MAGIC WORDS • "To tell the truth, I didn't at first take her seriously; the whole thing suddenly seemed the stuff of abracadabra and ali-kazam, with Templeton the wizard who would vanish on our waking." -- Jack Dann, Dreaming Down- Under (2002) • "It was as if I had said the magic words, Alakazam! -- and her face went blank, her mouth closed, her arms went slack, and she backed out of the room, stunned, as if she were blowing away like a small brown leaf, thin, brittle, lifeless." -- Amy Tan, Joy Luck Club (1989) • "Moncrief was playing with a loop of string, creating cat's-cradles and the like and defying Cooner to predict the outcome of each, the wager being ten dinkets, which Cooner consistently won. Thus, he was emboldened when Moncrief handed him a sharp knife and, holding the loop stretched between his hands, defied Cooner to cut the string, so as to break the loop into a simple length of line. Cooner was assured that he could easily do so, and when Moncrief offered to bet him ten sols to five, he readily placed down his money and cut one of the taut strands Moncrief held between his hands. Moncrief called out: 'Alakazam! Let the string be whole!' When Cooner took the string, the loop was unbroken. Moncrief thereupon took up the five sols. Cooner stamped his feet and tore his hair, to no avail. He still carries the loop of string which he examines from time to time, hoping to find where he made the cut." -- Jack Vance, Ports of Call (1998) • "He held his hands up. He waved them in strange gestures above the kitchen table. 'Alakazam,' he said, and the cooler and the bag of groceries from the back of the car appeared." -- Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Past the Size of Dreaming (2001) • "[H]is mouth and tongue did things to hers that made words meaningless. Surrendering, she whispered 'Alakazam' against his lips." -- Patricia Rice, Carolina Girl (2004) • "Then there is the colored smoke -- mustard yellow, candy-cane pink -- coughed out across the river by flares, from which in one shot Willard's boat emerges like something produced by a demented sideshow conjuror with an 'alakazam.'" -- Ryan Gilbey, It Don't Worry Me: The Revolutionary American Films of the Seventies (200 ) • "[S]ay the magic word: Alacazam. Got it? Alacazam. Any time you want me to appear, just say the magic word." -- Robert Grossmith, "Company," Best English Short Stories 2 (1990) • "[T]he room has already darkened and the wall screen is lit with the profuse greens of a Florida swamp. 'This is Fakahatchee,' Bill says. The word sounds magical to Cora, like abracadabra or alacazam." -- Pamela Ditchoff, Seven Days and Seven Sins (200 ) • "Alakazam! You now have $200,000 in the bank!" -- Steve Ross, Happy Yoga: 7 Reasons Why There's Nothing to Worry About (200 )