If You Can
DREAM IT He Can
MAKE IT by Brooke Ezzo | photos courtesy of Christopher Lyle
H
e didn’t look like a magician. He needed a magician’s suit. Call it what you will, but when his grandmother purchased his first performance suit back in the 90s, it was either going to break him or make him. Luckily for us, the mustard yellow get-up and her maternal instinct made The Guy in the Yellow Suit a household name.
He also goes by Christopher Lyle, and he has been entertaining people with his comedic magic shows and balloon creations since his teenage years. After receiving his first magic set at the age of 7
and putting on shows for neighborhood kids, Christopher was hooked.
Growing up, he suffered from ADD and
an auditory processing defect; he didn’t comprehend information the same way
others did. He had trouble in school, but the one subject he could really dial into
was magic. He got his hands on as many
magic books as possible, and for whatever reason, those books just clicked for him.
“I felt pretty charged up that I was able to do something as a young kid that most
grown-ups couldn’t even do,” Christopher
said. “It was empowering for me. I enjoyed being able to basically play around while blowing people away. That gave me a lot of confidence.”
As he got older, he tried making his
way into the entertainment world by performing for customers at local
restaurants. But booking magic gigs
were harder than he thought. It seemed 28 | 35 WEST | AUGUST 2020
as though each owner was really only interested in him if he also included balloon art. “I wanted to work and get my magic out there, so I learned how to do a dog, a flower, and a sword. When I tried to book restaurants, and they asked if I did balloons, I was able to say, ‘Yes I do,’” Christopher said. “It just grew from there. I got tired of telling people these were the only three balloons I could do. Three decades later, I probably do more balloons than I do magic now.” www.35WestMagazine.com
