Yet even as the four-minute mile has become commonplace among runners, it still retains its magic for American athletes, coaches and sports fans.
but as long as lesser teams can keep beating their superiors, the Cup will always retain its magic.
Yet without the bespectacled boy wizard and the distinctively British backdrop, would Rowling's fantastical universe retain its magic?
The Wizard of Oz may be exposed, but his Emerald City -- along with other shimmering images on glass from the silent era to the Star Wars series -- retains its magic.
ES had difficulty writing about herself, often hiding behind third-person pronouns, and some of her anecdotes need footnotes; but as a sketch of a limited, intelligent world of couture this retains its magic.
A bright point of reflected light on each molecule contributes to an oddly sensuous, luminous shimmer, and the black-and-white coloration, somewhat akin to what is found in a photo process, provides just enough distance from biological particles for the experience to retain its magic.
She may have been the first white actress allowed to hold hands affectionately with a black man on screen, and her staircase dance with Mr. Robinson in "The Little Colonel," the first of four movies they made together, retains its magic almost 80 years later.
Can this film gem retain its magic on the Broadway stage?
Another unforgettable read was Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (Bloomsbury), an impressive evocation of Victorian Britain as it might have been had the noble art of magic retained its place in the professions.
But as Mr. Close once put it, there is still "something about the smearing of colored dirt on a flat surface and denying the flatness through the illusion of depth that retains its original magic from the days of the cave painters, and which can never be denied". What's true of paint on canvas, he might have added, is true of printmaking.
But as Mr. Close once put it, there is still "something about the smearing of colored dirt on a flat surface and denying the flatness through the illusion of depth that retains its original magic from the days of the cave painters, and which can never be denied".
