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MAGIC PEOPLE

Writer's picture: Feef MooneyFeef Mooney

Do you get nostalgic? Isn't it hard not to? If you walk around with your heart half-hanging out, every moment can be tinged with feeling.

I think that all of us who experienced the events we call "911" have been permanently stained with a sense of impending loss and dread. It is the ultimate terrorism, to never feel quite safe. To have the awareness that something or someone who matters can simply be taken away.

We've had to live with disasters and "Breaking News" for most of our adult lives. We've had to take our shoes off at airports, get frisked electronically, have pictures of our eyes scanned.

So would it not make sense we might hunger for a time before terrorism, before Hurricane Katrina, before Covid, before red and blue states and all of the cultural division these changes have brought us?

Not even to mention the passage of musical ,theatrical, artistic heroes we have loved?

Recently, in watching The 96th Academy Awards, I felt more than annoyed when I couldn't read the names of those we lost this year. The photos were distanced, and dancers performed in front of the screen. Stop dancing, I thought. Let me see the faces. Matthew Perry. Norman Lear.

Andre Braugher. Let me mourn. Let me have a decent cry.

The fragility of being human gets lost in the fast-food techno world. Sometimes you just want to slow down. You want to remember. You want to pause. You do not want to scroll down someone's Facebook wall. You might even want to stop.

I was listening to "Rainy Day People" yesterday when I was cleaning the house. And I stopped. I cried. I thought of wee Gordon Lightfoot. I remembered seeing him at the Saban Theater. He was nothing like what I had expected. He was so slight. His voice was barely a whisper. Yet the reverence in the room for him hung like heavy church incense. Though he couldn't sing the way he used to, his band clearly played with the same expertise and feeling. The crowd was mesmerized.

I think of Magic People. The charisma. The light. In a sense they are the Rainy Day People who "Always seem to know when you're feeling down."

I do not think AI can replace them.

The only thing is... they die. You hear about it online now. A shock wave quietly ripples through you. You are stunned and freeze. You can't believe it.

Watching Richard Lewis in Curb Your Enthusiasm feels eerie, particularly because he is honoured with a memorial photo, prior to the episode. And when you watch him on screen, he seems so paper thin and pale. It isn't funny. It's horrifying.

It's a horrible feeling to lose people who made you laugh.

And it's terrible to lose people who made you sing and feel connected.

I was in my car when I heard about Karl Wallinger, and immediately his psychedelic piece of wonder, "Thank You World" Resonated in me. I remember listening to that song on a cassette , in a car, headed to my own gig, in some pub in the Highlands. His music was always in the car, and I think of it in mist and green and hills and even sheep. HIs magic was part of my entire Scottish landscape.

I know so many of us are sad about Eric Carmen as well. It feels unbelievable. Where does that magic go? That poptastic singing that sticks in your head and makes you feel bittersweet, the way the best pop songs do. Happy sad. Dark chocolate and popcorn.

It feels like we are in a hurry to see our musical icons while they are still with us. The fervor makes us pay inordinate amounts of money, just to be in a stadium, with all of those other fans.

It's odd, but I feel that the technology, the artificial intelligence, all of that "new cyberwonder" somehow makes us cling even more to human beings. The new stars, Billie and Finneas, Taylor Swift,Beyonce, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Da'Vine Randolph. We need their humanity, their awkwardness: their charm is a ripped dress, or a confession about being afraid of monsters. That magic is glowy dewy youth, maybe, but it is also that vulnerability.

We need it, no matter our age.

We can say that human beings are terrible, hateful, mean, polarizing, but at that end, we gravitate toward their magic. Carol Burnett grabbing her ear and wiggling it, with a grin.

This brings us back to our good clean funny playful selves.

In a world of machines and self-serve, we keep needing a friendly smile. Magic happens when you check your groceries out at Trader Joe's, and a real person bags them.

The nostalgia is one thing. But the need to continue to find magic people is now.

It is our need to love and be loved. Magic people remind us that every person is capable of this.

Yes, we are.

We'll keep going all the way, even when it is sad and hurts. Because it feels so good.

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