![]() ![]() Stone becomes more seriously involved in magic while pursuing a PhD in physics at Columbia he is intent on discovering the scientific principles that underlie almost every magic trick he learns. Like physics, magic is all about nerds playing god with the universe.”īut this isn’t a book about smoke and mirrors. Magicians hide in the spotlight, much in the way that photographers often mediate their social experiences from behind a lens and comedians hide behind jokes. With magic tricks, you can seem extroverted and outgoing while still maintaining a safe social distance. Magic, let’s face it, is a pastime for misfits, an outlet for outcasts with low self-esteem. ![]() “For me, discovering the world of magic was like finding my own island of misfit friends, a place where everyone was special in the wrong way. In reality, he winds up spending the bulk of his youth with “pasty male virgins.” Partly it’s because he is so candid about what attracts him to magic as a youngster in the first place: hoping it will help him navigate awkward social situations and meet pretty girls. Stone’s memoir about his lifelong fascination with magic is transporting almost from the opening page. But that’s what may well happen when you finish reading Fooling Houdini: Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks, and the Hidden Powers of the Mind, by Alex Stone ’11GSAS. It’s not every day that a book makes you levitate from your chair and travel halfway across town to see if an ordinary pizzeria is as extraordinary a place as your entranced brain imagines it to be. ![]() ![]() A magician practices levitation in Lake Michigan during the summer of 1955 (AP / Corbis) ![]()
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