Last night Hilary showed me a magic trick. It took me a few moments before I realized what she was doing, but here’s the thing, she actually did a pretty good job of it.
As part of my qualifications for geekdom I am a magician. Or was, I haven’t kept my hand in it for several years now and magic is something that needs constant attention to do well. I enjoy doing magic and perhaps I should find some time and start building a base again. I have a penchant for close up magic, as opposed to stage illusions and that ilk. I like magic that happens with ordinary objects, that happens up close, right in front of you. To me magic seems more real when someone makes a coin appear out of nothing rather than producing a cabinet and sawing someone in half. So my magical heroes are not the David Copperfields and Doug Hennings, but people like Michael Ammar, Doc Eason, John Bannon and Paul Harris.
This is Michael Ammar performing ‘The ambitious card’
I could go off on a discourse on how I enjoy the philosophy of magic, the psychology of magic, or how, when you know the mechanics of magic, the wow factor mostly disappears. Don’t ask how its done, knowing will spoil it for you. But I won’t do that, this is about my daughter’s magic and a different wow factor.
So I was sitting on the couch when Hilary came up to me and showed me a coin in her hand, remember this is a two year old, which she then covered with a face cloth, then she pulled way the face cloth and the coin was gone. Oh yes, she didn’t forget the magic word, Abracadabra, which in her version sounds more like "Dabadabadabadabadabadabadaba".
I had no idea what she had just done.
So she showed me again. Dabadabadabadaba, coin was in her hand, now its not. Suddenly I realized that she is showing me a magic illusion. Now its a pretty simple trick, cover the coin with a cloth, grab the coin through the cloth with your other hand, pull cloth away along with coin and voila, magic. But the wow, for me, is I have no idea 1) where she would have picked up the idea (and known enough to utter a magical phrase) and 2) How a two year old would get the concept of illusion to make something disappear (and realize it is worth showing someone).
I have done a bit of magic for the kids lately, mostly just squeezing a coin to make it disappear and pulling it out of their ears, or striking a penny in an open hand with a pen and having it disappear, but nothing involving coins and handerchiefs. Still, she must have picked it up somewhere. Cartoons?
So now I’m feeling a little magical flame rekindled, (Oh god, where will the time come from) all because of magical little girl who knows how to puzzle her father.
Comments
6 responses
Isn’t it fantastic when our children — whom we think we know and understand inside and out — surprise us? Talk about magic!!
Does she watch Toopy and Binoo, because we had to deal with a spate of magic related accidents following The Great Toopy episode.
Ohhh! That is one cute kid!
My granddaughter, at her 4th birthday party, put on her own “stage show” with a disappearing doll. I don’t know where she got the idea for it; they rarely watch TV at her house.
She wasn’t quite as proficient as your kid, though; I saw what she’d done the first time round.
But that’s nothing as to what these girls will accomplish a few years down the road; they will make a lot more than pennies disappear! 🙂
Hilary’s so lovely, Clare. And clever to boot. I’m experiencing the same kinds of surprises with my two little grandsons. Love Hilary’s outfit – homemade? Thanks for the little magic video, too – quite fascinating.
Gosh she is so beautiful!
It is magic Liza Lee, they are always full of surprises.
She does watch Toopy and Benoo Kent (Does Toopy scare anyone else besides me?) I’ll have to pay closer attention to that episode.
Susannah, Yeah, I suspect there will be more than pennies disappearing.
Thanks Pam. I don’t think the outfit is handmade. Hilary’s birth mom gave it to her.
Yes she is Kara. Thank you.