Art and Magic Preface
Todd Karr
-
- Sam Sharpe handed me an envelope full of typewritten pages.
I was visiting him in his seaside hometown of Bridlington, East Yorkshire, north of Hull, two trainrides from London into the English countryside. After sharing tea in his backyard that day in 1987, I walked down to the beach from my bed and breakfast to sit upon the sand near the waves. I had a feeling that the envelope contained something extraordinary. I had waited three years to see what was inside.
The pages were sections of a collection of Sam’s visionary musings on magic entitled A Thousand Thoughts on Art and Magic. Years before, after publishing his inspired booklet Words on Wonder, I had asked Sam if he had any other similar unpublished material. On May 4, 1984 he wrote to me: “Over the years, I have recorded A Thousand Thoughts on Art and Magic, to which I turn from time to time for inspiration. I should judge that they might do the same for you, but they have not been typed out.”
Sifting through fifty years of his notebooks, Sam had assembled some of his most interesting thoughts about art, magic, and life; as you will see in the section “Through Magic-Coloured Spectacles,” he also selected passages from some of his published writings. All this material was then typed up by a secretarial service in Bridlington (“I think they did very well to decipher some of my scribble!” he wrote me).
Sam had also referred to these writings in his book Devant’s Delightful Delusions (1990):
"The study of artistry led to my delving into many byways and eventually resulted in the publication of Neo-Magic, in which my thoughts on fine art in general, and in relation to conjuring and magic in particular, were condensed. These “Thoughts on Art and Magic” were continued in Good Conjuring, Conjured Up, Great Magic, and in hundreds of unpublished “thoughts” which have since accumulated in my notebooks."
I was amazed by the profound thoughts Sam had collected, and we quickly agreed that I would publish the book. After a year went by due to other priorities, I called Sam – who was nearly ninety and in frail health – to reassure him that the book would definitely be published one day.
In 1992, my friend Vito Lupo and I decided to collaborate on A Thousand Thoughts and co-publish it. I let Sam know our intent, and he was delighted to hear his work was in the hands of two of his young American friends. A few months later, Sam died just before his ninetieth birthday.....
The abbreviated title of this book — Art and Magic — reflects our decision to expand A Thousand Thoughts into a more extensive collection of Sam’s writings, including a number of related pieces that the average reader might have difficulty locating: the brief but inspiring Words on Wonder (here published with his own revisions, which Sam had sent me years ago) and his Magic Circular series “Through Magic-Coloured Spectacles” (subtitled “A Sequel to Neo-Magic”), which both Doug Henning and Juan Tamariz have cited as an influence on their magical thinking....
As I completed this essay, I read through my file of dogeared letters from Sam. On June 17, 1984, around the time of the release of Words on Wonder, he wrote me:
"It is very refreshing to me to find such enthusiasm. My work is generally met with blank apathy. Maybe a new generation of conjurers is waking up to the realization that it is time they developed a more imaginative approach to their subject, having woken up to the fact that demonstrating tricks is only on the periphery of magic.
"When I was your age, I was an 'angry young man,' searching for a conjurer who satisfied my ideal. Not being able to find one, I set about trying to reason out why that should be. I am now an angry old man — and still searching! "Young men see visions, and old men dream dreams. But my dreams are similar to my previous visions, which seem to be only yesterday!"I will leave you with another of Sam’s thoughts — making a thousand and one. On March 8, 1991, he wrote to me:
"I have been meditating. Keep up your quest of awakening Destine, the Sleeping Beauty of Poetic Illusion, daughter of Magus, who is destined to become Queen of the Arts."
— From Todd Karr's preface to Art and Magic
- Sam Sharpe handed me an envelope full of typewritten pages.