So far this week we’ve discussed cheerleaders, animals on stage, ballet dancers, puppets and such. It’s time, then, to turn to another form of performance: old fashioned magic. Or not so old fashioned, since the link provides information of one of the sole female magicians who has managed to join the ranks of her male colleagues – decidedly a novelty in a field where”please applaud my lovely assistant” still rules.

http://narrative.ly/conjuring-up-a-career-with-one-of-nycs-only-female-magicians/?utm_source=Narratively+email+list&utm_campaign=47e47784a4-Narratively_1_5_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f944cd8d3b-47e47784a4-66322689

If you google best magic or some such you come up with this:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2013/may/04/the-10-best-magicians

Note, that the people mentioned are all of one gender (or t least they look like that….) – however, they do also, in the short descriptions of their trade, offer an incredible variety of what counts as magic.

Honestly, I have never found magic tricks or magician’s performances particularly fascinating. I rather read books – and if they are about magic that’s a different matter.  For all book lovers of my acquaintance here is a magical little clip of one author, writing about magicians, enlisting numerous other authors and seemingly a number of his friends, to introduce the last volume of a nifty trilogy; they all read one sentence each. Lev Grossman’s fantasy novels are wonderful escape literature, and I cite,”It’s Narnia meets Hogwarts but in grad school, so with profanity, sex, and drugs. ” What could be better?