I’ve just joined the editorial advisory board of one of my favorite academic journals: Early Popular Visual Culture. The publication is a respected venue for sharing interdisciplinary research related to all forms of popular visual culture before 1930. This fits well with one of my primary research areas: the golden age of stage conjuring (1875-1925). I am both honoured and excited to be part of this team.
I’ve just finished the first magic class of the year at Montreal’s National Circus School and am still feeling that post-teaching rush. It’s quite exciting to be sharing magic history, techniques and the latest examples of “magie nouvelle” — a new, interdisciplinary mixture of circus and magic arts — with the next generation of performers who will be amazing audiences for Cirque Éloize, Cirque du Soleil, 7 Doigts de la Main and other professional companies. After all of the course handouts, props, and content that had to be managed today, I know that I’m physically pretty tired. It’s worth it though. It’s inspiring to see magical lights turn on in the minds of these talented performers. I can’t wait to see what ideas they come up with this year.
I had the enjoyable task of preparing magic for a Massey wedding over the weekend. Master Emeritus John Fraser, president of the Institute for the Study of the Crown, hosted me in the Robertson Davies suite. This is a beautiful room with the feel of a gentleman’s study c.1920. Practising sleight-of-hand there was a communion with several aspects of the past. I communed with Davies as I walked past the familiar display of his book Fifth Business in the downstairs library. I communed with John Fraser, whose exotic souvenirs and writing instruments adorned my temporary desk. Finally, I communed with those years I spent as a resident Junior Fellow pouring over magic books in House II, room 15. Reflections of hands, illuminated by pools of light. This visit was a doubling of practising selves, an experience of the present happily mixing with the past.
The inimitable Anna-Karyna Barlati, librarian at the National Circus School, asked me to recommend three magic books for the students here. Only three? This was no easy task. The NCS library is frequented by students ranging in age from early teens to late twenties. I kept this in mind while also nourishing a healthy bias for my students who are in the college program. The selections are each fundamental books that every magic student should have under their belt:
1) The Five Points of Magic by Juan Tamariz,
2) The French Omnibus edition of the complete works of Robert-Houdin: Comment on devient sorcier,
3) Hiding the Elephant by Jim Steinmeyer.
These offer a solid foundation in close-up, parlor and stage magic. They also give students a few different access points for how and why to learn from the history of magic as a performing art. Finally, those who make it to the end of Tamariz’s book will be rewarded with an annotated list of his recommendations.
For throw-back Thursday, here is a clip of our talented friend Andrée-Anne Gingras-Roy operating her 100-year old player piano. Andrée-Anne is a professional musician with Compagnia Finzi Pasca. If you saw the Sochi winter olympics in 2014, then you saw her play the glass organ on live television for millions of viewers. We lived in her beautiful instrument all last year. This is the first time we saw the player piano in action:
Pianos that play themselves are a recurring theme in magic. If you ever visit the Magic Castle in Hollywood, be sure to visit Irma and ask for a song.
Robert Heller (William Henry Palmer)
Birth Date: August 19, 1829 (Canterbury, England)
Death Date: November 25, 1878 (Philidelphia)
Info: Robert Heller, born William Henry Palmer in Canterbury, England, was inspired to pursue a career as an illusionist after seeing a performance of French master magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. Heller traveled to New York in the summer of 1852 to begin his North American shows, which, as time went on and he perfected his tour, won him the kind of financial success and publicity only matched by certain rival magicians such as the Herrmann Brothers and John Henry Anderson.
Heller, a talented, classically trained pianist, always received rave reviews for the musical portion of his shows, which, as early as 1862 in Hamilton, Ontario included the performance of vocalist Miss E. A. Marsh. However, he did not become truly renowned for his magical entertainment until 1864 when he met Edward Hingston (a manager who had engineered success for Anderson, Artemus Ward and others). Heller’s signature magic act was “Second Sight,” in which his sister, though blindfolded on stage, could verbally describe any object from the audience her brother gazed upon. The magician travelled back and forth between North America and Europe, performing in the British Isles (1873-1876), in New York (November, 1876), in England (1877) and, finally, back to America in 1878. He performed various stage illusions such as the “Indian Basket Trick,” “The Inexhaustible Bottle,” and “The Mysterious Hat” (a version of Joseph Hartz’s “The Devil of a Hat”), which are all listed in an 1877 Boston review of one of his last appearances before his death the very next year. That same 73 consecutive day production resulted in a Boston record for magic shows: $45,000 in receipts ($20,000 of which Heller received). In 1913, a magic periodical, The Sphinx, published an homage to Heller as well as an anecdotal poem the magician would recite for his audiences:
“Shakespeare wrote well,
Dickens wrote Weller,
Anderson was—
But the greatest is Heller.”
Yesterday, I watched as three letters were magically added to my sister’s last name. Friends, family members, administrators, professors and her fellow classmates filled the auditorium. Her full name was called, a master’s hood was placed around her neck, and Smith College President Kathleen McCartney handed her a well-earned degree. This fancy piece of paper, combined with a ceremonial walk across the stage, is the academic equivalent of being baptised. Katie may now legally sign her emails as Katherine Elizabeth Culpepper, MSW. She spent twenty-seven months completing coursework at one the best schools in the US, worked two eight-month placements (one at Danbury Hospital, CT; the other at the DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, TX), and wrote a thesis on suicide prevention for veterans. She is now qualified to work on becoming a licensed clinical social worker. We couldn’t be more proud of her or the path that she has chosen. Here’s to the transformative power of cultural rituals like commencement ceremonies and therapy sessions. Here’s to those moments when words have the power to do what they say.
Which books have you destroyed? Which books have you written in, doodled on, dog-eared, stained and flipped-through while backpacking? These copies, though their treatment would repulse most collectors and librarians, are usually the ones that we know most intimately. As a scholar, I spend a lot of time reading pristine editions of rare books. I’ve worn gloves and sat in climate controlled rooms with delicate manuscripts from the 1800s (and much earlier) resting on pillows to protect their spines. I leave those books and the ones I borrow immaculate. Today, however, I’d like to celebrate messy reading.
My most memorable and intimate reading experiences have been with those texts that live with me for a while. I recently visited Halifax, Nova Scotia, and decided to read my fresh new copy of Bruce MacNab’s The Metamorphosis wherever and however I pleased. Did the condition of the book plummet from mint to fair while I read it on the open deck of the Dartmouth ferry? Yes.
This was a small price to pay, however, for the experience of reading about Harry Houdini and his wife’s crossing of those same waters in 1896. I scrawled a note in the margins to mark the occasion. Mist from the harbour splashed and warped the pages. For me, these drops were a magic potion. As they hit the paper, the present and past folded impossibly inward. I leaned back to see Harry and Bess sitting on the same bench as me. Time travel, as Dr. Who might say, is messy.
Don’t get me wrong. Immaculate reading can also be magical. For this reason, I have two copies (at least one clean and one not-so-clean) of special books.
I’m curious about your experiences with messy reading. Do you have a photo of your best/worst loved book that you’d be willing to share?
Touring Cirque du Soleil headquarters is the circus equivalent of Charlie visiting the Chocolate Factory:
The building is filled with wonderful toys, objects, and artists whose characteristics stretch the imagination. A couple weeks ago, David Simard from Cirque du Monde, gave attendees of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference an extremely informative tour. This was my second visit to the heart of the so-called Cité des arts du cirque. For a virtual version of the general tour, see this post on The Roarbots blog. Here, I will simply share three fun facts from our visit. Our group came across the talented Anna Ostapenko training for a hand-balancing number in Varekai. After this, we were lucky enough to see some of the Toruk team working hard to prepare for the show’s debut. Finally, we went to the very top floor of the building. I have wondered about this mysterious room and its high ceilings during many of my trips to the National Circus School and the Tohu. I’ll leave what it’s used for a mystery. I will, however, share with you this photo of my favorite item inside.
Joseph Michael Hartz
Birth Date: August 10, 1836 (Liverpool, England)
Death Date: June 29, 1903 (London, England)
The illusionist Joseph Michael Hartz, like Robert Heller, was inspired to become a magician after witnessing the performances of Robert-Houdin in England. Encouraged by his father, who was a watchmaker by trade, and the success of his debut performances in Liverpool and London, Hartz chose to make “crystal” illusions his trademark. With the help of his father and his natural talent for mechanical engineering, the magician made all of his visible stage apparatus out of transparent glass. As one of his London press releases recalled him saying during his 1861 presentation at the Hanover Square Rooms, he “hoped that though the spectators could see through his apparatus, they would not be able to see through his tricks.”
In 1867, following his success in England, Joseph Hartz and his brother Augustus migrated to America. This same year, press announcements and reviews of the magician place him in Boston, Massachusetts during the month of June and in Toronto, Ontario during September. Shortly after this tour, the brothers opened what may be the earliest North American magic shop — The Hartz Magic Repository — both in New York (c. 1869-1870) and in Boston (February 25, 1871). Their shop proudly claimed to use the highest quality materials and the best engineering techniques to produce the apparatus it sold, but also carried smaller, more affordable tricks for sale to amateurs. While the brothers retail magic businesses grew, Joseph continued touring and perfecting his show. He decided to drastically streamline the equipment he required to perform such acts as “The Wonderful Hat.” This effect, after some additional, brilliant touches, was redubbed “The Devil of a Hat” and is today considered one of Hartz’ most significant contributions to the history of conjuring. The last record of his performances in the Boston area, and perhaps in north eastern America, occurs in 1881 only two years before the magician’s return to England in 1883.