Ari Soroka

Ari Soroka
Born	Arieh Hanoch Soroka April 8, 1961 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Notable works	The Red Carpet

Ari Soroka (Artemus Syman) April 8th,1961 is best known as the creator of the the mentalism effect known as "The Red Carpet"

His mother worked in a dress shoppe and his father was a former fire officer for the Shanghai Fire Brigade and in Israel. The emigrated to Canada in 1959 and they eventually settled in Toronto. Ari's first introduction to the world of magic was at 8 years old when his father vanished a playing card he held in his hand. After that Ari read whatever he could get his hands on and scoured the TV listings for any sign of magic. The elementary school he attended had only one book on magic, "Scarne on Magic" which Ari signed out and still hopes to return one day. In junior high he met fellow magician Lloyd Wasser where they formed a magic club. Lloyd introduced Ari to Mrs. Smith of the Arcade Magic Store and Len Cooper of the Browsers Den of Magic, in Toronto. That meant no more homemade props. Ari had now moved into the world of "professional" magic tricks. At the Browsers Den when Ari was all of 14 years old Len Cooper invited him to an IBM lecture given by famous British Magician, Ali Bongo at the King Edward Hotel. Ari being the youngest attendee was afforded a seat front row centre. During that meeting Ari met his boyhood magic hero local TV magician Ron Leonard. Ari was then introduced to IBM member Jimmy Lake who ran a junior magicians club called the Silver Wand Club. They met monthly in the basement of the Bathurst Heights Public Library and Ari started attending meetings regularly thanks to his dad's fondness for falling asleep in library reading chairs. At a meeting where it was Ari's turn to perform he did his very first mentalism effect. It was at that point that Ari's performing path diverged toward mentalism. Ari then tried to get his hands on whatever mentalism books he could. Len Cooper suggested Books by Tony Corinda, Theodore Anneman and Larry Becker. These he devoured. In fact he reread the Thirteen Steps to Mentalism so many times that he had to buy a second copy.

References

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