Sublime

Unlike the professorial Declan, Ben Diamond looks vaguely menacing, with his shaved head and black leather jacket. It takes innate command presence to pull off a look like that at age seventy-three, but Ben still has it.

For twenty years, Walter had been archiving magicians’ television appearances. Any time a magician performed on a talk show, a variety special, even guest spots on sitcoms and dramas, Walter fired up his VCR and pressed Record. Walter used those tapes as bargaining chips with other collectors across the country, trading his copies for footage he di