Magic Show or Spanish Inquisition

Tonight after work I went for a mani-pedi, especially because weeknights are better for a chance to hang out with my little friend C. She's at the nail salon with her mom after school.

We have our routine down now. She helps me pick out a nail polish color (she knows all of my favorites). Then she sits next to me while my feet are soaking in hot water, and she decides how she will "quiz" me, which is an extremely mild version of what I imagine the Spanish Inquisition might be like, except that my Inquisitor is a slender 8-year old girl wearing pink sweatpants and I, her captive, am just winding down from a long day of sitting in front of a computer and then coming home on the train. Usually our Inquisition starts with a spelling bee or she grabs a calculator to test my mathematics skills. You try doing long division or multiplication in your head while your hands are being worked on by a manicurist. It's not easy.

Tonight Little C. has a new addition in her quiz-meistering, a student's dictionary which is really more like a abbreviated almanac. She was dying to quiz me on the Periodic Table of Elements (little did she know that she wouldn't be able to stump me quite so easily because I loved chemistry) but before she got rolling, I made her look up what an atom was. Little C. didn't want to--she wanted to jump straight into the Inquisition (why am I never the quizzer? I guess it's the 8-year old's prerogative)--but I told her that if she didn't even know what an atom was, then there's no sense in talking about the Periodic Table of Elements. She reluctantly read the description of an atom aloud ("the smallest component of an element having the chemical properties of the element") before slamming me with two-lettered abbreviations (she got me on Fermium).

But then where the hell did these other elements come from: Ununtrium? Ununquadium? I thought Little C. was playing with me, but wouldn't you know it, there's a whole slew of elements that came out of hiding after I graduated college. It's hard to keep up, you know.

***

I was waiting for her to pull out her magic trick, but alas, no magic show tonight. The last time Little C. and I were together, I took her to the new science museum at Golden Gate Park. I think she liked the museum just fine, liked using my camera even more, and really liked the gift shop. But then I took her to the magic store down the street, Misdirections. I bought her one of those cheap plastic coin-hiding things. You probably had one when you were a kid. You pull out the tray and put a quarter in the hole. Then you slide it inside the case and there's some sort of lever that pushes a thingy-ma-bob and it hides the coin.

Little C. was very perfunctory with her magic trick, as she is with her Spanish Inquisition-style quizzing. She just kept hiding and unhiding the coin over and over again. It did not make for a very exciting magic show. Finally I told her, look, you've got to add a little pizazz to your act. Make up a story about this magic coin box.

"You mean I have to lie?" she says.

"No, not lie exactly," I try to explain. "You need to develop your patter. That's what magicians do. They have a fabulous story that helps to distract the audience so that they can't tell when and how a magic effect is done. The talking part of the act is called patter. You could also wear a sparkly ring or a fancy necklace and people would look at that too, and that would make it easier to trick them."

"Oh, good," she says, "because I don't want to lie." Bless her heart.

She went from having no patter at all to a fantastical 5-minute fable about a secret cave in Vietnam where behind a very special brick that only she could identify was this ancient carved jade magical box that hides coins through the use of mind powers, magic words (abracadabra just being one) and precise, flowing hand gestures. Actually, the story is so much more intricate than what I've described here. You're getting the condensed version because she does need to tighten her patter just a bit. I hesitate to say her act is a little boring, but because she's cute and very excited about her magic act, I pretend as if I've never seen this trick ten times already. Sometimes she goes around the shop and does her effect for each person getting a manicure.

I'm not sure which I enjoy better: the interminable magic act that consists of one very long and oft-repeated trick of hiding a quarter, or the incessant and thorough quizzing of a mind that's racking itself to do division to three decimal places without benefit of a calculator, or even a pencil.

Actually, I enjoy both forms of the Little C. Inquisition. It's not worth getting a mani-pedi without them. Although I need to buy her a few more effects for her magic show. I'm not sure whether the other customers appreciate her coin-hiding trick as much as I do.

***

ps.: It wouldn't be a proper post if I didn't free associate something here with a Monty Python skit, so for your general edification, I give you The Spanish Inquisition: