© Pierre Maré,
2004 - 2007
Offbeat 15
Magic will always be appealing: it’s the power to change reality to suit ourselves with no effort that keeps us coming back to the idea. Perhaps what also appeals to us is the ability to escape the humdrum, routine, everyday boredom and frustration just by murmuring a spell. Whatever it is, all the magician needs to do is wave his or her hands mysteriously, utter or mutter the arcane words, and the world will change to suit the sorcerer’s needs.
The sad thing about hankering for magic is that in reality, magic is all around us. If you look hard enough, you will find crystal balls that impart the wisdom, men and women flying through the air, strange elixirs that cure or kill and yes, men who have turned lead into gold.
Alchemists, the magicians who feature so largely in popular culture, never ceased to exist. They merely refined their methods and carried on learning. Some, like Isaac Newton, stumbled upon the foundations of modern day science. The major difference is that nowadays alchemists don’t wear long robes and pointy hats embroidered with symbols of the sun, moon and stars. Instead they wear lab coats.
In place of crystal balls they have given us ‘internet-enabled computing’, video conferencing and mobile telecommunication. Thanks to them, we fly through the air in planes and helicopters. Their endeavours have produced modern day medicines and chemicals. As for turning lead into gold, as far as I remember, it has been done in a lab. Apparently you use a laser to knock a couple of electrons of a lead atom. There’s no reason to sell off grandmother’s jewelry before it devalues though: it’s all done at an atomic level and it’s too expensive to threaten the gold standard.
The problem with science is that there is no magic. The problem with magic is that there is no quick fix, just the hard work and vast funding requirements that we know as science.
But there is one type of magic that remains for those of us who don’t spend our days using grant money in expensive labs. Words have mysterious powers that we don’t appreciate. For example, in order to make someone vanish forever, just utter the incantation, “Go away you pointy headed geek, before I hit you with this baseball bat.” If you want a fool or a greedy person (usually the same) to like you instantly, use the words, “Here, take this money. There’s more where it came from.” The spell for romance and/or sex, usually used following a lot of drinks and perhaps some roses, is “Let’s go back to my place for coffee.”
Unfortunately words are losing some of their power. Books, always the best place to discover magical words and how to use them, are becoming less and less popular. Why read when you can put a DVD or video into a machine? Why write if books are becoming less popular and movies more profitable?
The differences between reading and watching are vast. Film and video generally show the superficial: what can be seen. With all-too-few notable exceptions, a movie will not describe in any depth the words that flit in and out of a character’s thought process. As one piece of evidence amongst thousands, I offer a comparison between a Harry Potter book and film.
Nor do films allow us to use our imagination visually: they show what is there, not what we might imagine the visual reality to be. The mental voyage of exploration into new landscapes and cities, and much of the joy of discovery, are abruptly cut short.
There is an expression that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. Increasingly I find it is used by people who are too lazy to read, and move their lips and follow their fingers as they make their way through the pages. Actually, a word is worth a thousand pictures, if not exponentially more: consider the terms, ‘love’, ‘sadness’ and joy.
Congratulations if you have read this far. You may not enjoy the words I have written or the way I have used them, but it says something about you: you are literate, thoughtful and perhaps you have the power to change the world around you.
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