Inside Magic Review: One Hundred Years of Sawing

Image of Author Mike CaveneyWe were fortunate enough to be in The Magic Castle the night Mike Caveney presented a lecture on his new book One Hundred Years of Sawing: The Astonishing History of Magic’s Most Iconic Illusion.

Mr. Caveney is the magic world’s scribe and if society was somehow destroyed; thousands of years from now, archeologists would learn all they could know about this epoch from his books.  He knows magic history and, more importantly, loves magic history more than any magician we know.  Future societies will be forced to conclude that magic and its history was our world’s focus.

Sawing is a work of love and a gift to those who love magic.

There were a total of 1,200 editions of the book published.  100 of which are Deluxe Editions.  We have number 390 of the Regular Edition and will proudly keep it on our special magic bookcase; next to the Taschen book, Magic: 1400s – 1950s.  He co-authored that mammoth book with Ricky Jay and Jim Steinmeyer.  Both books are heavy.   Not just in content or tone, but by actual weight (together they weigh 16.6 lbs). We have braced our bookcase and the supporting beams in the wall accordingly.

Sawing brings readers through a wonderful trip through history from the effect’s origins before 1921, its golden era in 1921, the patent litigation over the effect, and its history through our modern day.  It is filled with incredible stories of the magicians who invented, innovated and stole the illusion.  Mr. Caveney treats readers with incredible images at each juncture.  In many cases, these are photos we have never seen.

Put all that together and you can imagine our joy in paging slowly through the book.  It is a very slow read.  Not because it is long but because it is full and detailed.  As far as we can tell, there is not a significant event in the history of this illusion that is not addressed.  Of course, we realize that our knowledge of the trick is now completely informed by Mr. Caveney’s recitation of its history.

In deciding to write a review of the book, we worried that it would either be too short – “we loved it!” – or too long – “on page 129, Mr. Caveney begins to address the development of ….”  That worry persists and is perhaps proven to be valid by the length and depth of this review.

Words do not do justice to the words and images Mr. Caveney presents in this book nor the history he has neatly set before readers.

If you love magic, love history, love the stories of odd but enchanting individuals of magic history, this book is a must read.  Or more correctly, this book is a must have so you can spend hours with it and enjoy all that it provides.

We are so thankful for authors and historians like Mr. Caveney.

Check out his website here.

InsideMagic Review: 5 out 5! 

Inside Magic Review: David Copperfield’s History of Magic

Inside Magic Image of David CopperfieldWe have been a fan of David Copperfield since his early days.  We anticipated his television specials with the same excitement as we did with Doug Henning.  These were two men with a demonstrable love for the artform around which we focused our life.

How great would it be to be either man.  Have trucks, busses, roadies, technical experts and assistants working with a common cause — to entertain with the most entertaining art of all, Magic.

Given our past as prologue for this review, you can probable guess where we are heading.

We ordered our book from Amazon the day Mr. Copperfield announced it would be ready months later.  Those months between our order and the book’s arrival seemed to tick slowly by.  We wanted that book, we needed that book.

It arrived and we were then filled with apprehension and anxiety.  What if the book was not all that we hoped.  What if it was a flimsy (but hardbound) review of Magic’s history starting with tricks we already knew started our art and ending as a promotional piece for Mr. Copperfield?

We decided to cast our anxiety to the wind.  This is tough to do in a small apartment located over the place where they bake dog treats here in West Hollywood.  You cannot really cast anything.  So we opened the book having received the cast anxiety’s boomerang back to us but with the smell of doggie cookies.

Well, let us tell you something.  Our doubts and anxiety were for naught.  This book is something to be read and enjoyed.  It has stories about Mr. Copperfield’s love of the magical arts and those steps along his career that made him an international sensation.  But even better — as if that would be possible — he shares stories and images of items from his very secret museum.  These are the real objects, tricks, costumes and literature collected by someone who appears as fanatical about the history of Magic as he is in performing.

We could take hours extolling the virtues of his book but that would essentially be copying the book with our less than adequate style.  We would still end the review with the gentle instruction to buy the book.  You could buy it for the images, the history, the care with which it is written, or the peek inside Mr. Copperfield’s warehouse of Magic.

Our recommendation, buy the book.  Get your own copy, share if you must but always with the firm instruction that the borrower must return the book promptly and would be better off buying it for him or herself.

A must buy!

Inside Magic Review: Five out of Five!

Happy National Magic Day

Amazing Kellar PosterWe read that today, January 31st, is International Magic Day and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Magic has done so much to make our life so exciting, interesting and satisfying.  There is a special feeling in bringing a special feeling to an audience member.  When the volunteer shows surprise or shock at what they have witnessed from a close-up perspective and validates the magic effect for the rest of the audience.  They trust the volunteer, the volunteer is amazed by the magician and thus the audience shares the amazement.

We have so many effects in bins, closets, suitcases and bookshelves.

Some will never see the light of day, some will be practiced and yet never included in our act but will be held in our suit pockets waiting to be pulled out and shown.  Our prop for our close-up routine as performed in the amateurs’ room at the Magic Castle consists of a single Bee deck with the Billy McComb crimp but our pockets are filled with so much more.

Magic taught us to come out of our shy personality, to have confidence in presentation, experience the joy in making an audience laugh and gasp, and provide us with a history to pass along to younger magicians just as we had been taught by our mentors.

We are asked after virtually every performance, “how did you learn?”  The question warms our heart because we remember all those professionals and amateurs who took the time to teach, watch, help to evaluate our performance and provide meaningful feedback.  We think of their kind eyes watching our performances at IBM and SAM club meetings and their kind words, later at a diner, about how we can improve and what we did well.

So, International Magic Day is a day to remember our mentors, family (always patient and willing to take a card, any card), and the enormous giants of our craft both historical and present.

What a wonderful life magic has provided.

Twitter Magic

Inside Magic Image of Innovative BunnyOne of the most delightful things we’ve discovered during the lockdown is Twitter Magic. We have found magicians from around the world performing one trick at a time and performing it with exceptional talent. You can see our collection of fantastic card and coin magic on our Twitter channel at @insidemagic.

We are always looking for new performers to feature and always delighted to learn new methods and new styles to old tricks. It is so fascinating to see young people taking effects that we learned thousands of years ago and turn them into miracles.

We follow the time zones around the world so we may see great card magic starting in New York, coin magic in Chicago, fantastic effects in Las Vegas, then California and after a few hours Hawaii, Japan, Korea, China, India, Europe and then back to New York.

Be sure to check out our Twitter feed (@InsideMagic) and if you know of Twitter handles we should be following please pass them along.

This is a great time for magicians to stretch their stuff and The magicians who are strutting are right to strut. They’ve got the stuff and are practiced

WonderBash is Coming – Not Just Magic Tricks

Promo Poster for WonderBashWe just heard from our friends in Grand Rapids, Michigan that a new convention is on tap for April.  If you have news you would like to share with our tens of readers, just hit the submit button above and let us know.  We’re always looking for good magic news.

Introducing a new magic convention that’s “more than tricks” : WonderBash April 21-23 in Grand Rapids, MI. Only 150 registrations available. Register now and book your discounted room at the beautiful Amway Grand Plaza Hotel before spaces run out! morethantricks.com

3 Stage Shows at Wealthy Theatre

Shock Illusionist Dan Sperry “Strange Magic” (Full Theatre Show)

Mario the Maker Magician LIVE (Full Theatre Show)

Amaze & Amuse: A Modern Day Magic Show ( Ft. Michael Turco, Paige Thompson, Trent James, Elliott Hunter and Will Juggle)

6 Lectures (Mario the Maker Magician, Rick Merrill, Dan Sperry, Michael Turco, Trent James, Steve Cabe)

Exclusive Book (only available to Wonderbash Registrants / Never to be reprinted) Contributions from WonderBash Performers and other top magicians including Jeff Hobson, Farrell Dillon, Fred Becker, Bill Cook, Louie Foxx and more!

Seminar and Conversation on Mental Health for Entertainers with Jeff Veley

Close-Up Show featuring Paige Thompson and Luis Carreon.

Thursday Night Comedy Show with Andy Beningo and Friends

and many more surprises!

Great Magic Cyber Monday

Everyone is having a Cyber Monday sale.

Magic stores, both virtual and brick-n-mortar, are joining the ranks of the superstores to offer incredible discounts and once-in-a-season deals on effects.

Even fireworks vendors in our neighborhood are offering early New Year’s items at greatly discounted prices.  (Hence the Black Cat firecracker graphic).

We wanted to have a Cyber Monday sale but we don’t really sell anything on InsideMagic.com.

In fact, due to our Fire Sale last month, we are all out of the little novelty / slum magic we bought years ago for just this type of occasion.  Fortunately, it was just our storage pod in the desert area south of Riverside, California that was damaged in the event and even then, only the things under our second-hand magnifying glasses.

If anyone is interested in a beautiful amalgam of plastic Cups and Balls combined with Ball Vases and Magic Wands, we have only one and it is about the size of meteor.  We are going to save it for a future Antiques Roadshow and perhaps it will be valued as an artistic work.

We have, however, seen some great magic in the past month.

We didn’t perform it and we don’t even know the names of those who did.  But we do know great magic when it is performed and Twitter has become our go-to place for great effects performed flawlessly.  Granted, we don’t know how many takes these Twitter videos took but we don’t really care.

According to the Law of Large Numbers, even if we had a deck of cards and an infinite time to perform the effect, we would never be able to do it.  So, compared with 100 monkeys who have 100 years to write Hamlet, we would be seen as a distant second.  In fact, we couldn’t write Hamlet even if you gave us 100 monkeys to help and 100 years to do it.  We would likely distract the monkeys with questions about banana freshness and their unsanitary methods of attacking humans watching them.

But here are three Twitter stars that we recommend to your attention.  If you love them, let them know.  If you want to see more, you can follow our carefully curated Twitter feed at @insidemagic.

Great Magic Performed Greatly.

Impossible.

Really Amazing and Fast.

If you have a feed you would like us to follow, please drop us note at @insidemagic.  We are always on the look out.

[Edit] We just heard back from Antiques Roadshow, they said the piece of art has to created by an actual artist and cannot be the remnants of things left in the desert sun.

We’re Back as if by Magic

Picture of Inside Magic EditorIt has been awhile since we posted on this esteemed website and while we could discuss the reasons for our absence, we will leave the details to TMZ’s excellent, though somewhat biased, coverage.  We can say that we find the Royal Family to be a delight and to be honest, we were not aware that the Queen could operate Zoom so well.  We appreciated her kind admonition, “We believe you are still on mute.”

We have been spending much time at The Magic Castle and though it has reduced operating days, it is still the same clubhouse that we love and where our friends and magical family gather.  We never leave without feeling ebullient and informed.

We have seen so many acts that were new to us.  Acts that featured performers we have wanted to see for a long time and thus our wishes were granted.  All of this is on top of the great food.  Not literally on top of the food, that would be a violation of the LA County Health Guidelines and certainly not welcomed by us.

During this break from life as it once was, we have taken to purchasing books to help us learn moves and sleights that we thought we knew well but realized were really just a collection of lazy and bad habits formed over our decades of performances.  We have re-learned Twisting the Aces to try to imitate Dai Vernon’s method.  He worked so naturally and flawlessly.  We have worked on our coins across and cut and restored rope as taught by Pop Haydn.

We have worn and perhaps permanently damaged our relationship with family members with our constant request that they watch or select a card.  They now do so without truly watching or memorizing the card selected.  To the extent they do either – even if only to appease us – is a testament to their love for us.

We look forward to the end of this pandemic and pray for those fighting the virus regardless of their occupation but certainly including medical professionals and front-line workers.

One day we will be back to normal.  Here’s to hoping we do not lose more of our fellow magicians, their family members, their community, our nation and the world.

We will work with our dedicated staff to update this site more frequently now that we have things to relate from The Magic Castle.

Here is to hoping you are all safe, staying safe, and will be with us on the other side of this horrible pandemic.

What We Did on Our Summer Vacation

Magic Student on Magic BooksWhat did we do over our summer vacation at Inside Magic?

We didn’t perform except for our poor family members who watched and noted each time our second deal was obvious.  We also had them watch the Twisting the Aces over and over.  They feigned interest for a couple of weeks and then found reasons to not be in the same room with us and any four cards – aces or not.

We read wonderful books on magic and our favorite topics, late 1800 through early 1900s spiritualism and magicians of the same era.

The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln’s Ghost by Peter Manseau is one heck of a good book if you are into spirit photography; and we certainly are.  He takes his time and provides background on the man that brought spirit photography into its own at the very start of Spiritualism and photography.

Lisa Morton’s Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances is similarly captivating.  It asks, “Why do we need Seances” especially in light of the reality that they are very often (if not always) fraud.  Sometimes the fraud is practiced by those who genuinely believe they are reaching through this mortal veil; and sometimes by those who are looking to take from the believing.  She is thoughtful in her exposition of the phenomenon, its followers, its victims, the hope and devastation felt by those for whom the experiment has failed.

Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man is not so much about Spiritualism as it is about the victims of confidence men (or a single man – no spoiler here) who plied their / his craft on a riverboat.  The writing is so wonderful and the scenes are so real.  There is no magic or swindle mechanisms explained but the notion of a person who can have a victim put confidence in a perfect stranger is explored completely.

Christine Garwood’s Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea provides a riveting history of individuals who believe against all science to the contrary that the earth, a globe, is flat.  Their belief is true to them although not true.  We don’t want to spoil the ending, but the earth is, in fact, round.

Finally, Ching Ling Foo: America’s First Chinese Superstar by Samuel Porteous is a different kind of book.  It takes the reader through the history of Ching Ling Foo’s well-deserved ascension to superstar status in US theaters.  He and his troupe made more money in a week than entire villages did in a year.  But the book takes you through every stop along the way.  Literally.  The reader is treated to virtually every theater engagement, the songs sung by his young phenomenon, Chee Tai.  She could mimic fellow vaudeville acts with perfection and soon became a star separate from the troupe.  There are great posters, images, letters and headlines included in the book.  It is at time longish but worth the read if you are a fan of this incredibly inventive magician.

We love reading and so while our performance opportunities were limited to non-existent, we filled our mind with the magic of wonderfully written books.

That’s what we did on our summer vacation here at Inside Magic.

Beyond Snake Oil – Magicians and Physicians

Image of Magician Performing a TrickClose-up Magician and Lecturer in Medical Ethics and Law, Daniel Sokol’s article “Medicine as Performance: What Can Magicians Teach Doctors?” got us thinking — a rare experience for us during these quarantine days.

We normally read the prestigious Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine for the pictures but the title of this article from 2008 stood out.

Our brain is hardwired to immediately focus on certain key words, such a “Magic,” “Magician(s),” “Card Tricks,” and “Magic Magicians doing Card Tricks.”  We know there are surgeries and/or medical therapies that would release us from this focus anomaly but we have found it a pleasant enough brain defect and so we choose to live with it.  We are very thankful that those are the words to which we are immediately attracted and not something more untoward or socially unacceptable.

We have a friend who focuses like a laser on the word “______,” and the phrase “_____ on ______, _____.”  Our friend’s life is not relaxing and pleasant like ours and reading just about anything posted on the worldwide web becomes a struggle for attention.  We haven’t identified the actual words or phrase here in an effort to retain our family-friendly certification.  But a good cryptographer — good meaning “talented in his or her field of cryptology” and not in a moral sense — could decipher the blank lines above to figure it out.

But back to the Royal Society of Medicine’s article’s point, magicians can and do intentionally distract their audience to accomplish what appears to be magic.

The article references Darwin Ortiz advice on the best practices for magicians, “Always say the same thing at the same point in each trick you do.”  So when advising patients on diagnosis and treatment, there would likely be different non-verbal signs given by the physician.

The article is fascinating and well worth your review.

You can read Mr. Sokol’s article here: Sokol D. K. (2008). Medicine as performance: what can magicians teach doctors? Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 101(9), 443–446. https://doi.org/10.1258/jrsm.2008.080133

Sideshow Gelato Brings Magic and Gelato Together

Image of Sideshow Gelato PosterThere are those who ask, “why isn’t there a gelato themed magic event?”

We don’t know these people but assume they exist otherwise how could one (maybe you or me) explain the upcoming Sideshow Gelato Spectacular?  We love gelato and we love magic so we are sure we will love the Sideshow Gelato Spectacular — that’s simple math.

Matt Donnelly from Penn & Teller’s Fool Us and Penn’s Sunday School will be performing along with Professor Pinkerton’s Dead Man’s Carnival.  The latter promising “Astonishing Feats! Incredible People!”

The event will be at [blnk]Haus Gallery on Armitage Avenue in Chicago, adjacent to where North Kedzie Avenue and Armitage intersect – down the street from Walgreens.

The event will be in two parts: First, a come and go General Admission that runs from 1pm to 6pm. Each ticket will include gelato tastings, sideshow, juggling and magic; Second, a peak into The Museum of the Transmundane, a dime museum of strange and unusual objects giving the history of the sideshow.

General admission tickets are $12 for adults and $8 for kids 12 and under.

The event is to introduce those who love (or have yet to taste the loveable) gelato.  Sideshow Gelato, a gelato shop with sideshow theme is set to open in May of 2022.

From the event’s press release, “the shop will offer authentically made gelato in a carnival sideshow setting. The flavors range from the strange and unusual named after famous performers (ie. Koo Koo the Birdgirl – a Nutella gelato with pretzels and marshmallow Peeps) to standard flavors for the less adventurous (Chump Chocolate, Rube Vanilla).”

The store will include a dime museum featuring “oddities and gaffs as well as a history of the sideshow” and all proceeds from the museum will go to, entirely, to a different charity each month.

The shop has the backing of Penn Jillette, so you know it will be fun and very interesting.

Check out the event’s website for videos and more information here.