So, James Randi passed away today. It'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'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'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'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'm sure I'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'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'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 hadn't been very public for many years, so if you're not familiar with him, check his wikipedia entry. It's astonishing this was all one life!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi#Magician