Two summers ago, I packed up the library of a famous man. He was my wife's client, and I performed the task for two reasons. First as a favor to my wife since I had nothing else to do that July; second to spend hours in the man's company. Composer, conductor, musician. Classical, popular, and jazz. Winner of Oscars and Emmys. He spoke five languages. He was fascinating, congenial company. He told wonderful stories about hosts of famous people. I shall not repeat them. Although I knew him only a short time, I consider him a friend, and he said the same of me.
As I cataloged and packed in boxes more than 2,000 volumes, I saw the man reflected in the books. He loved art. Hundreds of large, glossy art coffee table books. From Bruegel to Van Eyck, High Renaissance, Impressionism, Late modern. Heinrich Wolfflin's History of Art in German: Handwritten notations in English and French. Volumes on music and musicology: in German, French and Italian.
American authors: first editions of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Anderson, Faulkner, O'Hara, Markam. Some bore inscriptions or dedications from the author. Comic books side by side with Thomas H. Johnson's edited letters of Emily Dickinson. Nearly everything by Thomas Mann and in multiple language versions.
Sometimes, on the way over I would pick up a sandwich to share. I'd call him. The conversation would begin without introduction: "Bernstein's--pastrami or corned beef?" He replied "Pastrami, and don't forget the Dr. Brown Cherry soda."
It's impossible to describe the scope and the depth of his scholarship and knowledge. Except to point to his books. It's difficult to explain the range of our discussions--from the sublime to the most ordinary. He took joy in both.
"They don’t turn up in a rock shop and speak to you, sending your thoughts down unexpected paths that then collide with other thoughts you’re having to set off explosions of meaning in your mind."
And indeed that's what your essays do so very well. Inspiring!
My friend Will once told me that rocks with holes in them contain magic, which delighted me so much that he had to confess right away that Terry Pratchett was the author who had come up with this idea. A few years later I read that the Inuits have a legend that a warrior struck one of those gemstones with a spear and the brilliance of Aurora Borealis was released from the rock into the sky. Indeed, when you hold Labradorite in your hand and tilt it one way and then the other it's as if you're looking deep in the universe, right there in the palm of your hand. I suspect we humans have been looking for magic in stones and anywhere at all for as long as we've existed.
I wish I could share your writing with Will, he would have loved this as much as I do.
Have you been to any of those strange abandoned mining towns, like Coolidge? A couple of summers ago I stumbled onto it and it really was an unsettling place, for me anyway.
Your words have crossed time and space to find me standing in a vaccination queue in a mall in East London (which somehow feels sort of perfect). I love how this piece blends magic and transcendence as part of the everyday. Just beautiful. It made me nostalgic for a way of being that feels it might be slipping away somewhat.
That is such a great point. It’s through stumbling into things that we discover meaning and make connections in our minds, not through doing what the algorithm tells us to do.
Isn’t it interesting, the movies on Netflix etc that I’m told I will like, are usually not the ones I want to watch (hopefully this means I’m not someone who just follows orders...). This actually gives me hope, however ‘intelligent’ AI gets, maybe our minds are so complex and intricate that machines will never be able to entirely work us out, there will always be something unknowable about us. Or am I being delusional?
I’ve always wondered about how hypnosis works, and I’m quite stunned by the answer you provide. It also sheds light to me on how my country, Britain, so quickly went from a place that I thought valued freedom to one that’s seemingly happy to accept such draconian authority. What’s been shocking to me is how every billboard and digital screen on the underground and at bust stops etc suddenly shifted from selling products to enforcing rules, control and fear. The whole thing has felt like a form of 'hypnosis'.
The Enlightenment side of modernity doesn’t leave a lot of space for the serendipity of wonder—one has a project or a hypothesis to begin w, and looks for practical or epistemological completion. Wonder means an openness to the new that defies our current categories of understanding, an awe that mortifies the intellect, but w exhilaration. This is why, classically, wonder was understood as the beginning of both philosophy and poetry.
Printed books just keep getting more and more precious these days. Your writing brings me back to that. And how rocks can charm with their own unweildy weight. We need to be reminded of those things that are both common and rare in their specificity. Like the marginalia found in a used book or a postcard stuck between the pages.
It has occurred to me recently one of the basic facts of human existence is social dominance. In people it's mostly an inborn characteristic- if you drop ten people off on a desert island, after some time one will be in charge- not the smartest, or the kindest or most moral, just the most socially dominant. A lot of social dominance manifests as entertainment, which is mostly voluntary- the audience agrees to be fooled, or amused, or moved. But having surrendered control, the entertainer can then command in other ways. Humans are social animals and need leaders, and yet bad people can use this in ways that are very bad for humans.
This is really fascinating! Did you ever go back to see what else was left behind by Busby? I just bought a second hand copy of the Braue Notebooks. I was aware of some of the details of Jeff Busby's decline, but most of what I know dates from about a decade ago, and so I've been digging around to see if any other details have surfaced about the provenance of the material in the notebooks.
One thing you might find interesting is that magicians by and large are obsessed with the provenance of sleights, effects and ideas. Some have suggested that Jeff Busby edited the source material from the original Braue notebooks to change who received credit for certain entries, but the details have never been made public. It is unclear if Busby had a particular agenda or if he simply updated them based on his knowledge of magic, which, despite all the other controversies, most seem to agree was extensive.
Wow - small world. I knew Jeff long ago and had been in sporadic contact via letters from 1980 through his passing. His premiere collection of material was sold at auction, but curious about what remained in Idaho.
What a great find. Yup, Jeff Busby was well-known in the magic world for his questionable ethics. He produced a lot of material with a lot of well-known (in the magic world) magicians but his reputation was pretty much shredded by the time he passed on.
I had not previously heard of the book "Linking Ring" but I note the subject of the biography W. W. Durbin was the first elected president of the International Brotherhood of Magicians and was the editor of their house organ, The Linking Ring.
I miss used bookstores, so I've been going through my own collection, including one I found called Spirit Guide Contact Through Hypnosis by Dr. Bruce Goldberg. I'm almost afraid to dip into it.
One note: you have the notebooks spelled two different ways. I think "Breuer" at the end of the (excellent) piece is not correct. Now, off to read Witness from Beyond, chosen almost randomly from my bookshelves. Thanks, Walt!
You had my ideal reaction to the piece. You got it. And you divined what I was really getting at. I’m so glad you’re here
How our books say who we are:
Two summers ago, I packed up the library of a famous man. He was my wife's client, and I performed the task for two reasons. First as a favor to my wife since I had nothing else to do that July; second to spend hours in the man's company. Composer, conductor, musician. Classical, popular, and jazz. Winner of Oscars and Emmys. He spoke five languages. He was fascinating, congenial company. He told wonderful stories about hosts of famous people. I shall not repeat them. Although I knew him only a short time, I consider him a friend, and he said the same of me.
As I cataloged and packed in boxes more than 2,000 volumes, I saw the man reflected in the books. He loved art. Hundreds of large, glossy art coffee table books. From Bruegel to Van Eyck, High Renaissance, Impressionism, Late modern. Heinrich Wolfflin's History of Art in German: Handwritten notations in English and French. Volumes on music and musicology: in German, French and Italian.
American authors: first editions of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Anderson, Faulkner, O'Hara, Markam. Some bore inscriptions or dedications from the author. Comic books side by side with Thomas H. Johnson's edited letters of Emily Dickinson. Nearly everything by Thomas Mann and in multiple language versions.
Sometimes, on the way over I would pick up a sandwich to share. I'd call him. The conversation would begin without introduction: "Bernstein's--pastrami or corned beef?" He replied "Pastrami, and don't forget the Dr. Brown Cherry soda."
It's impossible to describe the scope and the depth of his scholarship and knowledge. Except to point to his books. It's difficult to explain the range of our discussions--from the sublime to the most ordinary. He took joy in both.
"They don’t turn up in a rock shop and speak to you, sending your thoughts down unexpected paths that then collide with other thoughts you’re having to set off explosions of meaning in your mind."
And indeed that's what your essays do so very well. Inspiring!
My friend Will once told me that rocks with holes in them contain magic, which delighted me so much that he had to confess right away that Terry Pratchett was the author who had come up with this idea. A few years later I read that the Inuits have a legend that a warrior struck one of those gemstones with a spear and the brilliance of Aurora Borealis was released from the rock into the sky. Indeed, when you hold Labradorite in your hand and tilt it one way and then the other it's as if you're looking deep in the universe, right there in the palm of your hand. I suspect we humans have been looking for magic in stones and anywhere at all for as long as we've existed.
I wish I could share your writing with Will, he would have loved this as much as I do.
Have you been to any of those strange abandoned mining towns, like Coolidge? A couple of summers ago I stumbled onto it and it really was an unsettling place, for me anyway.
Your words have crossed time and space to find me standing in a vaccination queue in a mall in East London (which somehow feels sort of perfect). I love how this piece blends magic and transcendence as part of the everyday. Just beautiful. It made me nostalgic for a way of being that feels it might be slipping away somewhat.
That is such a great point. It’s through stumbling into things that we discover meaning and make connections in our minds, not through doing what the algorithm tells us to do.
Isn’t it interesting, the movies on Netflix etc that I’m told I will like, are usually not the ones I want to watch (hopefully this means I’m not someone who just follows orders...). This actually gives me hope, however ‘intelligent’ AI gets, maybe our minds are so complex and intricate that machines will never be able to entirely work us out, there will always be something unknowable about us. Or am I being delusional?
I’ve always wondered about how hypnosis works, and I’m quite stunned by the answer you provide. It also sheds light to me on how my country, Britain, so quickly went from a place that I thought valued freedom to one that’s seemingly happy to accept such draconian authority. What’s been shocking to me is how every billboard and digital screen on the underground and at bust stops etc suddenly shifted from selling products to enforcing rules, control and fear. The whole thing has felt like a form of 'hypnosis'.
The Enlightenment side of modernity doesn’t leave a lot of space for the serendipity of wonder—one has a project or a hypothesis to begin w, and looks for practical or epistemological completion. Wonder means an openness to the new that defies our current categories of understanding, an awe that mortifies the intellect, but w exhilaration. This is why, classically, wonder was understood as the beginning of both philosophy and poetry.
Printed books just keep getting more and more precious these days. Your writing brings me back to that. And how rocks can charm with their own unweildy weight. We need to be reminded of those things that are both common and rare in their specificity. Like the marginalia found in a used book or a postcard stuck between the pages.
It has occurred to me recently one of the basic facts of human existence is social dominance. In people it's mostly an inborn characteristic- if you drop ten people off on a desert island, after some time one will be in charge- not the smartest, or the kindest or most moral, just the most socially dominant. A lot of social dominance manifests as entertainment, which is mostly voluntary- the audience agrees to be fooled, or amused, or moved. But having surrendered control, the entertainer can then command in other ways. Humans are social animals and need leaders, and yet bad people can use this in ways that are very bad for humans.
Another great piece—my favorite so far of your new substack series
This is really fascinating! Did you ever go back to see what else was left behind by Busby? I just bought a second hand copy of the Braue Notebooks. I was aware of some of the details of Jeff Busby's decline, but most of what I know dates from about a decade ago, and so I've been digging around to see if any other details have surfaced about the provenance of the material in the notebooks.
One thing you might find interesting is that magicians by and large are obsessed with the provenance of sleights, effects and ideas. Some have suggested that Jeff Busby edited the source material from the original Braue notebooks to change who received credit for certain entries, but the details have never been made public. It is unclear if Busby had a particular agenda or if he simply updated them based on his knowledge of magic, which, despite all the other controversies, most seem to agree was extensive.
The beauty of this experience its pure randomness. Well done.
Wow - small world. I knew Jeff long ago and had been in sporadic contact via letters from 1980 through his passing. His premiere collection of material was sold at auction, but curious about what remained in Idaho.
What a great find. Yup, Jeff Busby was well-known in the magic world for his questionable ethics. He produced a lot of material with a lot of well-known (in the magic world) magicians but his reputation was pretty much shredded by the time he passed on.
I had not previously heard of the book "Linking Ring" but I note the subject of the biography W. W. Durbin was the first elected president of the International Brotherhood of Magicians and was the editor of their house organ, The Linking Ring.
https://geniimagazine.com/wiki/index.php?title=W._W._Durbin
Thank you for taking me on this adventure with you. Fascinating story on Busby. Wow!
This made for a wonderful, contemplative read. You truly are a real life maverick with your nouns!
I miss used bookstores, so I've been going through my own collection, including one I found called Spirit Guide Contact Through Hypnosis by Dr. Bruce Goldberg. I'm almost afraid to dip into it.
One note: you have the notebooks spelled two different ways. I think "Breuer" at the end of the (excellent) piece is not correct. Now, off to read Witness from Beyond, chosen almost randomly from my bookshelves. Thanks, Walt!