Does anybody remember the Magic Emporium on Ventura Blvd. in Tarzana, It was owned by Gary Wolfsberger and run by his wife. She was great to talk to and very helpful. It was around during the 70's and then disappeared. It sure would be nice to find out where they ended up after all these years.

I got a great Ball and Cone routine, developed by Gary, there...still one of my favorite routines.

Dude! I still have the catalog. Used to pour over it for hours.

PM me if you want a scan of the front & back.

Yes I remember Gary and Paula. My wife Mona and me hungout at the Emporium in the mid-early 70's.

As a matter of fact I have a oopy of Gary's ambisiou card.
I have recently moved to San Francisco and have been looking for tye magic community here.

Some of the names that come tomind are Brian Ono, Jeff Seme and Joe Porper.

Joe Porper works off Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley where Tarzana is also located.

The Magic Emporium used to be in a shopping center on Ventura Blvd. in Tarzana, but it later moved to the north side of the street, not too far from Taft High School. That location eventually closed and the shop moved closer to Reseda Blvd, right next to the Tarzana theater complex. It was not there very long, before it moved once again to its final location, which I think was on Roscoe in Northridge. It was kind of a funky shopping center and the Magic Emporium took over this HUGE space. I often wondered how in the world they could afford the rent and truthrully, it just never looked like they had enough inventory to make the place look right. Whereas most magic stores seemed almost too crammed and crowded, the Magic Emporium had way more space than it needed and things just seemed dwarfed by the size of the space. Of course, they had tons of costumes and all of that, so maybe they thought that part of the business would grow.

I believe Paula got married to a guy who used to manage the shop for her. Then I think they got divorced and perhaps that is what ultimately took the shop out. I'm not totally sure of the year, but I'm guessing they went out of business in the early 1990's or maybe the late 1980's.

I've run into Paula only once since those days and the circumstances were very strange. Evideently her daughter somehow knew the daughter of a friend of mine. So one night my friend asked me if I would tag along while we drove to this person's house to pick up his daughter from a play date. I said "sure" and the next thing I knew, I was face-to-face with Paula. It was really strange to run into her after all of those years. She was remarried and I was told her husband was in the adult film distribution business.

From the magic business to the porn business .... go figure!

Absolutely remember this store. It was one of the two magic shops I haunted as a kid (the other being Witchcraft, later called Magic World, in Canoga Park).