I’m sitting across from a girl on a couch. I whip out a deck of cards. “Want to see a magic trick,” I say. She smiles broadly. “Yes.”  Awesome. For the past couple weeks, I have been taking magic classes at the (world renowned) Magic Castle. The class is mostly dudes.  I’m guessing that most of these dudes joined the class hoping they could use magic as a mysterious tool of seduction.  And here I am, on the couch, showing magic to a girl.  Livin’ the dream! The class itself has been pretty great.  The teacher is a spry ‘n sprightly 84 year old who has been with the Castle since its founding.  “Magic,” he told us  at the top of the first class, “has kept me young.  And I hope that it will do the same for you.”  Then he pulled a bean bag out of thin air with a wave of his magic wand.  He actually had a magic wand.  I could easily see a woman falling for a man with such power.  And a wand. We newbies don’t get wands.  We get decks of cards, a quick lesson in shuffling, and repeated exhortations to practice our shuffling.  We spend 20 minutes or so of each class shuffling.  No trick shuffle; just a normal shuffle. The teacher walks among us, correcting hand positions.  “Keep shuffling,” he says with a twinkle.  “Always keep shuffling.”  Some of the others keep dropping their cards.  Not me.  I shuffle smoothly, the cards falling into place, rising and falling with relative precision.  The teacher looks at me and nods.  “Nice shuffle,” he says. My pride rises out of all proportion to the actual accomplishment. Along with the class itself, the fee grants you access to the Magic Castle anytime...