thing he learned from improv is how to share the stage. When it comes to magic, he says he had to translate that into making an audience member the center of attention.
“When I have a volunteer on stage, I'm doing my best to make sure they are the ones getting all the love and laughter,” he said.
A common question audience members ask Manahl is, “How did you do that?” And like any good magician, he’s never really forthright with an answer in an effort to keep the mystery intact.
“How do you keep the illusion alive and how do you keep the secret? Magicians don't share secrets…for free. That's the actual secret.”
What’s not a secret is how open and entertaining Manahl is. So if you see a well-dressed man with a wand walking around…don’t be shy and approach him. You might see something you haven’t seen before.
