HOUDINI AND THE HARP

"Oh, you're a musician," at least one spectator would always say when watching us produce lit cigarettes from thin air. It seemed offensive back then: it reminded us of the girlfriend we dumped because she couldn't spell.

But now, we realize reality is an 11-dimensional sphere with us at the center, and each dimension has a door we can open and enter at will. So we're a lot more tolerant. 

And we encounter musicians who play like magicians.

Indeed, magicians and musicians are very much the same kind of animal, one that loves fingers and rhythm. One of the most profound things ever said to us came from Zakir Hussein, the great Indian tabla player. We had just shown him our cups and balls routine and he sat there mesmerized. 

"Tell me," he said thoughtfully. "What is the rhythmic structure of magic?"

His question has occupied us for more than forty years. The answer was first whispered to us by Yo Yo Ma, who showed us how to breathe through a cello. And here the question is brilliantly handled by harmonica magician Walter Horton, who says, most deceptively, that it's all in the hands.

The hand is quicker than the ear.

(Thanks to Sally Schneider at Improvised Life.)