Magic

I like magic. No, not the Disney “magic” kingdom sort of magic or the stuff of Peter Pan or Magic the Gathering, or Merlin shoot fire out of a wand stuff. I’m talking about card tricks, disappearing acts, Harry Houdini, cutting assistant in half, pull a rabbit out of a hat stuff. It really gets me.

I do magic. I have one pretty good trick I literally picked up while watching TV one day and perfected it. It works; it’s a great icebreaker; I’ve used it to start talking to girls (with mixed results), to entertain kids at the summer camps I worked at, even with co-workers and bosses. It makes me feel good about myself and makes other people impressed. (2 things that does not happen very often with something like say….fantasy baseball). For anyone who doesn’t have a go-to trick, I highly recommend it. It took me all of 5 minutes.

I appreciate magic. I think magic plays a role in our lives that most don’t really appreciate. It gives us something to wonder about, something beyond our normal everyday lives that transcends belief, or challenges us to accept something beyond what it appears on the surface. Yesterday I got a parking ticket not for parking in an illegal zone or not paying the meter but because my tires were supposedly 6 inches further away from the curb than the necessary 18 inches. No joke. I need magic just to remind myself that there are more than just the urbane, ordinary pursuits of life that we seek every day. As real as a parking ticket is or pushing a pencil through or taking another standardized test or sitting through traffic again for another few hours or (name any other irrelevant pursuit here) magic is just as real and feels just as real, yet it is so different than what humans can normally predict.

I will see magic. Next weekend when the movie “Now You See Me” comes out. Watched the trailer and even in the trailer they do a neat trick in which they predict the card you pick out of a trick. Wicked smart. I’ve been excited about other movies based on magic before like “The Prestige;” hopefully this one is as clever, well thought-out, and magic-inspiring as that. After Sriram Hathwar wins the National Spelling Bee 2013 on Thursday night, that is (wild guess).

I need to develop some more magic. I have the one main trick (if anyone reading this ever meets me in person, feel free to ask me to do it; I usually have cards near my person at all times) and then a few side tricks, and a partner trick, but nothing terribly impressive. I need another act, a fresh one that hasn’t been exposed by some of my friends who have seen me do it too many times, not because I gave in to their pleading and divulged the secret to them.

I’d like a little magic in my life. This time I am talking about the Disney sort of enchanted fairy-tale, miracle-on-ice butterflies fluttering kind of thing. I enjoy my life; I have been very lucky; but I’ve never been inspired by anything terribly drastic like love, great accomplishment, or other great emotion. I’d like to have one magical summer of that. So here, on Memorial Day weekend, here’s hoping for a magical summer to myself and everyone else.  (also, how about some magical writing inspiration for me to write these blog posts more often, geez louise!)

Actually, scratch that, spelling bee coverage on this site starting tomorrow. The defending champion in Throwing Things blog http://throwingthings.blogspot.com/ (this guy) has to represent! 

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan