Tag: Houdini

Magic News

Houdini’s Magic Scrapbook – Now Available Online

Inside Magic Image of Wonderful Poster Promoting Harry Houdini's Incredible Milk Can Escape - Failure Means a Drowning DeathThe Harry Houdini Scrapbook Collection is now available for perusing through the Harry Ransom Center Digital Collections at the University of Texas. The institution received the scrapbooks indirectly from Bess Houdini who sold them to a New York lawyer in 1926, the year of the great magician’s passing.

The Ransom Center did painstaking digitalization work on the ten books to let researchers see what Houdini collected over his globe-trotting career.  The collection includes scrapbooks purchased from others and offer a great insight into the real-world of magic at the turn of the century.

Included in the collection are scrapbooks from performers such as mentalist and hypnotist S.S. Baldwin, who performed as “The White Mahatma,”  and on divergent subjects related to Houdini’s passionate study of frauds, spiritualism, magic history and other ephemera.

An amazing resource for fans of Houdini, magic, theatrical history and the best practices of scrapbook digitization can be found online at the Harry Ransom Center.

Guest Essay

Guest Contributor Lisa Cousins: A Spirit Among the Magicians

Inside Magic Image of Lisa Cousins in the Magic Castle's Parlor of PrestidigitationJoining the Magic Castle has been a wonderful experience and a great opportunity to meet people who share our passion for Magic.  Lisa Cousins works keeping the prestigious The William W. Larsen Memorial Library the fantastic resource it is for all members of The Magic Castle.  We are honored that she allowed us to print her essay in our humble magic news outlet.  You can read more about Ms. Cousins in an article published on LosAngeles.com.

I.  Obsessions

Harry Houdini is remembered first as an escape artist, but he was also a “séance-buster” who despised fraud in the séance room, and did all he could to expose it.  His 1924 book, A Magician Among the Spirits, is an account of his experiences with the spirit mediums of his day, and in no case did he discover anything but scams and shams and magic tricks.  He conducted his investigations with both an open mind and a wishful heart, as it was the death of his mother that led him to his inquiry into the realm of spirit in the first place.  He sincerely hoped that life continued after death and that communication with the departed was possible.  He was mortified to discover nothing but hokum, and morally outraged that bereaved people were being fleeced by con men using standard magician’s effects.

While he maintained that he was not a skeptic, his activities as a debunker inspired several generations of skeptical magicians to embrace him as their mascot.  There is a branch of magic called “gospel magic” where standard magic tricks are presented with a religious-instructive twist, but in the main magicians are a skeptical bunch.  They have direct experience with how easily people can be tricked, controlled, manipulated, and deceived, and using Houdini’s example as something of a guiding light, are in general quite dismissive of spirituality in any form.  This is all perfectly understandable, but for someone like myself, an avid reader and tremendous fan of spiritual literature for decades before I took up the study of magic, I entered the world of magic and magicians and found myself a stranger in a land already famously strange.

I don’t “believe in God.”  I experience divinity every minute of every day.  This has nothing to do with what becomes of us when we shed this mortal coil; this is strictly here-and-now.  What’s more, I have zero interest in persuading anybody to join me in my opinions.  I don’t see truth as some kind of numbers game, where stacking up the believers makes a truth any truer; indeed, I’m fond of Oscar Wilde’s observation that “A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes it.”  Even if I ardently wished to make you see this splendid world as I view it through my enraptured eyes, I couldn’t do it anyhow.  It’s too late, too unique to myself, the road was too long and full of surprise twists to fill you in on all the parts that contributed to “the making of” my point of view.  In other words, do your own studying.  Or not. Continue reading “Guest Contributor Lisa Cousins: A Spirit Among the Magicians” →

Uncategorized

Houdini Teaches Us How to Be More Manly

Inside Magic Image of Harry HoudiniSomeone smart once wrote, “Pride goeth before the Fall.”  We think that has something to do about not wearing white shoes after Labor Day but haven’t had the time to run a Google search on it yet.

We have been too  busy learning how to be far more manly that we have been heretofore.  We try to be manly every chance we get (not that often) but even when we try our rather effeminate laugh gets in the way.

Imagine our joy, then, when we found the website The Art of Manliness.  Imagine our double joy, even more, when we found their article Lessons in Manliness from Harry Houdini.

Houdini was (and is) a role model for our development.  He was into the exercise craze before it was even a craze or socially acceptable.  He didn’t drink, smoke, use drugs and worked hard at everything he tried.  Perhaps that is why he remains such an important figure in the public consciousness almost 100 years after his untimely death.

The advice derived from his robust approach to life is applicable to non-magicians and even non-males.  Maybe the article should have been titled “Lessons in Personliness from Harry Houdini” or maybe not.  Probably not.

Check out the full article and be inspired in your pursuit of goals important to you.

Uncategorized

Our Award Winning List of Magic Loves and Loathes

Inside Magic Image of Ed Mishell DrawingThere are things in magic we love and hate.

If there is one thing we cannot stand, it is trite or cliché opening sentences to rambling essays about personal likes or dislikes by someone hiding behind an artificially inflated pronoun choice.

But that is just us.

Other things that bother us include the following:

  1. Older magicians telling younger magicians that they have no future in the business.
  2. Younger magicians refusing to listen to older magicians when they are telling them how it is.
  3. The meaningless objectification of women as mere props for male mutilation fantasies poorly set forth as some sort of “illusion set.”
  4. Magicians explicitly or implicitly demeaning their assistants or any audience member.
  5. All one-trick DVDs – even if the DVD is free.  Write it down, make a photocopy of what you wrote and wrap it around the trick, bundled with a DVD if you must.  We won’t watch the DVD unless it is absolutely necessary to do so – perhaps because we are reviewing the trick as sold.  If you cannot write the trick, chances are you cannot teach it on a DVD or at least teach it in a cogent, organized way.
  6. Theft of another magician’s bit, trick, flourish or act.  Sure, if we could do all the moves and flourishes necessary to duplicate Lance Burton or Dai Vernon’s best routines, we wouldn’t.
  7. Mentalists who claim they have real supernatural powers.
  8. Jugglers who claim they do not, that it all comes from practice and skill.
  9. Magicians who perform whilst attending another magician’s show.  If you’re not on the bill, keep you tricks in your pockets.
  10. Balloon sculptors who use pre-inflated balloons.
  11. Anyone who still uses the line “This silk is imported, I got it from a broad.”  It is the modern era – we can call them by their proper name, handkerchiefs or pocket squares Continue reading “Our Award Winning List of Magic Loves and Loathes” →
Magic News

Houdini Mystery House Still Not Found

Inside Magic Image of Location of Houdini's Stamford Home?Houdini has been gone (some say) for a long time.

We have had two comings of Halley’s Comet since he shuffled from this mortal coil.  (See what we did there, “shuffled”?)  Yet stories about the magician continue to grab the attention of readers and, apparently, assignment editors.  Some of the stories clearly strain to make Houdini relevant but that is okay with us.  We just like reading about Houdini no matter how tangential to current events.

Today’s article in Connecticut’s The Southington Patch gives a nice biographical essay combined with two local ties.  According to the story, Houdini owned a retreat in the Nutmeg State — a seven-room home in Stamford.  (Interestingly, “the Nutmeg State” is also the third level of consciousness in a therapeutic hypnosis session properly administered).

The Patch says “despite all of Houdini’s notoriety, there is no known photo of his Connecticut home; furthermore, no one seems to be able to locate the actual address of his home there.”

Strange, no?  One wonders how one knows Houdini actually owned such a home if there is no known address other than “Webbs Hill Road.”

We did a check of Webbs Hill Road in Stamford and searched for seven bedroom homes.  We found none.  But, we did find two six bedroom versions and both were pricey (close to a million dollars) and neither were for sale.

Perhaps the person or persons who purchased Houdini’s retreat converted one of the bedrooms into a library, a den, a knick-knack room, an extra kitchen, a billiard parlor, a theater or theatre, an indoor pool with either an in-ground pool or an above ground pool stuffed into a former bedroom, a yoga and/or Pilates center, a very small ice rink, a home planetarium (to chart the comings and goings of a certain comet), a not-so-free-range poultry farm, a sublet apartment complex for down-on-their-luck magicians (it could easily accommodate seven in one room if properly constructed and fire codes were ignored), a holy shrine to a saint or a deity or several deities, a handball or squash court (assuming European rules dictated the size and not the unwieldy Asian dimensions), a séance room, or even a laundry.

We did a quick check of the construction permits pulled for each home on Webbs Hill Road in Stamford from 1926 forward to identify renovation or construction on any of the residences that would explain the apparent loss of at least one bedroom. Continue reading “Houdini Mystery House Still Not Found” →

Magic News, Magic on TV

Magic on Pawn Stars

Inside Magic Image of the Late Sydney Radner Showing Houdini Cuffs to Elizabeth Dobrska

Murry Sawchuck is more than a great magician and star of the Las Vegas tribe of performers.  He is a television legend — at least to our well-hacked TiVo.

We enjoy watching television — it’s like our special friend.  We watch infomercials, C-SPAN and the Weather Channel exclusively.  If it doesn’t involve getting blown down in a torrential rain, voted down in an unanticipated filibuster or proclaimed to be the best of its kind and available for three easy payments, chances are we have not seen it.

The exception to this rule is anything related to magic.

If the content has anything to do with magic, magicians, illusion, illusionists, escapes, escape artists or Japanese gravure idol Nozomi Sasaki, our specially modified TiVo captures it for us.  Yes, hacking a TiVo is an inexact science and we have wasted gigabytes of space on shows using our key words but in a non-magic way.  (We have a seven hour debate from the Senate on whether Magic Markers should constitute an inhalant for the purpose of federal anti-huffing law.  It was ultimately tabled and that issue remains in limbo.)

But when it catches a show, we are giddy with delight.  Our eyes widen as we see the special on-screen message we hacked, “Oh Mr. Magic, I have something for you to see.”

Fortunately, we never have company and live alone in what is practically a double-wide trailer here on the outskirts of Mystic Hollow, Michigan, so there is little chance we will ever be embarrassed by the message coming on screen and being misinterpreted.  It is our little secret.

(By the way, the International Standards Organization defines a “double-wide” trailer home as being one which 20 feet across and at least 90 feet long.   We got the Magico Rancho at a scratch and dent FEMA auction in between hurricanes for almost nothing.  It was only when we measured to install some lightly used mauve carpeting that we learned it fell short of the width requirement by 2-1/2 feet.

The good news, we had enough extra carpeting for our luxury automobile, “The Mysterny Machine.”  The bad news, we did not qualify for the class action lawsuit filed on behalf of double-wide owners against the manufacturers for some defect or smell or something.

Speaking of lawsuits, we had to change the name of our ride to “The Mysterny Machine” because we were threatened by the production company of a certain cartoon dog, his beatnik owner and their ghost-chasing friends.  We won’t tell you the name of the show but it rhymes with Doobie Scoo.)

But of course we digress.  Of course, we digress from a story about hacking a TiVo so it may have been a welcome change of topic.

The History Channel has a great show called “Pawn Stars” and our TiVo picked up a couple of episodes.  Several episodes included Las Vegas Magician Murray Sawchuk, the shop’s Magic Historian.  Houdini’s Handcuffs. [Internet]. 2013. The History Channel website. Available from: http://www.history.com/shows/pawn-stars/episodes/season-2 [Accessed 12 Mar 2013].

This weekend, we were treated to a special moment of wonder when a customer / seller brought in handcuffs and leg shackles he alleged came from Harry Houdini. Continue reading “Magic on Pawn Stars” →

Magic News

Houdini: Who’s Your Daddy?

Inside Magic Image of Novel Ferret Out by Tim QuinlanHoudini’s father was a ________?

If you answered Rabbi, you may or may not be correct.

If you said, “lawyer,” you may be close.

If you asked, “who is ‘Houdini’?”  You are on the wrong site.

If you whined, “a person is much more than what he does for a living,” you are probably also on the wrong site but because your response evidences so much depth and sensitivity we assume you have lived life of considerable pain and disappointment and would hate to add to the long list of places and people who have rejected you.  You can stay but don’t touch anything.

The Houdini File is publishing a multi-part series on the question of Houdini’s daddy.  It is absolutely fascinating.

The series is a product of The Houdini Birth Research Committee of the Society of American Magicians.  Their task was to “ferret out hard facts about Mayer Samuel Weisz.”

As an aside, we love the phrase “ferret out hard facts” for inducing a wonderful melange of visual imagery.  In fact, our first World War II novel was titled “Ferret Out!” From the dust jacket “Captain Elmo Ferret was a young aviator trained as a crop duster in rural Key West, Florida drafted into Uncle Sam’s Air Corps to put a hurtin’ on a different kind of crop-destroying pest.”

Continue reading “Houdini: Who’s Your Daddy?” →

Magic News

Magic and Anesthesiology in the News

So we were perusing Anesthesiology: The Journal of the American Association of Anesthesiologists whilst waiting for our HOT POCKETS® brand Breakfast – Ham, Egg & Cheese sandwich to cook and came across two articles with magical applications.

The first is by Dr. Amr Abouleish titled “Try and hold your breath while reading this!”

The second is “A Mixed (Long- and Medium-chain) Triglyceride Lipid Emulsion Extracts Local Anesthetic from Human Serum In Vitro More Effectively than a Long-chain Emulsion,” by Weiming Ruan and Deborah French.

The first piece gives an anesthesiologist’s take on magician David Blaine’s world record setting attempts at holding his breath (as opposed to holding someone elses?) for more than 17 minutes. You can watch the TED Talk in which Mr. Blaine instructs audience members in the special preparation needed to hold their breath for more than three minutes after breathing “normal” or upwards of 17 minutes after huffing pure oxygen.

Dr. Abouleish poses the following question to his new anesthesiologist residents when discussing the relationship of end-tidal CO2 and respiration. “If your oxygen saturation is 100% and you hold your breath, what would your oxygen saturation be when you have to breathe?”

Of course all magicians know the answer to this but non-magic oriented medical residents need to be reminded of the relatively slow decline in oxygen saturation experienced by pre-oxygenated patients under general anesthesia.

We agree with Dr. Abouleish’s praise of Blaine’s talk. Those in the audience were able to hold their breath for as long as three minutes or more. Check it out for yourself and abide the constant warnings that this is not a skill easily acquired and one should never try this under water. The chance of passing out is high and because the risk of drowning whilst underwater is directly proportional to being conscious, you could, in the medical parlance, “konk out and die.”

The comments to Dr. Abouleish’s article are also instructive. There is general agreement that Mr. Blaine should have sought advice from an anesthesiologist rather than neurologists.

Instructive is a comment from Dr. Gerald Zeitlin. His capitalization and grammar is taken verbatim from his post:

As you all know Dr. Abouleish is discussing apneic oxygenation.

Watching David Blaine do his 17 minutes was fantastic – but what an incredibly wasted opportunity for science.

As we all know, HE SHOULD HAVE CONSULTED AN ANESTHESIOLOGIST!

Neurosurgeons “Don’t know nuffin’ ” about respiratory physiology. Why did Blaine not have an arterial line for his record attempt – then we’d have known what his arterial pCO2 was after 17 minutes.

Of course we all know that, at rest, during apnea the pCO2 rises between 3 and 5 mm. Hg per minute.

I failed math in Kindergarten but I think 17 times, let’s say 4 mm. Hg = 68. So, approximately he was at 108 mm.Hg pCO2.

As WE (anesthesiologists) know that level has mild to moderate anesthetic properties. I bet if you Emailed Dr. Eger he would know what the MAC of CO2 is.

We would love to meet Dr. Zeitlin. He is our kind of guy.

The second article of magic merit in the February 2012 edition of Anesthesiology, attempts to the answer the age old question, which extracts local anesthesia better, a “mixed” triglyceride lipid emulsion or a long-chain version?

Houdini’s correspondence with Kellar on this issue springs to mind.

Continue reading “Magic and Anesthesiology in the News” →

Latest Magic News, Magic News

Houdini Returns: Medium Connects with Great Magician

Inside Magic Image of Headline

We read with great interest an article on the incredibly reliable Weekly World News web site, "Houdini Speaks from Beyond the Grave." The article is probably not totally true but says Houdini has made contact through professional medium John Edward. Houdini provides several predictions to prove his authenticity. Like we said, it is probably not true but still interesting.

We live by few rules as magician / magic writer persons. First, "if it bleeds, it leads." The shocking and graphic stories go to the front of the line. In this way, we are very much like Disney World. The more grotesque or disgusting a person is (either in mannerisms or odor) the more likely he or she will be permitted to cut ahead of others standing in the Florida Sun.

Our second rule gets us in trouble, sometimes. "When in doubt, don't leave it out." Some news sources will pass on stories that have only a single source, seem self-serving or seem highly unlikely.

If it wasn't for Inside Magic, you would never know what got passed over. We publish the stuff others won't because they have "standards" or insist on "some basis in reality." Not this major magic periodical. If it wasn't for this policy, none of the following would have found a voice on the endless maze of copper tubing we call the internets.

1. President Magic Will Be Criminalized

This seemed within the realm of possible when we printed it several years ago. Our source assured us that the hobby and profession enjoyed by millions was about to be made illegal and practitioners would face jail time. Imagine how embarrassed we were to learn that the headline was technically true but just barely. It was the president of a local fraternal lodge that made the statement. And that he actually said, "Magic should be taught to criminals as a practical skill to boost self-esteem and confidence." Whether he intended jail birds to learn escape techniques is still the subject of litigation and debate within the lodge.

2. Ching Ling Foo Not Who He Seemed

For pure volume, this article should rank high on our Google search results. Unfortunately, we were wrong. Ching Ling Foo was actually a magician from China and not really Billy Robinson, former assistant to Kellar and Thurston. Mr. Robinson used the derivative name Chung Ling Soo to hide his Anglo identity and perform until he was killed performing the Bullet Catching Trick &ndash not the Cups and Balls as we also erroneously reported. We agree now that it did not make sense that a person could be killed when his or her Cups and Balls routine went "Horribly Wrong" and that we should not have guessed at what happened.

 

3. David Blaine's Box Falls Kills Paul McCartney and Others

We had to go with it. Yes, we could have immediately verified the story by looking at the live web cam showing every second of the 44 days of boredom induced and experienced by the American magician's endurance test. But we were writing from our phone while waiting in line at the 7-11 convenience store. We note that several of the letters in Mr. Blaine's name alone take forever to type out on a cellphone key pad. We were lucky to get the story out at all.

Continue reading “Houdini Returns: Medium Connects with Great Magician” →

Magic News

Houdini and Art in Madison Wisconsin

Inside Magic Image of the Great HoudiniFor a dead guy, he sure does get around.  Houdini packed 'em in at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art last Friday as "Houdini: Art and Magic" opened.

According to press reports, a talk by the show's curator was standing room only and the galleries were packed. 

The Jewish Museum in New York assembled the show and it is making its sole Midwest stop on the way home from a very successful run in Los Angeles. 

Critics noted that the show is "a bit of a departure for MMoCA, which tends to focus more straightforwardly on modern and contemporary art, but the show is already proving to have wide crossover appeal."

While visitors can enjoy watching rare video clips of the star's greatest escapes, they can check out  more conventional art  from the world of sculpture and painting.

One critic notes:

Heavy chains in Petah Coyne's sculpture, Untitled #698 (Trying to Fly, Houdini's Chandelier), recall those with which Houdini bound himself for feats of escape. The piece's suspension from the ceiling brings to mind the many stunts he performed while dangling over crowded city streets. Coyne's work compels the viewer with its brooding, mysterious presence, rather than a literal representation of Houdini.

Some of my other favorites included Jane Hammond's large-scale paintings, one of which shows Houdini on a tightrope, performing his needle trick (in which he swallowed sewing needles and then pulled them from his mouth on a string). In this case, the silhouettes of women in pre-Civil War dress hang strangely from the string. The simplified, graphic composition of Hammond's painting calls to mind posters for his appearances, some of which are on view here.

Read more at The Isthmus here.