Date: 2000-06-27
source: New York Post
author: Erika Martinez

Just when you thought it was safe to think, "mentalist" Marc Salem is back in town-- and no brain is sacred! The world-renowned master of mind games claims he can read and influence other people's thoughts, stop a watch and even halt his own pulse.

"I explore the potentials and powers of the human mind and entertain people with their own thought," Salem says. Skeptics may call him a master manipulator, but Salem has been astounding audiences around the globe for well over 25 years, performing in Israel, England, France and Russia, among other countries. Tonight, he brings "Marc Salem's Mind Games and All That Jazz," to Feinstein's at the Regency Hotel, along with an all-female jazz band, Vibrations. Audience members -- even doubters -- can expect to be enthralled while watching him guess where they vacationed and read their friends' thoughts via cell phone. Salem will also ask five people to secretly draw pictures -- then he'll match each masterpiece to its artist.

Salem says the key lies in reading non-verbal cues like intense stares, double negatives and pupil dilation. "Most communication is non-verbal, words don't always matter, its how you say it that matters," he explains. Despite the show's out-of-this-world subject matter, Salem has a warm, down-to-earth stage presence. Born to a Rabbi and a pharmacist in 1953, Salem's fascination with the mind began at an early age. "Even in childhood I loved the mind. I read everything, people, minds, and things around me," the Philadelphia native recounts.

As an adult, Salem received advanced degrees in communication research from the University of Pennsylvania and NYU and taught the subject for 18 years. With "Mind Games" Salem's goal is to "create a show about what interests people the most -- themselves." Marc Salem at Feinstein's at the Regency, . After tonight, the show resumes July 11 and runs through Sept. 2.