Magic - 028 — Jake Kahana

Dear Friend,

Do you believe in magic?

*Elisabeth Moss for Harper's Bazaar by Yulia Gorbachenko*

Kisses

We watched "Bambi" this month with Golda and now she runs around the house saying "I'm a small deer" before falling down. (Apparently, her takeaway is that all deer get hurt.)

Like any two and a half year-old, even with a fake injury, she asks us to kiss her knee or elbow. Somehow, it feels better. It's magic. This will work for a while, but at some point she'll stop believing that a kiss heals. We all stop believing in magic at some point.

We're cynical. We roll our eyes at magicians because we hate being tricked. We're skeptical about so-called miracles. We're numb to the limitless capabilities of the technology in our hands right now. And we largely ignore the nature outside our window. To any rational, science-believing, secular adult, there is no magic.

But let's rethink magic not as cape-wearing, wand-carrying, smoke-and-mirrors illusion. But as a force that influences people and events with no clear explanation.

I just read that most melatonin pills don't contain the amount of melatonin that they say they do. The placebo effect is enough to make sleep easier. It's also enough to believe that a kiss can heal us. Our brain influences our perceptions and reality and the explanation isn't entirely clear.

There's a part of us that can still be fooled.

Or convinced.

Let's do some magic.

*"Figure One" photo by* *Nicholas Scarpinato*

First, Magic Is A Lie

If we're going to talk about magic, we should start with one of the biggest names and one of the biggest illusions. Literally. In 1983, David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear.

An audience sits atop bleachers on a platform in front of the Statue of Liberty at night. A helicopter shoots video from above. Two pillars stand in front of the audience, one on each side of the statue. A curtain goes up between them, covering the statue. And 30 seconds later, it comes down, with the statue suddenly gone.

SPOILER ALERT: Here's how he did it.

The platform that the audience sat on, including the pillars and TV camera, rotates. So when the curtain comes down, we're looking in a different direction. The lighting on the statue changes, so the helicopter can't see it. And one of the pillars blocks our view of the statue.

Magic is a lie.

It's permission for one person to do something that seems impossible and then lie about it. And call it magic. When that person knows fully well that it's not magic. It's hard to look someone in the eye and tell a lie. But the best magicians are the ones that do it convincingly.

And that's why we're so cynical about magic.

We believe that what we see is real; and magic shows us that we can't trust what we see. A good magician challenges our reality. We're invited to question what we believe in. And that can be scary, especially in the face of choosing what we know or choosing to agree with someone we know is lying to us.

So we take back control by protecting ourselves.

Doubting. Condescending. And choosing not to believe.

*Arrangement and photography by Lewis Miller Design*

But What If Magic Is Possible?

Imagine you are your great grandparents. Coming back to life today and seeing how the world works. All the information in the world in our pockets. Video conversations from across the world without delay. Anything we want is delivered to our doorstop in just a day or two.

The science fiction writer, Arthur Clarke said that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

We live in the most advanced technological age in history.

And we're mostly in the dark about how it all works.

Most of us don't understand how Alexa knows everything.

How wifi works or how our phones still do when it doesn't.

We don't understand how a lot works. But we don't have to know.

We don't look up how these things work because we don't need to. We just enjoy them as they are. And in that way, it's sort of like a magic trick.

We live in a world of magic tricks. Technology that works beyond our comprehension. When we stop and appreciate what we have available to us, how the most complex things that make our work and our lives possible and fuller. How our world just seem to, y'know, work.

It is indistinguishable from magic.

Revealing A Magician's Secret

It makes me feel old to say that I've been playing piano for 30 years, but it's true. I spent the first decade learning classical music before wanting to learn rock. So I bought a Beatles songbook and learned nearly the whole book. I learned a lot that way– listen to the music, buy the book, learn the songs. Easy, right?

About 4 years ago, I was at a small coffee shop in Manhattan that happened to have a piano. I asked the barista if I could sit down, and for a couple hours played The Beatles, of course. And Bowie. Prince. Parton. Springsteen. Hendrix. Adele...

When I finished, an older man in a faded tshirt came up to me telling me how fun it was to listen to such a wide variety of songs. I remember he called it magic.

Me? A magician?

When I think of magic I think of someone like David Blaine.

I'm a fan. I remember watching his TV special a few years ago where he describes learning how to do a water spout act. He swallows a glass of water and some kerosene. Then regurgitates it on command, lighting a fire and putting it out seconds later, his mouth like a high-pressure hose. He first thought it was impossible. Or a trick, requiring some external device.

But Blaine traveled the world looking for someone who could do it. Eventually, found someone in Liberia who could teach him, and would practice this for hours every day. For EIGHT YEARS. And the result was only a 40-second bit in his act.

This revealed to me what magic actually is.

Magic is showing off the result of patience and dedicated learning, while hiding all the work that went into it, making it look easy.

Playing piano for two hours came pretty easy to me after two decades of learning. I know how that trick was done. When we know what's going on behind the scenes, it doesn't feel impossible or magical.

Now that we know how David Copperfield vanished the Statue of Liberty, it may feel a bit less magical (or he might seem less magical). But there's two things going on. First is the concept of the trick itself. Then it's the designing and practicing it over and over, for years and decades until it's perfect. Or at least a little bit unbelievable.

We all know a little magic. We've spent years and decades in our careers, working on a side project, getting better at a craft, learning a language or instrument. We do it so often, it seems completely believable. Doing our work or craft is just that. Work. It has lost its amazingness to us.

But to someone who doesn't see all that work, every day we show up, are performing magic.

We Are Magic

I'm looking at a pen on my desk.

It seems like a regular pen. But what if this pen was used by John Lennon to scribble the words of "Imagine"? Or my parents used it to sign their marriage license? Or Frida Kahlo sketched "The Two Fridas"? It's no longer just a regular pen.

Every object has a history. When we learn about it, that object transforms into more than it appears to be. More than just a pen.

And the same is true about people.

We may see a friend, or a neighbor, or an accountant, or mail carrier. But when we know that they are also a father, an artist, or a daredevil they transform right in front of us too. When we learn about people as complex, layered identities, with rich histories, they become a little more magical.

That's the magic of the show "In and Of Itself." It was an off-Broadway show now on Hulu, performed by magician Derek Delgaudio. But it wasn't about magic. Or at least it wasn't about magic tricks. Instead, it was about the magic of identity. The magic in and of ourself.

Remember that scene in Hook? Where the lost boys choose to side with a teenage Rufio instead of the 40 year-old Robin Williams as old Peter Pan. But that one little boy stays with him. He stares. Then he pushes and presses on his face.

"...There you are, Peter!"

It's easy to forget that we have these complex, amazing histories. Each of us. We lose sight of the fact that we were once Peter Pan. Or learned to play every Beatles song. Or that we've spent our lives in hours over decades learning and practicing the skills that make us so much more than just a whatever-our-business-card-says-we-are.

I forget that all the time, too.

So when Golda is crying and holds out her knee for me to kiss, of course I do it. I'm reminded that I'm a healer. For a moment, I'm able to make the impossible real.

We all still perform magic, whether we believe in it or not.

Deep down, we all want a little bit of a mystery and a sense of wonder.

Because it's more exciting to believe in (and live in) a world that, for even just a moment, is capable of being a little bit unbelievable.