An Actually Magical Convention

I was supposed to spend the week in Aspen Colorado, with a serious and bipartisan group of formers and s, plus a few oracles and deep thinkers, deliberating the future of international politics. Admittedly, things being what they are, this eminent group is now largely reduced to whistling past the graveyard of American foreign policy, but that’s not why I played hooky. I wanted to go to a magic convention. I wanted to be a pop-eyed 11-year-old kid again, to experience joyful amazement, a particularly potent balm and restorative in these troubled times. And so I forsook Aspen with its chichi restaurants, opulent mansions, and magnificent mountain views to join a thousand other magicians at a gaudy off-the-strip hotel and casino in sweltering Las Vegas.