There Are Two Types of People: Magic Shop Kids, and Magick Shoppe Kids
The other day I realised, while in the inner sanctum of the best friends Whatsapp group, that the gang was divided into two archetypes: Magic Shop Kids (Gavin and Tash) and Magick Shoppe Kids (me, Harry and Ella). A magic shop is a place where you go to buy magic tricks; a magick shoppe is where you go to buy a red candle, a tiny brown bottle of incense and a book on angels.
You don’t have to literally be a magic shop to be a magic shop. A magic shop has a slight end-of-the-pier, Brighton-in-the-Victorian-era, this-way-for-a-coat-hanger-abortion-ma’am energy. They are run by men called Terry and Terry is the one who started the “baby alien in slime in a plastic egg” craze at your school. Magic shops often double as joke shops, and joke shops become stag and hen night shops. Because the joke shop is adjacent to nightlife, there’s a frank yet kinky energy to the whole business. Kids who spend a lot of time here grow up to have frank and kinky energies. Magic Shop Kids are excellent drivers. They believe in aliens, but not ghosts.
Most importantly of all, Magic Shop Kids need to know how things work. They stay that way for the rest of their lives. A Magic Shop Kid doesn’t waste time with the supernatural because they believe that the natural answers are every bit as mind-blowing. Magic Shop Kids know very specific things about deep sea life, and they watch “How’s It Made” when they’re stoned. Determination runs through the Magic Shop Kid like copper wire through a telephone line. They are tremendously hard workers. There’s no room for “there’s no wrong way to make art”, because there are wrong ways. If you tie the bit of string to your finger the wrong way, the whole trick falls apart.
Similarly to the magic shop, a magick shoppe doesn’t have to be a magick shoppe. It’s a catch all term for a place that sells things, and there’s absolutely no proof that the things work. The essence of this is a place that sells crystals and tarot cards, but it also includes independent health food shops that sell folk albums by the counter. There is a little area in the shop that is cordoned off for palm readings and reiki healing, and while you can’t see anything that happens there, you can hear it. Some woman is getting her tarot done and you can hear it. These places also do a strong line in dragon and fairy figurines, spoon jewellery, and bamboo toothbrushes.
Magick Shoppe Kids have a formless, baseless hope that there must be a better way of doing things. They do a lot of Duolingo. They are always trying very sincerely to improve themselves, while simultaneously, joyfully knowing that whatever success garnered will be short-lived. The Magick Shoppe Kid inside of me is the one who own a yoga mat, an Italian dictionary, and a book on herbs. Every year, the Magick Shoppe Kid buys a beautiful, dated diary. She tells herself that she will write just one line a day, every day, so that time can be marked and not just fall into an endless crevasse of things that simply happened. She is not too disappointed when it doesn’t happen. Magick Shoppe Kids have an extremely refined sense of smell.
When Gavin and I are on long drives, it’s the Magic Shop Kid in him that says “did you see that guy cut me off?” and the Magick Shoppe in me that says “that guys has a dog in his car!”
Harry’s girlfriend Lauren is a Magic Shop Kid, something I’m very relieved by, as you really need one of each in a relationship. She’s into the Soviet Union in a big way. (Magic shop kids are into Rome and the Soviet Union; Magick Shoppe kids are into French people and Egypt)
Meg and Jo March are Magic Shop Kids; Beth and Amy are Magick Shoppe Kids.
Katherine of Aragon, Jane Seymour, Catherine Howard: Magick Shoppe
Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleeves, Catherine Parr: Magic Shop
Winston Churchill: Magic Shop
Barack Obama: Magick Shoppe
Both of the Clintons are Magic Shops, although Chelsea, curiously, is Magick Shoppe.