Tag: @pophaydn

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.

Inside Magic Image of Japanese Gravure Idol Showing Heart Hand Symbol
Magic Month

Magic Month is Nigh

Inside Magic Image of Japanese Gravure Idol Showing Heart Hand SymbolTLDR: Send your Magic Month Events to events@insidemagic.com.

We are so close to Magic Month we can taste it.

Or that could be something else but we will consider it the taste of Magic Month approaching in just a few days.  Maybe it is tuna.

There are so many great shows, workshops and things other than workshops or shows scheduled for this month.  It is, as someone we once knew would say, “like Christmas for Magicians.”  We stopped knowing him because he went to the dark side and started exposing magic tricks on a YouTube channel.  He has many viewers and so by that standard he is a star and probably richly rewarded for his betrayal of his IBM and SAM oath to never expose a magic secret.  Especially one that does not belong to him.

But enough about the downers related to Magic Month.  Let’s discuss the great things that are about to happen.

In these pages of what some have called The Magic Periodical for the 1980s, we will feature (hopefully in advance of their happening) magic shows and lectures by people who love magic and respect its most sacred rules.  And there will be a ton of them.  That is likely because they will be multiple in number and not because any one of them is grossly over-weight.

Pop Haydn will be at Santa Monica’s Magicopolis as we have detailed in an earlier post.  We understand that particular post was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature (by us – hence our understanding) and if there is nothing published between then and the end of the year, we have a shot at bringing home whatever one gets when one wins the prize.  We think you get money and a statue of Alfred Nobel.  He was famous for inventing dynamite and without him there would be no flash paper, flash string, or flash bangs.

We owe a debt of gratitude to him and certainly as one who has been burned, scarred, and scared of flash devices, we owe him a debt of thanks for the very practical education we received.  We used to manufacture flash devices you could use apparently to shoot fire from your fingertips.  We can still make one in 15 minutes if pressed – and if you don’t press us, we can make it in 10 minutes but when pressed, our breathing becomes more desperate and we start to panic although we do like a good hug as much as the next guy.

We’re on a bus (not our own – it belongs to the city) as we write this and the next guy looks like he needs a hug.  We’ve learned from court-ordered classes, however, that just because someone looks like they need a hug, doesn’t mean we have a right to give that person a hug.  Lesson learned.  Just like don’t look down the tube of a flash device to see if the coil is working if that tube is jam packed with a flash wad and a bit of gunpowder.

We were proud that two of our flash devices were used by Doug Henning on one of his television specials but not proud that but for our very heavy framed glasses, we would have been blinded by the ball of fire and gunpowder that bounced off our glass and scared the dog and our foster parents.  They weren’t foster parents at the time but claimed to be later, after a couple more of those types of events.

We digress, as one does during Magic Month.

Come back often to get an update on shows, workshops and what-nots happening during this upcoming month.  If you have an event you’d like to publicize, please send the details to us at events@insidemagic.com.  We’ll be sure to publicize the heck out of it.

Magic Month here we come.  We can’t wait.

Latest Magic News

Pop Haydn Coming to Town

magicopolis-small_orig.pngHow excited we were to see that Pop Haydn will be appearing at Magicopolis on October 4, 5, and 6.

It is our intention to be there for all shows.

We were walking down the streets of Santa Monica minding other peoples’ business when we ran right into the sign giving us the great news.  Inside Magic Favorite Pop Hadyn (nee Whit Haydn) will be appearing in the flesh (his own) at the start of Magic Month.

We took pictures using our Kodak Instamatic and just got them back from the one film center that still processes such images.  Oh boy were we impressed by our photography ability and the subject of the photographs.

We also took pictures to use up the roll — as one does or used to do — of a man with a snake or long hair — either way it looked dangerous.  We took pictures of the Santa Monica Pier and even some of the ground (it said we had 28 frames left in the camera but it was really 29).  The ground pictures were notable because you can see our new shoes that we bought a year ago and they still look like they did when we bought them used from a man on that very street in Santa Monica.  He was a kind man with kind eyes and a wide variety of great tennis shoes in different sizes and lace configurations.  We went with the Stan Smith and found a size into which we could fit on both feet.  Such luxury.  But usual, we digress.

Let’s talk about Pop Haydn.  There is no one better in entertaining a crowd and engaging them into his mysterious world.  His character is so complete and accurate that one cannot help but believe he is from another century.

His magic skills are among the best we have ever seen.  His  philosophy on entertaining is similarly inspiring.  To say he is our favorite would be an understatement.  Like saying buying used shoes is always a good idea or Santa Monica is a great place for people watching.  Or Lemonade that is “hard” should come with warnings.  All understatements and all equally true.

Pop’s color changing handkerchief alone makes us feel at once inadequate and entertained.  We all have the effect in our drawers at home but Pop performs it the way you imagined it could be performed when you bought it a convention or from Tannen’s a long time ago — perhaps in a different century.

If you are in Santa Monica or California or even western Arizona, come to see Pop perform.  He will inspire you to be a better magician and entertain you at the same time.  Pop is Top in our book.

Visit Pop’s website and store here.

Check out Magicopolis here.