The headline to this post took about seven hours to work, market-test, evaluate, re-focus, right-size and streamline.  Assuming, arguendo, we are paid $700.00 per hour for our legal work, the article has cost close to $5,600.00 already.  (Yes, we know seven hours times $700.00 per hour is $4,900.00 but we tend to round up in our billing so we can afford to attend fine conventions and kill nearly eight hours (practically eight hours) writing just the headline).

And that really is the point of this post and the convention.  Lots of preparation to make things look incredibly normal.  Sitting here in the little alcove off the wonderfully appointed main lobby at the Dallas Sheraton, we have a prime seat (or so we have been told by sailors the world ’round) for the comings and goings of our magic brethren and cistern as they prepare to perform mysterious things in a manner so well-rehearsed that it looks normal, ordinary.

In a few hours, these common looking folk with be adorned in fine clothes packed with loads of animal, vegetable and silk that would be sufficient to inhibit the range of movement of even a ballet star and yet move smoothly through routines so well-rehearsed that they look spontaneous and fresh.

We think it was Harry Houdini who once observed that “99 percent of magic is normal but the trick is to make it look 100 percent.”

This has been a trying year for the economy, for families, for the world.  The acts planned and readied for this week will not be witnessed by even a slim fraction of the world and yet the positive energy released after years of rehearsal and refinement will have a demonstrable, real effect.  Not merely a psychic or ethereal augmentation of the human spirit that cannot be measured by “non-believers” but a concrete uplifting of attendees spirit, aspirations, and intentions.

The bonds formed and re-affirmed here may or may not hold longer than the convention’s duration,  but the experience will surely lower the guard of participants; allowing them to be more aware and open to forming such friendships in the future.  Young people will learn, more experienced will teach, and the dynamic shift that effortlessly propels our art through history intensifies.

This is a special place at a special time.

You can check out the IBM official coverage here:http://www.magician.org/

Follow the official IBM Twitter Feed at www.twitter.com/ibmconvention.

And read the Inside Magic Unofficial Twitter Coverage by following @insidemagic or checking out the unofficial convention hash tag #IBM_Magic