I'm a sucker for everything from Harry Potter to sleight of hand. And I do mean sucker. I saw Penn & Teller at the beautiful Orpheum Theater at Market and Hyde around 1995. A perfect melding of magic and comedy, they had no compunctions about revealing their tricks. I was one of the blind idiots in the audience sitting on the edge of my seat, mouth slightly open, eyes squinting in concentration, awed and suspicious, completely fooled while knowing that it was all illusion. Over and again they slowed the tricks down, slower than the Six Million Dollar Man, explaining all the while how they were misdirecting our eyes, tricking us into looking in the wrong direction. People were laughing and clapping, catching on, figuring it out. Everyone but me. Even as they were explaining the misdirection, my eyes were looking the wrong way.
This box of magic tricks is like the strip in Las Vegas on a bright sunny morning. Not nearly as breathtaking as at night, dressed up with neon, the darkness hiding the gum wrappers and flaking paint. A magic kit isn't for someone who loves magic. It's for someone who's patient enough, detail-oriented enough and devilishly deceitful enough to put in the hours. Someone who reads operating instructions.
That person is not me, nor is it Sam, nor Emma.
I like the construction of the pie box. The sentiment - "You might give some serious thought to thanking your lucky stars you're in Texas" - is exactly designed to discomfit my diffident mid-western heart. Those Texans. Tsk.
Loved the pecan pie, though.
You can get rid of the magic kit, but I want to keep the box.
ReplyDeleteYou'll have to find it first!
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