Magic Stories

Reflections on Our Point
Light Patina at Work

Sometimes, late at night, when we are all alone, we become reflective. 

We do not become shiny; although we do sweat sometimes but not so much as to make us shine.  But that sweat is more of a cold sweat sufficient to soak our light blue, latex poncho and knee-high socks that we like to wear when we reflect. Perhaps you too have a favorite poncho for your reflective moments. 

If so, please do not send us pictures – they are still monitoring our email.  

We digress. 

Tonight, as we reflect on all that is magic, one word comes to mind: The Professor’s Nightmare.  This rope trick is, to quote an anonymous source from a big book, “cunning, baffling and powerful.”

It is inscrutable.  We know, have tried many times to scruit it but have failed. 

Do you remember your first time — with or without your special poncho?

If you are like us, you were probably standing on the customer-side of a glass case filled with tricks, covered with a light patina of dust.

(We mean to say the tricks were covered with dust not you or your poncho of reflection. “Light Patina” was, ironically, Lulu Hurst’s real name.  She changed it when she entered show business as The Georgia Magnet ? the woman who could not be lifted.  Her sister, Thin Patina could be picked up by anyone with a good story and a beer – or just a beer or just a good story about a beer.) 

If you are like us, you watched with your good eye as the three unequal ropes became the same length and then returned to their original unequal lengths. 

Sure, we know there was a story to it but the imagery alone was sufficient to sell the trick. 

How upset were you when you learned the ropes were un-gimmicked and nothing was added or removed from the props? 

We never read instructions.  We like to look at the trick, view the gimmick(s), and figure it out. 

We often regret tossing aside the instructions to The Professor’s Nightmare.  In fact, we still don’t know how it is done but we are too proud to ask. (We are apparently not too proud to admit our other failings in public). 

We figure the secret to The Professor’s Nightmare has something to do with the sweat of one’s hands causing the rope to elongate and then immediately shrink.  We’re not sure, though. 

Despite our sweating and tugging; we have been unable to do anything but soil the ropes and offend the other bus passengers with the furtive jostling beneath our light blue poncho and grunts of discouragement.

(Ironically, Grunts of Discouragement was the name of our very first traveling illusion show and the only one we performed while still a conjoined triplet.  Many found it offensive we actually chose to be surgically conjoined with Mr. and Mrs. Toll.  Critics said it was a publicity stunt and that we could have donated our spleen to the conjoined husband and wife (we think they were married) without actually becoming one body with them.  Hindsight is 20-20 and when we were with Mr. and Mrs….

Light Patina at Work

Sometimes, late at night, when we are all alone, we become reflective. 

We do not become shiny; although we do sweat sometimes but not so much as to make us shine.  But that sweat is more of a cold sweat sufficient to soak our light blue, latex poncho and knee-high socks that we like to wear when we reflect. Perhaps you too have a favorite poncho for your reflective moments. 

If so, please do not send us pictures – they are still monitoring our email.  

We digress. 

Tonight, as we reflect on all that is magic, one word comes to mind: The Professor’s Nightmare.  This rope trick is, to quote an anonymous source from a big book, “cunning, baffling and powerful.”

It is inscrutable.  We know, have tried many times to scruit it but have failed. 

Do you remember your first time — with or without your special poncho?

If you are like us, you were probably standing on the customer-side of a glass case filled with tricks, covered with a light patina of dust.

(We mean to say the tricks were covered with dust not you or your poncho of reflection. “Light Patina” was, ironically, Lulu Hurst’s real name.  She changed it when she entered show business as The Georgia Magnet ? the woman who could not be lifted.  Her sister, Thin Patina could be picked up by anyone with a good story and a beer – or just a beer or just a good story about a beer.) 

If you are like us, you watched with your good eye as the three unequal ropes became the same length and then returned to their original unequal lengths. 

Sure, we know there was a story to it but the imagery alone was sufficient to sell the trick. 

How upset were you when you learned the ropes were un-gimmicked and nothing was added or removed from the props? 

We never read instructions.  We like to look at the trick, view the gimmick(s), and figure it out. 

We often regret tossing aside the instructions to The Professor’s Nightmare.  In fact, we still don’t know how it is done but we are too proud to ask. (We are apparently not too proud to admit our other failings in public). 

We figure the secret to The Professor’s Nightmare has something to do with the sweat of one’s hands causing the rope to elongate and then immediately shrink.  We’re not sure, though. 

Despite our sweating and tugging; we have been unable to do anything but soil the ropes and offend the other bus passengers with the furtive jostling beneath our light blue poncho and grunts of discouragement.

(Ironically, Grunts of Discouragement was the name of our very first traveling illusion show and the only one we performed while still a conjoined triplet.  Many found it offensive we actually chose to be surgically conjoined with Mr. and Mrs. Toll.  Critics said it was a publicity stunt and that we could have donated our spleen to the conjoined husband and wife (we think they were married) without actually becoming one body with them.  Hindsight is 20-20 and when we were with Mr. and Mrs. Toll, the hindsight was constant and offensive.)

The Gene Anderson Newspaper Tear looked too magical to be true. 

We tried to make our own for years but failed miserably. 

We assumed as in the case of The Professor’s Nightmare, there were no gimmicks to be added or removed. 

We tore newspapers in the same pattern and with the same patter as Doug Henning.  But as is the case with many things in life, no matter how hard we flicked, nothing happened.

And that is the point of this little meandering through the reflective recesses of our spacious but sweating skull: just because it looks like magic, doesn’t mean that it is actually accomplished by magic. 

Often, we magicians will hide the true method to accomplish the effect. Some call this “a secret.”  We call it arrogant.

We were not used to this concept growing up. 

We hung out with a close group of magicians who tipped the gaff every time they did a trick.  Gaff tipping is frowned upon by the better magicians and actually a felony  in three states. In that way, we were rebels.

We didn’t believe in instructions or practice.  Consequently, the patter was always along the lines of: “Okay, so you have these three cards but only one has a picture of a guy with a cigar and $14 on it.  We guess we will show you the other cards and then you pick one and then something will happen with the card so it looks like it changed into the card with the picture of a guy with the cigar card.” 

We have since learned this was not the true patter to Emerson and West’s Color Monte.  We have also learned that it is spelled “Bird Flu” not “Bird Flew” and is a disease not an inarticulate statement about an unremarkable past event.

As we said, we have a point to this reflective moment and it is this: true magic is the magic we see but can’t figure out and are too cheap to buy and all of our friends are too cheap to buy. 

Lance Burton is quoted as saying, “A true friend will not expose the secret to a magic trick.”  We say, “Lance Burton would never be our true friend.”

Forget the notion that true magic is some ethereal cloud of puffy good wishes descending on you like a jockey’s dandruff on a racehorse’s neck; or the peculiar but sweet smell wafting upward from a light blue plastic poncho. 

Real magic, true magic is as close as a great magician or a great demonstrator at a great magic shop.  Not the kind of demonstrator that hands you the props and the instructions so you can evaluate the trick before you buy.  Those kinds of demonstrators are the anathema of magic. 

In our club, we have a saying, “half measures availed us nothing.”  If you want to see real magic, you have to see someone who can do it.

So, we our true point is this: there are those who can, and those who can’t.  Those who can, do.  Those who can’t, don’t.  And those who can-can do-do.

That doesn’t sound right but we checked and it is verbatim from the refrigerator magnet.

Speaking of do-do, PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, have not said a thing about a story we ran a while back and so we wonder how many monkeys will be abused by magicians before they cease to be willing partners in our experiments and return to their monkey-like do-do flinging ways of yesterday. 

The story exposed a current Japan Television series Napoleon and the Monkeys.  The plot is simple.  Magicians do magic tricks for monkeys and try to fool them.

Wild monkeys don’t pick force cards. The wild and free monkeys groom their mates, choose to not wear clothes, and will select a card, any card, from a full deck.

Our point, we guess, is this:  Pi?atas are that way for a reason. 

Neighbors would complain, kids would suffer nightmares, PETA would protest if you put a real animal on a clothesline, gave blindfolded kids wooden bats and made a game of whacking. We know from experience this is the worst environment for a magician to entertain.  No effect can compare with inhumane treatment of household pets by temporarily blinded but sugar-hyped kids – except maybe Run Rabbit Run or The Twentieth Century Sports Bra Trick. 

A former lover and current U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice once said whilst draining a third bowl of Lucky Charms and Vodka, “If God had intended us to whack live animals like pi?atas; He would have made their insides out of candy.” We reflect on that conversation tonight as well.  We remember her fondly with marshmallow stars and moons glued randomly by sugary paste in a rough circle around her slurring mouth.

And frankly this is our point: Isn’t the theft of magic secrets a bad thing? But the alternatives seem limited.

You have no doubt heard the old saw, “the best way to keep a magic method secret is to either not do the trick ever or do it so well that no one can guess its secret.” 

Well, we now know of a third option.  Perform it for monkeys. 

When you consider the rapid decline in the monkey population over the last 72 years, it is clear there must be something magicians are doing to either drive the monkeys to suicide or into hiding from the naturalists who perform the monkey census. 

When Vaudeville died 72-years-ago today, monkeys were left out of the entertainment picture. 

Their roller-skating and juggling skills did not help them when they moved to the unemployment line or non-show biz jobs. 

And that’s the point of this essay: monkeys must have a creative outlet or magicians will perish.

Our first wife (and first cousin) once said (through a translator), “it’s not what you’ve done; it’s what the Warden thinks you’ve done.” 

True Dat, we responded. 

What others perceive is more important than what we are.  If it looks to our audience as if we are doing real magic ? stretching and un-stretching rope, or tearing and restoring a newspaper ? we are good and loveable.  If we are standing in front of a monkey cage hoping the primate will fall for a Classic Force, we are bad and worthy of our biological parents’ hatred and rejection. 

The great anthropologist Margaret Meade wrote, “Monkeys, like man, will scratch when they itch, laugh when they feel glee, cry when they are sad, and sheepishly smile when they have gas.” 

Rupert MacDonald, a later commentator on Dr. Meade’s work, pointed out, “man never has gas as bad as a sheep.”  

Frankly, that is the point of this well-written and focused essay. try as you might, you will never out do a sheep in the essential talents that separate the men from the sheep – and we firmly believe something should separate them.

The sun is now rising and we realize we have written this ensemble of thought but not really addressed the issue that burns like the strong rays of the morning dawn into an unprotected but bloodshot retina. 

Assuming, arguendo, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, isn’t unflattering and insincere to perform magic in a way that is totally original and does not steal from the great magicians of our day?   

Of course it is. 

So when we perform our complete knock-off of the Copperfield show with versions of his illusions crafted from paper towel tubes and Lego blocks, aren’t we really saying, “We respect Mr. Copperfield and the innovators behind his show so much that we are willing to steal their stuff”? 

We think so.  Of course we also think the designated hitter is a tacky, neon sign of the Apocalypse — in pi?atas and baseball.

A journalist once asked the great Houdini what he would be doing if he wasn’t a great escape artist; say, perhaps, he was a house painter. 

Houdini said without hesitation, “I’d be a paint-covered dead guy in a padlocked milk can.”

And that really is the point of this essay:  you have to do what you have to do. 

If performing for primates is your calling, you need to do it. 

If innovating new pi?ata designs is your thing, hoist the family cat in a tree and get the blindfolds.  (Doctor Blackburn says, “Hoist First, Blindfold Second”)

If you are a sheep, ask your shepherd to pull your finger. 

If you want to be a magician, learn the ropes from those who know them. 

If you want to flatter the great magicians of our day by stealing their material and building your own versions of the props rather than provide an income for the innovators, you would be better off swinging a baseball bat at a gaseous sheep above your head while a monkey performs split-fans to the music provided by the very anxious sheep.

We are glad to share; because like a smiling sheep, sharing is what we do.

Our will, strength, focus, and medication are waning.  We must go or clowns will eat us.

     

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