TALKING WATCHES AND MAGI WITH DAN WHITE

At first glance, you might think that magic and watches are two separate items, but magician Dan White was quick to emphasize that magic, from its earliest origins, has always been very mechanical.

In fact, White pointed out that Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, widely considered the “father of modern magic,” was a French watchmaker of some renown and had even created some of the first mystery clocks.

For White, who got into magic at an early age, mystifying people was a way to communicate with them. “I have been doing magic since I was 10 years old,” he says. “Before magic, I was into comic books and superheroes. I saw David Copperfield live and I thought he was the real life incarnation of a superhero and the closest you could get to being one. I started working in a magic store and I got to see behind the scenes of how magic works, and I learned a lot about magic working there.

“For most of my life, I was doing