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So, James Randi passed away today. It& #39;s hard to feel too choked up because dammit, the man made it to 92 and spent 3/4 of a century becoming one of the greatest magicians in history, and perhaps the greatest skeptic ever. I met him once:
This was at the last The Amazing Meeting, which was a small but important yearly convention organized around Randi. My sense is it was a bit of a shadow of what it& #39;d once been, which was perhaps how I got invited to keynote!
Randi was mostly behind the scenes. But, as a keynote, I got invited to a small dinner for speakers and people who& #39;d donated a lot of money to make the show happen. My dominant recollection is that it was a room with, may I say, a number of blowhards.
I distinctly remember one guy ranting about how liberal arts degrees are pointless - people should be in STEM fields! Which was odd because here I am, with an English degree. Here& #39;s Randi, with NO degree, having spent a career telling jokes and disappearing cards!
In any case, he took a moment to chat with me, and I& #39;m sure I& #39;m just flattering myself here, but I felt there was perhaps a brief moment of kinship - we were the only two people in the room that had given everything to entertainment and a queer brand of intellectualism.
We had a nice conversation, though nothing particularly deep. I remember at one point, he did a disappearing spoon trick for everyone. It was so perfect and effortless that it hit me instantly as sad, in a way that& #39;s hard to convey.
Like, he did the trick because as The Amazing Randi, he had to do a little trick. Pure skill, no panache. The way a real wizard would feel about conjuring a glass of water.
The one other memory I have is just how small and frail he seemed. He was a very short man and small-framed. Also, by then he had a bit of a stoop. Despite, or because, of this there was still an air of mystery, between the skull-topped cane and devilish eyebrows.
Anyway, I remember very little about that trip, but that one trick with the spoon is still lodged in my brain. I suspect I& #39;ll remember it a long time.
Randi was a type we need more than ever - someone who understands bullshit on a deep level, and is willing to fight it.
Randi was a type we need more than ever - someone who understands bullshit on a deep level, and is willing to fight it.
