What comes to mind when you hear the word “magic?”  White rabbits being pulled from top hats?  Card tricks? Voodoo?  The FBI? Wait! The FBI is magic?  After the first American Culture Program Voices I class if you asked one of the AMCP students what comes to mind when they think magic, you may have gotten surprising responses.  The program’s first Voice of the year was local artist, musician, and magician, Hiawatha Johnson.  After this first class, the Program students began considering a broader view and definition of magic in our world.   

Students and Professors gathered in the Ribble lounge on January 18^th for what proved to be a very exciting and inspiring evening of entertainment and conversation.  “Magic” is a real passion for Hiawatha, who has been studying magic since childhood.  He told us that he first became interested in magic around age 4 when his brother came home from school and performed a simple disappearing coin trick.  It messed with his mind.  He had to know the secret! 

“Magic,” Hiawatha explained, “is a way of life” for him.  He asked how many of us had ever looked over the syllabus for a class at the start of a semester and wondered how we would ever prevail?  Yet, at the end of the semester, the course was completed and we had somehow survived.  For Hiawatha, the accomplishment of the seemingly impossible and the overcoming of obstacles can be viewed as magic. 

Much of the evening he spent discussing the culture surrounding magicians.  This is an international society of magicians who are serious scholars of their art and craft.  There are National Conventions where magicians can share secrets, new tricks, and compete against one another.  Hiawatha told us that the best way to learn new tricks is from the source, but reading is the next best way.  Sometimes learning from a video can limit a magician because it only lets you see one way of performing the trick.  If one learns by reading, then the magician can experiment with the trick and come up with different or more creative ways of performing the same trick.  Hiawatha considers himself to be “close-up” magician, which means he must be close up enough to perform anywhere, using anything.  We could tell by the enthusiasm that radiated from him that the challenge of figuring out how to complete a magical task excited him.  It was contagious.

 So what about that FBI reference?  Hiawatha informed us that some of the greatest magicians in the world are employed with the CIA, FBI, the military, and politicians.  Many of our new technologies were developed by magicians who had to come up with creative ways to complete a task for these agencies, institutions, and individuals.  Who do you think invented camouflage?  A magician, of course!  The government never releases the newest technology to the general public.  Hiawatha told us about the satellites they have today that can read license plates off cars at football stadiums and concerts and invited us to speculate of what they were really capable. The magic of technology messes with his mind, and he had it messing with ours as we listened.

 However, the most awe-inspiring magic that Hiawatha said he witnesses are things like the daily rising of the sun, regardless of what man does to screw it up.  Has the magic been lost?  According to Hiawatha, “Absolutely not!”  As an artist, Hiawatha sees things through an artist’s eye.  He has a different view than most people in American culture today.  He can see magic happening in the simplest forms, in nature, science, and technology.  Are we growing desensitized from over stimulation or lack of purpose?  Or are Americans just content with an explanation?  Perhaps Americans are so used to breakthroughs and miracles happening daily that we come to expect them as the norm.  We forget that the actual happenings are magic.         

Hiawatha has a way of recharging the human spirit through magic, literally, it is magic.  The art of magic is curious, it messes with our minds, but it connects us.  The explanation of things should not take away the majesty of nature, science, and technology.  In a world where human connections are becoming increasingly unusual due to technology, Hiawatha’s magic serves to reconnect people through emotions.  

Even without the tricks, Hiawatha could convince just about anyone that magic exists today.  Most importantly though, he showed us how to see it.  Degas said, “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”  We learned from Hiawatha that he not only sees magic in his everyday life, he makes magic happen for others. 

Article written by American Culture intern, Mary Ann Richardson '05