The first busy weeks of September have begun, but I’m often still thinking about the wonderful research trip I had in France from August 21st to September 4th. It was so inspiring that I’ll be making a few posts this month to share what I learned in Cerisy-la-Salle, Châlons-en-Champagne, and Paris.
First, I’d like to thank Jean-Marc Larrue, Giusy Pisano, and Frank Kessler for their kind invitation to spend nearly a whole week sharing academic magic research at the historic chateau of Cerisy-la-Salle, France. What a place to write and think! Their research group — The Deceptive Arts — is filled with historians from a variety of disciplines and countries who are working on magic as either a performing art or a cultural concept.
I gathered a wealth of new information from these fascinating people. All of our papers will be published in French and our oral presentations were recorded by the Centre culturel international de Cerisy-la-Salle. All quite exciting for a longtime francophile like myself.
Here is the minimalist and portable magic table that I’ve been working on for months as a side project. After considering dozens of different retail tables and construction plans, I decided to build my own using strong, light and elegant material. The stand is designed to hold the weight of a keyboard and can be adjusted to various heights or folded completely flat.The board is 1/2 an inch of Russian pine. The surface is black velvet plush. I wanted to create a large performance space (20″ by 40″) to make a close-up magic stage that would also be suited to small-pitch work on the street or indoors. I’m considering adding a simple frame or some decorative trim to the edges of the table, but there is something nice about a simple and thin design. It conveys openness and makes the appearance, disappearance and transformation of objects more magical. If others have favorite tables for this kind of performance, I’d love to see them.
I’ll be giving a public presentation based on my most recent research and magic consultation project next week. This praxis performance will include supernatural magic effects inspired by my childhood experiences at a spiritual summer camp, Harry Houdini’s 1926 anti-spiritualist exposé at McGill University, and my collaboration on the new media webseries Houdini and Doyle: World of Wonders. All are welcome to attend and to participate in an open discussion after the talk.
I had the distinct pleasure of watching jazz legend Oliver Jones play songs like “Gershwin Medley” at his final performance for the Montreal Jazz Festival on Thursday. A master is retiring. The hands of Jones, mentored by the late, great Oscar Peterson, have a sort of superhuman dexterity when they touch the piano. The sound of him playing was magical, transporting the ears and minds of roughly 1,900 people at the sold out Maison symphonique. Watching a virtuoso perform with that level of technique at 81 is inspiring. “Gershwin Medley” makes me think about three things that link jazz and magic as performing arts: the touch of a master, the hours of dedicated practice required to achieve it, and the delicate art of adding new personality to classics.
Watching Spanish magician Juan Tamariz perform in Sacramento in 1997 was the first time I saw the hands of a master magician performing up-close and in person. It’s difficult to describe, but I think that spectators instinctively sense when they are watching a master perform based on the way the tools are handled. For Oliver Jones, it’s the piano. For Tamariz, it’s the deck of playing cards. The difference, of course, is that the jazz pianist displays overt skill and the magician displays overt effects — magic — while concealing skill. Despite this contrast, spectators see both performers handle instruments and are often able to judge whether or not the artists’s interactions with those objects are masterful. As magic master Dai Vernon put it so beautifully: “Everything has a touch.” To develop a touch similar to that of Jones or of Tamariz, however, requires a lifetime of practice.
David Ben has written extensively on the work of Dai Vernon and was mentored by Canadian master magician Ross Bertram. Years ago, Ben wrote a post about “dedicated practice” as an approach for acquiring a high level of technical skill. The phrase doesn’t mean just logging many hours, but doing so with keen attention to structure and reflection to correct mistakes in the rehearsal studio. I think of this as the more one practices, the better one must get at practicing efficiently — or practice smarter, not harder.
For me, watching Ben perform Bertram’s magic is like watching Jones perform Peterson’s music. I never saw Bertram or Peterson perform live. They each passed away before I had the chance to see them, but I love reading, watching and listening to recordings of their work. Their material, in the hands of their students, combines the past touch of the master with the current touch of the protégé.
In both magic and music, I see the newer generation paying homage to the one before while carefully adding their own personalities — their own touch.
“The East Indian Needle Trick” is what Houdini typically called it. How to adapt it for a three-minute webisode with actress Rebecca Liddiard and magician Scott Hammell was our challenge. We had many ideas for setting the stage of this episode: filming it on-location in a tailor’s shop, a tattoo parlor, etc. Ciara Vernon, our talented production designer, came up with the great solution we chose in the end. She and her team created a needle and thread art installation on set. It was beautiful to watch and walk through this piece of art. You’ll see Rebecca collect needles from this virtual hanging forest of sharp metal in the clip below. Then, you’ll see Scotty swallow them:
*P.S. You can catch the latest Houdini & Doyle TV episode tonight at 9/8c on FOX and GlobalTV
Good news! All ten episodes of the Houdini & Doyle: World of Wonders webseries are now viewable outside of Canada. Follow the KindaTV link below to watch host Rebecca Liddiard as she delves into magic history and various effects. Thanks to John Cox and @miss_steph42for the update on this. You can catch the latest Houdini & Doyle TV episode tonight at 9/8c on FOX and GlobalTV:
A McGill colleague recently sent me these wonderfully quirky posters depicting fin-de-siecle hypnotism shows. I’m not sure who penned this post at The Public Domain Review, but it looks to me like these are probably stock posters for entertainment hypnotists who couldn’t afford to have original, custom posters designed. The blank space at the top is for the insertion of the performer’s name. There was a market for stock magic posters during this era as well. In fact, the fourth poster in this the site’s post looks more like a second sight act than a hypnotism number:
The Donaldson Litho Company (Newport, Kentucky) printed a few different magic stock posters and at least one personalized design for the magician known as Kar-mi (The Prince of India). Does anyone have other favorite Donaldson Litho posters?
At 12:30PM on October 20th, 1916, Houdini performed his suspended straitjacket escape on the streets of Toronto.* In 2016, we had the pleasure of working with Lucas Wilson who holds three Guinness world records for this escape. If you’re in Canada (or know how to view out-of-country content), click on the image below to see a dramatic tribute to one of Houdini’s signature stunts.
By the way, The fourth episode of the fictional TV show Houdini and Doyle airs tonight on FOX at 9/8c.
*I encourage you to read this entry from John Cox’s stellar Houdini blog for some comic relief regarding the magician’s 1916 performance.
At least three miraculous things happened when I went to see Noah Levine’s Magic After Hours show on Thursday night. A friend-of-a-friend who didn’t like magic now loves it. We were given an intimate, after-hours tour of New York’s oldest magic shop in existence — Tannen’s. Finally, we watched Noah perform impossible feats right under our noses. His show happens every Thursday night at 7:30PM. Enter the discount code FRIENDS to purchase two tickets for the price of one at MagicAfterHours.com. Take a friend who doesn’t like magic and watch them remember what it’s like to be a kid again:
What are the ethics of claiming to possess psychic powers? The “Cold Read” episode of Houdini and Doyle’s: World of Wonders was inspired by these two gentlemen’s real-life encounters with individuals who seemed to know impossibly personal information about people they had just met. Harry Houdini and his wife Bess experimented with the combination of hot reading techniques and a second sight act during their Canadian tour in 1896.* For ethical reasons, they decided to abandon the act. Arthur Conan Doyle really did have a teacher who created a similar effect using the powers of observation and deduction.
Basic intro and outro scripts were written to create this web episode. However, Rebecca was not told what Banachek would say during the reading itself. Click on the image here to see what happens:
*For more on this, see Bruce MacNab’s excellent book The Metamorphosis.
