Tag: Houdini

Escape Artistry News, Latest Magic News, Magic of Canada

Dean Gunnarson Survives ‘Pure hell’

We told you about his plan to survive two days below ground.  Locked in a coffin, buried under tons of dirt, and, to make it harder, a committee would bind his arms and legs with shackles before placing him in the aforementioned coffin in the ground.

He hoped to escape where many have failed.  Even Houdini believed the escape was too dangerous.

Well, he made it out alive and convinced he does not want to be buried when the time comes for the divine recycling.

“I know one thing for sure, when my soul is done with my body I don’t ever want to be buried again,” Dean Gunnarson said. “I’m going to see Pete (Kilcollins) to cremate me and they can sprinkle my ashes on some flowers.”

Pete Kilcollins brought Dean to the Buried Alive stunt site in a hearse used in the Kilcollins’ cremation business.

Dean wanted to erupt from the freshly packed soil at precisely 1:26 p.m. on October 31st to link his emergence from the grave with Harry Houdini’s passing from this life in 1926.

According to The Sun, after Dean dug through the topsoil to daylight, he collapsed momentarily.

His estimation of the stunt matched Houdini’s: “It was pure hell digging my way up,” a dirt-covered Gunnarson said. “The weight was crushing and I couldn’t breathe. It was tough.”

Continue reading “Dean Gunnarson Survives ‘Pure hell’” →

Escape Artistry News, Magic News

Dean Gunnarson to Kids: Get Busy

Inside Magic Favorite Dean Gunnarson is one of the fittest folks we know.  That’s one advantage of being an escape artist.  A recent study by the non-profit (but not by choice) Inside Magic Foundation showed a direct and correlative relationship between the physical fitness of an escape artist and his or her longevity.

To wit: Houdini was the gold standard of fitness for his time.  His career lasted for decades, throughout and despite spectacular physical injuries and infections. 

On the other hand, Tommy “Binge” Hardy II began his escape career on July 4, 1952 and ended six hours later.  It actually took firefighters only four-and-a-half hours to unlock the wheezing and whimpering performer from the portable toilet from which he was to escape. 

Dean Gunnarson is recovering from broken bones suffered in the well-publicized Chinese roller-coaster escape last month.  But he does not let a little thing like pulverized leg and ankle orthopedic structures get in the way of performing and encouraging others.

The Interlake Spectatorof Manitoba, Canada carries the inspiring story of Dean Gunnarson’s visit to a local school to deliver an important message for the kids.  "It's important kids learn how important physical activity is," Mr. Gunnarson told those at the Arborg Middle School’s Physical Activity Day.   As The Spectator noted, Dean Gunnarson’s “performances require him to hold his breath to escape from certain death.”

We love the turn of the phrase “escape from certain death.”  It reminds us of our favorite Houdini poster for The Milk Can Escape, “Failure Means a Drowning Death.” 

Dean Gunnarson performed some effects and then escaped from what looks like a rope tie or chain escape.  He also shared his secret for success. He told students of his vow in junior high school to live healthy; no smoking, no drugs or alcohol.  He made these choices precisely because he wanted to be an escape artist.  “These are the decisions I made in junior high school," he said. "You have to be in good shape. What I do is very physical."

Check out the full article in The Spectator here.

Be sure to visit Dean Gunnarson’s incredible web site at AlwaysEscaping.com.

Latest Magic News, Magic of China

Actual Near Miss for Dean Gunnarson in China Escape Mishap

Early this morning, we received word from Inside Magic Favorite Dean Gunnarson, that things did not go as planned in his planned escape from the tracks of a speeding roller-coaster in Beijing.  

The Toronto Sun had coverage this afternoon filling in the details of what must have been a horrific event.

Dean Gunnarson is insane but also very safe.  That is to say, when he hangs by his toes over the Hoover Dam, he makes sure the wind speed is in the single digits and he has no butter or slippery goo on his boots.  Despite his devotion to safety, he has had several near catastrophes over his career.  

He began with hypothermia and near drowning in the frigid waters of Canada where the water and cold robbed him of a chance to escape from his shackles or the locked wooden casket.  He's pulled, broken, snapped, and twisted body parts with verve much to the delight of fans and his medical professionals.  

Still, as we have admitted on this magic news outlet and to professional mental health workers, his stuff scares us silly.  

Here's the report from The Toronto Sun:

He had freed himself and was attempting to dive to safety when the roller-coaster car, which was travelling at nearly 100 km/h, clipped his right foot.

He sustained a broken bone in his foot and some internal bleeding.

He was in hospital Tuesday in Beijing but was hoping to return to Canada by Wednesday.

In his news release, Gunnarson said he believed hot and humid conditions, with a temperature of 36 C, contributed to him losing the extra split second he needed to completely avoid the bullet roller-coaster car.

The 46-year-old Manitoba resident – who has performed death-defying escapes around the world since he was in his teens – said this escape was a little too close for comfort.

"I have always said I don't do card tricks or pull bunnies out of a hat," Gunnarson said in his news release. "I push the envelope in an extreme way that tries to do the impossible with every great escape I have ever attempted. I like to keep things close but this was beyond close. It was near death."

The escape was part of Gunnarson's Bound for Danger world tour and was being shot for inclusion in a magic special on Chinese television.

This autumn, Gunnarson is planning an escape in which he will be locked inside a steel coffin and buried six feet underground for 48 hours.

After two days, he will attempt to escape on Halloween, the anniversary of the death in 1926 of legendary magician and escape artist Harry Houdini.

Houdini wrote, "No one wants to see a man die, but they want to be there when it happens."  

The escape from the roller coaster tracks stunt almost claimed the life of Inside Magic Favorite Lance Burton.  He too misjudged the closing speed of the coaster leaving no margin for error as he leaped to safety.  He said later, "That was stupid." 

Continue reading “Actual Near Miss for Dean Gunnarson in China Escape Mishap” →

Latest Magic News

Criss Angel in his “Most Death-Defying Stunt”

Robin Leach reports that Mindfreak star Criss Angel will attempt “the most dangerous stunt of his career this weekend.”

The magician intends the underwater escape as a tribute to Houdini and in true Houdini fashion his publicist describes just two potential outcomes.  “In If he fails to escape from the chilly waters of the Colorado River at the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, he will drown!”

Criss Angel will be adorned in chains, shackles, and handcuffs before being wrapped in rope and dropped into the freezing river beneath the London Bridge at Lake Havasu City, Arizona.  “Once submerged, he has only two choices: Escape or drown.”

Robin Leach tells readers “Criss has told me several times of Houdini being his inspiration, and this stunt re-creates one that Houdini mastered in England.”

Robin Leach also reports that Criss Angel “has been named Magician of the Year five times and most recently Magician of the Century.”  Criss Angel’s web site mentions he was named Magician of the Year five times in a row but does not tell readers the group bestowing this honor.  According to some on SAM Talk (Society of American Magicians ListServe) the honor came from the International Magicians Society and in 2005 the Academy of Magical Arts proclaimed him Magician of the Year as well.  We could not find a citation for the Magician of the Century, however.

If he was named Magician of the Century for the current century, 2000 through 2010, the honor seems a bit premature.

On the other hand, if Criss Angel was the Magician of the Century for 1900 through 2000,  it means he beat out such lesser magic names such as Thurston, Harry  Blackstone and Harry Blackstone, Jr. , Harry Kellar, P.T. Selbit, David Copperfield, Doug Henning, Lance Burton, Penn & Teller, Kreskin, Chung Ling Soo, Ching Ling Foo, Siegfried & Roy, Mark Wilson, Walter Blaney, Bev Bergeron, Dai Vernon, Ace Gorham, Jay Marshall, Paul Daniels, Jade, Wayne Dobson, Mark Kalin and Jinger, Li’l Tom Hardy, Melinda Saxe, Orson Welles, P.C. Sorkar and P.C. Sorkar, Jr., Derren Brown, Becky Blaney, Theo Anneman, and of course the object of Criss Angel’s homage, Harry Houdini.

The Houdini escape episode will air as a one-hour special when the new season premieres in July.

The public is invited to attend the filming.  If you would like to spend the night before or after the event, Criss Angel has worked his magic to secure special discount rates at the local Travel Lodge for just $69.99 per night.  Be sure to mention “Criss Angel MindFreak” when making your reservation.

Of course, if you don’t mention Criss Angel Mind Freak, you can get a room with two queen beds or one king for five dollars less than the MindFreak discount; at least that’s what we found on the Travel Lodge site today (Saturday May 8th).

Magic History, Magician Feature

Today in Magic History: Houdini is Born

According to The New York Times, March 24, 1874 is the birthday of Erich Weiss. The paper was not so prescient as to cover the birth of the child who would one day become the foremost performer of his time and, for our money, for all time.

The Times pegs today as Houdini’s birthday in retrospect, through its obituary published on November 1, 1926 – a day after the magician’s death in Detroit.

Much of the article was likely prepared in advance of his death; perhaps during ten days he endured the certainly inhuman pain of the virulent infection wracking his body.

We owe a debt to the unnamed author of the piece identified as a “Special to The New York Times” likely written by a freelance reporter for the paper. He or she included new – at least to us – anecdotes about Houdini and his rise to world fame.

Continue reading “Today in Magic History: Houdini is Born” →

Latest Magic News

Ectospasms: The Fox Sisters in Dance

The Lola Lola Dance Theatre will debut their multi-media dance theatre piece, Ectospasms, as part of the New York International Fringe Festival scheduled for August 14th – 23rd.

Ectospasms is a play on the term coined by spiritualists for a substance allegedly produced by the disembodied, Ectoplasm.

As repulsed as we are by ectoplasm, we are just as attracted to all things related in any way to The Fox Sisters.

In fact, you can read both Houdini’s account of The Fox Sisters and Maggie Fox confession in our Inside Magic Library for free.

Ironically, Maggie, Katie and Leah never produced ectoplasm in their seances.  Like another innovator, Vanilla Ice, they were all about the rapping.  (Although Katie did perform some full-body materialzations later in her career).

We are trying to finagle a way to see the Lola Lola Dance Theatre’s performance.

The teasingly short glimpses of their rehersals shown on YouTube have us hooked.  We don’t know Bob Fosse from Boo-Boo Bear, but we know what we like and the Lola Lola Dance Theatre expression of the sisters’ internal conflict looks dead-on.

The dance is choreographed and directed by Jessica Bonenfant and written by Dr. Edmund B. Lingan – the Founder and Director of The Institute for the Study of Performance and Spirituality.  The theatre’s web site gives a link for the Institute but we weren’t able to hack past the login screen.

Your luck or hacking skills may be better.

The show will be seen in The Robert Moss Theater (Venue Number 6 on the Fringe Map).  Tickets are $15.00 and the show runs about an hour and a quarter.

For more information on the Fringe and a schedule, check out www.fringenyc.org.

Make sure you visit The Lola Lola Dance Theatre for details on their premiere of Ectospasms, and other pieces.  You can find the theatre at:  www.lolalola.org.

Magic Book Review

A Magician Among the Spirits Available

Margaret Fox Kane - The Reason for Our Late NightsThis has become a passion and a time-suck all in one.

We started by reading The Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox.  That lead to Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism , another take on the Fox Sisters.

We went back to read Houdini’s A Magician Among the Spirits and finally understood some of the passion we previously misinterpreted to be a strident, arrogant tone.

Read in context with the Spiritualism movement, Houdni’s A Magician Among the Spirits is the perfect, logical balance to the incredible claims of spiritualists.

All of this led to our reading Maggie Fox’s The Death Blow to Spiritualism.

While she later recanted her recantation, it is a sombering experience to hear the side of the woman (along with her younger sister, Katie, and older sister, Leah) started Spiritualism and all that it produced.

Now, we find ourselves with an irrational crush on Maggie Fox and an even greater sense of awe of Harry Houdini.

More about this investigation later but for now, check out the downloadable PDF of A Magician Among the Spirits, by Houdini.

Continue reading “A Magician Among the Spirits Available” →

Magic News

Are Margery and the Fox Sisters Still Living Large?


houdini-and-radio-model(Reprinted from April 12, 2003).


We know that the Jonathan Edward-esque medium has a tepid following.  We thought he was an aberration.

We just assumed there was not a wide-spread support for such bunk.

We were wrong and it is kind of scary how the revisionist pen can keep alive long ago solved mysteries.

The we read of a new literary exhibition: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Beyond Sherlock Holmes, opens this weekend at Chicago’s prestigious Newberry Library.

Sir Arthur’s magazines, artworks, photographs and artifacts have been collected for presentation through July 12.

Continue reading “Are Margery and the Fox Sisters Still Living Large?” →

Magic Book Review

What’s New?

Maggie FoxWe are easily distracted from one obsession to another.

We don’t just flit from shiny thing to more shiny thing.  Nay, we focus on some topic — usually obscure and without any real-world value to anyone — and intensify our focus until there is no other stimuli within our view.

That is a good thing for our other profession, proof reading M&Ms, but can be disconcerting for just about every other aspect of our world.

We noticed yesterday that we had not updated Inside Magic with a new story or article since last week.  What were we doing?  How could this happen?

We fell hopelessly in love with a dead woman, Maggie Fox Kane of the famous or infamous Fox Sisters.

We’ll provide our complete review of two recent books on Maggie and her medium sisters, Katie and Leah, later today.

You can read Houdini’s take on the rise of Spiritualism in his fantastic 1924 book, A Magician Among the Spirits.

We uploaded a PDF version of the book complete with our OCR, search functions and hyperlinked cross-references.  Houdini’s book and Maggie Fox Kane’s Death Blow to Spiritualism, are both available at the Inside Magic Library.

Continue reading “What’s New?” →

Latest Magic News, Magic of Canada

Brice Thrills with Escape 40 Feet Up!

Nick Brice Struggles for Freedom High Above CrowdFifteen year-old Nick Brice had an exceptional view of the overflow crowd gathered beneath him on the hot asphalt parking lot of the Swift Current Mall.

The excited, curious, and skeptical over-flow audience had an equally fine vantage point to watch the young man struggle with the canvas straight jacket as he swayed and writhed in the 10 mile-per-hour winds dangling some 40 feet above last Saturday.

No straight jacket escape is automatic or easy.

But Nick Brice was not looking for “easy” when he agreed to perform the dangerous stunt.

If he wanted to be safe, or to perform an “easy” escape, he would have stayed planted on terra firma (likely indoors), donned a heavily gimmicked, unexamined straight jacket, and conducted his escape behind an opaque curtain.

Perhaps it is a tribute to his youthful energy and enthusiasm that he was able to fend off fatigue and vertigo to slowly and painfully work his way free of the weighty garment before he would have certainly collapsed from heat exhaustion and his inverted position.

Like many of us, Mr. Brice was inspired by Houdini – someone who never took the “easy” route.

“Probably the most famous magician, Harry Houdini, is the one that really inspires me. He was the first one to do this one at the turn of the 20 century. He was my inspiration to do the straight jacket escape,” Master Brice told reporters.

His usual performance venues are more stable, less dangerous.

“I have done a couple at the library. Actually I normally do it at schools. I am always entertaining the other kids at high school.”

How does he intend to top his latest public exhibition next year?

Continue reading “Brice Thrills with Escape 40 Feet Up!” →