Jenny Gorelick’s Sexy Variety Show Made Me Believe in Magic

Mark Clearview performs at "Love, Sex, Magic" in January. Photo: Alex S. K. Brown Hot Mic is a weekly column by Leah Abrams documenting, spotlighting, and reviewing live comedy in NYC.  When I hear the word “magician,” my first thought is like, a brace-faced bar mitzvah boy who learns how to make a salt shaker disappear and performs for his grandparents at every Jewish holiday. My second thought is Gob from Arrested Development. Neither of whom I consider hot.  But Jenny Gorelick is on a mission to make magicians sexy and last week, I went to see if she could pull off this spectacular feat. One of the culture’s foremost scholars of straight men on dating apps, Gorelick hosts a monthly variety show called Love, Sex, Magic (presumably inspired by the iconic Ciara song ft. talented slimeball Justin Timberlake) at the Arlo Hotel in Williamsburg. “My ex is a magician,” she often jokes. “I used to see him… now I don’t.” It’s usually in the Hotel’s Mirror Bar but Julia Fox happened to be hosting a private dinner down there that night, so Gorelick got bumped to the Water Tower, a tiny glass dome with a glittering view of the Manhattan skyline. My friend Fiona and I were, true to form, running late. But in our elevator up we breathed a sigh of relief: we weren’t the only stragglers. A very fashionable, older Australian woman and her two younger companions got lost trying to find the right floor.  “But look at us,” she said. “It’s all love now!” And it was—we walked into a completely packed room just before the show began. On one side, the skyline; on the other, a wall of what one of the performers, Francesca D’Uva, described as “gigantic refrigerator magnets.” They were huge posters printed with kitschy phrases like: “No one looks back on their life and remembers the nights they had plenty of sleep” and “The only lie I ever told is that I liked you when I already knew I loved you.” OK, Home Goods chic! [caption id="attachment_569097" align="aligncenter" width="676"] Jenny Gorelick hosts "Love, Sex, Magic." Photo: Alex S. K. Brown[/caption] Gorelick was an incredible host, and her lineup was exceptional. But at any live show, the crowd is half the magic. And, despite the packed room, I wasn’t feeling the spark. The Arlo seems to attract a more buttoned-up, finance-y crowd than I’m used to. A little bit older, a little bit more shy. During Gorelick’s opening crowd work, one couple fessed up to having met on OkCupid—which is kind of the vibe the whole room was giving. Skinny jeans, sweater dresses, bomber jackets, side parts: these were the trappings of the Love, Sex, Magic crowd that night, and it seemed to prevent them from fully getting some of the jokes. But I’ll get back to that. The show started with one of my favorite young comics in the city, Jared Goldstein. “I know, you weren’t expecting me to look like this based on my name. I’m what some would call,” he said, flipping his shoulder-length hair, “diverse.” He talked about his days as a child actor, shitting in the ocean, and rules for when straight men are allowed to say the f-slur (only while hooking up with other men). Then there was Amber Singletary, who told the best school shooter joke I’ve ever heard and used the term “underground kale-road” to describe how Karens might escape their imagined persecution. 10/10. Up next was the magician…and I was nervous. Would he be awkward? Cringey? Unimpressive? I couldn’t remember the last time I saw…