Perhaps you remember them differently than I do. I remember a herd (and I don’t think it’s ungenerous to describe them thusly) parked at a table in our library. Bad skin, weight issues, nearsightedness — three-dimensional representations of a Far Side cartoon, hunched over the table in deep meditation. Wisecracks that weren’t wise at all bubbled up from the corners of the action. These were the jesters of this unfortunate royal court. And then suddenly! Action! One of the herd leaned over and subtly, but deftly, turned a stack of playing cards ever-so-slightly to the right. MAGIC!!!!!!???
Magic: The Gathering appeared at my high school seemingly out of nowhere. It appeared, to these eyes, to coalesce the scattered nerdery into a tight circle of “fun.” Lunches were now solemn affairs, after school was now not just a wasteland of sports and athletic enterprise. Time was filled with a card game that combined all the sexiness of Dungeons and Dragons with all of the mental dexterity of Go Fish. Pre-internet, you have to understand, this must have seemed like a godsend to those whose dance cards never involved dances.
And so it is that Magic: The Gathering reappeared on my radar this weekend as the New York Times ran a piece about its continuing popularity and recent beneficence. Specifically, the dorkiest game of all time is doing its part to make law school more affordable for the few, the proud, the Poindexters…
Continue reading “Need Help Paying For Law School? Play Magic: The Gathering”
