Neighbors of ours have a daughter the same age as our little girl. Their birthdays are a couple of months apart. Their little girl’s birthday was held recently in their home. They have a nice big back yard and all of her friends were invited. Our little girl went and we attended too in order to have some conversation with the other adults there. They had scheduled some acts to entertain the kids. One was a Brisbane magician they hired to wow the kids through illusion and sleight of hand. I have seen magic shows before, but for this one I watched the audience of children instead of the act.
There was a mix of reactions early on in the audience of kids. A couple of opening tricks kind of got their attention. Then a couple were done where even the oldest kids were wondering how he did it. As an adult I knew that the tricks were all expert maneuvers of misdirection and the precision use of props. The added goofiness of humor and an appropriate magician’s costume added to the show. I watched the adults mingle in and begin to pay attention to the show as well.
I wondered about us all and how this fun attempt at entertaining kids at a birthday party could be used on a larger scale to mesmerize people. However, as a writer, my mind wonders about a lot of things like that. I wondered how much of politics especially is sleight of hand and illusion. Those folks are trained to look, speak and act a certain way in public to get votes, and who knows what really goes on once the cameras and microphones are off. I have seen the same look that was on the faces of this audience on those who have attended speeches of leaders. Still, this was just a child’s birthday party with a very talented Brisbane magician performing for them. There were plenty of laughs, oohs and aahs to go around.