An Esoteric Exploration of Torn Jeans & Magic

You know the jeans with the holes in them? I mean, I know you know, as most jeans have rips, tears, scuffs, and frays in them today. The kind that the older generations look at and say “You paid extra for the holes?” Well, yes, those jeans. I don’t own any. I think my torn jean look really came and went with middle school pressure and the chameleon nature of adolescence. But even though I don’t own a single pair, I admire them greatly. Firstly, they almost always look good. They are unabashedly themselves as they tell the world proudly “Look Ma, I’m missing some parts but I’m still good to go.” I like the inherent confidence of the jean with no knee.

But, and this is really my interest, the false narrative of the pants has a very real effect. Now clearly, most torn jeans that I see on the subway or my friends in Central Park did not come pristine to their owners, who after years on the local dairy farm, wore them out until they were burdened with a visible history. No one is faking it when asked where they got them. Instead, they smile and say H&M or Banana Republic or just online. There is an inherent deception in jeans that is openly acknowledged. If someone were to say that their tight, bleached, jeans came without holes and they labored the holes into them day after day, I’d think they were a really overzealous liar. It’s a deception that both the owner and observer share.

And so too is magic. When the audience gathers and its time for magic they are well aware of the lack of my powers. It’d be more than poor taste to pretend that I could actually transform one dollar bills into hundreds, or vanish a golf ball inches from their eyes. For an audience, knowing that it isn’t real, and yet it looks so real for a moment, that’s the real fun. To know its all a deceit is what I think engages us all in the present moment. The art is born out of that dissonance between the evidence all pointing to the fact that something miraculous has occurred but at the same time knowing that it’s all a lie. That’s real fun.