Once, I told her, “You remind me of two fictional characters: Sherlock Holmes and Johnny Appleseed.”
“I like that: Shirley Holmes and Joanna Appleseed.”
She was the consummate detective because she had that intuitive power to see things others didn’t see. At first, it actually was scary for me.
Of course, some little devil in me would periodically find a way to misapprehend or try to misuse her gifts. Merlin had no interest in horse racing, but one day she watched the Kentucky Derby with me.
“Who’s going to win?” I asked her.
“Why are you asking me?”
“Here’s your chance. You can see the future,” I coached her.
“It doesn’t work that way. I can’t tell the future. I can only tell my own future.”
“That’s it?” I said, genuinely disappointed.
“Seattle Slew,” she proclaimed.
The race went off with all the pomp and ceremony. Her horse won.
“Wait a New York minute! You said you couldn’t see the future. How did you pick the winner?”
“I liked the way the horse wiggled his ass as he walked to the starting gate.”
But Merlin did hear the Goddess, and through Merlin’s words, human/womankind heard the Goddess as well. Living in her presence, I also heard whispers from the Goddess. It was all the more wonderful because Merlin was the one whispering to me. It took a long time, but I became an ardent feminist and believer in the Goddess. Merlin sculpted my life for the better in so many ways.
“What did you want to be when you were a kid?” Merlin asked me.
“What did you want to be when you were a girl?” I asked, trying to turn it around. I probably didn’t know it, but I was embarrassed to tell her my youthful dreams.
“A ballet instructor,” she answered quite happily. She was incredibly flexible. She could kick her leg way over her head. She could stretch, sitting on the floor, and was able to put her hands way beyond her feet. Standing, she could touch her elbows to the floor without bending her knees. Her superb physical condition continued well into her older age, until accidents and illness took their toll.
“What did you want to be?” she’d ask me again. She wasn’t going to let me off the hook.
“I loved playing cards.” Naturally, I was playing well and still learning my craft. “And I loved to collect stuff.”
“What did you collect?”
“Comic books, coins, stamps, baseball cards, non-sport cards, Dixie Cup lids, bottle caps, rock and roll records, magazines, and much more. I started selling comic books when I was seven years old in Brooklyn. I’d find them in the garbage, brush them off, set up a couple orange crates with a board, and sell my treasures. My mother would watch me from our apartment. I had no overhead. How could I lose?”
“You were very clever.”
“I suppose.”
“And you were good at what you did?”
“After my entrepreneurial attempts with the comic book stand at the age of seven, we moved to Kew Gardens. I used to go to the incinerator room on each floor of our apartment house and go through the magazines, comic books, Dixie lids, baseball cards, and other ephemera people left for the janitor to dispose of. After a while, the building super saw what I was doing and let me go into the main incinerator room to look through everything at once. It felt good to find treasures, but I wasn’t making any money at it. I could trade with friends if I found something desirable.”
“How did you feel when you did that?”
“I felt great. I made friends, I had a few pennies in my pocket, and I saved the best comic books for myself.”
“So do that, collect. Start collecting playing cards and you will become a leading collector.”
Another prediction she got right. She never missed. And with that whisper from the Goddess, I started my education as a professional collector. First it was playing cards, which went with my nightly vocation. Then it was, more broadly, gambling collectibles.
I became partners with Gene Hochman, a true expert and the author of The Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards. We did shows and bought collections. Together, we started a business called “Full House.” He became my personal tutor.
I’d meet men in the collectibles field who would tell me about their specialties, always phrased in male or patriarchal terms.
“Mankind has created these treasures,” an expert would say.
“A statement like that makes women invisible,” I would declare.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I’d hear.
“It’s sexism,” I would persist. “Women have to have an equal place.”
“Look at this deck,” the same man would say, reaching for a deck depicting nude women.
Clearly, men, even in the late ’70s, still didn’t get it, but I was growing. I was able to build collections of not just playing cards but antique gambling items of the broadest scope. I found areas that weren’t being collected and made them my own specialty, acquiring the very best items before others saw the value in them. I had a keen eye. Eventually, my childhood interests made me as much money as any profession I could have pursued in the business world.
When I went to play poker, I obviously didn’t always come home a winner.
“How did you do?” Merlin never failed to ask. She wasn’t checking up. She was interested.
“I lost $5,800.”
“Let’s go out and celebrate.”
“Merlin, I said I lost $5,800. What’s to celebrate?”
“We love each other.”
Wow, what a lesson! Whoever had a more supportive partner? And with that loving boost of confidence, reassurance, and knowledge, I had the strength to persist. I would go back to the tables and have a good run. Merlin also had far better recall for details than I ever did. She accompanied me on hundreds of excursions to antique fairs, exhibitions, collectors’ homes, conventions, and book shows, which she loved for reasons of her own. Merlin reminded me, years later, of events I had forgotten. She showed nothing but support and encouragement for whatever I chose to do.
It was a true combination of what Merlin said and what I, myself, began to perceive. Picture me sitting with seven men—sports bettors, nightclub owners, lawyers, businessmen, and those trying to give you the business—all kinds of professional hustlers. Every one of them was there to make some money the easy way. We were in the basement of a single-family house that my friend Sam owned. It was near West 10th and Hudson, where you had to go through a wrought-iron gate, past a camera. Sam would buzz each of us in. We’d go down into the basement, greeting each other.
“Hey, what’s up, Lenny?”
“I hope I break even tonight. I need the money.”
“What’s the line on the Rangers?”
“What do I know about hockey?”
Some of these fellows bet games all over the board. They were all very intelligent, very aggressive, and basically at different poker levels, but they were all winners in their chosen professional fields.
We’d sit in this bare concrete-floor basement, which was unfurnished except for the antique, octagonal oak poker table and some old armchairs with cushioned bottoms that were comfortable enough that you could sit in them all night, even into part of the next day. There was a long, bright fluorescent light fixture hanging above the table.
Ideally, you’d start off strong, winning early. Poker is a very emotional game, and it takes some time for people to tilt. You need to identify the players who become the underdogs. After a few hours, you’d see them unravel. Six hours in, they would be transformed, desperate, playing like trapped, panicked animals trying to get even.
There I was, seated as usual at the table, feeling confident. I felt like I was a favorite to win, I rated to win. I knew the game better than the others. A good poker player kno
ws the percentages. It’s a creative numbers game. Every decision requires a strategy. But if you play by a strict set of rules—if you are too predictable, so-called playing by the book—that is not a winning style. It’s not good because other players will pick up the pattern and read you. Then they can beat you at your own game, or completely avoid you.
That particular evening, I watched how Tubby, an overweight fellow at the table, would shift in his seat if he had good cards. Almost everyone does that, but an overweight player is more likely to seek a comfortable posture to go along with the anticipated pleasure.
Then there was Nick, who smoked. When he started with good tickets, he’d always light up a cigarette. That was his super comfortable position because he was set to pounce. I rarely saw a poker player light up and then fold. It was a reliable giveaway of their hands. (It’s a pity they banned smoking later in the clubs where I played.)
I listened to their conversation as the cards were dealt.
“You know, I actually had a tryout for the Cubs twenty years ago,” said Lynch.
“Well, I played minor league ball,” said One-Upper, “and if I hadn’t gotten injured, I’d have been moved up to the Brooklyn Dodgers.”
“I used to drink all night when I was in college, but I was always on the honor roll.”
“I drank all night and rolled with two women,” One-Upper bragged again. It was senseless, constant banter, and I would invent situations to make fun of them.
“Yeah, and I once did five hundred pushups in five minutes, and knocked out Joe Louis in the first.”
“The older we get, the faster we ran,” I yawned. But suddenly, it was more than just one-up and banter. I looked around at the other seven men and thought, Who are these guys? They all have such weaknesses. The conversations, body language, the way they toss their chips into the center of the table—what a bunch of narcissistic, macho men. With Merlin’s help, I had them figured out.
Then there was Peter, the Wall Street whiz whom I had a very strong read on, though he wasn’t quite as regular in our circle. I could see beyond the usual behaviors that revealed he was bluffing. He tossed his chips in like a real bully—clack, scatter, smash. “Take that!” he might as well have said. But there was Peter, with doubt in his eyes.
He had just performed his regular routine, bragging about his numerous sexual conquests, again attempting to prove that he was the consummate ladies’ man.
“They loved my body,” he boasted.
“There it is,” I thought. “His whole life is a bluff.” What he was trying to tell me was he wanted me to back off, get out of his way. He didn’t have the cards—no grasp at all of what the game was about. His masculinity was all bluff. The hand he was dealt in life was a bluff.
I warmed with my newfound perception. I called his last bet. My weak hand beat his nothing. It was almost embarrassing when I turned my cards over and showed the table that I’d won. All the players were astounded. There I was with a dead read on the guy. The other players would go all night and never have a perception like that. But I was learning from a real master—a mistress, in fact, a Goddess, my mysterious Lady Luck.
From there I started to pick up clues in the language they used—not just macho bragging, but all the language, all the words, their self-defeating lexicon.
“I’m not getting along with my wife,” Ratso would sigh. He would confess he was in distress. Most poker players wish they could lock up their personal lives, but they leave themselves open for continuous failure. They simply don’t know how to securely lock or unlock their own door. I knew Ratso was going to play far too aggressively to compensate for his failing marriage. I could anticipate how players would play based on not just superficial words and gestures. I was more sensitive to every happening in the room. It was Merlin at work. To begin with, I wasn’t having the problems some of these poor guys were having. I was empowered by her. I had always been into numbers, but what I had missed was that things don’t always have to add up. Merlin, herself, didn’t add up. She showed me how to get closer to my own intuition and my own gut feeling. It’s a trust equation.
With Merlin, I was a winner. She was making me feel more and more secure. She would frequently tell me, “I trust you. You know what you are doing.” I was just more aware of where I was and what was happening around me at each moment—not just at the poker table, not just in my growing collectibles business, but in every aspect of my life. What a miracle. Thank you, Merlin. I love you.
Merlin was born Marilyn Jacobson. Her first married name was Stone. She was, by the way, married three times. Her second marriage was to Doug, an artist/art teacher, while she lived in East Aurora, New York. Merlin didn’t speak much about him. The marriage, as I understand, was of so short a duration that it was annulled. Her third husband, Warren, was someone she loved and married in London. Then they moved to Quadra Island off the eastern coast of Vancouver, British Columbia. They hadn’t been together long when he disappeared after he went into the mountains either to hunt or hike. They never found his body.
“None of that is important in our lives,” she would tell me. “I have no regrets. I have no anger.”
“None?” I would ask, often incredulously.
“None,” she would assert. “I did what I wanted. I do what’s in my heart.”
I did ask her, “So how did you get the name ‘Merlin’?”
“I was living in Berkeley with my two young daughters. That was the time, about 1966, when I moved with the girls to that area. They were in their early teens. I was making clothes—T-shaped dresses with wide sleeves, which were more like something from King Arthur. The girls called them ‘Merlin dresses,’” she explained.
“That was it? You were Merlin.”
“The name stuck,” she said. “They renamed me.”
It was 1969, and people were still living out the Summer of Love. I can just picture it. She was the coordinator of the Bay Area chapter of Experiments in Art and Technology, an arts program in the area. Merlin was an instructor in 1969 at the University of California, Berkeley Extension, teaching courses entitled “Art as Ecological Awareness” and “Energy Art: New Media of Art and Technology.” She was making complex flashing-light kinetic brain-wave-controlled sculptures. She was a moneymaker, a doer, a major force, a feminist genius raising two daughters.
“You did a terrific job with those girls,” I would tell her.
“They raised themselves,” she would humbly reply.
She was a miracle to behold, truly a magician. Merlin was Merlin from very early on—an amazingly strong and independent woman—but I do like to think that I was an important contributor to her life. Certainly, her author’s career and Goddess activities flourished during our relationship, which raises an interesting question. I have been criticized for painting Merlin as a saint, flawless in so many aspects. Still, I’d like to think our long and stable relationship provided a place for her to do her work. In the same way I don’t remember her faults—suggesting she had none—I don’t lay any specific claims to her successes. Still, I know my being there for her was mutually beneficial.
As for my own personal development, she didn’t make demands, but the detective in her found my missing pieces and put them together. The artist in her was sculpting me. Perhaps that was also something the Goddess wanted. After all, I didn’t plan to become an ardent feminist or a worshipper of the Goddess, but that’s what happened.
I went with her once to Toronto for a lecture she was giving, I think probably for Goddess Remembered, a 1989 documentary that included Merlin. It was directed by Donna Read for the National Film Board of Canada. Merlin wanted to introduce me to her colleagues. We took the train and stayed in a fancy hotel, the Royal York, and at the conference, they treated her like a star.
Merlin was so organized. Everything that happened was orderly, peaceful, and easy, not rushed. Things just fit into p
lace. I remember watching her walk into a room. Other feminists immediately wanted to talk to her. She hated the spotlight. She didn’t want adulation, but it came to her truly naturally. They would approach her almost furtively.
“You changed my life,” a woman would tell her.
“You changed your own life,” Merlin would repeat back. “You did it for yourself.” Merlin didn’t need to be thanked in such a dramatic way.
“I’m free now. No more doing what some man tells me to do,” a woman would proudly state.
“That’s right,” Merlin would reply. “Exactly. You are capable of creating any world you want.”
And it wasn’t preaching or proselytizing. Letters thanking Merlin arrived with frequency.
“Dear Merlin, I am writing to thank you for what you did for me. I actually got my PhD from Yale in religious studies. Can you believe that in all my academic training, I never heard of the Goddess until I read your book?”
“Dear Merlin, you transformed me.”
“Dear Merlin, you saved my life.”
Merlin would bring me those letters—a trunk full of them saved over the years—and we’d read them. It opened my own eyes to what was happening. She was, of course, getting more and more accolades, but more significantly, the women’s spirituality movement was growing huge. It was branching off into Witchcraft, nature cults, Goddess worshippers, Wicca, and all manner of Goddess persuasions. There was, of course, the more public feminist movement that women like Gloria Steinem championed. Certainly, with the publication of When God Was a Woman in 1976, Merlin resurrected the Goddess and introduced her for the first time from a feminist perspective. In spite of her growing reputation, Merlin preferred to maintain a very private, secluded lifestyle.
Not that she didn’t relish little moments when it really seemed like she was directly in league with the Goddess. After all, if you have a spiritual communication, why not use it? Typically, I might ask her to go with me on some trip, but we avoided rituals like weddings. However, I had a close friend from my childhood in Kew Gardens who asked me to attend his wedding, and Merlin did agree to accompany me. In gratitude, my buddy arranged for a friend of his to drive us back and forth to Philadelphia for the celebration.
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