Words of Wisdom

Greatly moved by Stephen Fry's Open Letter to the Olympic committee recently published, I took his memoir, Moab Is My Washpot, and bumped it to the front of my reading list. I found something inside. It's not much, but it seemed relevant to me:

[I]f you're going to be a freak, be a complete freak, no point at all in goint at it half-cock

Now, there are those that will say, in this modern technologically sophisticated age, that no one is willing to accept any wisdom unless it comes superimposed onto a catching image, or photo of a cat. They're probably right.

All in Good Fun

When groups of magicians gather together, strange things happen. I imagine the same thing must happen if you assemble any group of likeminded individuals like artists, musicians or politicians. But this is especially true with the P. Howard Lyons Ring.

Where to begin?

The P. Howard Lyons Ring, sometimes known as Ring 99, is a chapter of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, the world's largest fraternal organization of magicians. The club meets at a secret location known only as "The Usual Place and Time." The membership is a motley crew of magicians, mentalists, psychics, comedians, university students, philosophers and general dilettantes. The ring's objectives lie vaguely between "advancing the art of magic" and "perfecting esoteric techniques for the vanishment and disappearance of pub foods."

This is a group that doesn't take themselves too seriously and certainly knows how to have a good time. They also had the misfortune of having me as their president.

Awards season takes on a whole new meaning

At the close of the 2012-13 season, the club decided to give out two special awards, one of which was:

The Mark Lewis Memorial Award forImagination, Integrity, Curmudgeonhood or Best Two Out Of Three

While I should point out that the award itself is completely facetious (see photos below), the individual it is named after does deserve some recognition.

Mark Lewis is a staple of the Toronto magic community. He performs as the elderly curmudgeon, and when watching others perform, he is as harsh a critic as one can imagine. He is also never one to shy away from offering an opinion, on any subject. He is decidedly "old school" and constantly pushing others to raise the quality of the magic they perform and to bring respect and honour to the art of magic. If something can earn a slight nod of approval from "The Great Mark Lewis" then you must be on to something. (Or perhaps, it is one of the seven signs of the coming apocalypse, who knows.) In addition to being a superlative children's entertainer, he is also one of the main characters in Ninety-Nine Fabrications Volumes 1 & 2.

Special mention is also due to Lisa Close who presented this "prestigious" award.Lisa crafted a speech which is probably the single greatest piece of magic verbiage since Bob Farmer's treatise on Wombats and Wildebeests (don't ask). She was somehow able to transition an award for James Alan into a roast of for James Alan so seamlessly we didn't even notice. Well done Lisa!

Lisa's speech, along with several other Ring secrets will be included in the forthcoming volume of Ninety-Nine Fabrications, because we clearly have too much time on our hands.

I'm honoured that the club would choose to present me with this prestigious (and infinitely practical) award. I will display it proudly in my home next to my other made up award.

Mark Lewis Award

The Greatest Compliment to a Profession

Earlier this week, I received an invitation from the Centre for Inquiry to attend a special brunch with Professors Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. To say I couldn't register fast enough was an understatement. For a bit of background, I discovered Richard Dawkins' work when he was mentioned in The Salmon of Doubtwhich was compiled by Stephen Fry from the contents of Douglas Adams' many Mac computers after his untimely death in 2001. Douglas Adams was the beginning for my love of all things British, but certainly not the end. In high school, I was also deeply interested in the writings of Richard Feynman, and came across Lawrence Krauss when he wrote a biography of Feynman in 2011.

At the meeting, I was thrilled  to get my copy of The Selfish Gene signed (I had the issue of Playboy[1] Dawkins appeared in in my bag, but chickened out) and I also got to perform for him very briefly.

During the question and answer period, I asked him something which interested me as a magician about the evolutionary nature of curiosity. Of course he did what all public intellectuals do and ignored my question and spoke about whatever he felt like at the moment. But not without throwing in something deeply flattering and interesting:

He said that magic (or conjuring as he preferred to call it) had deep philosophical implications because it awakened us to the fact that we are very easy to deceive. If we see something which is contrary to the way we understand the world to work, we should be very suspicious and avoid jumping to conclusions. He was referring, of course, to the tendency the species has to invoke supernatural agents and mystical forces when boring and natural explanations will suffice.

As a magician, I have been wrestling with this for a few years. On the one hand, I love science and want to encourage curiosity and rational inquiry wherever I can. On the other hand, I would prefer it if my audiences did not look to Google to try and find explanations for how my tricks work.

With this bit of insight from Dawkins, I'm hoping that I can find a better way to balance the two than I have been. Unfortunately, it's difficult to create a strong feeling of magic while simultaneously reminding people that you don't have supernatural powers and that deep down you're a lying cheating bastard.

Hope I can find a way.

[1] Always the teacher! Thanks to Dawkins, I had to learn at the age of 27, not only how to purchase pornography in print, but pornography with women in it... much harder than I thought.

I'm blogging!

Now my writing can be ignored by a much wider audience!