When Your Father Is a Magician, What Do You Believe?
A childhood spent under the spell of sleight-of-hand taught me skepticism, curiosity, and the habit of looking beneath appearances.
By: Richard Cytowic
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My earliest lessons in observation came not from a laboratory but in the living room, with my father in his tuxedo and top hat. To everyone else, he was “Big Ed,” a larger-than-life physician who was a magician, an archer, a raconteur, and much else. By day, he mesmerized patients with his easy confidence; by night, he dazzled guests with sleight-of-hand, conjuring coins from behind ears or producing endless scarves from his sleeve. To me, he was both healer and illusionist, a scientist and showman.
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