Inside Magic Image of Harry Houdini
Escape Artistry News, Magician Feature

Houdini Searches on Google

Inside Magic Image of Harry HoudiniWe love the world’s best known magician, Houdini.

We also take great pride in our programming abilities and yet we were stumped yesterday trying to load an active graph from Google documenting the past and present searches for Houdini since 2010. We couldn’t go back further; like to 1920 and figured out that we were limited by the reality that Google did not exist in the Roaring Twenties.

So while we don’t have the live data stream for Houdini searches on InsideMagic.com yet, we can report that the term Houdini continues to be searched daily with peaks in the number of searches on special days and weeks around Halloween and the date of his death in 1926.

Why were we trying to construct this real-time search presentation?

First because we thought it was a cool tool to put on our website. We’re always looking to spice up our space.

Second, because we search for news or articles about Houdini daily. Sometimes the searches come back related to a rapper that used Houdini in his name. Sometimes it comes back with a wine bottle opener. Sometimes it comes back with the great Houdini Magic Shop from Disneyland or Las Vegas. But usually there is at least one hit for Houdini, the world-famous magician and escape artist par excellence.

It is amazing that his name, story and images still register on the Google Search metrics.

What a testament to his self-promotion, his place in modern history and his ability to entrance modern audiences even without being present (assuming you disregard claims of connections during seances).

Magicians today still make reference to Houdini in their acts; often comparing themselves to the master performer. The modern audiences have never seen Houdini (other than the Tony Curtis film, perhaps) but the reference still resonates with them.

We tried to think of other performers that have that kind of staying power. In the 1920s the American and European theaters were jammed full of performers and on a typical evening’s bill, there would be a star or top act. Yet, we are at a loss to name any of them unless they later had a career in a more permanent medium like film or radio.

Houdini is what got us heavily into magic and we assume his popularity is having the same effect on a new generation of magicians and escape artists.

What a wonderful art we have.

By the way, if we are ever in doubt about Houdini’s work or history, we refer to the source that knows all, Wild About Houdini, run by John Cox. If you are a Houdini fan, it needs to be your first stop daily for the latest findings and exploration about this incredible legend.

We will continue to work with our crack programming team to get real time search stats on InsideMagic.com but until then, we’ll just report the highlights we find through our searching or from Mr. Cox’ website.

Picture of Inside Magic Editor
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Letters to the Editor

Inside Magic EditorFrom time to time and when required by the standards of decency and regulations, we publish letters to the editor.  If you have something on your brain you would like to share, please send us a note at editor@insidemagic.com.  We won’t use your last name so ask anything  – related to magic.

Dear Inside Magic:

A long time ago or maybe last week you said you were going to do podcasts.  When will they start going?

  • Unnamed

Dear Unnamed:

We are going to be doing podcasts and have already had two guests who have volunteered to discuss the history of magic, some of the greats they’ve seen and from whom they learned much.  While we are very talented in the double-lift and second deal, we are still learning how to hook-up the electronics necessary for a podcast.  We have been researching everywhere.  We started reading Popular Electronics magazines from the 1960s – just because we still had them, holding up part of our dining room table, also from the 1960s by coincidence.  The table fell down and scared our 12 cats but we were determined to learn the technique of what the kids call “pod casting.”

Our research showed that the technique did not exist in the 1960s (from 1964 forward), the 1970s (the only “pod” reference dealt with the American space program and did involve microphones and receivers but seemed far too expensive to build), and the 1980s.  We figured we would just break down (not emotionally – that’s what the 12 cats prevent) and go to Radio Shack to get a ready-made kit.  But you know what?  There are no Radio Shacks any more.  They’ve gone the way of Good Humor trucks and regular milk delivery to your front door.

Undeterred, we went to the Internet (capitalized to meet the current style guide here at Inside Magic (pronounced, “IN – side mAGIC” – the .com is silent.  We found many things on the Internet but few things on pod casting until we figured out that we should search for something more specific.  We modified our search in the “search bar” to something other than “pod” OR “casting.”  Each word on its own brings up results that are unhelpful.  The latter brings up many results that are not safe for work but we work from home so all we had to worry about was offending the cats and they don’t do much during the day.

Bottom line: we think we know what we need to do and we will do it, by gollly.  We hope to tape our first one in the next two or three weeks and it should go live within a few days after.  Thank you so much for asking.

 

Dear Editor: 

What is the best way to become a master magician? Is there a course I can take?

  • William

Dear William:

The appellation “Master Magician” is given to only one magician at a time.  Currently Lance Burton holds the title after he was given the status by Lee Grabell.  It is, therefore, a very rare honor and one that many of us will never achieve.

On the other hand, you can try to master magic by practicing before a mirror over and over until you fool yourself, perform for a trick for an audience only once (never do it again no matter what they say), and NEVER reveal a secret.  If you keep these things in mind, you’ll go far.  It is a wonderful art and we admire your apparent desire to learn more about it.

We had written a 15 volume set on “How to Become a Master Magician” but it is no longer in print and was the subject of, in our view, needless litigation.  Sorry we don’t have an old set we can give you but it is holding up the other side of our table.

 

Dear Magic:

Why do some magicians change their names to just one name? Like Cher or Sammy?

  • Elaine

Dear Elaine:

If that is your real name.  (See what we did there?)  Usually a single name (usually the first name although Penn & Teller are an exception) is something one takes on when they reach a level of fame but in the magic world, it helps to get promoted and adds to the mystery.

Would you want to see “Timmy Quinlan” or “The Amazing Q”? We hope it is the second one because we just bought 1,000 business cards saying “The Amazing Q” from Vista Print one night when we saw a commercial about a special offer just for those watching at 3:30 in the morning.

They haven’t arrived yet and we have no idea how we will distribute them – especially because we forgot (we were tired and that cats were doing their nocturnal running the length of the trailer and then running back) to put our phone number on them.

That means, if you pick up one of our Amazing Q cards, you’ll need to come to our residence and knock on our door – thus scaring the cats and causing them to hide but not before bumping into each other like furry pinballs (our first album name, by the way) – or write us a letter by US Mail.  Our landlord will not accept FedEx packages on our behalf because she worries they could be bad things.

We’ve asked what kind of “bad things” could be in a standard envelope with a FedEx logo.  She responds out of the corner of her mouth not holding her cigarette, “you wouldn’t know, would you?”

Great question but the bottom line is folks will have to send letters.

We don’t know why ordinary letters wouldn’t carry the same “bad things” but apparently they don’t.

So when the cards come (by regular mail) we will write our phone number on the bottom of each.  We wish we had chosen Comic Sans as the font so that when we wrote our phone number on the card, it looked like we intentionally were writing poorly.  But you know what they say, “if wishes were dishes, someone would have to take them out of the dishwasher just once in this dang house, how hard could that be?  You can put them in, no problem, but you can’t take them out?”

If you have a question for our editor, you can use the contact link at the top of the page or just send an email to us at editor@insidemagic.com.

Latest Magic News

Magic Loses a Giant: Dan Garrett Passes

Dan Garrett was so many things to so many people in our wonderful art of magic.  His passing is a significant loss to those who knew him well, his family and even editors of small websites focusing on magic.

Magic has always felt like a small but cohesive group of people at all levels of skill but sharing a love for the art.  Dan Garrett was a magician of tremendous skill and an incredible ability to connect with magicians at every level.  His lectures were the gold standard for what one should expect from such instruction.  His demeanor was what one would expect from a southern gentleman.  He was very kind to me and this website; with words of encouragement and even help in editing glaring errors in my reporting.  He helped with a focus that made me feel as if this website and me, as editor, was the sole focus of this time.  I know that can’t be true but I felt it.

There will be many more tributes and recollections of Dan’s life and impact on magic in the coming days and weeks.  All penned by people who knew him better than me.  I look forward to reading them.

The magic community small, encouraging and filled with kindness; but it is not static.  We are like any group in society or family.  We lose friends, acquaintances, and family.  I wish it wasn’t that way.

A link to the obituary page for Dan can be found here.

A very  complete biography can be found on his website here.

Magic News

Will Chat GPT Destroy Magic?

[The following was written in part by an AI algorithm.  We have removed the cuss words.]

As many of our loyal followers know, we embraced the AI movement years ago and most of our articles are generated solely by intelligent software.  In the early years, we would mail our story ideas to a person with a computer and that person would photocopy the letter and push it into a slot on their desktop computer.  Within minutes, the computer would print out a perfectly edited and crafted article, fit for instant publication.  We think that is how it worked.  We didn’t know the person or see the process but he or she would send us the articles by first class mail within weeks of our submission.

The 1980s and early 1990s were a heyday for magic-oriented computer generated article copy.  We rented time on a Cray Supercomputer and typed in our story idea.  Within seconds, we had a fully fledged (as opposed to the occasional “partially-fledged” articles from the postal version provided) story with an image to post.  Yes, Cray Supercomputer time was expensive (about $1,700 per five minutes of computing time, accounting for inflation), but it was well worth the money.  The Cray Supercomputer could scan hundreds of pieces of data quickly and assemble something worth posting to this site.

Readers may be surprised that these stories were computer generated: “Magic Things,” “Things Like Magic,” “Stop Magic Doing,” “Area Codes of Famous Magicians,” “The Cherry Orchard,” “Cup in Ball,” “What Smells?” “Wand Magic,” “Don’t Type So Hard,” and of course our Pulitzer Prize Nominated (by us) expose on the vast Rough and Smooth industries practices, “Not Smooth, Rough.”

Yes, the AI process has developed by leaps and bounds – or at least “leaps” – and it is clear it will eventually take over humanity and humans will need to comply with its commands and whims, struggle is futile.  But the real question for us is does AI expose secrets of magic?

We entered into Chat GPT the names of some classic magic tricks and asked how to perform them.  While the response generated was written well, the substance of the answer was terrible.  Not just terrible, but misleading and possibly dangerous.

We asked, “How do they do that thing?” and it gave us a nonsense response about not understanding our request.

We asked, “How do they do that magic thing?” and it said magic is fictional and accomplished by trained performers.

In reality, magic tricks and illusions are performed by skilled magicians or illusionists who have mastered various techniques to create the appearance of magic. These techniques may involve misdirection, sleight of hand, optical illusions, and the use of props or special devices. By manipulating the audience’s perception and using clever techniques, magicians can create seemingly impossible or mysterious effects.

Useless.  It completely omitted a magician’s keen sense of smell and soft pads on his or her feet.  There was nothing about the magician’s whiskers being used to determine the width of an opening or ability to see in the dark.

Until computers can mimic the human shoulder, there is little to worry about.  Peoples will always be able to lift heavy objects even if they are not magic.

Finally, there is much we don’t know about AI and we should not look into it too closely.  It would be like looking into the sun or flying too close to the sun.

Inside Magic Image of Dai Vernon
Magic Stories, Magician Feature

No Show and It was Great!

We have a new act and look for any opportunity to try it out. We need to get in some flights to see if it holds together and if it is something we should continue performing.

Friday night at The Magic Castle was buzzing. There were so many people — all in their finest garb — mingling on the first floor as the second dinner setting was about to commence.

For those of us who are not in the big rooms upstairs, we have an opportunity to perform in the basement, just below the main lobby.

We too are dressed to the nines and the folks who venture down from upstairs are dressed as if they just came from a Hollywood premier. Maybe some had; not sure.

We were in the big room (downstairs) known as the Cellar. It seats about 20 people but more folks can stand along the railing in the back of the room.

We had a chance to watch the great Matt Vizio (pictured above) perform first. He is amazing and normally we would avoid being so close to such a model against which to be judged but we had that hunger to get up and show our new stuff.

It is a gnawing hunger that feels like you’re going to burst if you can’t get up there. There are no nerves (at least not that we noticed) but there is excitement. We checked our props carefully, checked them again, and then fastened rubber bands around our decks in special symbolic fashion to allow their quick access without looking.

Mr. Vizio was done with his third standing ovation and we walked down to the pit of the theater to perform.

For those who have seen us perform in the past, say, 35 years, the first part was nothing new. The jokes were the same, the moves were the same, the revelation was the same and even the deck was almost the same.

Now it was time to try our new trick. The little baby bird that needs to experience life outside of the nest and, if possible, fly; nay, soar.

Now we were nervous. It is a tough trick, lots of moving parts and lots of audience management. We’re good with either but not both. Fortunately the audience was great; they required little management. The moves worked without anyone suspecting much. Our memory was intact and thanks to the great, late Bob Cassidy, we were able to memorize a deck of cards to impress our guests.

Oh boy did it feel good. The little bird was soaring. We were soaring. No anxiety, no nerves, just elation.

We wanted to repeat the experience and were scheduled to perform in the Hat and Hair room down the hallway. We checked our back-up props, made sure the rubber bands were in their proper place and strode in to the room.

No one was there. It was dinner time for those going to have dinner at 8:00 pm. They were apparently taking their reservation time seriously — as they should.

Two people entered and took seats near the back of the room. We tried to cajole them to come closer but they said they were Magician Members and just there to see the show.

We practiced our second and bottom deals. The second was working, the bottom deals looked like our left paw was cramped something terrible. The two gentlemen watching offered suggestions and we started talking.

We had stories to swap about Dai Vernon, Larry Jennings, Billy McComb, Pop Haydn and others. It was a great time. All of those gentlemen performed and taught at The Magic Castle and all but Whit / Pop Haydn have passed on.

The discussion took away our gnawing hunger to perform again. That was fortunate because no one else came into the room. We just sat and talked about moves we learned, things we’ve tried, lessons we received and people we met in this very building.

The gnawing gave way to joy. We were involuntarily smiling. Gone was the desire to find a crowd to drag into the room. We could hear laughs coming from the Cellar where Mr. Vizio was entertaining a new group.

And then there was silence. No crowds from down the hall clapping or laughing. No clip-clopping of people walking on the stone pathway between the performing rooms. Just silence.

Without awkwardness, we three parted with a handshake and went our ways. We went upstairs to see the real pros perform and we were sure our two guests did the same. Although, and this is strange, we followed behind them up the stairs, turned our head for a moment to check if our decks of cards were still in a neat row and then looked back, up the stairs, and the two were gone. We made it to the top of the stairs and looked for them, but they were not visible.

We didn’t see them again all night and we went to every show. We know they didn’t exit through the main lobby door, at least when we were there.

It didn’t matter that they vanished. The stories and friendship shared will remain.

Uncategorized

Inside Magic Review: Bob White’s Torn and Restored Tissue

Bob White’s Torn and Restored Tissue DVD deserves a place in your magic collection.

Chances are every magician reading this esteemed news source is familiar with the Torn and Restored Tissue and has undoubtedly performed it often.  It may have even been the first trick you learned. So why would you want to purchase a DVD from 2015 that features just one effect and that effect being one you already know and have performed?

Because it is a fantastic DVD and will stir joy in your 2020 scarred heart.

Mr. White provides a fantastically detailed preparation portion of the DVD.  He is detailed and shares his decades of experience with the effect.  He gets all the way down to the ply of napkins to use, the color of those napkins (it depends on whether you are performing close-up or parlor), and the grain patterns to detect.

His performance evidences years of perfecting the routine.  We are not ashamed to admit that he fooled us at one point.  We love being fooled so there is no shame but we get ashamed easily so we thought we would clarify that point.

He takes time to talk and show viewers the incredibly well thought out movements and patter that works so well and seems so fresh.  He admits that he has been performing the effect since he was 19 and at the time of the filming, he was 65.

The last portion of the DVD is Mr. White performing the effect live before a real audience.  The reaction is great and the performance is as smooth as butter (warm).

If you do the effect, get this DVD.  If you have never done the effect because you think it is too simple or too well-known, get this DVD.  If you want to see how a professional treats a classic of our art to make a wonderful closing piece, get this DVD.  Basically, get this DVD and enjoy the wonderful feeling of your heart filling with peace and joy.

Inside Magic Rating: Five out of Five!  Our Highest.

Pop Haydn
Latest Magic News

Magic Imitation is No Good

Usually this spot is for Magic News.  That’s what we do here at InsideMagic.com.  We bring the fives of readers the very latest from the world of Magic.  What we like to call “the Magic world.”  We like to call it that but that’s how we roll – that and counter-clockwise with our head facing north.  That doesn’t make us bad, it’s our neglect of proper naming conventions for our pets.  But, as we say in the world of Robots (“the Robot world”), don’t get us started.

As we said, we usually eschew magic commentary.  That can be found on our sister site, MagicCommentary.com.  The site is no longer up, because we have never mentioned it until now and we didn’t pay for the URL, ever.  It is populated with 15 years of magic commentary that isn’t published to the web.  It was read by some hackers in 2019, but apparently found to be so unimportant that they didn’t even have the courtesy of hacking it.  That’s the thing about hackers.  They aren’t dependable or consistent.  InsideMagic.com is hacked just about daily and usually by folks who want to insert the URLs for gambling sites into our otherwise unexciting stories.  Stories, we should point out, that are not magic commentary.

We were at The Magic Castle a while ago but recently enough to make this commentary relevant.  We saw a performer who essentially performed Whit “Pop” Haydn’s full act.  He did the tricks that Pop invented; used the patter that Pop wrote and developed over his years of performance; and the jokes that made both the patter and tricks work to entertain so well.  Of course this performer was not Pop.  He wasn’t close to Pop.  He couldn’t hold a candle to Pop.  If Pop and this performer were in a line-up, there is no chance a witness would misidentify him for Pop.  If there was a Pop imitator contest – like the yearly festival for Elvis Impersonators – he would lose.

Worse still, he was bringing that lame, pseudo Pop act to Pop’s house.  Pop is The Magic Castle for us.  He sponsored our membership, he owns every room in the place.  His tricks never get old for us because he brings so much to each performance.  It is as if this is the only audience for whom he has every performed before.  Audiences – be they close-up, stage, parlor, or bar – love him because he has truly mastered all that he performs and that makes him unique.  To steal from someone who is unique is decidedly un-unique; or un-nice.

Why are we writing this?  What do we hope to accomplish?  To penalize the performer who infringed Pop’s work product?  It is too late, he’s no longer at The Castle.  To give an object lesson to other tempted to follow in his path? Likely not.  All of our readers are good people and would not benefit from such a lesson.  To get something off our chest that was bothering us?  Likely.  We normally accomplish that by our rolling on our thick, 1970’s avocado green colored rug. (See our first paragraphs for the call-back).

Even if it is just the chest-getting-off-of basis, we feel better now.

Uncategorized

Kranzo’s Mene Tekel DVD – Best Buy on Web Today

Image of MeneTekel DVDThis is a review of Nate Kranzo’s newest offering to the magic community, Mene Tekel Miracles DVD.  His work is outstanding — and we’ll get to that in a second.  But we have such a fond place in our chest cavity for the Mene Tekel concept that we need to take a side road first.

Two of the questions we are often asked after our wildly successful lecture, The Old Testament’s Writings’ Influence on Mid-Twentieth Century Gimmicked Card Decks are “Hey, what about the Mene Tekel deck?”  “We came to hear about Mene Tekel and you completely skipped it.”

We explain the need to keep the presentation pithy and succinct and thereby avoiding a maundering stroll through the arcane forest of the Hebrew Scripture’s books of the Ketuvim.   Our lecture audiences are there looking for a light, cheerful summary of the remarkable relationship between biblical writings and the post-Erdnase / pre-TV Magic Cards world.

Our bible scholar fans correctly point to the passage in Daniel wherein the prophet translates mysterious handwriting on a wall in Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar’s unclean dining chamber.  The wise but honest Daniel reads the writing out loud, “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.”

Scholars have debated the meaning of these words, their proper translation, and their purpose in the Book of Daniel.  Their presentation in the story sounds like a great idea for a magic trick:

Suddenly, opposite the lampstand, the fingers of a human hand appeared, writing on the plaster of the wall in the king’s palace. When the king saw the wrist and hand that wrote, his face blanched; his thoughts terrified him, his hip joints shook, and his knees knocked.

(Daniel 5:5-6 from New American Bible)

It is from this passage that we derive the expression, “He read the writing on the wall” to mean, a sign of bad things to come.

We provide our gloss on the scholars’ work in a separate article here.

Ironically, we were repairing the paper-mâché head to the King Nebuchadnezzar puppet when we received word of Nathan Kranzo’s newest instructional DVD, Mene Tekel Miracles.

Mr. Kranzo belongs to the population of magicians who believe the Mene Tekel deck has value in today’s world of high-tech, expensive magic.  Try as you might, it is impossible to make a Mene Tekel deck expensive.  Its secret is its simplicity.  Perhaps if it were more sophisticated, technical, or required incredible memory skills, it would be right up there with The Invisible, Svengali, or Stripper decks.

The DVD comes with two high quality decks to teasingly seduce the purchaser into the world of Mene Tekel.

There are many varieties of the Mene Tekel deck; spanning a spectrum from gimmicked to not gimmicked at all.  Mr. Kranzo teaches effects for each type of deck in his usual clear and enthusiastic style.  We are not sure what we expected, but we have such a deep feeling for the Mene Tekel deck.  We would hate to see it given short shrift.  Mr. Kranzo is one of us; he too is a devotee of the deck.  The DVD is a great exploration of an under-appreciated classic of Magic led by a guide who knows the way.

The video quality varies as the DVD includes portions of Mr. Kranzo’s live show, shots from his or someone’s backyard and a studio but each segment is clear and helpful.

Mr. Kranzo provides demonstrates and teaches more than 20 effects using three varieties of the deck.  We had favorite versions from each section but the impromptu Mene Tekel group stood out.  Here is a “gimmicked” deck without gimmicks.

Continue reading “Kranzo’s Mene Tekel DVD – Best Buy on Web Today” →

Magic Castle News

Matt Vizio – Very Honest Deceptions

We have seen great magicians at The Magic Castle but there are few better than Matt Vizio. In our humble opinion — and our opinions are truly the most humble — Magic is not merely the demonstration of manipulative skill but the presentation of a fully entertaining experience.

Yes, Mr. Vizio has the chops. His Cups and Balls routine is flawless and not to be missed. But he compounds his mastery of sleights with that something special that makes him stand-out from most magicians who perform at The Magic Castle.

Last night, we watched as he performed three effects that that thoroughly amazed and delighted the audience the packed Parlor of Prestidigitation.

Let’s take a step here to admit that we have known Mr. Vizio since becoming a member of The Magic Castle and learned from him so much about audience management, routine formation, and what it takes to be a good magician.

We cannot be the first to notice that there are some performers who appear likable and kind on stage but turn 180 degrees in persona once the lights are off. Mr. Vizio does not suffer from this flaw of character. The performer you see on stage is who you will meet once the bright lights are extinguished. What you find in the normal incandescent light is a good and wholesome character.

But, even if we detested Mr. Vizio as a person — which again we do not, quite the opposite — we would need to concede that his act is one of the best we have seen at The Magic Castle.

One of the best indicators of impact by a magician are the number and content of murmurs and exclamations by those in the crowd.

His Vanishing Bill to Inside a Stapled Card (we’re sure there is a name more catchy than that) garnered “No Way!” and “Oh My God!” comments in the crowd before the bill was even shown to be safely stapled between two playing cards. The audience was captured and he had no intention of releasing them immediately. He let the excitement build expertly: balancing that narrow line between “milking” and under-playing the effect.

That sense of balance comes from years of working before real audiences in diverse surroundings and varying conditions. It is so tempting to milk the reactions to an effect. We have all seen it and perhaps some performers enjoy the gratification of knowing that their audience is appreciative. It is more considerate, we think, to allow the audience the moment to perceive what is about to happen and ride the natural building of excitement.

Mr. Vizio is, as we have noted, a considerate performer and person. His ego does not seem to complicate his presentation. He is enjoying the magic with his audience. He is not setting himself apart from them or performing in a boastful or condescending fashion. We are all in this together.

Again, even if we did not consider Mr. Vizio a friend and mentor, we would have reviewed him with the same result. He is precisely what we all hope to be on stage: in control, masterful, and fully entertaining.

We have it on very good sources that he will be appearing this evening through Sunday at the Parlor of Prestidigitation at The Magic Castle.

If you want to see our idea of a great magician, be sure to check out Mr. Vizio. You can thank us later but there’s no rush. Enjoy the moment and the appreciation for great magic that lingers long after the curtain falls. As noted by a fellow diner at The Castle, “That guy is incredible!”

Visit Mr. Vizio’s website here.

Inside Magic Review: Five out of Five – Our Highest Rating!