In this excerpt from the last known interview before his untimely demise, ESC attempts to explain why his act remains so popular after so many years.

“Well, it’s something we all wish to do at some point or another, isn’t it? To escape? To free ourselves from the bonds of that which shackles us into some routine that makes us unresponsive to the world around us?

When I am on stage with my lovely assistants Ctrl and Alt, or Command and Option, depending on the region, I am not merely a button locked away in a glass prison full of water. I am that man in the audience who is wasting away at a thankless job. I am that woman struggling in a loveless marriage that staring down at me from the balcony. I am the child desperately yearning to break the bonds of youth watching wide-eyed from Row Four. There is a moment there, as they watch me fight against the chains, where the trick and its complications mean nothing to the audience, you see. In that moment, all that matters is that I can prove to them that someone facing such adversity can overcome it and emerge unscathed. That is why the applause was always so uproarious, night after night.

Why is my act still so popular, you ask? Maybe it’s because I helped them to pause, to close life’s windows on the mundane for a bit and enjoy the fantastic. I suppose that’s true enough. But I like to believe that the reason my little tricks hold so firmly in the public mind is that I gave them hope.”

Wear this shirt: while weaving your own magic from behind your keyboard.

Don’t wear this shirt: if your cubicle is confining enough as it is.

This shirt tells the world: “For my next trick, I’m going to make IE6 disappear.”

We call this color: Nothing Up Our Silver

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