Magic for Monday

No tricks, no misdirection, no spectators. This is magic.

Mondays are when I need magic. Fortunately, there are books for this, and I have a few. I buy these on the pretense of character research and then use them as I see fit. Today, I’ll be scanning magician Joshua Jay’s Complete Course in the spirit of looking for clues as to how to manage this day. 

First, consider the classic pose of magician, a long-revered symbol of beginnings. Consider one arm to the heavens, the other to earth, a channel from energy to matter. Then consider this: you’re holding a book of secrets. You want to learn the art. Look around the room. Tell me: Where is the elephant now?

No tricks, no misdirection, no spectators. This is magic. Here is direction. These are participants.

Old dogs, new tricks: you can breathe new life into old props.

Now practice. Make a wave with your fingers. Call this a warmup. Repeat. 

Now hold this coin at the base of your fingers. Relax, turn your hand over.

Keep it invisible. Now go about your normal routine. 

Make the Phoenix disappear, then see the vanished match reborn! The hand is quicker, look. 

Make a prediction. Volunteer. A tube of lipstick, a small bill, a shoe. Any object will do, but force the lipstick. Wait. You can’t rush a miracle.

Hands down, where’s the card? Take this bread.

They call conjuring the poetry of magic. 

Shuffle, shuffle, pinch, peel. 

Remember: you are not a magician, but an actor, playing the part.

Inspired by:  Jay, Joshua. Magic: The Complete Course. Workman Publishing, 2008.

Strong Magic

 If you start with reason, forget it. 

I need strong magic today.

Here’s a reference. Remember the primary goal.

An experience of mystery.

Now consider this. Most people hate bad magic, but a few also hate the good stuff. Why is this?

They feel fooled when the trick works. 

That’s why you want to make it a partnership, not a challenge. Then it’s a win-win.

What about a puzzle? 

Most people hate puzzles. They’re only for the mind. Without a solution, there’s no satisfaction.

But with magic, on the other hand ––

With magic, there’s satisfaction in not solving. There’s comfort in the illusion of mystery.

Has magic lost its hold?

Hah! No, this is the age of magical thinking. 

But there’s all these beefed-up intellects guarding the gates.

Sure, but people are willing to believe anything on an emotional level. You just have to  get past the gates.

How?

You present something that seems impossible. The intellect wants to explain it. When it can’t, it gets baffled. Then you’re in.  If you start with reason, forget it. 

What about a story?

A magic trick tells a story, but the story isn’t the goal. The goal is to create a sensation. 

To what end?

The point is clarity. You start with confusion, just to get the guard at the gates of the intellect spinning enough to drop his weapons. Then you’re in.

Then they will follow?

Then they want to follow. They want you to bring them home.

The reference in question today is Darwin Ortiz’s Strong Magic, which I purchased a few years ago with a magician character in mind. One of the benefits of writing fiction is having an excuse to immerse oneself in seemingly impractical lines of research which invariably lead to useful insights beyond the character in question. (Related post: Card Tricks and Other Joys of Research)

Card Tricks and other Joys of Research

Writing gives me all sorts of excuses to go looking into cool things like a little kid on an extended break.

Sometimes, when I’m all out of sparks, I open one of my magic books. I have about five of these, acquired a few years back when I had a magician character in mind. 

That was my stated reason, anyway, but I confess that it is also true that I just think magic books are cool, and writing gives me all sorts of excuses to go looking into cool things like a little kid on an extended break. To the dismissive voice that might be lurking in the shadows waiting to shout, “Dilettante!” –I can call these pursuits Research (note capital ‘R’). This because I call myself Writer (see capital ‘W’).  It’s a title ripe for claiming, apparently, somewhat like Napoleon’s crown, but with much less bloodshed.  All you have to do is keep it is keep showing up, writing pen in hand, and move it along. 

One of my favorite writers of all time is Percival Everett, and I was delighted to learn, in an interview I listened to last year, that while he found the process of writing books generally difficult, angst-ridden, and unpleasurable (while also unavoidable), he found research to be a lot of fun. I was grateful that he dispelled the myth of writing as a grand old time. I have heard that it is for some, and I don’t think they are lying, but I’ve only rarely found it to be anywhere close to unpainful, much like necessary exercise.  That’s probably because my idea of fun is getting a bunch of margaritas and waxing loopy while making up song lyrics with friends, speaking in tongues and accents if with small children, or, if alone, laughing at cat memes. 

Point being, research has benefits. Among these is that when one of the horsemen of distraction come in (Thank you, Sarah, for sharing this “Four Horsemen of Procrastination”meme with me after I wrote about the challenges that come when the muse gets replaced by “That Guy“), to  ask, while I am trying to work out some interpretation of a proverb or philosophical paradox, something like, “Do you know any card tricks?” –– I can open an as-yet-unopened resource and compose an answer primarily of found passages and annotations. Such as this one, culled from the introduction to The Royal Road to Card Magic, by Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue.:

Modern magic is a vocation, a national convention
conjuring an art. In return for time and effort,
reap friends and spectators.

There are many  
whenever a pack is uninitiated, 
dumbfounding with impressions
of skill. 

There is always something 
in the effective sleight, 
unless striking feats from
wonder to wonder.

I wait for some response. The dark horseman of distraction slinks off. He was apparently hoping I would join him in some sort of illicit internet foray into all manner of card tricks.

Here the internal voice gets a moment of jubilation. “Hah!” she erupts,  “Another point for research!” Gentle reader, forgive her this cocky jubilation, as she is an endangered creature riddled with doubt.  And to the retreating back of this hooded gangster, she now shouts: “I told you I was trying to get to these proverbs! Now what?!” 

And now I may get back to writing this thing I am meaning to write.