On a Friday night at Sole in Williamsville, magician Todd Nelson is plying his trade. By

day, he works for the New York State Department of Transportation's claims department. But by

night, his life holds something different in the cards.

"Can I borrow a dollar bill?" he asks two women dining in the crowded restaurant.

He takes the bill and folds it up into his hand. Then he opens his hand. He begins

unfolding the dollar.

And — it's in quarters!

The bill is four rectangles attached to each other. It is if it has been cut into four

equal pieces, then put back together.

Nelson, 36, has been practicing magic since he was 15 and his mother took him to the old

Forks Hotel, the Cheektowaga landmark that featured the artistry of magician Eddie "Fast

Fingers" Fechter.

Fechter died in 1979, and a credit union now sits where the Forks used to stand. But its

influence lives on in the Buffalo area where, a glance at Gusto reveals, you can find a live

magic show every night of the week.

There is Nelson's Friday gig at Sole. Another magician, Garrett Thomas, works Thursdays at

Root Five in Hamburg. "Garrett and I both got started together at the Forks," Nelson says.

The rest of the gigs belong to a single magician, Mike Seege.

The 34-year-old Seege is a full-time magician with a glitzy Web site (www.mikeseege.com).

He currently works five nights out of the week.

Every Saturday night he holds court at Brennan's Bowery Bar, the legendary watering hole on

Transit Road by Eastern Hills Mall. His big hit there is a joke he calls the "card on the

ceiling."

"A person signs a card, you put the card in the middle of the deck, the deck's wrapped in

rubber bands. You throw the cards up at the ceiling, and the card the person signs sticks to

the ceiling," is how he rapidly and professionally summarizes the trick.

Brendan Biggane, the manager of Brennan's, laughs that crowds come in just to see Seege,

who has performed there for more than six years. "The cards are everywhere up on the ceiling,"

he says. "It's actually a great conversation piece. "All week, people want to know, "What's

with the cards all over the ceiling?'"

Down the road at Dandelions Restaurant in Williamsville, owner Greg Maghran has featured

Seege once a week for several years. "He's a big draw," Maghran says. "I get phone calls all

day, asking, "What time is the magician coming in?'"

Maghran hired Seege initially because Tuesdays are kids' night, when kids eat free. But he

has discovered that magic is popular with all ages.

"The kids like this rabbit trick that he does with foam bunnies that keep mass-producing

out of his hands. I tend to like the card tricks, because he's so good at them," he says.

"My kids like the flaming wallet. He pulls out a wallet, and it bursts into flames."

In reality, magic has been good for Seege's wallet. He was able to leave his job at

American Axle to make his living as a full-time magician.

Seege explains that an aunt he loved died of cancer, and that spurred him to follow his

dream.

"You hear people say life is short," he says. "I can't tell you how blessed I feel to be

able to do this."

"The Man Who Knows"

Seege lives with his wife, Jennifer — they met at the Coliseum downtown — and

their 2-year-old son in a classic, immaculate 1960s ranch house in Cheektowaga. Nothing on the

outside would tell you that a magician lives here.

The inside of the house is a different story.

The walls of the living room and basement sport vintage lithographs of colorful magicians

from the turn of the last century, with names like Carter the Great and the Great Virgil. The

spirit of the East sparkles — most of the magicians wear turbans, and sometimes the

spectators do, too.

The magicians' eyes follow Seege as he moves about the room. Their slogans are mesmerizing.

A poster from Germany advertises a "Zauberabend" or "magic evening." "Must Be Seen," commands

another. One sorcerer is billed, with haunting simplicity, as "The Man Who Knows."

In a place of honor are two framed pictures of the lavishly tattooed Fechter, the master of

the Forks Hotel. One photo is complete with the holy card distributed at his funeral in 1979

at Our Lady of Blessed Sacrament Church.

Seege's need to have Fechter and the Great Virgil around for inspiration plays up an

endearing aspect of the magic trade: that magicians, like musicians, owe a great debt to the

past.

Were a time machine invented, he would go back in time to see Harry Houdini. "He was the

original showman," Seege marvels.

Nelson shares his nostalgia. In his formative years at the Forks, he got to know Karl

Norman, now 91 and the president of the local chapter of the International Brotherhood of

Magicians.

"He's my mentor in magic," Nelson says.

The world of magic is haunted by the past. It is thrilling to think that the card tricks

that Nelson, Seege and their colleagues perform at local restaurants probably go back to the

Middle Ages.

It is a magician's challenge to take age-old tricks and make them his own.

"So many people come back week after week that you have to come up with new stuff," Seege

says.

Startlingly casual, he whips out a dollar. "I know Todd did this trick for you," he says.

"But he turns the dollar bill inside out. I do something more useful."

And poof, the dollar bill is a $100 bill.

"Sometimes I sit home at night with a pile of bills and do this," he cracks.

A wineglass in flames

Seege looks up to David Copperfield and Penn and Teller, big-time magicians who have their

own places on his basement walls. But magic in an up-close setting can be more impressive than

what the stars do with it.

Nelson, working the tables at Sole, laughs delightedly along with the customers at one

trick he pulls off involving a wineglass that mysteriously bursts into flames, right at your

table. It's quite a sight.

"I try to hit the tables after they order their food," Nelson says. "I don't want to hit

them while they're eating."

Seege also stays alert.

"From doing this for so long, you can tell people who are on a romantic date and don't want

a magician there, or people who are maybe arguing," he says.

Bird's Eye Foods paid Seege to travel the country, appear in grocery stores, pull coupons

out of thin air and hand them to customers.

Philip Morris also hired him, even though he doesn't smoke. "They flew me to Chicago,"

Seege says. "I would go into bars and do magic with cigarettes, and I'd tell people, "This is

compliments of Philip Morris.' I was one of 15 guys in the country they hired to do that."

But restaurant shows, he suggests, are at least as challenging as bigger gigs. In magic, as

in life, the cards sometimes do not come out the way you expect.

"Once I was doing a show at Adam's Mark, and I needed a $100 bill," Seege said. "And no one

in the audience had one! You can make all these jokes, say, "C'mon, c'mon' — but you

can't go on forever. So I'm bombing, right from the start.

"That same show, I dropped my cards literally all over the floor," he adds. "The result was

that an effect that was supposed to happen couldn't happen."

He rolled with the punches, modifying his tricks, cracking jokes. He is sure that no one

realized anything was wrong.

To a magician, such sleight of hand is all part of the show.

"I absolutely love the fact that I can go into a show and for five or 10 minutes, I can

make people laugh," Seege says.

"I make them forget about their problems."

A week's worth of magic

Mon.: Danny's South, 4300 Abbott Road, Orchard Park (649-1194), Mike Seege, 5 p.m.

Tue.: Dandelions Restaurant, 1340 North Forest Road, Williamsville, Seege, 5 p.m.

Wed.: Forestview Restaurant, 4781 Transit Road, Depew (656-8760), Seege, 5 p.m.

Thu.: Fuddruckers, 2013 Walden Ave., Cheektowaga (651-0306), Seege, 5 p.m.

Thu.: Root Five, S-4914 Lake Shore Road, Hamburg (627-5551), Garrett Thomas, 6 p.m.

Fri.: Sole, the Walker Center, Williamsville (362-0358), Todd Nelson, 7 p.m.

Sat.: Brennan's Bowery Bar, 4401 Transit Road (633-9630), Seege, 6 p.m.

mkunz@buf

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