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THE EPILOGUE: IT'S A KIND OF MAGIC
Yes, I am a big Queen fan! It was the first CD I ever owned! It got played with great frequency and my little gang were all fans of The Highlander movie. As we sit here on the precipice of the ai revolution it is important to remember that magic cannot be defined and dissected, and people have been trying to do so for years. George Lucas writes a long and nonsensical script about space samurais and then it got shaped, tightened, re-written and eventually turned into the culture changing phenomenon it became. Que a zillion knock offs but no one was able to capture the genre blending adventure again, not even ole George himself! Even if for reasons no one can explain you enjoy The Phantom Menace its impact was about zero in comparison unless you count the creation of a giant swath of internet trolls. The point is you can put a room full of monkeys on top of typewriters, but they will not create The Big Lebowski! You can get out microscopes, and "experts" but no one actually knows how it all actually works.
I think the magic comes from a driven and passionate artist who has already left convention to follow their instincts. Jimi Hendrix taught himself to play guitar and played it backwards because he was left-handed and that's part of where his sound came from. Now if you pick up a guitar and play it backwards you are NOT going to sound like Jimi Hendrix. Albert Einstein instead of following in the footsteps of where the current science was went backwards and turned left. You can read great works of literature and buy Ernest Hemingway's old house and know the rules of grammar inside and out and then write a technically proficient and totally dull work of fiction. There are so many distilleries out there and the science of booze has been pretty well worked out. Now there are a lot of different approaches you can take in terms of stills, location, water source, rickhouse shape and thousands of others! Each one has an impact and the combination of them all is where magic happens. Makers Mark spends more time aging its oak before using the barrels, Woodford Reserve uses a Pot Still, Four Roses has a one story rickhouse, Wilderness Trail uses sweet mash, Larceny is a wheated bourbon, and every distiller feels very strongly about the why and the how. Once you get into the generic 80 proof stuff you know there is ZERO magic. Those are decisions made on dollars and not sense. The one thing I do know about magic is that it cannot be found in a room full of executives, unless you count lots of years of education equaling zero results as magic?
I was talking to my friend Melissa yesterday, she was just on the TV, in Austin, TX yesterday singing her single "Waiting for you" and I watched it on my phone with pride and glee! Later on she sent me a funny meme about how the world is not full of jerkfaces but somehow you manage to run into at least one daily! My response was that I had in fact encountered no less than five that very day but that it didn't matter because I got to watch my friend perform on live TV and that was way more magical than any number of jerkfaces trying to steal my joy! I hope that you have someone or even someone's in your life that can light you up like that. I'm totally spoiled with several of those people in my life! You could try to explain what they do, how they do it, but it would be no use. I have written long and detailed letters trying to explain to some of my magical people exactly how and why they are, and I do not believe I've been successful. If you give them a specific example, they just think that is totally normal, if you try to explain it is that their laugh is so light and full of life or they have soft and kind eyes, or that their energy is of an uplifting nature that all sounds like nonsense to the person. Robin Williams made a room full of people laugh until they cried and when he left someone stopped him and said, "you just made these people laugh so hard" and his response was "but why do I feel so empty?". Robin WIllams was the very definition of a magical person. He was so magical that even Dana Carvey impersonating him is magical!
You can fill up chatgpt with all of the literature ever written and it will not come up with "the knack to flying is to throw yourself at the ground and miss" (thanks Douglas Adams). You can read a recipe and follow it exactly and the food will not turn out because there was no magic. You can repeat a joke but leave out the context and timing and it will fall flat. If everything was in fact both learnable and repeatable I don't think the world would be a better place. We need inspired folks who push envelopes, reinvent wheels, and care deeply about what they are doing. Folks that bring their magic to whatever it is they are doing. These are people who despite being constantly told that they are wrong, making it much harder than it needs to be, should just follow the rules, that they are weirdoes, are doing too much etc, just can't help themselves. Cut their brains open and no neuroscientist can find that place in their hippocampus. They do social experiments about conformity and the vast majority of subjects fall into line but there are some that do not.
Not different to be different. Not driving the wrong way down the road because they can't be bothered by laws or violating as many social norms as possible. The magic comes because they are seeing something that other folks that can't see! They didn't stare into the void and think, "right no one has ever done this before, have they!" They just obsessively followed their own path, and it led them to something. Something that might have clicked instantly or only been recognized as magic much later on. While I have never been an Andy Kaufman fan, I am impressed that he just created his own little universe and insisted upon it! He had an impact and still does today. Bjork hit the stage and lots of folks must have been like what is going on? You can take a watch apart and learn how it operates. You can't figure out how to make a "stylish" one. We know that people like Cabernet grapes from Napa, and you can spend millions of dollars and end up with a pile of oaky crap while your neighbor has subtle and restrained wine.
Personally, it is observing the magic and even getting to partake in it that moves me. A grey world brings me no joy. A restaurant menu that looks like it was cut and pasted makes me want to become an arsonist. A liquor store that looks like it was built by sales reps makes me equal parts sad and angry. A song that is indistinguishable from five other artists. A movie that you know every part from the trailer. No risks, no magic, no soul, and then you get no Keith! When I tried that Amparo rum I snapped into life! I was like "this is what I'm talking about!" You don't make a rum like that without magic. Those guys could have made a clean and simple rum if they wanted. You make something with magic and character because you have a dream and tried your best to fulfil it. It could be big or small and the magic could be tucked away or visible from outer space! There aren't really any rules to Magic! If you feel swept up, astonished, delighted, in a state of happy disbelief that's magic for you. The beauty of it, is that is NOT a quantifiable property and other people don't get to decide what is magic to you or for you! They in fact, can't! When I had some peated whiskey with a dulce la leche croissant from Vicente last week the clash of the sweet and the peat was magic for me! Other people would think I was crazy or that was gross or both. The great news is that they truly can't erase the magic for you. Enjoy it.
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