To vote on large principles, to vote bravely, requires a great amount of information.

The title of Smith’s first magic film is to the point: The Vanishing Lady (1898). Blackton operated the camera while Smith hocused and pocused one of their wives away. Presumably there were no trap doors through which a woman could disappear in the stages of the YMCAs and churches where Smith entertained, but thanks to moving pictures he was able to add this most basic of illusions to his repertoire.

But Meshaq felt it was more imposing and impressive to the populace to be pulled by men. The usual royal retinue extended before and after the mancart, the royal bodyguards just adjacent to the cart, an army contingent next to them, various members of the court in a group, the minister of religion, and the minister of royal buildings, ...

The result is not an image of the natural world in a tapestry but a depiction of nature as a tapestry: a splendid, impenetrable, depthless screen of shivering pixels.