There is magic all around us!
Many years ago, I wrote a song with the refrain, “Behold, there is magic all around us.” Today, more than ever, I am realizing how deeply true this simple statement is. When I wrote the song, I was visiting Jeff in his New York City apartment. He had gone out, to pick up some food for us, and I was waiting, alone, in his space. I remember looking around, and seeing the variety of awards, props, and other magical items placed around his space, and thinking, “magic is all around me!” The rest, as they say, is history. Magic is the art of transformation, and recently, we have been re-creating our reality according to our will in a big way. It’s really all Johannes Gutenberg’s fault, if you ask me. If you’d like, you can listen and download the song while you read, just go here and click where it says “Behold”: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/asmcbride.
Those of you who have been to our House of Mystery know that we have a propensity for magical items. Everything in the house has a story, and is a touchstone for a memory of where we were and what we did…. Oh, and then there are the books. Yes, many, many books. Right, the cookbooks are all mine, but they’re not the ones I’m talking about. And yes, those books on music, those over there, the ones on massage therapy, those are mine too. Ok, yes, the Charles De Lint books are mine, too…. but really, the great conversion stems from Jeff’s collection of books on the art of magic.
When I first moved in with Jeff, these books were on a few shelves, but not in any order that I could discern. There were magic books mixed in with kabuki theater books, mixed in with hand bound manuscripts and grimoires. It was pretty jumbled back then, even Jeff will tell you that. So, one weekend, when Jeff was at a magic convention, I, along with two of Jeff’s apprentices, took each book off the shelf, set the non-magic ones aside, and then arranged all the rest, by author’s last name, so they could be more easily referenced. Hey, I’m a good wife, what can I say?
For awhile, that worked very well… until the book collection outgrew the shelf space. So, at that time, Jeff took his most-referenced, stuck-on-a-desert-island books into the other room, put them all on one shelf for easy reference by the students and we opened up a little room…. We had our friend William come in and build some extra bookshelves; that helped for awhile. We started keeping some of the magazine collection in the garage on the shelves out there, and that helped, too… for a time.
I think the books get together, late at night, and make pamphlets.
In the mornings, I come downstairs, and lo and behold, new books have arrived… and yes, they’re all about magic, and yes, they’re all necessary reference tools for students and teachers at the Magic and Mystery School, but for awhile there, it seemed like they were going to take over the house. They were stacking up near the fireplace, towering over the DVD player, taking over the coffee table. So, the decision was made to build on an addition to the House of Mystery, off the east side of the house. In the past few months, there has been an incredible transformation happening, and the new addition is just about done, complete with secret doorway, hidden compartments, and all.
My mantra, during this process of jackhammering, nail-pounding, and paint-spraying, has been “It’ll be great once it’s done.” And it nearly is. I invite you, next time you’re in Las Vegas, to stop in for a session with Jeff, and we’ll show you the new library, the magic shop, the lunar observation platform, and the movement space. Truly, there is magic, all around us.
