What Meaning Goes In, What Gets Left Behind

"By describing myself as a magician—by accepting the word and being unashamed of it—and by demonstrating in my performances that magic means so much more to me than empty spectacle or trivial entertainment, I hope to convince non-magicians that magic is worthy not only of their ticket money but of their respect. I may not be able to control how other people pack the baggage of magic, but in my shows I have the opportunity to choose what meaning goes in and what gets left behind."
—David Parr, "The Magic Word: Acceptance," Magic, Sept. 2006
(via Gordon Meyer)

A Magic Word Square

A magic word square by SUPERURBAN.

The Magic Word "Turning"

Dylan Thomas' "Poem in October" ends with a magic word:

O may my heart’s truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year’s turning.

William York Tindall explains: "'Turning,' the great word of transformation and time, is, as it should be, last. Time's magic has evoked the timelessness of art" (A Reader's Guide to Dylan Thomas, 1996).

Tiki

"In the beginning was the word, and the word was: 'TIK'! - at least according to renowned language archaeologist and linguist Merrit Ruhlen of Palo Alto, California. He traced the origin of all human language back to this magic three letter word. . ." - Sven A. Kirsten, The Book of Tiki

The Real Secret of Magic

"The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words."
—Ferdinando Buscema

The Innermost Alchemy of the Word

"With these sound poems we should renounce language, devastated and made impossible by journalism. We should withdraw into the innermost alchemy of the word, and even surrender the word, thus conserving for poetry its most sacred domain. We should refuse to make poems second-hand; we should stop taking over words (not to mention sentences) which we did not invent entirely anew for our own use. We should no longer be content to achieve poetic effects which, in the final analysis, are but echoes of inspiration." —Hugo Ball (via Social Fiction)

Home

“[T]hough home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.” —Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, Vol. 2 (1899)