The Journal

Issue date: 8/30/07 Section: Lifestyle

Media Credit: Max Gersh Freshman Lindsey Gossage (right) reacts with surprise as Wayne Hoffman (center) reveals that the mark he drew on her arm is now on her brother, junior Jake Gossage's arm.

As a way of welcoming everybody to Webster, the first week of class was dubbed Welcome Week.

Campus Activities scheduled a series of events, including a poster sale and a screening of the independent film "Rocket Science," a comedy about a boy with a speech impediment who decides to join the debate team. On Aug. 24, several students went on a school-sponsored trip to the City Museum.

Although these events were all well attended, by far the largest of the events was Wayne Hoffman's performance in the University Center on Aug. 23.

Hoffman, appearing on campus for the second time since February, performed for an audience that packed the University Center Commons.

Beth Blumfelder, the Campus Activities program manager and a senior art history major, elaborated on why they had invited Hoffman back twice in one year.

"We decided to bring him back because he was such a huge hit at his spring (semester) show," she said.

Despite the success of that show, Blumfelder was surprised by the amount of people in attendance.

"The turnout is even better than expected, she said. "There are about 200 chairs here for 250 people."

Hoffman's act began with a small-scale illusion designed to show the audience that he was truly capable of extraordinary feats. He asked his audience to turn their hands so that their thumbs faced downward, cross their arms, clasp their hands together and then turn their wrists so that their thumbs were facing upward again. Although Hoffman performed the task, no one in the audience could. He then performed a random mind- reading of the audience, picking various people and pinpointing exactly what was on their minds with minimal questioning. Later, he stopped his own pulse and that of an audience member.

One trick involved placing a length of string and four razor blades in his mouth. After a few moments, he began to spit out the razor blades, which were now tied to the string. Another involved demonstrating the psychic link between siblings.

Continued...

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