Thinking about magic again today, and my owl photograph. Copying Reuben, I started a photoblog yesterday, which allows me to upload one picture a day. I decided to call it everyday magic, on the premise that we are surrounded by magic and I would use photographs to evidence that. Told the Gnome about it and he rather annoyingly said that magic was too broad a brief. And what was magic anyway?

This of course made me try to define it -- not satisfactorily so far. But when something strikes me as magical it is often about strange juxtapositions. Like the painted owl on the bricks, or the twenty santas I saw walking out from Brighton station last December. But I want it to be more than that. I want deep magic too; a childishness. In philosophical terms it is about feeling astonished about being in the world.

Thinking of magic I stepped from the train in front of Reuben. Magic is unexpected and surreal, like the pigeon that flew out at me tonight from the tube train at head height.

A contrast today from the sunset over the river views of yesterday. An ugly view over train tracks at Paddington. But we were taken out for a business lunch/briefing, and walked back from the restaurant in a short hailstorm.

Comments

Kate said…
So if I started a fotoblog too, would that be magic? Or annoying?
Peter Kenny said…
No. I think that magic is to do with the unexpected
Kate said…
I think magic is not so much unexpected, as unexplainable. In it's simplest forms, a magician only seems to be capable of magic when we can't understand how they are doing what they are doing. Once this has been explained, the illusion is shattered. It's also highly subjective - what's magic to one person may be completely mundane to someone else. Interesting topic.