0728blog

World of Magic

Facing imminent oral surgery in one hour, it is difficult to focus.

It’s two hours later and I Just returned from oral surgery where I thought of “Marathon Man.” Also, when I see people in masks in medical offices I think of Hannibal Lecter.

Now that I’m back, I’ll tell you about the fake thumb trick and my brief but intense romance with magic when I was younger. You make a kerchief disappear by stuffing it into your hand where you have hidden a fake rubber thumb. Tamp down the kerchief into the fake thumb and come out with the fake thumb on your real thumb and voila, the disappearing kerchief trick.

I like to do the trick although sometimes I have ruined it when a bit of the kerchief was seen sticking out of the fake thumb.

I was intrigued with the magic store in Fair Lawn where there were all sorts of tricks for sale, from little coin tricks and wands to trunks where you could hide in and disappear. Some were inexpensive and some were ridiculously expensive, I suppose for professionals, of which I was definitely not one.

I learned card tricks, simple mind-reading games and how to make a coin disappear and then materialize from your ear. I had a magic wand that could make flowers appear magically and I could mystify with sleight of hand. I even thought about visiting the Magic Castle in Hollywood, Calif., a private club for magicians, but I never did.

Of course there is no real magic but if done right, theatrical magic can suspend reality and convince people that the Statue of Liberty has disappeared and that the sumptuous assistant was really sawed in half until she miraculously returns to her full self at the end of the trick.

Harry Houdini wasn’t really a magician. He could hide keys to locks and trunks and hold his breath but he wasn’t a magician and was rather an escape artist.

I did once meet the late, great magician Doug Henning over dinner at the iconic Sardi’s restaurant in New York City. He had a salad and I had a meal. Henning starred in “The Magic Show” on Broadway, which was fictionally set in Passaic. As I worked for the Passaic mayor at the time, I put together a program about the history of magic, including a contest for the best young amateur magician in New Jersey. The prize was dinner with Henning at Sardi’s and of course, I went along for the ride.

As part of the program, I also got the cast to come out to Passaic and put on a full act for no charge after everybody connected with the performance, including me, had promised never to reveal how any of the tricks were done, kind of like Trump’s non-disclosure agreements.

The thing about magic is that it makes you feel like there is a fantastic world out there of which you have no knowledge or understanding where the laws of nature are turned on its head and logical understanding flies out the window and where amazing things really do happen. It’s kind of a downer to find out that the rabbit doesn’t materialize out of thin air but rather is pulled out of the fake bottom of the hat even if deep down you knew that was probably how it was done.

You really don’t want to know how it’s done. When you find out the ridiculous though sublime simplicity of most tricks, the spell is broken and it becomes nothing more than a plumber fixing a broken pipe. Do you really want to know how to saw a woman in half? Or how to make an elephant disappear?

Now Merlin, he was a real fantasy magician who also was quite famous as an enchanter or wizard who served as King Arthur’s advisor and mentor. Sadly, it didn’t work out very well for Merlin who was bewitched and fell madly in love with the Lady of the Lake who then killed Merlin who was later buried in the enchanted, magic forest of Broceliande.

Misdirection is really the key to magic. You have to direct the audience’s attention away from the trick and then back after you’ve pulled it off, so they never see what you’ve done. You have to convince people that they are seeing something incredible, something that only a magician could do and something that is somehow out of the realm of normal reality.

In addition to non-disclosure agreements, Trump is a master of the art of misdirection. And now for something truly magical which will bend the limits of reality, the president will lead the audience’s attention away from the COVID19 pandemic, snap his fingers, and give a hearty abracadabra and everyone is magically focused on his plans that he later changed but that never existed, to throw out the first ball of the season at Yankee Stadium.

And like the grand illusionist he is, he tells the audience that the virus will magically disappear until reality sets in and he is exposed as the charlatan that he is.