an old pro

Friday morning Nancy got an email from Mark Mitton, world-renowned magician, saying that he was playing in the Winter Lights Festival that night in a little church in Milford, PA.

Milford is about twenty miles from the cabin in the woods, so we wrapped ourselves up against the cold, piled into car 220 and drove into town.

And there was Mark, up on the altar, facing down about a hundred screaming kids and their grinning parents.

Mark does huge corporate gigs, teaches magic at international conferences and here he is pulling cards out of thin air and astounding the good people of Milford.

It's a strange life, a life on the road. We did it for a few years, we've settled down lately, but sometimes it's the only way to keep working.

Wouldn't be Monday without a quiz, so let's turn to Apocryphal Beginnings.

The story goes that the Violent Femmes were playing on the street in Minneapolis in front of the stadium downtown. The lead singer of which huge band allegedly heard them and on the spot booked them to open for said huge band that night?

Was it

1. The Pretenders

2. R.E.M.

3. Prince and the Revolution

4. MC5

5. Porter Wagoner and the Wagoneers?

Winners get to add it up, losers can just kiss off into the air.