At one point during all of the election hoopla I had the tv turned to MSNBC. The Kid was sitting beside me on the couch, and I was watching a segment where some female commentator stood in the middle of a set, and while she spoke she would gesture and a chart or series of graphs would rise from the floor to demonstrate her point. I knew, of course, that the appearance of the charts was just a cgi trick, and that the woman was gesturing to empty air. But The Kid was amazed, and asked where the Magic Room was. It actually took me several seconds to figure out what she was asking about, then she pointed to the tv when, once again, the woman gestured and the graphs magically appeared to rise from the floor.

To her, this was magic. And I realized that she was right. Just because I know how it works, and have become inured to how cool it is, doesn’t make it any less magic. So instead of telling her that it wasn’t magic, I tried to explain to her that the magic was performed by several people, with computers and impressive equipment. She seemed to accept that, but for the rest of the night I paid attention to the various cgi touches that we’ve all become so used to, that really are pretty impressive magics.