towards a year of magic

reflections on 2024, repair month and my favorite new phone game

Hi everyone,

Hoping your start to 2025 has been exactly what you need. A few quickie notes: I’m quite proud of my latest for New York Times Magazine, about a fallen colleague, and I was thrilled to be hosted on The Stacks, talking about my childhood obsession with inappropriate books.

🌞

I like to spend the first few weeks (sometimes even months) of a new year reflecting on the last year, as a way to take the pressure off making resolutions, or intentions, or feeling panicked about “wrapping things up.” It’s a way to remind myself that linearity is not the defining order of my life and value system.

One of the ways I reflect is by scrolling through the photos on my phone. Most of the photos I take I never share - they’re mostly to buttress my memory and help me remember what I did, what I saw, who I spent time with, and the moments that stood out to me the most. And as I was going through the year, I realized that 2024 was bookended by unexpected magic shows.

At the top of the year, I was invited to a dinner party in Harlem where, over dessert, David Kwong, magician and mentalist, dazzled a room full of nearly sixty people with a series of tricks. The room lost it when he cut open a kiwi, revealing a dollar bill decorated with a drawing made by a person (it was Wesley, in fact) who happened to be sitting on the opposite side of the room. Even thinking about it now gives me chills. It was incredible — David is one of the greats. I toured with him for PopUp Magazine back in 2015 and he is absolutely phenomenal.

Then, a few months ago, I was at an intimate dinner to celebrate Dr. Ayana Johnson’s exuberant new book, where the magician Nicole Cardoza performed a series of magic tricks using cards and coins. Nicole told us the story of Ellen E. Armstrong, a young Black illusionist in the 1940s who toured the country entertaining Black audiences. She even appeared in an issue of Ebony magazine, in a spread on magicians. Her stage magic was a balm and a way to help her awe-struck audiences become a little more familiar with the impossible. Nicole herself described magic as a practice of possibilities. Sometimes we can only believe as far as we see, or as Hanif notes in “A Little Devil in America,” what the world has allowed us to see.

Magic opens the mind, sometimes against our will. It is the practice of remembering reality can be bent and reckoning with the barriers that keep us from really understanding that. For me, the logic of reality is usually punctured in negative ways — usually by the news or the sanewashing of the news — and to experience it dissolving in response to exhilaration was transformative.

Buddhists talk about the discursive mind as the “monkey mind,” a mind that is constantly on, analyzing, worrying, busy with an internal monologue. Pema Chödrön wrote an essay in October about the importance of interrupting our usual thought patterns and habits — leaving a gap, she writes, is the most essential part of each day. She recommends meditation, but acknowledges that pausing works, too. Taking a breath, noticing the color of the sky, listening to the sounds of the birds, etc. “As soon as you do, you realize how big the sky is, how big your mind is,” she writes. “Allow yourself the space to connect with the sky and the ocean and the birds and the land and with the blessing of the sacred world. Give yourself the chance to come out of your cocoon.”

Magic offered a way to come out of the cocoon that I unconsciously weave around myself each day, with my own mind, which quieted in the face of pure amazement. I’m often doing it for safety and protection — to block out unnecessary noises and distractions — but closing myself down limits me, too, which inhibits the capacity that I have to comprehend the world, and dream into the future. Magic breaks the spell of the known world by casting another spell. It asks you to behold the impossible — and believe in it, at least for a few moments. One of Ellen’s tricks was called “Miser’s Dream” where she made coins appear out of thin air. They landed in a metal bucket with an audible thunk. In another, she drew cartoons that inexplicably morphed while she told stories. (For example, she’d draw a hat, turn it upside down, and then a rabbit would appear on the page.) She performed her act in segregated churches and schools during a time of Jim Crow and sundown towns. She showed people miraculous, inconceivable things, to help them remember the present could someday look very different from the past.

One of the most remarkable things about 2024 was that it held concentric bottoms, meaning, it kept getting worse. Many of us would’ve liked to make any number of things disappear at will. 2024 was a fight against numbing, dehumanization, desentization, and I’m not sure I always came out on top. That’s not likely to end any time soon. Our daily lives require recalibrating our capacity and tolerance for the impossible, but usually it doesn’t inspire awe. The impossible that we bear witness to invokes terror, grief, sadness, confusion. These material displays of magic reminded the audience — reminded me — that the incomprehensible is not always to be feared, but cherished.

Both nights of the magic shows, the rooms crackled with electricity and wonder. More than a few people squealed and screamed (including me). It can be absolutely astonishing to see something you can’t explain. Part of the delight, I think, was the relief that it was wonder breaking our brains, rather than despair and dismay at yet another illogical headline, another senseless death, incomprehensible catastrophe. The feeling lingered with me long after each dinner. It was easier to marvel at the wonder of being alive — someone holding a door, a series of green lights, perfect train timing, the irrepressible joy of bumping into someone you adore on the street.

These shows have been lingering with me as I prepare for the year(s) ahead. It helps me lean into pronoia, which is the opposite of paranoia. It is the belief that there is a great conspiracy working on my behalf, rather than trying to drag me (and all of humanity) down. Despite all evidence to the contrary, that there might be a benevolent force acting upon our lives, in the long run, for good. It’s a long shot, but that’s what magic is. It isn’t asking me to abandon all the righteous fights, but to remember that’s not all there is.

the juicy bits

No one knows what a journalist is anymore.

It’s Repair Month over at Shop Rat: Learn how to take better care of your material possessions rather than buy more.

Sight vs Seeing: Jomo Fray, the cinematographer for the stunning film “Nickel Boys” talks about the techniques they used to shift the axis of power to the subjects of the film, instead of the audience. They used telephoto lenses to allow the camera to convey drift and drop — similar to our eyes sweeping a field or lowering our heads. “We wanted to create an image that felt like seeing, which sounds like it’s the same thing, but I think that there’s a slight difference in trying to create the feeling of sight.”

“Anti-woke” venture capitalists:”A fascinating dive into a group called New Founding that announced plans to start a far-right, Christian commune in Kentucky and is now moving into investing, favoring companies with similarly conservative values. Early recipients include an ad-tech company for gun manufacturers, pro-life health insurance and a start-up that helps teachers start “micro-schools.” Marc Andreessen (of A16z) has apparently invested a small stake in their firm.

Insects are sentient, and feel pain, new research suggests.

Our Queen Doechii reviews Crumbl with her family

Food Guessr is a bare bones game where you — yep — guess the food item. All you get is a picture, ingredients and you have to try and figure out the country of origin. It’s so simple and satisfying and scratches a really specific itch.

The end of virality: TikTok’s metrics have made fame so accessible that 60 million views on a video is no long a life-changing accomplishment. Or at least, no longer a prime opportunity for capitalization. How this changes the future of social media, only time will tell.

“Stars and Stars:” I’ve been getting into this podcast from astrologer Isa Nakazawa where she interviews people through the cartography of their chart. The conversations are always revealing, vulnerable and wholly surprising.

Till next time! As always, thank you for being here.