By CHERYL JOHNSTON, STAFF WRITER
CHAPEL HILL -- When only a few uneaten pizza slices and bits of crust were left on their plates, Joshua Lozoff approached the Brown family sitting in a back booth at the Mellow Mushroom Friday evening.

He hadn't come to clear their table or settle their bill. Instead, as he quickly explained, he was offering to perform a few magic acts, compliments of the restaurant.

Megan Brown, 10, squeezed a small red foam ball that Lozoff gave her. Then she closed her hand around it, as the magician directed.

Lozoff moved his fisted hands on either side of hers, apparently not touching the girl's hand. She unclenched her fist to find there were two balls. Megan, mouth open in surprise, looked at her parents and brother.

Joshua Lozoff, left center, does magic for UNC students Andrew Knudsen and his friends at the Mellow Mushroom on Franklin Street Friday night. Lozoff is a full-time magician and performs at the Mellow Mushroom one night a week. Photo by Ray Jones

"Part I is great. It's really cool. But Part II is amazing," Lozoff promised.

He placed the ball into her brother's hand and two balls again appeared.

"Jeez, I'm watching this. I don't see this," said their dad, Jeff Brown, who was trying to spot the moment when Lozoff must have been stuffing a second ball into his children's fists.

Then Alex, 13, held three balls tightly in one hand. After Lozoff worked his magic, more than a dozen rolled from his palm.

"Did you feel that?" his dad asked.

Alex said he didn't. And the Brown family didn't know a magic show was in the offing when they ventured out in the rain Friday night for a pizza at the East Franklin Street restaurant. They said they'd bring friends next time.

While he was entertaining the Browns, a group of young children had gathered behind him. Lozoff followed them to their tables for some close-up magic with the red ball and some quarters.

Dressed in khakis and a casual black jacket, the soft-spoken Lozoff asked the children and adults participating in his acts what they thought the outcome would be, then made it something completely different so that his participants would be neither right nor wrong.

"I gauge how playful or how mystical to make the magic feel just based on the people," Lozoff said, adding that some obviously just want to laugh, while others take it pretty seriously.

A former emergency medical technician, part-time carpenter and actor, Lozoff has been performing magic for five years. He started at the Chapel Hill restaurant three years ago, when he decided he was ready to take his acts public.

When he approached one of the Mellow Mushroom's owners, Casey Fox, about a regular arrangement, Lozoff found that Fox was familiar with restaurant magic acts. Since a trial evening, he has performed most Fridays from 7 to 9 p.m.

"We get several calls throughout the week of what day is the magician coming this week," said Andrew Styers, manager of the Mellow Mushroom.

A magician mentor had suggested a restaurant as a good venue for Lozoff to interact with a variety of people and nail down his routines. Lozoff found that to be true, with an opportunity to try a new act 20 times in one night.

"One of the skills I've learned is staying in the moment," Lozoff said. "If you do something completely by rote, it's not as meaningful for the audience."

Lozoff, an Orange County resident who grew up in the area, has found that he prefers close-up magic to being on a stage.

He performs at private parties, particularly geared for adults or audiences of adults and children. His Web site is www.deep-magic.com.

"What excites me is engaging someone else and having them experience the magic," Lozoff said. "It changes every time I do it because the people I'm interacting with change."

Contact Cheryl Johnston at 932-2005 or cherylj@nando.com