There's no silence like a crowded room.

Longing for live performance in The Big After.

Like so many people, I have spent the last eleven months going through various waves of longing for the many things we’ve been missing out on—welcoming a big crowd of friends into my home for a party, eating in a tiny yet clamorous restaurant, even the purest mundanities like shopping for groceries without it feeling like a carefully-planned mission or popping into a store for no reason other than to do so.

Lately, this longing has manifested as a deep pang over the loss of live performance.

Several nights ago, my wife and I sat down to watch In & Of Itself on Hulu, the recorded version of a performance magician Derek DelGaudio did over a successful New York City run in 2017 and 2018. I’ll confess that I was initially skeptical when she suggested it; the idea of a magic show did not seem terribly compelling, and the recording’s explicit request up front that you silence and set aside your phone to watch seemed a deep affront to my insistence on not fully paying attention to any one thin…