Not In Kansas Anymore Read Online Free PDF Page A

witches who were displeased with Will Shakespeare’s treatment of them in Macbeth cursed the play, and ever since it has been bad luck to mention the name Macbeth or quote from the play while in the theater. Instead, it is called The Scottish Play. Absurd? Here are just a few of the misfortunes that have occurred around The Play. In its first performance, Shakespeare was forced to play Lady Macbeth when the boy who was to have had the part died of a fever. In 1672 an actor playing Macbeth is said to have substituted a real dagger for the fake and killed the actor playing Duncan as the audience watched. In 1775 Sarah Siddons, playing Lady Macbeth, was nearly attacked by a disapproving audience, and in 1926 the actress Sybil Thorndike was nearly strangled. A riot during an 1849 performance in New York City was spurred by a mass demonstration in favor of an American actor involved in a feud with the British actor playing Macbeth. Twenty-three people died. During a performance in 1953 Charlton Heston’s tights were accidentally soaked in kerosene, caught fire, and burned him badly. This is merely a sampling of the misfortune around the play.
    Now take a look at the magic of sports. Baseball players spit into their hands before picking up a bat. Bowlers wear the same clothes for as long as a winning streak lasts. Rodeo riders put the right foot in the stirrup first. Tennis players avoid holding two balls when serving. Michael Jordan wore shorts from his alma mater, the University of North Carolina, under his uniform. Hall of Famer Wade Boggs would eat only chicken the day of a game. If these things seem silly, forbid the players their magic and see how seriously they take it. Little Leaguers learn such thinking from coachesand parents, who might be expected to oppose such gross superstition but in fact go right along with it.
    Sports fans are even worse. When the Red Sox were in the World Series, I heard a new story of magical influence every day. One story made it to the New York Times and was written by a science writer who believed that the Sox could win only if he ignored their games. He called it obeying his lizard brain, meaning, I supposed, that he was reverting to something prehuman in himself, but he was wrong. Relying on magic is utterly human.
    People are quick to believe that a losing player or team is jinxed. The New Orleans Superdome has been exorcised a number of times by voodoo queens and nuns. Fans also turn to magic for help in winning. The Brits, the Swiss, the Dutch, and the Australians stick pins in voodoo dolls to help their teams win at soccer and rugby. When the Philadelphia Eagles were in the playoffs for the Super Bowl in 2005, the Philadelphia Inquirer put out a hex sign to go on televisions during the game and a magical chant from a Wiccan priestess that was to send good energy. When the Eagles and the Patriots were ready to face off, a journalist in the suburbs consulted a voodoo “witch doctor” and a Druid priest in New Orleans, and the Internet’s religion magazine, Beliefnet.com, republished a column with seven rites to make the Super Bowl America’s national pagan midwinter rite.
    Magic also lives in the homes of America. I heard dozens of tales about ghosts flitting around in houses, most often seen, sometimes heard, and other times merely experienced as a cold feeling or objects that moved about in strange ways. Whole families sometimes accept the existence of these apparitions—human and animal. People are also quick to believe certain houses are haunted in malevolent ways. Think that’s not true? Try to sell a house where someone has been murdered.
    And who upholds this kind of nonrational thinking? The family, of course. Parents begin teaching their children the importance of enchantment before the babes have left their cradles. The most beloved holidays are replete with magical trappings: the Christmas tree, the Easter egg, the Valentine Cupid, the Halloween