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The vacation was going great. With the stress of monthly deadlines dispensed with, I was even finding time to work on some magic. The Eric Mead trick, which he should never have published, was coming along nicely, as was the fortune telling number. Columbine was still away, and the office loft began to acquire the look of a couple of guys on Spring Break -- empty Chinese food containers, pizza cartons, Doritos bags, boxes of Teddy Grahams, and Bud Lite cans stacked into a pyramid so tall that Tutankhamen himself would have been proud. This was roughly the scene that found Golem and me, of a recent Friday evening, glued to the fragile television set, absorbed in the new Melinda special, each of us occasionally uttering the mantra, "We're not worthy." The girl looked great. Like all scenes of such incredible bliss, it was too good to be true. The Loud Dog Barking alarm erupted, but only briefly, because the break-in was an inside job. Miss Farnsworth and Columbine, fresh off the Concorde and a short hop from New York, swept in, laden with bags carrying such labels as Isabel Marant, Ungaro, Paco Rabanne, Dior, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Sonia Rykiel, Christian Lacroix, and Galliano. It was a crisis of attention: the long-awaited Melinda special was finally under way, as in right now, right now in a drop dead strapless evening gown, talking to some schmoe from the audience about an imaginary honeymoon. But the girls did indeed look fetching, in matching white silk chiffon georgette dresses, with spaghetti straps and black embroidered boarders, by Prado (Italian, not French?). They also wore, hardly necessary at this hour, matching azure sunglasses, Isaac Mizrahi by eyeOTA. The twin outfits and accessories accentuated their unique attributes and stations in life, Miss Farnsworth a mature twenty-something blond vision, and Columbine a childlike teen-something vision in a dark shag. Does one attend the ladies at hand or the First Lady of Magic on tv? Thank God for VCRs. "Look at what we bought!" Farnsworth cried. "They had really neat stores!" Columbine added. I tactfully pointed out, to the Shopping Sisters, that we were in the midst of Melinda's first TV special. "No way," Farnsworth said. "So CBS finally got up the nerve to air it. How is she doing?" "Are you kidding me? Take a look at that gown! Speaking of gowns, how in the world did you two afford designer clothes from Paris?" There were a lot of bags. "Oh, that," Farnsworth blushed. "Thanks, by the way." She produced a credit card with a Channing Pollock-like flourish. "Augh!" I sputtered. "Those were supposed to have been destroyed." It was a Little Egypt Gazette Visa Gold card, which Accounting thought it would be cool to issue during that first, heady corporate year of the magazine. I was dealing with the Shopping Sisters from Hell. Farnsworth rescued the moment by turning our attention back to the special. "She's his favorite magician," she advised Columbine. The dark-haired girl studied the screen for a time. Melinda was now dancing in a bright red Revolutionary War jacket. "I don't get it," the girl said. "She's pretty, but she's no Larry Jennings, no Chris Kenner." "Tell her," Farnsworth demanded. I sighed. "Favorite is a matter of context. In this case I use the Single Book Criterion. When magicians want to praise a magic book, they always say, 'If you could take only one book to a deserted island, which would you take?' If I apply the same criterion to magicians, it's Melinda I want on that island. If it were a prison, I'd take Houdini, or if it were a card game, Steve Forte. But the 'Island' criterion pops up most often." "God," the girl said. "And I thought I was supposed to be the young one in this episode." "Are you going to do a special issue on her?" Farnsworth asked. "What? I'm on vacation. No issues." "Do you really think any of the other magazines are going to give her a break?" She had a point. Melinda is the best-looking magician in the known universe and arguably one of the five most successful, yet she has never graced the cover of MAGIC and has only appeared on the cover of Genii in the context of marrying Lance Burton. To date, only Amy Stevens has given her the credit she deserves. "You're right," I said. "She's a woman, after all." "But they like other women," Miss Farnsworth countered. "Tina Lenert, for example." "Tina is also extremely sexy, but she doesn't push that side of herself. Her current act is lovely, and quite magical in feeling, but it's technically more drama and puppetry. It doesn't threaten male magicians. As long as it's the extra novelty act on the show, it will be welcomed. But if Tina becomes the headliner, watch out. And if a woman ever wins at FISM and starts calling herself the World's Greatest Magician, they'll burn her at the stake." "Such a pessimist," Miss Farnsworth mused. "I'm moved. It almost makes you sexy." "How is she doing that?" Columbine said suddenly. "They move when she walks." Melinda was walking, arm in arm with Roger Rabbit, in a sparkly red Jessica Rabbit dress. Her mostly exposed breasts, riding preposterously high in this outfit, indeed took on lives of their own. Columbine clasped her hands over her own young breasts and pushed up, first with one hand and then the other, in an effort to fathom Melinda's secret. I prudently looked away. Melinda's Drill of Death, one of my favorite illusions, was coming up. "OK," I sighed. Vacations are so hard to stick to. "If I do the issue, you guys will help, right? Right?"

A number of you wrote in last month to complain that some of the tricks weren't accessible, even though you had entered the proper password. The problem occurred, actually, on visits to multiple tricks. For example, you could access October's trick, but then, if you tried to get to December's (which requires a different password), you were locked out. (The only "work around" was to exit your browser entirely and come back in.) The nice folks at Kiva, our server, had recently upgraded and improved their software, and in the process unearthed a password error I had been getting away with for too long. It's all resolved now, and things work better than ever. You can return to any trick, in a given session, without having to re-enter its password. Thanks to all for alerting me to the problem and for your patience.

I think that's what they are called. If you have Netscape 4.0 or higher and pass your mouse over any drawing or photo in this issue, you will be regaled with hidden captions. Those of us with mundane day jobs, who are not full-time performers, have the luxury of calling in sick whenever we feel like it. A few folks at the office might miss us that day, but not an auditorium full of eager spectators. At the last DMS in Las Vegas, many of us attended a terrific performance by Lance Burton, all the more remarkable when we found later that Lance had been suffering from a nasty stomach flu. Lance made the show look great, and you wouldn't have known he was ill. I was reminded of this in Game 5 of the recent NBA finals, when Michael Jordan, suffering from an even more debilitating stomach virus, not only played but turned in a starring, game-winning 38 points. It was an agonizing thing to watch, and one of the most thrilling accomplishments I've seen in sports. It clearly didn't seem to be about the millions, in Michael's case or Lance's, but just about doing your job. The Bulls went on to win it all in Game 6, on a shot by Steve Kerr. So congratulations to the Bulls, and to Lance, and to all of you out there who are professional entertainers and who make things look easy, and fun, no matter how bad you might feel.

In closing, I offer thanks to Richard Kaufman and Rudy Coby for their generosity in this issue. As always, magicians are nicer than people.