Horton Deakins's Blog, page 11
October 23, 2012
The magic box
Some have doubted me when I told the story about retrieving the box of magic tricks from the attic. I anticipated such unbelievers, so I took a photo of some of the items subsequent to removing them from the box, and I produce it for you here.
Temple screen and other tricks
You can see the temple screen, linking rings, magic slates, sponge balls, and magic book sitting in front of the temple screen. Over the top of the screen are a few magician’s silks, but they are quite wrinkled. This is the result when silks are stuffed into a box for forty years. For scale, the automobile wheel in the background is a 20-inch.
Steampunk’s got nothing on this airship
Check out this YouTube video of the first flight of the Army’s new airship.
Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle
Northrop Grumman LEMV
An improvement—dost thou not agree?
I see it. It’s all around.
October 22, 2012
When does a card trick cease being a trick?
The past two nights have been peaceful. Although the voices have not invaded my head for awhile, things are not quite the same. There is a spring in my step and my mind is sharper than ever. I have begun carrying a deck of cards everywhere I go, and I can cut the deck cleanly and effortlessly with one hand, despite my arthritis, and better than I was ever able to do in the past. Now that I think of it, I have neglected to take my arthritis medications for several days now. My fingers are nimble and free of pain, and I’m thinking about taking up the piano again.
When I was with a jazz-rock group back in the 1970’s, for a short while we all lived together in a house in Garden Grove, California. In the evenings, for cheap entertainment, one person chose a card from a deck, showed it to everyone, replaced it, shuffled the deck, and spread the cards face down on the floor. The designated “performer” passed his hand over the cards, and when he sensed the presence of the chosen card, he separated out that part of the deck and set the rest of the cards aside. He then repeated the process until only two or three cards remained, then he turned over the original card—sometimes. For the past hour I have been doing that very thing, and I find the card not some of the time, but every single time.
When I’m not divining lost cards, I practice false shuffles. There is one called a “pickup shuffle,” which allows the magician to keep a group of cards on the top of the deck. It’s a bit difficult to do without either looking awkward or dropping cards, but not a soul has been able to catch me at it. I seldom could do it convincingly in the past, but now I don’t even have to think about it—it just happens.
I am enjoying my new skills, but I can’t help but wonder if the spectre might return.
October 20, 2012
This trick was no treat
I am insane. What else can I make of it? Only an insane man hears voices night after night and tries to glean some sort of sense from them. This argument itself is insane, however, because an insane man likely does not hear and understand a language which he has never learned.
It is but an enigma, yet my insanity persists. I now find myself crawling into the attic—against my better judgment—to retrieve my box of magician’s paraphernalia. The box is rather large and unwieldy and is on the verge of tearing in several places because of its age.
I sat the box on the garage floor, knelt next to it, and brushed away the dust. That sent me into a fit of coughing, but after I recovered I peeled back the flaps and saw that everything was just as I had left it. There, in the box, were the overflowing rice bowls, the Chinese linking rings, the wood-block-through-glass, the magic-tassel wands, the silks, the pulls, the multiplying billiard balls, the temple screen, and at least a dozen other tools of the magician’s trade. The familiar smells of the plastic, wood, paper and metal combined into a complex, pleasing fragrance that took me back to the days when I performed before my family and friends. I put my head full into the box and breathed deeply, savoring the aroma, and then I reminisced as I examined each item.
The temple screen sat flat on the bottom of the box. I lifted the screen and unfolded it, and an old, yellowing scrap of paper fell out of it and landed inside the box. I retrieved the paper, but my breath caught in my throat and I dropped the paper at once. It landed face-up, the Welsh writing still staring back at me. As I touched the paper again, part of it crumbled, so I picked it up ever so gently and carried it in the palm of my hand to the computer. I typed the letters and did a search, and a Welsh translator popped up. Here are the Welsh and the English:
Rydym yn falch eich bod yn dilyn eich tynged. We are pleased that you follow your destiny.
You can imagine the size of the lump in my throat. I flushed the paper down the toilet, but it appeared to completely dissolve the moment it hit the water. I placed everything back into the box and returned it to the attic.
One of the rules of performance magic is that one never repeats a trick with the same audience, because that can give the trick away. This was definitely one trick I never want to see repeated.
October 19, 2012
Perception: Is it Nine Tenths of Reality?
The sun rises, the sun sets. That is what we say. It rises in the east, flies around us to the west where it sets, then magically finds its way back to the east again while we sleep, ostensibly circling the earth. Then the whole process repeats.
This is what we once thought, until, in 1543, Copernicus convicted us of our ignorance with his irrefutable mathematics. Now we can be certain that it is instead the earth that goes round the sun, and it was merely the earth’s rotation — and perhaps a bit of arrogance — that provided us with our first impression.
But what significance do we assign to impressions? Is it wrong to believe in them? Believing them does not make them right, but neither does disbelieving them make them wrong. But how can we know which of our impressions, our perspectives, are contained within the set of things that comprise reality?
Perhaps this is the wrong question; perhaps the issue is one of need, rather than reality. Until a certain point in history, man had no need to believe anything other than that the sun went round the earth. This perspective created a more than sufficient reality. And for over two hundred years we had the impression that Newton’s laws of motion were absolute, perfect in every way. Then a man named Einstein came along and made us take another look at these laws.
Let us look again at the sun. The earth scribes a circle around it with a radius we call an astronomical unit — well, not quite. The path is more of an ellipse. But look closer. The sun is moving through our galaxy, The Milky Way, dragging the earth along with it. Now the earth’s path begins to resemble the loops a child makes when first learning to write in script. Still, this perspective — and bear in mind that it is only just that — confines us to a mere two dimensions. The galaxy is also moving, so our journey through space may more resemble a distorted spring.
Looking still closer, myriad gravitational forces, pulling on both the sun and the earth, further complicate our path. Given sufficient gravity, the very fabric of space itself comes into play, adding yet more complexity.
How do we arrive at our impressions? From what we see? Our eyes register all the rainbow colors of light from red to violet. But the colors of light we see comprise only a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. How small? What would be your guess? Three percent, perhaps? Think smaller. Try one hundredth of one millionth of one millionth of three percent. A mere drop in the ocean.
From this are we to conclude that we may be perceiving only an infinitesimal part of reality? We hear, taste, smell, and feel, as well as see. These additional senses should compensate — right?
Now I offer you this question: Is reality defined by our capacity to perceive it?
“Time is an illusion that has purpose.” — Edgar Cayce
October 18, 2012
Again it torments me in my sleep
I got very little sleep last night. I sat in a heap on the floor for hours, my heart pounding relentlessly and sweat soaking my clothing. My dog has been whining, obviously sensing that something is wrong. Now, though, as I sit at my computer and type, I’m growing cold as the air conditioning has come on and the sweat dries, stealing the warmth from my body.
It was around 3 a.m. that I found myself bolt upright in bed, sounds and thoughts swirling through my brain at dizzying speeds. My head was aching, my mouth too dry to call out. The words of the spectre (I call it spectre, for I know of no more fitting word to describe it) punched at me like angry fists. When I woke, I suddenly lost all connection to the apparition, but its effects lingered, intensifying my anguish.
The spectre seems to be able to come to me only while I dream; I have experienced it at no other time. It had far too much to say for me to get everything written down before the words flittered from my mind, but I was able to capture a few of the phrases, and I list them here in both Welsh and English:
Mae’n rhaid i chi ymarfer eich celf … Dechrau nawr … Eich tynged yw eich tynged … Bydd eich hud yn dychwelyd i chi os ydych yn gadael iddi … Dewch … Tyfu eich hud … Dewch … Peidiwch â erys … Yma, gall pob eu cyflawni …
In English: You must practice your art… Begin now… Your destiny is your destiny… Your magic will return to you if you allow it… Come… Grow your magic… Come… Do not tarry… Here, all can be fulfilled…
Had I not experienced the first two visitations, I could have easily dismissed all as a simple nightmare; that glass of wine I should not have had last evening, or some obstacle of the day returning to me. No. Those explanations do not serve. Adding to my distress is the fact that, as a young teen, I was enamored by the art of legerdemain, the performance of entertaining illusions—magic, if you will. Now, however, except for a few simple slight-of-hand and card tricks, I have all but abandoned the practice. But I did love it so. You might even say I was obsessed by it. I am not a believer in magic, and I have put such childish occupations behind me. I am hopeful that, with this writing, the apparition has also become a thing of the past.
October 16, 2012
It came again last night
I am beside myself. I sit here trembling. It scarcely seems possible that the voice would come again in my dreams, but come it did. This time, the message was less than clear:
Mae’r plant cael perfformio eu ddrygioni.
Poptai poeth yn cael eu paratoi.
Dewch. Helpwch ni.
In English, I heard “The children are performing their wickedness. Hot ovens are being prepared. Come. Help us.”
As I puzzled over whether I was having a “Hansel and Gretel Go to Wales” moment, the voice attempted to correct my interpretation. It scolded, “Be not children–be child beings.”
Once more, I jotted everything down when I arose from my slumber, and again, but a few moments later, I am unable to read or understand the Welsh. I searched the Internet for what the “child beings” could possibly mean, and the answer came rather quickly. It is another term for “changelings.” So, it is the changelings that are performing their wickedness. I also found that an oven is a method of ridding oneself of a changeling.
Just now, however, another thought struck me. Is this a warning about the changelings, and a plea for my help in their extermination? Or is it announcement from the changelings concerning what has commenced, and a message to beware the ovens should I answer the call to “Come”?
My cousin has mentioned that in some parts of Wales, the Deakins are not looked upon fondly. I believe “You can’t throw a stick without hitting one” were his exact words. Could all these things somehow be linked? I do not know what to make of this, but I cannot bear to hear the voice a third time.
October 14, 2012
Do you believe in dreams?
I had the strangest dream last night. A voice, quite melodious and soft, kept saying the same thing to me over and over again. I heard it simultaneously in both English and Welsh, but how I knew it was Welsh, I do not know, and how I knew that the English was the same, I do not know, but this is what the voice said: Dychwelyd i wlad eich hynafiaid; gwaed yn galw i waed. Return to the land of your fathers; blood calls to blood.
This is indeed strange, since I do know that I have DNA matches in the UK, and the family story was always that William Deakins’s journey to the Colonies began in Wales. But how would I automatically understand Welsh? As soon as I awakened, I wrote down the words. But now they are completely strange and foreign to me, and I can no longer even pronounce them.
The result of all this is a sudden longing to visit the Old Country and to learn about the Welsh language. It looks quite difficult, however, and it will take some time just to learn how to pronounce the words. But from where has this strange compulsion in me originated? How? I’ll let you know if there are more dreams.
