March 22: Remember the magic within you

The photo above is of a framed piece of art I have on one of my bookshelves. For the longest time, I thought it was given to me by one of my writer friends in Calgary when I announced that I was leaving for the east. I was wrong. It was given to me by Dessi on my 32nd birthday. I learned this just yesterday when I pried back the metal tongue keeping the artwork close to the class. Behind the cardboard backing was a note: Jan. 3, 2005, JSS.

JSS are the initials of Dessi.

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Who is Dessi?

I dated her when I was 25 and she was 31. She is 47 now. Married to a man from Colombia named Carlos. My father, a pastor, officiated over the wedding.

Good grief am I ever weird.

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One Valentines Day, Dessi gave me a fountain pen. It remains one of the happiest gifts I've ever received. It was more than a gift. It was her way of saying she believed in me as a writer.

Writers have magic inside them.

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Doug Henning's magic shows seem awfully dated now when you watch them on youtube. Still, he had one very big advantage over his chief rival, David Copperfield. It was this: It was impossible to hate Doug Henning. You might think he was a little goofy but you could never hate him. Not so with Copperfield. Lots of guys hated him because he got the chicks.



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I actually saw Doug Henning perform in Calgary when I was a youngster. He did flight of the paper balls and his wife made a silver orb float and he did another trick where he disappeared and appeared inside a giant mouse.

I was a magical newbie at the time and I had a love/hate relationship with other magicians. I didn't like them because I thought they were trying to prove they were smarter than their audience. In essence, the magician was saying: "I know how to make this coin disappear and you have no idea how I did it. Therefore, you are a fool."

But Doug Henning didn't carry that aura. For Doug, the magic seemed to be flowing through him. He wasn't all "Hey, watch me make this coin disappear." He was all "For reasons I cannot comprehend, I am able to perform magical wonders. Let me share this gift with you by showing you an illusion with this coin."

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David Copperfield wrote the introduction to Michael Ammar's book (Michael Ammar is one of the best close-up magicians in the world.) In it, Copperfield wrote that when you become a magician, you give something up. Namely, you give up that feeling of wonder non-magicians experience when they watch a well crafted magic routine. I'm at the stage right now where I am rarely fooled but I am often puzzled. It has been a long time since I saw magic that floored me.

I don't say this with pride. I say it with regret.

And so David Copperfield paid Mr. Ammar the ultimate compliment when he said that watching Ammar perform made him experience that sense of wonder. It was like day one of magic class. So beautiful I can cry.

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Yes, and let us give a standing ovation to Penn & Teller for their television show Fool Us, where they invited professional and amateur magicians from around the world to try to fool them. Get this: Penn & Teller - who have close to a century of combined magical knowledge between them - wanted to be fooled. They were saying there is no shame is seeing a magic trick that completely destroys you. If you're a magician, it should be an experience you crave.

And get this kids - it's possible to be fooled by a magician WHO IS NOT AS GOOD AS YOU!

I hate those young magicians who never smile when they watch another magician perform. They have to let everyone know that they're not impressed.

That used to be me.

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The first professional magicians I met were Paul Alberstat and Lothar Malmberg. The year was 1987, the place was the Calgary Science Centre. I was 14. The next week, another magician named Stephen Forrester showed up. The next week it was an elderly British magician named John Hawken. All of them influenced me as a young man. John Hawken would plead with us young' uns not to spend all our money in the magic store. He urged us to read instead. Paul Alberstat got me a guest appearance on the Buckshot Show. He told me that whenever I performed for grownups, it was necessary to be as polite as possible.

I reminded Paul that he used wisecracks all the time and he got away with them.

"You're right," Paul said. "But I'm me and you're you."

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Flashback to 2001.

I'd just finished performing card tricks for 90 minutes in a bar in Belleville, Ontario. I was having a Coke when one of the guys I'd performed for came over to congratulate me and ask more about the show.

"It must be amazing," he said. "You get to blow people's minds all day long. They must really think you're something."

And the answer came to me.

I told him that magic is an art, like music and writing and painting. The magician creates the illusion of the impossible.

But we don't have a monopoly on awe.

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Listen:

It's been a long time since I felt that sense of wonder after watching a magic trick.

But I feel awe when I hear Amanda Marshall sing.

I feel it when I read the plays of Peter Shaffer.

I feel it when I watch Al Pacino or Judi Dench in a movie.

I feel it when I watch Jarome Iginla on the ice.

Heck, I even feel it when I meet someone who can keep their house tidy for more than three days.

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In short there is wonder all around us. You can experience it, yes, but you can create it too.

Just be sure to remember the magic within you.