Editor’s note: Happy Juneteenth. For this occasion, we’re doing away with the PCP (Political Containment Policy). But hey, the excerpt is short. Read on if you dare.

I try my damnedest to be optimistic about the future of magic. I see efforts to make the art form more inclusive, accessible, to champion performers of various stripes, and I take joy in all of it. And then I see another headline about Oz Pearlman, and I once again curse at the gods above.

Oz Pearlman is the incel’s resident mentalist, having ridden the conspiracy-hawking, pseudopsychology-peddling, fascist-courting path to the top of the food chain. After his early days teaching tricks at Penguin, he made a name for himself by doing the David Blaine thing of performing for the rich and famous in order to mooch off their fame (although notably Blaine made his name before doing that), before doing a run on various right-of-center talk media, most notably the Joe Rogan Experience, where he discussed the “secret psychological techniques” behind his obviously-magic effects. Coming out of that, he announced his book, Read Your Mind: Proven Habits for Success from the World’s Greatest Mentalist, a work which is at best a retelling of How to Win Friends and Influence People and at worst dabbles in teaching tips in the well-debunked field of body language reading. And, most recently, he hosted the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, entertaining the motherfucker responsible for the terrorization, detention, and genocide of thousands of people in this country before a shooter fucked that up as much as he fucked up his own plan.

And this is our new spokesperson?

At this point, there is no stopping Oz’s trajectory. He’s a magic superstar, and he’s too popular for our little community of magicians to take down on our own. But are we really willing to sit by and watch him be our representation? Is he what we want people to think magic is? Or are we going to reject him, speak out against him, and treat him like the Uri Geller wannabe he is? When he gets brought up in conversations (which, given recent events, he will), are we going to denounce his smug, asshole nature, countering his image so people think we’re more than him?

Fuck Oz Pearlman. I don’t want him. And neither should you.