famulus - noun - an assistant or attendant, especially one working for a magician or scholar (Lexico.com)
If you are a baby boomer, you may remember watching "The Ed Sullivan Show" in the 1960s. If you are not, Ed, a highly unlikely homunculus of an M.C., featured a variety of acts ranging from dancing bears to the Beatles for one hour each Sunday night. If I am not mistaken, every once in a while, he would feature a male magician and his obsequious female famulus. Because of political correctness, you don't see too many of these circulating, especially not on television. They have been replaced by single sorcerers or enchanters like Penn and Teller, with whom I had the pleasure to work in Arthur Penn's "Penn and Teller Get Killed." One way or another, magicians can be fascinating.
But so are those who are magicians in the metaphorical sense. Case in point: last night I was the famulus to a very gifted musician, Benny Harrison (The Young Rascals/Tommy James and the Shondells) at a facility housing homeless vets. Thanks to the philanthropic organization Voices of Valor, he and I will be assisting seven of these vets to write and record an original song. It will take us eight sessions. As we have done this before, we know that the entire process and the outcome will be nothing shy of an astonishing hat trick: Ultimately, the vets will walk away transformed. Last evening's initial session was analogous to the magician's tapping his hat with his wand. We left the vets anticipating their transformation. And by transforming them, we, too, will be transformed, healed in some way.
The point of my sharing the aforementioned is that you do not have to be a magician or his famulus to spark enchantment in someone's life. If you love someone, all you have to do is show that person you love him, her, or them. If you use your imagination to do this, their response should be nothing short of amazing.
I'll be taking the weekend off. Will be back on Monday!
Enjoy!
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