LA FRÁGIL MAGIA DEL EMBRUJO

In The Infinite Joke, there is an episode where Hal Incandenza’s character talks to his brother on the phone about their father’s suicide while cutting his nails. In the midst of such a depressing conversation, Hal realises that he is putting them all in the bin and tells his brother that he doesn’t want to change anything about his position so as not to lose the streak. He refers to this as “the fragile magic of the spell.”

In psychology, the moment when a person is completely immersed in the activity they are engaged in is called “the zone.” It has happened to all of us to lose track of time doing what we enjoy, to become like machines, to dissolve the ego and simply be a perfectly executed activity. We become the result of our actions.

There is no method to win at roulette. Many have tried, and officially no one has succeeded. There are too many factors that are impossible to control: the speed at which the wheel spins, its inclination, the weight of the ball, the obstacles it encounters along the way… It is impossible, but at the same time, it should be just applied physics.

“The zone” is like a casino that reserves the right of admission; we cannot enter whenever we want, no matter how much we insist. We can reach a machinic and robotic state, but only when fortune allows us to. We are not machines and therefore we cannot “force the machinery.” We cannot force that quasi-mystical state; we cannot demand inspiration to serve us as a slave; we cannot listen to a cadence that is simply not present—until we start to hear it.

In the late 1970s, a group of physics students at the University of California who called themselves the Eudaimons (after the term that describes a well-lived life according to Aristotle) tried to force the machinery—to design a mathematical system to listen to the cadence of the universe so as to always be on a roll. With a small computer hidden inside a shoe, they measured the spinning cadence of the roulette wheels in Las Vegas and the speed of the ball. It is physics, after all.

An artist lives by paying attention to that cadence. They develop manias, tics, obsessions and routines—like a tennis player before a serve—hoping not to break the streak, hoping to find inspiration in every corner.

Cadence means the rhythm at which an action is generated and maintained over time, but it also shares a root with the term “fall.” Cadente means something that threatens ruin. An action that does not cease carries within its root the seed of its own inevitable cessation. An artist, a sportsman, and a gambler are always one small bump away from losing the streak forever.

The fragile magic of enchantment is delicate. The Eudaimons realised early on that after years, money, and a few scorched feet, the streak cannot be forced. Some, like Hal, have cadence in their name, while artists like Ponce seem to have a sixth sense for letting inspiration catch them at work—for hearing the cadence of the universe, and for not breaking the fragile magic of the spell.