Hours of Operation: Tuesday - Saturday 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.  Sunday 12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.  Special Hours: Days of Lectures - 11:00 am - 5:00 pm 11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Thanksgiving Eve - November 25 Christmas Eve - December 24 New Year's Eve - December 31

Closed Mondays and Holidays: New Year's Day - January 1st February 16th - 19th Easter Sunday Independence Day - July 4th Thanksgiving Day - November 25th Christmas Day - December 25th

We are located across the street from San Francisco's Golden Gate Park (near the California Academy of Science, the DeYoung Museum & the Japanese Tea Garden), between Irving and Lincoln Streets, in the heart of the Inner Sunset District (South Side of Golden Gate Park).

Many of Our Exclusive Lecturers Have Only Lectured for Misdirections

Lecture Tour 2010 Michael Ammar

Lecture Tour 2009 Kozmo Michael Weber Jason England Paul Gertner Wayne Houchin Dorian Rhodell

Lecture Tour 2008 Jay Sankey Chad Long Fielding West Aldo Colombini & Rachael Wild Joshua Jay Eric Anderson

Lecture Tour 2007 John Calvert Jeff McBride Jay Noblezada Rick Maue Sylvester The Jester Jamy Ian Swiss Mark Wilson & Nani Darnell Chris Capeheart Daryl Martin Lewis

Lecture Tour 2006 Bob Sheets Gregory Wilson Nathan Kranzo Shoot Ogawa Richard Turner Docc Hilford Jay Scott Berry Luke Jermay Curtis Kam Marc Salem

Lecture Tour 2005 David Roth Oz Pearlman Chuck Hickok Michael Ammar Luke Jermay Gazzo	Lecture Tour 2004 Daryl Mark Strivings Doc Eason John Calvert Johnny Ace Palmer Martin Lewis Jay Sankey David Williamson Michael Close Jeff Hobson	Lecture Tour 2003 Gordon Bean Jerry Andrus David Regal Tony Clark Jim Steinmeyer Shoot Ogawa & Apollo Robbins Ian Rowland Dan Harlan Michael Ammar Aaron Fisher Docc Hilford
Lecture Tour 2002 Danny Archer Mark Wilson Jonathan Pendragon Kevin James Jay Sankey Aldo Colombini Gaeton Bloom Whit Haydn Jim Cellini Dirk Losander Reed McClintock	Lecture Tour 2001 Carl Andrews, Jr. Larry Becker & Lee Earle Carl Cloutier Gregory Wilson Alain Nu Shimada with Jade David Roth Martin Lewis David Acer & Richard Sanders Rocco Silano Steve Draun Chad Long	Lecture Tour 2000 Jay Scott Berry Max Maven Jeff McBride Barrie Richardson Jay Sankey Pavel Michael P. Lair Docc Hilford Doc Eason David Harkey
Lecture Tour 1999 Eugene Burger Eric Anderson Daryl Martin Lewis Loren Christopher Michaels Rune Klan Jim Pace Dan Fleshman Michael Close	Lecture Tour 1998 Vito Lupo Docc Hilford David Roth Dan Harlan Dean Dill Roger Klause Tony Clark Greg Wilson Mike Caveney Bob Friedhoffer	Lecture Tour 1997 Jay Sankey Pit Hartling Daryl David Roth Jarle Leirpoll

Jim Steinmeyer wrote a special lecture for Misdirections Magic Shop titled "Artifical Conclusions"
Inventer of "David Copperfield's Vanishing of Statue of Liberty" and author of best selling "Hiding The Elephant" and "Glorious Deception" wrote a special lecture just Misdirections Magic Shop:
"For a May 2003 lecture at Misdirections Magic Shop in San Francisco, I've put together "Artificial Conclusions," a collection of nine interesting effects with playing cards. There are some nice surprises inside, including a topological effect with two cards called Through the Trapdoor"
...Jim Steinmeyer's Newsletter Summer 2003

Max Maven wrote a special lecture for Misdirections Magic Shop titled "San Francisco Notes"

Ian Rowland's Way Out West Newsletter in San Francisco: "In the evening I had the honour of giving a magic lecture for legendary magical proprietor Joe Pon.
Misdirections Magic Shop, Snazzy site, nice people."
...Ian Rowland - UK Mind Reader and Author, as seen on ABC's PrimeTime

consultant to Jay Sankey and Sankey Magic

featured in David Acer & Richard Sanders' "Road Killers" Video

featured in Steve Cohen's "Winning The Crowd" Book

Cover story of "Asian Week"
Asian American Magicians Have the Magic Touch by Grace Tzeng
September 28, 2007
It was a night of illusion and mysticism, with psychological games, ventriloquists, acrobats and audience participation. Asian American magicians Andrew Ngo and Carlos da Silva II, along with members of multiethnic magic group Prophecies of the Element, took the top three spots at San Francisco’s 10th annual Stage Magic Competition on Sept. 21. Ngo, the youngest performer there at age 18, won not only the title of 2007’s “Best Stage Magician of San Francisco,” but also the People’s Choice Award, voted on by the 500 members of the audience. For the past four years, no one has won both simultaneously. Ngo’s confident persona and sharp, quick moves wowed the audience at Noe Valley’s James Lick Middle School when he made two 15-inch umbrellas appear out of one. Clutching his trophy, Ngo stepped off the stage grinning from ear to ear. “It’s a dream come true,” said Ngo, a San Francisco native of Chinese and Vietnamese descent. “I’ve worked so hard for this. Everything’s fuzzy right now.” After last week’s competition, Ngo approached and humbly thanked his inspiration, the Chinese magician Magic Jade, who was also one of the judges. When Ngo was 7 years old, he was selected from the audience to aide Magic Jade at a Chinatown performance on Chinese New Year’s. “That’s when I fell in love with magic,” he said. Ngo said the biggest challenge in magic is to be original. “There are a lot of things that magicians do that are all the same,” he said. “I can walk into a magic shop and buy any trick off the shelf and perform it as it says in the instructions, or I can take that and put an entirely new twist on it.” Ngo said he feels much more at home in San Francisco since there are numerous Asian conjurors here. While doing a show in Las Vegas, he found very few Asian illusionists. “It sets me apart,” he said. “It works to my advantage.” Second place winner da Silva dazzled the audience with a rabbit appearing after flames shot out of a plate. Starting his show off with crackling pops, he also threw flames that extinguished before they hit the audience. Da Silva has practiced wizardry for 30 years, after his love for math and science propelled him toward illusionism. “I was more interested in it as a science than an art,” said the Texas-born magician of Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, British, Irish, Filipino and Chinese descent. Today, he calls magic a “beautiful art form” that he would like to see improve “in the general layman’s view, where they can appreciate how much work is involved and what’s behind performances.” Competing together for the first time and taking third place was the quartet Prophecies of the Element. Both Gerrick Wong and Martin Lee (also known as Tin the Magician), as well as newest member Olivia Lam, were born in San Francisco and are Chinese. The group’s fourth member, Petros Leake, first met Wong at a break-dancing competition. During the performance, the three men danced in unison to hip-hop and then made Lam appear when they pulled away a sheet. When asked about all three places being held by Asians, Lee exclaimed, “Asians comin’ out and doin’ it strong is good — power to the Asians!” Wong said his parents were initially opposed to his profession. “You know how Asian parents are,” Wong said. “They said, ‘Why are you doing magic for? You’re not gonna get anything in life. Why are you wasting your time in magic? With that time you put into practice, you could look for a better job.’” Fortunately, they got a trophy, and his parents have now embraced his career. Other Asian Americans who competed were Ceasar Ocampo, who poured fluid into a glass and made it float, and Ray Hoey, who pierced swords through a canvas container that held his assistant. Glitzy three-time stage champion Chin-Chin made a special appearance, producing a pink dove from a crumbled pair of gloves. In the pitch dark auditorium, black lights illuminated his white tuxedo coat and shocking pinkish orange hair, which glowed in the dark. The event was organized by Joe Pon of Misdirections Magic Shop in the Sunset. Among the panel of 10 judges were award-winning balloon artists, acrobats, authors and magicians, as well as Doug McConnell from TV’s Bay Area Backroads, wearing his signature green shirt and jeans, and KTVU Channel 2 reporter Bob MacKenzie.

"Cheers-like hangout for illusionists"
by Marianne Costantinou, San Francisco Chronicle
Sure, he can saw a lady in half. He can make a dollar bill float in the air, even make a flower suddenly appear from nowhere. But what he has in his Misdirections Magic Shop is more than the sleight- of-hand, abracadabra stuff. It's the other kind of magic, the corny, invisible, feel-good kind that can't be bought. Most days, the store on Ninth Avenue in the Inner Sunset is filled with budding magicians and professionals. They're there to shop, certainly, in what the owner, Joe Pon, claims is the biggest magic store in Northern California. But they're also there to try out the latest techniques and gadgets, to show off their tricks to Pon and to one another, and to revel in that special something that comes from sharing an interest they all love and only they can understand. The rest of the world might find it nuts to spend hundreds of hours learning how to palm a card. But here it's not only OK, it's expected. "It's like the bar Cheers,'' Pon says, referring to the TV comedy about the regulars at a pub. "Everybody knows everybody, and I'm the bartender.'' It's not unusual for the obsessed -- and to be into magic is to be obsessed -- to stop in when the store opens at 11 a.m. and stay until the doors close at 6. Tuesdays are especially busy because the store is closed the day before. Though most customers are kids and hobbyists, the walls and ceiling are lined with photographs of Pon and professional magicians posed together in front of the store. Even David Copperfield, the grand illusionist whom Pon can't help but mention several times, is a customer. To Pon, the folks who walk through his doors are more than customers and he's more than a salesman, especially to those new to the magic of magic. He considers himself a mentor. He teaches them tricks and works with his pupils until they've mastered them. He nudges his talented customers to get business cards and to entertain at birthday parties and senior centers. He runs a magic club with lectures from visiting pros and hosts two annual competitions. Two of his teenage customers have gotten so good that they placed first and second recently in the premier national contest in Las Vegas. As he speaks, Ceasar Ocampo, 18, who didn't get interested in magic until he discovered the store last year, is performing tricks with linking metal rings. Other customers stop to watch, then gasp and clap as he manages to get the seemingly solid rings to interlock. "You've really been practicing,'' Pon says to Ocampo, who drives up to the shop almost every afternoon from his home in South San Francisco. "I didn't sleep last night. I had to get it down,'' Ocampo says. "I love it when people say, 'Whoa, ohmigod, howdjado that?' It makes it all worth it.'' Pon, who is 38 and the father of two preschoolers, sees in young talents like Ocampo the hope that one of them will become the next Copperfield, a dream he had for himself when he was their age. But Pon, the older son in a family of Chinese immigrants, was expected to take over the family business. His parents provide Chinese food at state and county fairs. He says his father has been dubbed "the Col. Sanders of Chinese fast food,'' and came up with the egg-roll-on-a-stick, a culinary delight that became so popular that he had it trademarked. Besides, as a dutiful son, he couldn't even think of becoming a pro. "I'm Chinese,'' he says with a rueful smile. "Chinese family says, 'No Show Business.' " Pon got hooked on magic at the age of 5, when his Uncle Bok Hay showed him his first magic trick, making a silk handkerchief disappear. There were no magic shops in the Richmond where he grew up, so Pon went to the library to rent books on tricks. Within years, he was entertaining pals at birthday parties and at talent shows at Presidio Middle School and Lowell High. But in keeping with his family's expectations, it was time to get serious about his career plans when he got to college. So instead of studying theater or the arts at City College, he got a degree in restaurant and hotel management. And when he graduated, he found himself selling Chinese food at fairs from Washington state to Southern California and as far away as Arizona. About eight years ago, Pon got married. His bride, Mellisa, wanted a family, not a life on the road. He still loved magic, but to be a showman also meant a lot of traveling. So they decided to open the shop. Though he spends his days behind the counter, Pon got his dream to be a professional magician after all: He makes his living performing tricks.

"Hocus Pocus"
By Katharine Mieszkowski, San Francisco Weekly
WHERE DO psychics turn when they need help? I recently stumbled on the answer to this riddle of the ages at Misdirections, a magic shop in the Inner Sunset. The store is just a block from Golden Gate Park, where intermittent psychic fairs bring fortune-tellers and self-styled seers of all sorts out into the daylight. When business at the fair isn't what the palm, crystal-ball, and mind readers had envisioned, they've been known to sneak over to visit a less lofty source of inspiration: Joe. "They come into my store and say 'I have a power, but I need something that can enhance it.' So I sell them a trick," says Joe Pon, the owner of the shop that peddles every kind of gadget and guide for making ordinary things behave bizarrely -- more than enough to sucker in the next customer at a two-bit psychic booth. Sometimes the joke is on the charlatan: "They're all fake, but some of them really believe they have a gift," he says, laughing. Joe, an amateur magician himself, explains that conjurers maintain a level of integrity that $15-a-pop personal futurists skate below. The first rule of magic is to never reveal how it's done. But the point isn't to hustle your audience. It's to make them wonder about your methods, even though they implicitly understand there's a trick involved. "People love to be fooled, they love to be entertained," he says. "Believe me: You really don't want to know how it's done." Diner magic If I didn't believe in magic before I visited the San Francisco Conjurors meeting at Denny's in Japantown, I was a convert by the time I left. What else could explain a dozen Bay Area dwellers regularly getting together at Denny's without making a single glib, unoriginal barb about the tacky setting and the not-from-any-farmer's-market fare? The informal club, whose members range in age from 13 to 84, is a kind of self-help group for the hocus pocus-inclined. It was started less than a year ago by Joe from Misdirections and Jim Fish, an amateur whose magician's business card carries the tag line "Don't hire me. I'm just a putz." The magicians get together to talk shop and swap secrets while consuming meaty entrées around 7:30 every other Thursday night. Then they retire to the joint's upper-balcony room to perform for each other. The restaurant lets them use the upstairs room free as long as they eat first. The organization has no dues, no officers, no bylaws. The only rules: You have to do a magic trick at each meeting, and no heckling! The members gently critique each other's work, share the ins and outs of new tricks, and even bring in celebrated magicians to demonstrate and explicate their bedazzling skills. Apparently it's all right to reveal how the tricks are done, as long as it's only to other practitioners of the art of magic. At dinner, one newcomer relates an embarrassing rite of passage, to the amused commiseration of her more experienced peers: "I was levitating a dollar bill for my roommate, until it fell to the ground!" "They do that," says her fellow prestidigitator with a knowing smile. I learn that magic takes many different forms. At the last meeting, a 13-year-old boy cut a schoolteacher in half. Unflapped, the teacher plans to start a Junior Conjurors group. Chin Chin, a 15-year-old magician -- the group's prodigy -- emits a seamless patter as he glides through his sleight-of-hand tricks with the polish and stage presence of a pro. He gets really annoyed if any of the other conjurers call him by his real name. He's gone totally magic. Another magician, Jim Fasbinder, a.k.a. James Stanton Friszko, a nattily dressed sorcerer type wearing a bolo tie with a cow's-skull clasp, says that he's just returned from a convention of about 50 mentalists in Albuquerque, N.M., called the Weerd Weekend. A mentalist is, yes, a mind reader, Jim says, and proceeds to read my mind -- not in the sense of telling me what my future holds, alas, but more in the arena of intuiting what card I'm thinking of right now. He's into "psychic entertainment" and bizarre magic, the Goth breed of magic -- think tarot cards instead of playing cards. The group's members do every kind of magic: kids, close-up, parlor, illusion, coin, and card. Some do it full-time, professionally; others do it as a hobby. Oh, and don't forget restaurant magic, which one of its practitioners defines as: "Where you go from table to table and the audience talks to each other while they're trying to eat and ignore you." In this case, it's always fun to get their attention with the classic "break-their-credit-card-in-half" trick. Wizards Wednesdays Magic is about performance, stresses Joe Pon. After all, you don't do it for yourself -- that's called practice. So every other Wednesday the conjurers take over the small stage at Java Source, a café at 343 Clement near Fifth Avenue, starting around 8 p.m. It's a kind of open mic for magicians -- it's free to watch, and anyone can get up and do a trick. And who knows? If just for an evening we all took a break from the usual café arts -- autobiographical free-verse poesy, tortured journal confessionals, the obligatory crossword puzzle -- something magic might happen. For more information on Wizards Wednesdays or the San Francisco Conjurors call (415) 566-2180.

...from Steve Cohen's "Win The Crowd"
"On my last trip to San Francisco, I spent an afternon with Joe Pon, the owner of Misdirections Magic Shop. There are dozens of magic shops all over the world where you can buy professional magician's props: feather flowers, gimmicked lacquer boxes, and tapered cards. In my travels, I've visited many such stores. But I really love Joe Pon's shop. It's a small, family-run shop that has hundreds of props, books, and instructional videos on the wall. A counter separates the front and the back of the store. And behind the counter sits a minature Doberman pinscher named Vernon (named after the famous magician Dai Vernon). Joe trained his dog to protect the back of the store so that customers can't slip behind the counter and examin the props. As soon as you attempt to enter the rear area, Vernon's ears perk up. He scrunches his eyes and growls. If you take another step close, he barks a ravenous bark to alert Joe that there is an intruder."

"InMyHoodSF.com" by Grace Cunnane
I’m curious how Joe Pon, sole proprietor of MISDIRECTIONS MAGIC SHOP came into the magical realm. “When I was a kid, I just loved magic. One of my Uncles showed me a trick. He made a silk handkerchief vanish. It disappeared in his hands. I fell in love with magic and I’ve been doing magic since I was five years old.” Joe admits that magic is an art form and if taught the technique, a child can trick and adult and that began his lifelong journey. Today, Joe Pon teaches professionals, amateurs and the beginning five year old magician. “There is a misconception that magic is easy and anyone can do it. It’s an art form and the second oldest profession. There’s always something to learn. It’s a never ending story.” This piques my curiosity regarding the name of his store. “Misdirection is the key to all good magic. It’s not just about the tricks and secrets. There’s timing, direction, there’s comedy magic, serious magic, there’s a stage performer and a close0up performer. It’s how we do magic and why.” He exudes so much knowledge and above all, passion. He compares the art form with learning to play the piano, golf or martial arts. They all take a great deal of practice and effort. “We have to practice our craft. We have to learn the technical skills then perform with ease.” I share my ignorance of the genre, but also my delight at recalling the magic of Jay Alexander’s performance at my friend Mitchell’s 50th birthday. “Jay comes in all the time. He asks for advice. We work on tricks. He’s the top Magician in the Bay Area.” The magic world is a community and a specific sub-culture, not unlike a comic book devotee. Joe describes this community. “Where else are you going to find a ten year old kid teaching a fifty year old guy, posing the question, ‘How’d you do that?’” The Misdirection clientele is diverse and transcends language. “I have Doctors that come in and want to learn a little magic to break a barrier with their patients. I have people that just want to learn a couple of tricks to be the life of the party. I have people that want magic to be their life.” Magicians of the past who made an impression? “Of course there’s Houdini, Blackstone, Thurston and Chung Ling Soo.” He tells me the scandal that surrounded Chung Ling Soo, who was actually an Assistant to great magicians, and an American named William Robinson. William Robinson watched the magician, Ching Ling Foo, and realized he could perform magic better and with make-up he became a Chinese Magician. He was shot on stage when his bullet catch trick backfired. He spoke English for the first time in decades and his final words, “Oh my God. Something’s happened. Lower the curtain.” Magicians that dazzle Joe Pon today? “David Copperfield, David Blaine, Chris Angel and Darren Brown, who is a mind reader.” Joe offers aspiring magicians entry into his Magic Club where it’s not just a discount and a t-shirt but monthly lectures on the art form with visiting top magicians as they demonstrate mastery of the magical craft. He also hosts a yearly completion for San Francisco’s best magician. And one of his protégés, Alex Ramon is in the Ringling Brothers Circus. Joe, a San Francisco native was lured my magic early on, but after Lowell High School, he thought he might enter the Hotel and Restaurant business and studied at City College. For awhile he worked in his father’s business, EGG ROLL ON A STICK, but magic beckoned and today he can direct you to Mentalism, Juggling, Suspension and Levitations or Card tricks. Joe mentors the old and the young, the aspiring and the professional. He has met people from all over the world. “It’s not just the magic.”
Magic is all about Misdirection!