THE STORY [OF DAVID VERNER1 ], as usually told, emphasizes [his] search for “naturalness,” for methods of card manipulation that would look entirely real, even under scrutiny. The deeper meaning of the myth, though, is that the magician is one of the few true artists left on earth, for whom the mastery of technique means more than anything that might be gained by it. –Adam Gopnick2
FRIENDSHIPS, FLIRTATIONS, EVEN love affairs depend, like magic tricks, on a constant exchange of incomplete but tantalizing information. We are always reducing the claim or raising the proof. The magician teaches us that romance lies in an unstable contest of minds that leaves us knowing it’s a trick but not which one it is, and being impressed by the other person’s ability to let the trickery go on. Frauds master our minds; magicians, like poets and lovers, engage them in a permanent maze of possibilities. The trick is to renew the possibilities, to keep them from becoming schematized, to let them be imperfect, and the question between us is always “Who’s the magician?” When we say that love is magic, we are telling a truth deeper, and more ambiguous, than we know. –Adam Gopnick2
1David Verner, also known as Dai Vernon, a Canadian magician who is considered “the Picasso” of modern magic. 2From “The Real Work: Modern Magic and the Meaning of Life” The New Yorker, March 17, 2008
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