College Professor Performs Magic Trick In Class

Barry Gordemer introduces a magic trick to his Writing for Communications 

class on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014 at American University. Along with being a professor, 

Gordemer has been a professional magician for 15 years. (Photo by Jaclyn Merica)

A former magician did a magic trick on his own students this past Thursday. Barry Gordemer, known as the Sort-of-Amazing Barry while he was a magician, wanted to show the class his ability to control people’s minds.

Gordemer started off by telling the class that the movie “Star Wars” was his source of inspiration when he first became a magician. After that introduction, he passed out five different cards to five groups of students. He told each group to pick one card out of the five with as little talking as possible. Once finished, Gordemer took all the cards back. Student Hanya Bruner did not know what the professor was going to do during his trick. “I was expecting a puppet show,” Bruner said, because she knows that Gordemer also owns his own puppet making business.

Gordemer stood at the front of the room facing his class. He then laid the collected cards in front of him in five separate columns. Even though the room was silent, a few short laughs from the class cut thought the air when Gordemer referred to himself as the Sort-of-Amazing Barry and asked for our help. He asked each group to concentrate on the card they chose and to tell him when his hand passed over the column that contained the card.

Gordemer correctly named the two of the group’s cards, but it looked like he got stuck on one of them. He asked the group if it would be okay to come back to them, and then handed them a closed envelope. After correctly choosing two more cards, he went back to the group he skipped. Gordemer asked Shavawn White to open the envelope. White told us the group picked the Ace of Clubs as she opened the envelope. As soon as White saw the piece of paper in the envelope she shouted out “Oh my God!”  It said the Ace of Clubs.  

Gordemer mentioned that he had performed this trick hundreds of times. It’s called Metal Poker and is his favorite to perform. “It’s easy to do and the idea behind it and mechanics are so simple,” Gordemer said. He also told the class that his goal as a magician was to do cool little things to make people wonder if magic really exists. While he might not have made everyone believe in magic, student Federica Degwitz Tamayo did say it was the best magic trick she had ever seen live.