You Have To Learn Certain Skills To

You Lose Your Sense Of Wonder The More You Learn, Right? When You Go To Film School And Learn About Moviemaking, You Go To See Movies And Then Only See Where The Lights Are, Where The Cuts Are, Watching It From A Technical Basis, Nodding Your Head, "oh, That Was Good." The Feeling Of Surprise, The Feeling Of Being Transported Is Further Away.

I'm A Magician, Not A Singer.

I Wrote An Op-ed Piece In The New York Times About The Amazing Effect Of Shared Wonder - How I Have An Audience Filled With People Who You'd Think Would Hate Each Other, People From Every Religious Category, All At The Same Show At The Same Time. And It's An Amazing Phenomenon To Watch This Shared Sense Of Wonder, Where These People Who Really Don't Like Each Other - For Good And Bad Reasons, Reasons That Make Sense And That Don't Make Sense - Are In The Same Room, Experiencing This Unification.

I Was 16 At The Time, And I Came Backstage And Started Hanging Out With Them. I Said, "well, Maybe You Can 'vanish' The Silk This Way." The Opening Was A Black Stage While The "magic To Do" Song Started Playing. All You Saw Were Hands, Lit By Jules Fisher, And Then Ben Vereen Would Appear Beyond The Hands, And At The End Of The Scene He Would Vanish A Silk. The Spotlight Would Hit A Red Spot On The Floor Where You'd See The Silk On The Floor. He'd Pull The Silk Out Of The Floor And It Became The Entire Set Coming Out Of The Floor.

All Of The [bob] Fosse-esque Movements And Point Of View Informed Years And Years Of What I Would Do.