On wizardry

Dear readers,

Sometime before my late wife Meredith and I were married, we were on a Saturday evening date at the old Studio 54. That night, Andy Warhol took over the second floor lounge as he attempted to see how many Campbell's soup cans full of semen he could drink in one sitting. Meredith and I found a quiet corner and folded ourselves into what we thought was a leather sofa, but was actually a prostrate Lou Reed.

I looked deeply into Meredith's dilated pupils and produced a fresh rose from my refrigerated tuxedo jacket. Before she could gasp in awe and rub the flower on her MDMA-enhanced skin, a mysterious figure plucked the stem from my fingers. He was a tall man. Well-built and chiseled. The disco lights glared off his bald head.

"Have you ever dipped a rose in a bowl of liquid nitrogen?" the man asked.

Without waiting for an answer, he lowered the flower into a metal bowl heretofore unnoticed on the balcony railing. When he removed it, the rose steamed and stiffened -- a thin wash of crystals spreading across its petals. Then the man shattered the rose against Lou Reed's head.

As if such a wondrous feat weren't enough, he tipped over the bowl, spilling a stream of liquid nitrogen on William Katt's dancing body below -- hardening the Greatest American Hero into a living statue, where he still stands today.

It wasn't until years later, flipping through the cable channels, that I saw the mystery man again. He appeared to be instructing a child how to build a robot out of a trashcan and a remote control car. His name was Don Herbert. Mr. Wizard.

Mr. Herbert died yesterday. He was 89.