Spotlight: Did Harry Houdini vote for Calvin Coolidge in 1923?
When we first met in these pages almost two years ago, I began by sharing my view that you have a secret power, premised on being the storytelling “portal” between interested civilians and our remarkable world of magic. That power is, if you will, outwardly focused. This month, I want to congratulate you on your second amazing power, one that is “internally focused” within our magic community.
In the year 2000, Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam released Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, lamenting the decline of social interaction from bridge clubs to bowling leagues, withering our social skills and our social contacts. Developments over the past 25 years have only made this worse, from smartphones, to social media, to online gaming, to online gambling. In A Time to Gather, author Bruce Feiler has recently connected the observation that the rituals shared over centuries have also fallen away, from birth ceremonies, weddings, and funerals to gatherings of friends and family to celebrate milestones in between.