Tag: magic

Here’s your headline of the day, from the San Jose Mercury News:

Deputies shoot chimp,
then find squalid puppy mill

I leave it up to you to find the actual story on the Internet if you so choose.  Be aware, though, that the real story is not as fantastical as the one you have concocted in your head and it will make you a bit sad to realize that we do not live in a world where our law enforcement teams hunt down evil chimpanzees who run squalid puppy mills.

Speaking of sad, there are a few things that I used to do when I was younger.  I’m since stopped doing them or do them with much less regularity, and several of these make me a bit sad: being able to speak Chinese fluently, being a skilled chess player, being able to throw a frisbee with accuracy.

But of all these things, the thing that I miss in the dopiest, most nostalgic way is magic.  When I was in high school, I taught myself how to juggle and a small assortment of close-up, coin, and card magic.  I learned juggling first, but the two kind of go hand-in-hand; both rely heavily on the ability to manipulate the hands and both, in performance, have an element of theatricality about them.

I’ve forgotten a lot of methods and specific tricks, although I might still be able to do one or two impromptu if necessary.  And despite how utterly nerve-wracking it was (I imagine it’s much like stand-up comedy, where a certain percentage of the audience is just waiting for you to fail), it was a lot of fun.  I wish I had kept at it enough to be able to now pull off a trick at a dinner party.

I’m not terribly good at breaking the ice.  I can talk easily to people I know, and once a conversation gets going, I can do a pretty good job at maintaining it.  But how do you start talking to someone who you know nothing about?

Could there be a better way than with a magic trick?  Sure, it sounds hokey on paper, but as long as it’s something brief and slightly impressive, I think magic just works.  It manages to slide its way past corny and hits the lower edge of cool.  It somehow speaks the child inside all but the most cynical among us.

I guess I’ll add learning magic to my huge backlog of things I want to do.  That, and if I get good enough, I can justify buying a top hat and cape.