For me, learning a new magic trick is a long and tedious process.

First, of course, I have to go over the instructions. When I started doing magic back in the Stone Age, all the instructions were in print. Now in Brave New World, almost all of them are on videos.

Though most magicians prefer video instructions, I’m not one of them. It’s not that I can’t or won’t learn from videos — I just prefer the process of reading and rereading. Maybe it’s more time-consuming and complicated than sitting in front of a screen, replaying as necessary … or maybe not.

An analogy might be my preferring to write by hand, as opposed to on a keyboard; or, with my woodcarving hobby, refusing to use power tools. Or maybe I’m just an old poop who can’t explain why I do most of the things I do, and really only know for sure that I do them and am not gonna change.

Anyhow, after I’ve pored over the instructions enough to have a decent idea of how the trick works and what the various moves are and how they lead into each other, it’s time to actually work with the objects themselves: coins, cards, silks and so on. So, objects in hand, instructions in front of me, I’ll start. Then I’ll go through all the moves, slowly and deliberately, till I’ve got them memorized. Depending on how difficult the sleights are and how lengthy and complicated the routine is, I could be doing it in a matter in a matter of hours, but not well. Usually, however, to get it down fairly well takes about a week, if I practice a couple hours a day.

But knowing the routine and being able to do each move versus actually being able to PERFORM it are as different as the quick and the dead, because the trick has to seem like magic to me.

Unlike what most people think, magic has nothing to do with fooling people. If that was our goal, we’d have pursued much easier and more lucrative careers in politics, faith healing, life coaching and, most profitable of all, megachurching.

The magician’s mission is to give people magic, however they define it. And this is no small deal, since almost no one believes the guy making those coins vanish, reappear and multiply is doing it through other-wordly powers. In fact, the exact opposite is true: They KNOW it’s flat-out skullduggery. And so the magician’s job is a whole lot harder than all other con artists’.

So here’s the essence of magic: I know most people not only don’t believe in magic, but when they start to watch a magician, what they really want is not to enjoy him, but to CATCH him. I know this when I begin my first trick, and so be it.

When I begin my first trick, I do everything slowly, deliberately, letting them follow every move perfectly. And if all works well, when I get to the end of the trick — VOILA! — it’s unexpected, if not the complete opposite of what they expected. And when that happens, something else happens, namely their willing suspension of disbelief. They no longer want to catch me — instead, they want to see and enjoy more magic. So then we all have the same reason for being there — get some relief from our suffering from excess reality.

Rarely, there are people who have an inherent and unshakeable sense of wonder. And those peeps — God love ’em — don’t even think about how a trick is done, how to catch the magician, or anything negative. Instead, they just want to be part of the unreal joys and delights. A perfect example of this was the best show I ever did — to a nameless little kid on a street in Roseburg, Oregon.

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Not the big time, but for sure a high time

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My bestie from my first year in college, in 1964, is a guy named Charlie Boberg. After college, he was drafted and was an infantryman in Vietnam. When he got out of the army, he settled in Oregon, where he became a logger and lived on top of a mountain like some character out of a Ken Kesey novel. We always stayed in touch, and I tried to visit him every other year. Before one visit he asked me if I’d do a magic show for him and his friends, and of course, I agreed.

I had another friend in Oregon who lived a few hours north of Roseburg, where I stayed at the start of my visit. The day before the gig was sunny, hot and dry — perfect hitchiking weather — so I decided to thumb to Roseburg, which I did. Once I got there, I called Charlie and waited for him to pick me up. I was waiting just outside downtown, by a bus stop, in front of a bank, with nothing to do and about a 40-minute wait, so I decided I’d practice my magic for the gig.

While I was doing that, I noticed a kid across the road, walking on the sidewalk and sneaking glances at me. I kept rehearsing and quit paying attention to him, and the next thing I knew, there he was, standing in front of me.

He looked about 10, had on a T-shirt that’d seen better days and a bowl haircut, and had a helium balloon attached to his wrist.

I said hi to him; he said hi to me.

“You were doing something with a rope,” he said. “What was it?”

“A magic trick,” I said.

“You a magician?” he said.

“I am,” I said.

A long moment passed and he said nothing, so I decided to cut to the chase.

“You like magic?” I asked.

His face lit up.

“I DO!” he said.

“Well, my man,” I said, “Today is your lucky day.”

I then had him sit on the bus stop bench, got my props together, introduced myself (with a flourish, of course) and then proceeded to do my entire act as well and enthusiastically as I ever did in the 20 years I’d done magic.

He was the world’s best audience — laughing at my puns, oohing and ahhing at the tricks, even applauding after each trick, though I never asked him to.

I ended with my showcase trick — the Chinese linking rings. Linking rings are not a trick so much as a beautiful routine. They’re mind-blowing, both visually and aurally. If done well, the linking rings are nothing less than astounding. In all modesty I’ll say I do them well, if not almost perfectly — which I should, since I rehearsed them daily for six months before I felt I had them down pat.

So there I was, just about to hit the climax of the trick, when out the corner of my eye I saw Charlie’s ancient rig chug into the bank’s parking lot.

I finished the routine about 10 seconds later, bowed deeply to the little fella, shook his hand, stuffed the rings in my pack with the rest of my magic, then sprinted to Charlie’s truck. He put it in gear, and we took off, me waving to the kid, the kid waving to me.

“What was that all about?” Charlie asked me.

I told him.

“Hmm …” he said, clearly thinking it over. Then he spoke.

“Ya know,” he said, “I’ll bet that kid will never forget the experience.”

“Maybe,” I said. “And I’ll bet I’LL never forget it, either.”

Because I’ve always been a lousy gambler, I refuse to bet on anything anymore. But even so, that’s one bet I KNOW I would’ve won.