The Tricks of Art and the Art of Tricks

Actually, Melbourne is cold.  I was there last weekend in a suburb called Moonee Ponds.  I used to think this was a fictional place because Edna Everage hailed from there.  But it is a real place.  It has a shopping centre called, imaginatively, Moonee Ponds Central.  It has a poster of Edna at her fetching best with the caption that the centre is “the greatest thing to happen in Moonee Ponds since….ME!”  Maybe.

The last time I was in Melbourne, February, it was frying pan hot.  This time it was refrigerator cold… with rain.  Not rain as we get in Cairns, but a kind of cold, miserly drizzle.  And the days were so short it seemed that if you blinked it was dark again.

During moments of daylight I travelled by train into the city.  Getting around is not too hard.  The streets are set out in a grid.  As the city is mostly flat, walking is easy.

Mt first target was the Southgate building on the southern (naturally) bank of the Yarra.  This is a busy area with lots of tourists of whom I was not one.  I had a purpose.   I was headed for The Magic Store in the Southgate building.  The store is run by three magicians - Dean Atkinson, Glenn Hamilton and Kamal Bhushan.  All the details are on their website www.themagicstore.com.au which is linked to my site.

It is these three who make the store such a great place to visit.  I have not met Dean in my two visits to the store - he was doing a cruise ship gig this time.  Dean and Kamal used to host Magic Mornings each Thursday but, because of Dean’s absence it is in hiatus at the moment.

On my first visit, in February, Kamal helped me with some card handling and coin handling tips and was very patient in demonstrating tricks and answering questions.  On my latest visit, Glenn was behind the counter and demonstrating some tricks to a young audience.  I can see why he is a premier childrens’ entertainer.  He managed a group of charming, hyper-active little brutes firmly but with grace and humour.

After the kids went he answered my questions and demonstrated some tricks of which I bought a few.  I probably spent forty minutes in the shop and it was the highlight of my trip.

I suggest, with as much cliche riven panache as I can muster, that you should “do yourself a favour” and drop in and see the Magic Store when next you visit the Paris of the South - “You’ll love it!”

Do you find yourself saying “I am disinterested in going to the movies”; or “I am disinterested in saving the polar bears”?  If so, in the interests of gooder grammar, please note that this is an error. (Croakers please note: “gooder” is a deliberate solecism or “clanger”, as it were, to illustrate that I am no better than you.)

If, for whatever reason, you are not interested in going to the movies or in saving polar bears then you must say “I am uninterested in going to the movies…saving the polar bears” or whatever.

When  do you use the word disinterested?  The answer is: whenever you are unbiased.  So, the umpire of a sporting match must be disinterested in, but must not be uninterested in, the match.  That is, the umpire must not care who wins or loses but she must care a lot about how the game is played and make sure it is played within the rules.

Quite possibly most people ignore the distinction between disinterested and uninterested.  We rarely talk about whether an umpire is disinterested.  Umpires are usually “mugs” or “should be given sunglasses and a white cane”.

Lawyers, however, should be careful to use these words in their proper sense. Otherwise, educated people, such as yourselves, will think a lawyer is quite a dill, a real dimwit, if he bleats about being disinterested in going to the movies or saving polar bears. In such a case, scoff, jeer and lambast said lawyer as a skulking oaf without the brains of a gnat and even less of an education.  Do so with as much malevolence and vigour as you can muster.  Because, for once, right is on yor side.