Dustings #113

The winner of the Gumbo song cover contest has been notified and will be posted here in the future. The other submissions will be receiving Gumbo the trick. Or, more likely, I’ll just paypal them $20 to buy it themselves if they want. So they can watch it morph, watch it last, etc.


I read this line in the book, A House With Good Bones by T Kingfisher, and I’ve been using it sometimes when I’ve flipped from talking about something semi-normal to something crazier.

The other day I was telling someone how there is an old ritual that can be used to induce coincidences.

It’s at this point I’ll often get a look—especially if they haven’t seen me do too much magic. The look says, “Does he believe this? Does he expect me to believe this? What exactly is going on?”

It’s here I say this line, “Yes, it’s impossible. I know it’s impossible. I am telling you this, knowing that it’s impossible. The impossibility is the point.”

The idea is to harp on the impossibility so it leaves no misunderstanding about what it is I’m suggesting. It makes it clear I’m not a lunatic. It makes it clear I know what reality should be.

It’s the difference between going up to someone and saying:

“This is going to sound crazy. I want you to know that I know it sounds crazy. And I wouldn’t believe it if someone said it to me… but there’s a dragon in my basement.”

As opposed to just walking up to someone and saying,

“There’s a dragon in my basement!”


The remnants of Hurricane Debby came through New York today and knocked out the power to the café I was writing in. After waiting around for about 10 minutes to see if it would come back on, I decided to head home. On my way out, Bella, the barista, pointed at me and said with mock accusation, “You did this!”

I walked over to her.

“That’s right,” I said. “I’m not someone to be messed with.”

As I walked out, I turned back to her and said, “I’ll fix it.” I held my hands out in front of me, paused, and then clapped them together.

For a beat, nothing happened.

But as I was about to say, “That would have been cool though,” the lights flickered on.

So I ended up saying, “That…There you go.” And flashed her the peace sign and backed out the door as she stood behind the counter with her mouth hanging open.

She’s a little chatterbox who talks up everyone who comes in, so I have a feeling this story may grow to legendary status before I return there next week.