Hi, this is Paul from the Wunderground with more magical revelations for you. I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and are enjoying the new year. Here's what's happening at the Wunderground.
KIDS CLASSES
In the Kids Class this Saturday we will once again have a special guest teacher (that would be me) while Dave performs magic on the beaches of whatever tropical island paradise he's disappeared to this time, but he'll return next week. Be sure and save up some snow for him, just in case it all melts off by then.
Our topic this Saturday will be "Magic You Can Make at Home," and next Saturday, it will be "How Long Can Dave Survive Frozen in a Block of Ice?", or something like that. (Check the website for the actual schedule at www.wundergroundmagicshop.com)
ADULT WORKSHOP
The first Tuesday of this month was a holiday, so the adult workshop will be on Tuesday, January 8, at 6:30PM The topic will be mentalism, which is the kind of magic having to do with mind reading, predicting the future, and hypnosis. Dave will be back from his magical tour of the tropics just in time to teach the workshop and begin collecting any snowballs you may have saved for him.
MEET THE DEMONSTRATORS
Hi, I'm Mike Graman, and I'm a 22 year old college student and part-time magician. My nickname is "Magic Mike," which was given to me by my mom when I was 17. I am at the Wunderground every Thursday to meet other magicians and to expand my horizons.
MAGIC TALK
This Monday, January 7, at the Clawson Library, at 7PM I'll be giving a talk on The Extraordinary History of Magic. I'm looking forward to seeing you there!
I’ve been reading a number of books and articles in preparation for the talk, and I came across "Abracadabra: Michigan and Magic" by Robert Lund, who was the founder of the American Museum of Magic, here in Marshal, Michigan. Here’s a passage from that book that I’d like to share with you. Put this aside to read when you have some time to think about it.
We are all born with a sense of wonder. It is part of our humanity, it goes with being human. We wonder about many things and ask many questions.
“Mother, where did I come from?”
“Where does the sun go at night?”
“What makes snow?”
“And why did the dinosaurs disappear?”
As we grow older, our sense of wonder begins to diminish and then goes into decline, until one day the light goes out: we wonder no more. Farewell to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Time to grow up. We put wonder away with the broken toys. How sensible, how mature, how rational to rid ourselves of the nonsense of childhood.
But suppose one wanted to wonder again, to run the calendar in reverse and revive an emotion we thought was gone forever?
That is the gift the magician brings us. He reawakens a sense of wonder in us when we are no longer children. He is the only one who does that for us. Of all the professions and callings in the world, the magician is the only one who evokes a sense of wonder in us on demand. When you go to see a magician, you do so with the understanding and expectation that you will be mystified, that you will wonder. The manufacturers of Cracker Jacks and breakfast cereal promise a surprise in every box. But they do not promise wonder.
And so we come to this rather ludicrous figure leftover from childhood, out of sync and out of time. There he stands in his Sunday-best suit, a little slick ’em on his hair and smiling his please-like-me-smile. And we say to him, “Please, I haven’t wondered in a long time. I haven’t experienced that emotion for many years. Could you make me wonder again?”
And he hauls out his toys and makes us wonder.
He does not even ask that you believe that he is a magician. He knows that you know that he can not really pull coins out of your ear or saw a lady in half. Ho only asks that you suspend your disbelief for a little while. “Just pretend,” as we used to say when we were children.
There are no great secrets and anyone can learn to do the tricks. Tricks are to magic what the pots and pans and silverware and dishes are to a good meal. You need the pots and pans to make the meal. But they are not the meal. And so the magician needs his trinkets to perform his wonders. But the tricks are not the magic. The magic is what happens in your mind.
That is the real secret of magic, that magic is wonder.
The magician is the last link between the earliest intellectual experience we have as children—of wondering—and the blasé adults we become. He rekindles a sense of wonder in us when we are beyond the age of wondering, giving us back a part of our humanity that we thought we would never know again.
Does it matter that these minstrels of mystery paused awhile to amuse the citizens of Michigan? Does it count for anything?
I think so. For a few hours they shined away the grime of reality, they made us laugh and wonder. How many kings or presidents or notables-for-other-reasons can claim to have left a better legacy than that?
