Marshall Le (’27) asks four friends to each choose a card from a deck and secretly show it to the camera. The cards are subsequently shuffled back in under careful observation. Through sleight of hand and some complex shuffling, he manages to return all four cards to their rightful owners, which they confirm are the right cards. But there’s a twist: despite having laid flat on the table the whole time, the four cards have suddenly transformed into aces.
Every Monday, without fail, a new video is uploaded to @marshall.le.magic on Instagram. Le has been posting “Magic Monday” videos every week since July 2025, but he’s been posting magic tricks ever since November 2023. Hundreds of students watch them.
Le had always been interested in magic, but he only picked up the hobby during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I was at my grandmother’s house – she always had a deck of cards lying around – and I was kind of bored of watching [magic shows] with my grandpa, so I ended up asking the question of ‘oh, what if I can do that?’ Le said. “I picked up a deck of cards, and I searched up a YouTube tutorial and learned my first trick.”
Since then, he’s learned hundreds of tricks. He’s entirely self-taught, and despite the first trick having come from a YouTube tutorial, most of his tricks come from books.
“I think a lot of the gold in magic is hidden in literature or old texts,” Le said. “A lot of fundamental or principle ideas are discussed in magic books, whereas in video, you just kind of just learn one trick in isolation.”
Because he doesn’t know anyone else who does magic, it can be hard to stay consistent and continue improving. He started posting Magic Monday videos to ensure he would find the time to practice magic regularly while juggling other responsibilities.
“I realized, I’ve spent, like, five years doing magic since COVID, and I love magic; I love performing and I know a lot of tricks – I know a lot of material, but I don’t actually perform that often,” Le said. “I wanted to make a consistent schedule because if I really wanted to do magic–if I really wanted to, I guess, go big with this, I would have to do it more consistently.”
There are three main branches of magic: stage, close-up and parlor. Stage magic is exactly what it sounds like and is done for a large live audience; close-up magic is done in small groups and in proximity to one’s audience (within a few feet); while parlor magic is somewhere in between and bridges the two styles. Le currently works exclusively in close-up, but he’s hoping to try something new.
“[Stage magic is] the next big step,” Le said. “I would really, really love to try stage magic, I mean, cause I would never know if I enjoy it if I don’t do it. Stage magic’s always been interesting to me, [but] I think it’s the most difficult to get into. It’s very difficult to get booked on stages because you need experience, but you can’t get that experience if you don’t do stage shows. A lot of people tend to get started doing weddings, but it’s difficult. You need to know people.”
Some people can get started through school shows, but Madison doesn’t have a talent show or anything else of the like, so for the moment, Le is sticking to Magic Mondays to try and grow as a magician.
“I mean, the plan is continuing what I’m currently doing,” Le said. You can only learn magic and tricks for so long, eventually you begin to enter this, as I’ve learned it’s called, refinement stage, where the most you can do is perform more. ‘Cause the more you perform, the more you get introduced to different types of audiences… [the more you learn] how to change your presentation and adapt your trick to the situation. And that’s really the plan.”
Le’s magic has launched him into a sort of celebrity status, especially among his fellow juniors, which is helped by his regularly posting Magic Mondays with classmates, teachers and administrators.
“People of all grade levels know who he is,” Connor Prentice (’27) said. “Most of his magic is done in his classes or for teachers… it has a small [but] significant impact on those people.”
