IT'S MAGIC, ALWAYS HAS BEEN!

Sometimes life gets dull. That's why there's magic....!

If we don't always find it, we concoct it. And while Norman Mailer argued there were only two subjects worth writing about, sex and death, surely there's a third. Magic. In all its many natural and man-made forms.

Nature gives us the sun, the stars, and the seasons. Also thunder and lightening, geysers and lava, the orchid and the eagle. Although it's true each can be scientifically explained, try duplicating their magic. Gaping at these and a thousand other these in nature, we're beholding the ultimate magic show. All without the price of admission.

In our own way, we also make magic. We simply have to. How else to describe heaven-high towers and sea-spanning bridges, the music of Beethoven and the art of Goya, Broadway and Hollywood, Disneyland and Christmas, summer-night carnivals and Bergdoff Goodman, sparkling wines from Tuscany and banquets set out in Manhattan, fresh-brewed morning coffee and anytime pizza.

Then of course the quintessence of magic -- religion.

Here the magic becomes majestic. Within the most primitive primate to the most educated elite gnaws this need for the magic of divinity and eternity, of power and purpose. If man does not live by bread alone, neither does he by himself alone. Study the stone scratchings on cave walls to the brush strokes on the Sistine ceiling. There blazing before our hearts is the unbroken plea of little us calling up larger beings. The magic of the gods.

A fair question here might be: "So where's all this magic in my everyday 9 to 5 monotony?" A fair answer might be: "You can't find what you're not looking for." We in the West live in an especially rational, secular age. While the magic of both nature and men mesmerized our ancestors, today's thinkers have sought to squeeze this opiate from out of our systems.

Science has taken its rightful place as the great elocutionist for our age. We have been wisely taught healthy skepticism about any form of magic. For every sleight of hand and puff of smoke, we are advised to look for that man behind the curtain. Nature....? Of course it works wonders, but these wonders can be explained and even managed! Man...? Of course there will always be Barnums and Disneys, shamans and clerics, but these wonder-workers can be enjoyed without losing our heads.

The head, the brain, the intellect are all the magic we need. Outside the bible-belt and the mosques, this is the new catechism taught in most univerities, corporations, thinks tanks and government agencies. And it is a reasonable and logical one. It's big drawback, though, is that it makes no allowances for the delicious hersey of magic in our lives...