Thu, 19 Jan 2006
Last week my wife and I went to an event for interior designers. My wife is a designer and this was quite a good event for networking. She did, in fact, make some good connections and even get some business from it. The event was at a beautiful 5000 square foot home that’s this year’s showcase house for the San Diego Historical Society. So, while I wanted to be supportive, I really didn’t have any purpose other than being there as “moral support”. She was doing great and so I stepped out back to get some fresh air. Outside in the garden was a young boy who was jumping around trying to touch the leaves on a tree and walking on the benches and such. He was obviously bored. I happen to have a deck of Black Tigers in the car so I went out to get them. When I came back I did a torn and restored dollar bill effect and then we did a few card tricks. The boy, Julian, was really impressed. After a while his dad showed up and we started talking. It seems that the husbands were all getting a bit bored as their wives talked about window coverings and fabrics inside. I did another trick or two for his dad with the black deck and they all went over really well. We talked a bit more when Julian’s mom came out to say they were ready to go. We all said goodbye and Julian’s mom told him to be sure to say “Thank You” to the nice man who did magic for him. Julian came over and hugged me. It was such a nice gesture, such a totally innocent way of expressing how he enjoyed our time together that I was a bit stunned. I shook hands with his folks and wished them a good evening and waved as they drove off. Now, when we think about what effect our art has on people we usually think about how we want our audience to be stunned, or shocked, or even frightened. We love it when people scream or jump back in surprise. We love to hear them say “No Way!” or “How do you do that?” But on that night, my magic made somebody happy and they hugged me as their way of saying “thank you”. And that’s a nice surprise. That’s when you realize that magic can be art, magic can be more than just shocking people, magic can make people happy. And what a wonderful surprise it is to be reminded of that. Oh, By The Way. these are “Black Tigers”This story is from the
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