Magic doors is a photography book that was quite popular in the 1970ies. Artists and photographers liked this book and it was found on many a coffee table. When I pick it up now, it’s like time-travel back to my youth.
The cover photograph is the most striking of all.
In May of 2006 I wrote an email to John Pearson, the author:
To John Pearson:
I was twenty-one when I first picked up “Magic Doors” in 1977. It was a coffee table book for us then, lifetimes ago, when I was full of wonder. It seemed I walked through magic doors every day. I remember being touched by your statement of 13,000 days left in the epilogue.
Older now, approaching my fiftieth birthday, kids leaving for college, I sit the dining area in my small house in Southern California. As I look for something on the bookshelf behind me, I startle as I pull out “Magic Doors.” The green photo on the cover instantly transports me back about 10,950 days into the past, when the world was full of wonder and I am there, lingering, a few of tears rolling on my face, while I thumb through the tattered paperback, grateful to be time traveling through a magic door.
We have Google now, and I can find you on your web site. For the first time in all those years I get the chance to actually thank you. I flip over the book and I see on the cover that I paid $6.95 for the book, worth two gallons of gas, but I know that I have a treasure that will last another 10,950 days, at least.
One day you won’t be here, then another day I won’t be here, but the magic doors will still swing wide open for those with the heart to feel them. Since, as you said so aptly: “Of magic doors there is this: you do not see them even as you are passing through.”
— Norbert Haupt
To my surprise, John responded with a heartfelt email within a day. I would have liked to add his email here, but I wanted his permission first. I emailed him in early December, but he has not responded yet. His website was last updated on June 19, 2006, not long after my email exchange with him. I will not bother him any more, but I hope he is alright, taking pictures, living life in happiness and fulfilment. If he responds eventually, and provides permission, I will post his response here.
