Witch City? It's magic.

My sister lives in Salem, so I've logged a lot of time in the Witch City over the years. 

With Halloween just around the corner, Salem is now in its high period. Between now and October 31st, you can't get near the place. The restaurants are jammed, the stores are mobbed, the trains are thronged. Traffic is off the rails. Halloween itself is a total madhouse.

My sister used to live off of Salem Common, and she'd get hundreds upon hundreds of trick-or-treaters, especially if Halloween fell on a weekend. She now lives in a different neighborhood, but still gets a lot of kids ringing her bell.

Anyway, with the Witch Trials, the hangings, and the burials, there's a ton of witchery around town. The high school mascot is a witch. There's a statue of Elizabeth Montgomery (or is it Samantha Stephens), the good witch from the 1960's sitcom Bewitched.

There are a number of witch-related, occult, crystal shops in town. Not to mention some authentic witches and fortunetellers.

What I hadn't realized is that Salem has been something of a hotbed for magicians as well.

This shouldn't come as that much of a surprise, given that witches and magicians are kinda-sorta adjacent. 

But there you have it.

The centerpiece of Salem's Magic is a group called the Witch City Assembly, which is a chapter of the Society of American Magicians. For the past 50 years, the group:

....has been a booming collective of area magicians, a place to learn the craft, share secrets, and mentor the next generation of performers. (Source: The Boston Globe)

Alas: 

...a combination of factors — an aging membership, an endless supply of YouTube magic tutorials, and the lingering effects of the long stretch where COVID shut down their in-person gatherings — has the assembly scrambling to survive.

So the group is trying to recruit new members, trying to get young folks to be as interested in magic as they are, offering mentoring and a supportive audience for those starting out.

“Nowadays, young people go on the internet to learn magic, but there’s no substitute for having in-person mentors to show you the techniques and provide real-time feedback,” said [Bill] Jensen, the chapter’s president. “Magic is about performance, and this group is a forgiving audience to provide real-time feedback when you mess up, because you will mess up.”

Conjuring up magicians among the young folk may be a hard sell.

“What we’re trying to sell is a love for magic,” said Stephen Silva, 39. “But that’s tough because the public perception of magicians is that they’re geeky and nerdy, and are just out to trick somebody and make them look foolish. But that’s not what this club is about.”

It's hard to imagine that there are as many potential magicians out there as there used to be, what with so many other

distractions for geeky and nerdy kids. Think gaming and Pokémon  collecting (which, from the crowds of young folks I've passed in the Public Garden of late, staring at their smartphones, rambling around trying to collect another character or whatever it is they're after, is back in full force). 

Magic just seemed to be a bigger deal, a more alluring hobby, when I was a kid.

Not that I knew anybody who actually had a magic kit - the closest anyone of my acquaintance came was a Gilbert Erector Set - but kids on TV, kids live Bud Anderson, and the Beav, were always trying their sleight of hand as amateur magicians.

Other than on TV, I've never seen a magic show, but I think I'd rather enjoy it. A good magician is highly skilled, the illusions are - well - magical, and I'm sure I'd find it entertaining, however cheesy and spectacle-y it all is.

Good luck to the Witch City Assembly, I hope they find a lot of goofball, nerdy, geeky little kids who want to make some magic, and who'd like to do it in person, not just virtually. And who aren't afraid that they'll look like a goofball, nerdy, geeky kid when they put on that top hat and cape!