Author: Dennard Dayle

The sinkhole swallowing mankind has an easy fix: magic. Magic can fix it all. I’m rededicating my life to magic.

Exciting! Per island tradition, I haven’t taken a day off since preschool. Why should sorcery be different? Burnout‘s for angry villagers. I’d rather be memorable kindling.

Past statements, actions, and core beliefs paint me as a skeptic. Ignore them. I love and respect wizards like adults. More importantly, I’m not waiting for my foxhole to find a divine sponsor. Starting now, I’m throwing shit at the cosmic wall and seeing what glows. Every Day Magic can change my spiritual life, by giving me one. It’s January, so calendar books are at their strongest.

Save me, Gaia! Or Ra, I don’t give a shit! Buddha! LeBron! Articuno! Help.

Fuck.

Another psychic life coach, enriching their spirit and IRA. Thanks for nothing, Articuno. Calendar books start with their best shot, to ensure a strong Target harvest. Yet our opening reads like paper mache made from Gaiman tweets. Is this just a holiday DIY Magic?

I’m wrong! It’s a crowdsourced DIY Magic. Or, more generously, a tandem-written spellbook. Teamwork wafts from each page. A reminder that TheftGPT just added dead rivers to old habits. Freshwater was sweet, but I’ll adapt to purified urine in time. I’ll never get calendar books.

Except today! I already loved calendar books and magic alone. Together, they make…what do you compare magic to? Love? Hextech? Organic Chemistry? Together, they make a premed filter course.

Besides, Every Day Magic is much more, in the parlance of broken ankles, core. Authentic. Culty. While DIY magic brought arcana to glurge, Every Day Magic brings glurge to arcana.

Finally, Earth Day’s full power at my fingertips. Alongside real Incan filler holidays. The contents of Every Day Magic have annoyed mankind for millenia. As they said in Atlantis: “I‘d rather drown than hear one more fish poem.”

All up front, so I can’t call Every Day Magic misleading. And I never would. If 366 icebreaker games hide one real Cenobite, we’re saved. I’ll bet my soul on those odds. Something here can save January.

Resolutions with less action and more condescension. Sweet. We can keep the anxious navel-gazing and miss all the gym sales. Sun spirits hate all that type-A doing, but talking honors Apollo. Real G’s move in silence like magick. Wait, shit–

Justitia can have candles when she starts showing up for work.

Her pantheon shouldn’t be anyone’s first choice. We didn’t invent dickier gods until Lovecraft. Family court’s rough, but Justitia’s coworkers turn people into animals for crimes like being hot or weaving. Imagine missing a sacrifice. The thunderbolt would land before the warning.

Maybe I’m being too picky. You know what they say: “the age of misrule is upon us.” Sorry, I meant “any port in a storm.” If we look deeper than orgies and aesthetics, there’s plenty of cantrips to learn from Rome.

This entry’s mesmerizing. Mélusine Realname jumps in, praises mythic dong, and leaves. It’s all worldbuilding should be. She even suggests trying spells, which tracks. It’s why this book exists. To teach me spells. Unlike this entry. But Mélusine has places to be and dicks to sculpt, so I’ll move on.

“No ill fortune” is close, really. I’m willing to grade the god of dick protection–and by extension, dick pain–on my curve.

The cauldron’s bubbling: we just scored Devil Triggers. I hope. Otherwise, our unresolved angst might produce fewer super modes, and more premature balding. I’ll belt some Devil May Cry lyrics from the roof, and see if anything changes.

It did! I have a week to move out.

Ads gave minimalism a bad name, but consider simplifying your psyche. You might enjoy cutting things down to the light. Darkness is a shameless freeloader, flashing pictures of dead pets when you’re trying to write. So I hear.

We’ve inched pretty close to the deadline. Hopefully Lucya has a special minion ready. Someone to spice up this magic book with some magic.

Big Grandma wrote this. According to the academic libraries of “Bing,” Baba Yaga has a real, non-filler feast in November. Which doesn’t matter, since you already know who Baba Yaga is if you’d trade money or bandwidth for this. I get that she’s a folklore tweener, but you can’t eat kids and guilt me into anything. I’m not even sure my grandmother’s alive. No one’s forged my signature for a while, so I might need a funeral suit.

Increasing my powers sounds dope. Sidebar: how do I use my powers? I’ve increased and amplified and tuned for years, without summoning one cat. Comics say I’m owed a talking cat. Otherwise I’m tolerating mythology trivia questions for nothing.

Does January have anything for us? Earth’s heating up quickly, and sanity magick in December will mean even less than the average gift.

Man, I’m never learning firebending, am I? Is this a curse? Did I ghost a necromancer? I thought they’d be used to that.

Granted, this witch sounds dope. I’d pay to learn to heal people, or get a quipping cat. While the church sounds like a pain, it’s a lateral move if you like stem cells or too much penis or not enough penis. But I’m a visual-auditory learner, so it’d have to be a book. Preferably one with an organizing gimmick, to focus what’s left of my mind.

Ronin Shaman sneaks a few more semi-poems in here. They don’t improve. Each reads like poetry by someone called Ronin Shaman.

Before you ask: it’s okay. Some ingredients don’t pull their weight. Vegan butter may be the main reason Earth dies.

I shouldn’t get mad. I look insane every time I give grifter scrolls more rage than Junior Klan Adventures. But without one fireball/force cage combo, we’ve already sunk to baking as magic. What spell gets my money back?

Stay poor, strawberry peasants. Apple eaters earn more than the company, and harvest twice the data. My proof? I need it to be true. Apple wealth cakes are my retirement strategy.

Avoid taking food cues from con men. E. Coli’s survivable, but you leave some of your soul behind in the stall. Most recipe spells are Summon Monster IV.

See what making retirement a dream does to people? Pairing human desires with random Easy-Bake recipes is a full career’s worth of graft. Impressive, as long as you can live with yourself afterwards. I suggest hiding mirrors.

Morgana. Mélusine. Ronin. This is the empire’s last free month. Give me something.

Fuck it.

Goddess and/or self-delusion! Hear me!

Hecate, the land is in peril. We are besieged by flame, diamond miners, and our own IQs. Is there a way through the mist? Lend us your wisdom. Or sweet fireballs. Per the terms of Every Day Magic, I’ll take wisdom. What’s the path?

Thank you, goddess.

I’m spoiled. My upbringing said that dishonesty, sloth, or breathing earned sudden and decisive violence. And witchcraft got a talking-to. What is a Moon Books author, but someone missing that lesson? I’m certain every byline in Every Day Magic now has fifteen AI books to their name.

January’s a bust. Let’s salvage the future.

Let this be a lesson on compromise. Mélusine tried throwing haters like me a bone with normie holidays. The result’s twice as annoying. I’d rather see ten more Ronin Shaman poems. Or twenty by a real poet. Or thirty more dick festivals. This move hints at more confidence in your font than your premise or worldview.

Love yourselves. Your stupid, stupid selves.

Nice, this one’s easy. Most photos of me were taken by me to promote me. Whenever I take myself for granted, I report myself to me for punishment.

And now we know divination works: Irisanya saw jesters coming, and wrote a decoy target for vaseline jokes. And this pep talk’s fine, if you have a dying ego. If your ego’s average or better, it’s a one-way ticket to fighting Batman in an abandoned carnival. Can the Dark Knight defeat the Mirror Maniac? Yes. It’s always yes. No amount of self-love can protect your fibula.

Spell? Spell! We’re at Magic Defcon One. This could be the biggest witch news since bathroom panic.

A defense of this couplet as art: I thought I wanted something, went on a character-driven journey, and found the truth. Why me?

Humbling. When I’m in the ER lobby, for myself or someone else but probably myself, “my readers will love this” isn’t my first or fortieth thought. And that’s a weakness. For a student of the old world, Lucya’s almost perfect for the new. Or lying. Then she’s perfect.

Mélusine, the rest of the class is trying. You can’t pass/fail the weave. Your output has declined from “Thoth, God of Magic” to “the apple guy from picture books.” While slightly realer, knowledge of Johnny Appleseed generally follows Paul Bunyan and mom’s tablet password (try your birthday).

I’m down for this one. It’s a contextual magic rite in our contextual magic book. In my eyes, Jenny’s the first witch here to fucking play. With the best lesson so far: while you’re fucking around, Jenny’s in the lab, summoning hobgoblins with old socks. While you sleep in, Jenny’s appropriating cultures you’ve never heard of. While you doomscroll, Jenny glues South African toenails to a doll.

Time for my rebirth.

The new me just feels cold. I guess it has to be March.

Another trap. A lazier cyberbully would mock Calantirniel for memorizing The Silmarillion. I’m shocked she retained nothing. Elven lives suck. Impossibly. It’s seven hundred pages of death, addiction, and incest. Not even leering HBO incest. Antigone incest. This is a cosmic “kick me” sign. Fuck. That.

No.

Right, the zen version of a Cool S. Maybe this works, and breaking the cycle of rebirth just takes a preschool sketch of someone else’s faith. If so, I’m still not doing it. I’ll be reborn as a gerbil, dignity intact. Until I wander into a drain pipe.

The picture’s getting clearer. Lucya’s plan to create an unfocused, agendaless book has produced an unfocused, agendaless book. She’s trying to focus on appropriation and Wikipedia sidebar holidays, but faces twenty competing visions for not teaching me magic.

Jenny’s got competition for best witch. While Su’s further from anything that’d ever work, she’s also stopped caring. This bunt made me smile through my penury. I’m shocked more spells don’t request yachts and harems.

We know.

I know.

Imagine building a technicolor altar to rhyme “hour” with “power.” Or telling a second person it cures anything. Nervous students get thirsty, but they tend to skip kettles and meterless poetry. Unless Twisted Tea comes in chamomile.

Jenny no longer has competition for best witch. While I thought Su was punting these, we’re at the outer limits of her ability. That’s what I get for trusting a Windsong. Maybe our powers will be stronger in the summer. Or exist at all.

That’s a no. I’m halfway through the year, and less magic than I started. Time for emergency measures. Which is where we started, but moreso. What’s Friday the 13th got?

At this point, I’d settle for some poser action. Instead, this pagan guide celebrates Spooky Day by mourning crusaders and praying indoors. We’re inches away from Communion and abstinence. I don’t expect Morgan Le Fay—too much sibling rivalry—but can we reach the arcane heights of a tattoo parlor? Last year, you could get flash of a chibi witch for ten bucks. I hear.

Jenny, everyone else has failed me. Forget the world. Forget the nation. Forget the year. Can magic make one day of human life less shit?!

I want to believe. This is almost “White Christmas,” one of the three least grating winter standards. And when the time comes, I’ll try it. But my siblings get moody when fire sprinklers power-wash everything they own. And I’ve already lost one home to magic.

I guess this is a wash.

Or not! I’ve seen this spell in art school, and it’s entertaining. Mostly. Sometimes, mages call you well-spoken or say your kids would look like Drake. Then you should bail.

It’s not a total waste. We didn’t find power, hope, or copy editing in Every Day Magic. But we did summon a ten-minute diversion from the flames. Alakazam.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Lucas Keen, a warlock in Crocs casting spells and dodging responsibilities.