THEME PARK PERFORMER'S CARD TRICKS RESURFACE AT HONG KONG GALA; PARK 'NOT SURPRISED'

Former colleagues of Mr. Samman at a famous theme park's wizarding land confirmed this week that the card tricks reported at a Hong Kong gala were "absolutely his, absolutely ours, and absolutely being performed without a permit."

The clip, Wizarding Fun, shows him in live performance, where, he says, "every show demanded something different." Colleagues say that is a polite way of describing crowds of overexcited fans and a heat index of 104, which Sindbad, who has sailed through worse, calls "breezy."

"Quick hands, playful misdirection, charm," said one former co-worker, reading from this paper's front page. "Yes. That was his whole shift. He could pull a card from behind your ear and a smile out of a tired parent."

Asked whether he expected those skills to land him an unofficial booking at an estate gala years later, the park said no, but that it "wasn't magic. It was practice."