John reminded me the other day how a lemon and a small magnet were once put to good use some years ago, and that has inspired me to recount the story here for your amusement.

I was sharing an apartment with Frank at the time, and we were cleaning house in preparation for the arrival of the several friends whom we had invited over for a sportive round of Minister’s Cat. (Yes, I’m lying about that bit.) In our bachelor’s refrigerator, in addition to the hot sauce, ranch dressing and precious little else, there were three fresh lemons. Among other things, I’m an avid tea drinker, so these were not out of place.

I don’t know exactly why the inspiration struck - I think this was a phase when doctoring ordinary things was something of a hobby (one that has never quite passed) - but Frank and I decided that there would be some potential to implanting a magnet inside a lemon.

There’s an old magician’s trick that calls for secreting cards or money into oranges and the like in an undetectable manner, so this may have led us to the idea. (I’ve given money-inside-a-grapefruit as a birthday gift on more than one occasion when I’ve been too thoughtless to actually buy a real gift, which was probably more often than I’d care to admit. But I digress…)

So, using an x-acto knife, we carefully cut a small round plug from one side of a lemon. Setting this aside to replace later, we burrowed a tunnel through to a point exactly opposite, and tucked a small round magnet - not the rare earth kind - down into the hole so that it was (albeit, weakly) effective through the unaltered peel of the other side. With judicious use of some glue, the plug was put back in place. Although the doctoring was rather obvious, my conspirator and I put the lemon back into the refrigerator and waited for the right time to present itself, nevertheless.

Some several hours later, we were all gathered around the kitchen table as was our custom. There had been drinking, though what, exactly, I don’t recall. Whatever else it was, it was enough; for our conversation had come round to some scientific topic that was fairly easy to direct into discussion of the amazing properties of seemingly ordinary things. By way of illustration, I used the opportunity to show off my Two-Potato Clock that my sister had given me for my birthday some months before. (No, not inside of a grapefruit. She’s got more class than that.)

“Those potatoes are not really running that clock”. Our guests were incredulous.

“Oh, yes they are. Absolutely.” The clock faded when I pulled out one of the electrodes. “You see”, I continued, “this little clock has inspired me to experiment with the electromagnetic properties of plants. Fruits and vegetables have this amazing potential energy stored up in them. So do people. We can power an electric train with the currents that run through our brains.

“Have you ever heard of Kirlian Photography?”, I asked. (This is a form of contact-photography which purports to show controversial proof of supernatural auras.) I went into this a little bit, then continued.

“Here, I’ll show you something. Frank, would you give me a lemon?” Frank pulled the rigged lemon from the refrigerator and we exchanged a conspiratorial glance. (Alright, I don’t remember any ‘conspiratorial glance’, actually, but I’m sure there must have been one. There had to be. You’d have glanced conspiratorially, too, if you were there and in-the-know. This was getting good.)

Frank discreetly passed me the lemon. I was disappointed to see that the evidence of tampering was glaringly obvious and I didn’t think I’d have the ability to conceal it for very long. Thinking on my feet, “I need a guitar pick. John, you always have a guitar pick.” (John always had a guitar pick.) “May I borrow one please?” John obliged.

“Thanks. Mike, would you reach behind you there and get scotch tape from the junk-drawer? I need to secure this pick in place. Thanks, that’s great.” I taped the guitar pick over the plug to conceal the crude incision.

“Now”, all eyes were on me, “If you press the guitar pick gently, kind of like a little button or lever…” (I injected scientific terminology such as ‘button’ and ‘lever’ to impress everyone with the depth of my knowledge) “It will pull on this little bit of tape and constrict the rind of the lemon.” I emphasized the word ‘constrict’ with a very serious and exaggerated gesticulation with my hands as if this were the key to the whole damn thing. Everyone was pretty much drunk, so it seemed to go over pretty well.

I continued. “This will focus the electromagnetic property of the fruit to a point exactly opposite, (I indicated with my scientific finger) and the lemon will become magnetically attractive.”

“Bullshit.”

“Really! Watch, I’ll show you. We need some paper clips or something.” (Again with the scientific jargon.) Rummaging through the junk drawer, we found some paper clips which we scattered on the table.

“Press the guitar pick…” I demonstrated, “lower the lemon to a paper clip… and there you go.” I raised the lemon up and there was a paper clip just barely clinging to the bottom. (We had chosen a pretty poor excuse for a magnet, I’ll tell you.)

Here I pressed my luck a little; “Now, release the guitar pick…”, I did so and gave the lemon a little shake, “and the paper clip is released…”, as it fell to the table.

“You pushed the lemon onto the paper clip and made it stick. I saw you shake it. Your dumb lemon is not magnetic.” There were hoots, boos and cries of “Charlatan!” the table round. (Alright, I’m lying about that bit too, but still, they weren’t buying it.)

“Alright, I’ll prove it to you. I think the magnetic field is a little weak to illustrate this properly. Let me cut some little wire bits off of the paper clip.”

For the next minute or so, I busied myself cutting segments from the paper clip with some wire cutters. It’s amazing, really, what you’ll find in the junk-drawers of America. Ok, now the table was littered with them. I swept them together into a small group.

“Watch. I will lower the lemon - very slowly, very carefully - and you will see one of the wire bits jump up to the lemon.”

“Bullshit.”

“Just watch.”

All eyes were drawn to the pile of wire as I slowly and very dramatically lowered the lemon toward the table. Alert and serious, all faces were crowded round so that each and every one of them (well, except Frank, of course) could seize the moment and cry “Foul! Trickery!” (alright, lying again) and expose me for the fake they all knew me to be. They were all just waiting to pounce on the moment that I slipped up and showed my hand.

Closer… closer… closer…

I stopped. Bare millimeter by bare millimeter I closed the gap between the lemon and one chosen shiny little bit of wire…

PIP! Gentle as a sigh, one end of the wire reached up and kissed the lemon, and stayed there angled to where it’s other end lay on the table. Everyone saw it happen, and everyone wanted to believe.

“Holy shit!” “HOLY SHIT!” Disbelief gave way to acceptance. Acceptance gave way to jubilation, and in some cases, jubilation gave way to greed. “We can make so much money with this!” (I still laugh; notice the ‘we’!)

Each, I’m sure, had their own take on what this profound experiment meant and how it would change the world. I don’t remember how or when the secret was revealed, but I’m sure that no one went home without being in on it. They’re a good bunch of guys and can take a joke as well as they give one.

I think about this now, some 20 years later, and wonder at how hard we tried back then to find the magic in ordinary things. We wanted to peel back the thin fabric of the universe and find a kind and benevolent God smiling out, reassuring us that we’re doing all right.

I think we were looking for something to believe in that would teach us to believe in ourselves. All the while, and I think it sad that many stay blind to this fundamental reality, we were missing the most obvious point - that there are no ordinary things. Everything that is, is so - by magic.

Is magic.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 8:59 am and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.