That's why they call it magic

In another from Rico's ancient clippings, this one from the New Yorker in 1993, the Talk of the Town column is on magic, specifically the 'broken wand' ceremony. It's about one performed in memory of Frank Garcia, a famous New York 'close up' magician. (That's a magician who works with small objects right next to the observer, as opposed to a stage magician who works with large objects farther away.)

"I'd never hard the broken-wand ceremony performed for anyone I knew personally," Irv Gonzalez, a salesman and demonstrator at Tannen's Magic Studio on West Thirty-second Street, said. "It was awe-inspiring." Mr. Gonzalez was one of more than a hundred people who gathered at the Plaza Memorial Chapel, on Amsterdamn Avenue in the nineties, the other evening to pay tribute to Frank Garcia, the Man with the Million-Dollar Hands. Mr. Garcia, who died last month at the age of sixty-six, was one of the world's greatest closeup magicians. His dazzling manipulation of cards, coins, cigarettes, and sponge balls led to a string of television appearances with the likes of Jack Paar, Merv Griffin, and Morey Amsterdam. His expertise in the ways of crooked gamblers earned him stints as a consultant to the FBI, the NYPD, and the RCMP, and also undercover gigs on cruise ships to flush out card sharps. When he died, his was the lead obituary in the Times.
After the service, George Schindler announced that he would perform the broken-wand ceremony. Mr. Schindler, a slight man with thinning hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a gray-flecked beard, had known Mr. Garcia for more than fifty years— they had met as amateur magicians— and the two had published seven books together. He explained that this ceremony had been performed at Harry Houdini's funeral in 1926, and was still repeated at his grave ever year on the anniversary of his death. Then he asked all the magicians in the room to stand up. Three-quarters of the people there rose, and those who remained in their seats let out an audible gasp.
"It is with deep humility and genuine pride that I assume a role in this service, for I occupy no ministerial or clerical position," Mr. Schindler said. "I come as a representative of the Society of American Musicians and the magic fraternity, and as the humble spokesman of its members." He then produced a magic wand and held it up. "The magic wand is an ancient emblem of mystery," he went on. "It symbolizes the power that was yours, Frank, as you use your knowledge of magic secrets and your skill in their exemplification. Now its power is gone. It is a mere stick, devoid of all meaning and authority, useless without your hand to wield it."
Grasping the wand at both ends, Mr. Schindler snapped it in half with a sharp thwick. After a pause, he continued, "May the broken wand symbolize our submission to the mandate of the Supreme Magician, to whom all secrets are known, even of life and of death. Into the surety of his love we commit the keeping of our brother.
After the service ended, most of the magicians lingered for a few minutes. One of them added several more photographs of Mr. Garcia to the collection at the front of the room. In one he was frozen for posterity under a fluttering cascade of playing cards, captured in mid-flight at the exact moment that some of them appeared to have fallen miraculously together to form the letters of his last name in the air.

Now that's a trick Rico would pay to see...