chicagomagic

Nut

Did you ever hear anyone say, “I have to make my nut”? Did you say it?

Ever wonder where or when the term “nut” started to mean your rent or expenses?

In poker, “the nuts” describes a hand that can’t be beat or cracked.
“Making your nut” has nothing to do with the poker definition.

In has nothing to do with that hard-shelled treat at the baseball game.

It comes from the carnival. Many games, food vendors, and sideshows rented their space from the main carnival operator who supplied the rides and other parts of the show.
In the old days, the carnival boss or Lot Man would remove a nut from every wheel on an attraction’s wagon so a grifter could not skip out on paying their rent. When the rent was paid, the nuts were returned.

So, the next time you hear someone say they need to make their “nut” remember they are keeping a carnival tradition alive. Share this story with them. It will make you seem smarter.

And you both are on the way to being “With it”.

No not Hamburgler or Hamburger or Humbugger, as my spell check suggests.

Bart Whaley’s Who’s Who in magic lists one magician by the name, Hambujer.
Hambujer
(Denmark [sic]: 1848-1924) Pro sleight-of-hand. Played Dublin (1859) & Boston (1860)

Of course, if we do the math, born in 1848, played Dublin in 1859; he would have been age eleven and twelve in Boston. This is not unheard of, but unusual. What makes things more unusual is a second (?) Hambujer in New York, Chicago, and Detroit. Not that is unusual that a magician would use another’s name or is it the same person and the birth date was recorded wrong. Here is the knot.

(The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and an unnamed Milwaukee paper are referenced and partially quoted.)

April 1862, New York—Mons. Hambujer and a Madam Hambujer play a benefit at the end of their run. (Married at thirteen?)

July 1862, Chicago—Hambujer, the wonderful East Indian Magician, commences a series of his entertainments this Monday evening at Bryan Hall. The Detroit Advertiser says of him: “This celebrated magician, who is generally admitted to have no superior, opened last evening in Fireman’s Hall. The audience was large, and the dexterous operator received rounds of applause. Hambujer’s illusions defy all detection, while they are performed with such rapidity that the audience is kept in a continual furore of excitement. We have never seen his superior as a “prestidigitatuer,” and very few, if any, equals has he on this continent. His exhibition of Indian magnetism is decidedly interesting, and the influence, which he exercises upon the subjects, is truly marvelous. Mr. Hambujer has exhibited in all the principal cities of the Union, and carries with him the unanimous approval of the press and people as a talented wizard.”

July 14, 1862—Hambujer, who has been engaged during the past week in performing his wonderful sleight of hand tricks at Bryan Hall, is now arranging for the performance of two feats which have never before been performed in this country, and which appear almost incredible, smacking more of Arabian Nights supernaturalism than latter day realities. Hitherto, Hambujer’s feats have been those often witnessed here, excepting that, they are done in this instance without the usual appurtenances of the magician’s repertoire. These new feats are restoring the dead to life and suspending a boy in the air by a single hair of his head from a floating ball.

The first feat is well known in India. It consists of placing a boy in a basket, thrusting a sword through the basket and drawing out again covered with blood. The boy’s body is examined by physicians and then returned to the basket. A pistol is discharged into the basket; the boy vanishes, and re-appears alive and well.

The ball feat consists in suspending a boy by a single hair to a rubber ball filled with a chemical mixture by which he floats gracefully in the air at the Professor’s bidding.

It is reported a day later that Hambujer learned these tricks while serving in the military in India, of which we can assume that he was a European performing “Indian” mysteries. The Tribune also reported that his two big draws previously described did not live up to expectations.

The next city Hambujer visited was Milwaukee, WI, but after that, any other current searches have not picked up his trail.

Is he a past master or a pretender with great promo?
If you know any more about him, please write.

"The great man is he
that does not lose his
child's heart." --Mencius

I have a lot of stories that start this way......The other day a guy walks into my store and says, “My uncle used to do magic.” People have stories to tell. Some are reluctant and must be drawn out, some can’t be contained. Mostly, I find interesting what other people care about.

Back to the guy, “Oh...really...What kind of magic did he do?”

“Well he passed away, but he wrote some books for magicians.”

Now he has my interest. “What was his name?”

“Gene Poinc,” he replied.

Now he really has my interest. “Oh sure,” I try to keep my cool. We talk briefly about the books. He tells me that he was never really into magic, but Uncle Gene used to come over and show him some tricks. He was just the Uncle who did magic, like every other family. Then he drops a bomb into the conversation. “There are two more.”

“What?”

“I think Uncle Gene finished two other manuscripts, my other Uncle has them. Hey kids, this guy knows who Uncle Gene is.”

“Well, I hope he puts them out. Listen, I have a blog. If you are ever interested in sharing some memories of your Uncle, please write me.”

And then he leaves with his family clutching a piece of paper with my e-mail address on it. Just another too brief encounter, that’s daily life in a magic store.

Gene Poinc’s nephew is a former graphics artist who, now, is a schoolteacher. I hope he visits this blog and likes what he sees. I hope he sees that the magic world would love to hear his remembrances. Until, we will be dreaming of the other two books and the possibilities that they hold.

"Don't part with your illusions.
When they are gone you may still exist,
but you have ceased to live."

A man sauntered into my store as if he was walking into an old west saloon. He shook my hand and croaked, “Hi, my name’s Don Driver and I used to know the guy (Ken Fletcher) who owns this place (Magic Masters).”

Don Driver’s face looks like a crumpled road map and his voice sounds like he smoked every mile of that road. And he did; he still smokes, even though the emphysema shortens his breath. These are the marks of hard earned experience. Yet, Don still has the rangy bearing of an old cowboy.

Don is a pitchman; pitching Svengalis for 25 years. He has been working magic longer, since before I was born. The pitch he learned from S. David Walker, who learned the pitch from Mickey MacDougall, the inventor of the Svengali pitch. Svengalis, for the non-magical, are specially constructed decks to perform magic tricks with little skill.

Not that it doesn’t take skill to sell them, it does. It takes skill with both hand and mouth and a little bit of a larcenous heart. The best pitchmen weave an irresistible story.

“It’s magic. It’s easy. You’ll fool your friends and win all the bets.” How could you not put down you five dollars? Especially after, he puts the deck in the hands of a nine year old and they can do it. Well...sort of. Especially when he throws in a bonus trick, the two card monte.

Don is a veteran and knows how to weave a story, both in and out of the booth. I ignored my customers; I have customers all the time. I might have only one chance to talk to Don and hear his story. He has worked sideshows and one of the last Jam auctions in America, right on Freemont Street, Las Vegas. Sometimes, in the late of night, I dream of working the show, building the tip, freezing them, and then turning them over, perhaps after my ding. Don has stories of all these things. Good stories, bad ones, and just plain funny. I think he likes me because we are both pitchmen. I just want to hear the stories.

Now, besides pitching, he sells two DVDs: one on the Svengali pitch and one on building a tip. Don knows his business. These DVDs are not only practical solutions for the commercially inclined, but also valuable historical documents. (http://www.dondriver.tk/index.htm) Those of you going to the Abbott’s Magic Get-Together in August, look Don up. Don and David Walker will be lecturing on Thursday.

Pitchmen used to populate the city streets and fairgrounds. Now, it is a dying art. There are a few still pitching magic, knives, toys, and assorted sundry. Places like Magic Masters do it in a way, but not the old way. The live “grass roots” venue has been replaced by television infomercials and the little guy gets pushed out of business.

Don shares the stories of his life and adventures with good humor. Don has humbility, a humble nobility. Aw...shucks, he thinks he is a nobody, yet he moves and talks with the confidence of somebody. Quote, “Every man’s life is a story.” I look forward to seeing Don again and hearing more of his.

Until then, Don keeps pitching on.

Today, I spent about five hours with Marshall Brodien. He lives 5 minutes from my mom’s house and I am lucky enough to see him every few months. I need to work on making it more often, but life keeps getting in the way. Damn that rent and car payment.

For those uninformed...a brief bio of Marshall:
Marshall Brodien is a Chicago magician, hypnotist, fire-eater, sword swallower, pitchman, clown, and all-a-round great guy. He worked various magic shops in Chicago including owning one at Old Chicago mall and amusement park. Marshall worked as a magician and outside talker (Please do not call them barkers) at the Riverview Amusement Park. He made millions pitching magic tricks on television and in the process started many of today’s magicians in the trick business. Myself included. Marshall Brodien, most famously, created the Wizzo character for WGN’s Bozo show. John Moering has written a biography of Marshall and is pitching it to publishers as you read this.

While I am interested in all the stories, Marshall tells and he tells some great stories, I am most interested in his years at the sideshow. There is a nostalgic and warm place in my heart for sideshows. I love the lore, the characters, and the stories. This is one small story that Marshall told me today. And it won’t be in the book.

Pyro Sam, the Human Ostrich performed a fire eating, glass eating and regurgitating act. At Riverview, he performed 20 shows a day, 7 days a week. One of his most memorable stunts was the eating of a beer glass. These were not the large pint glasses, but the small thin glasses. Think about it 20 glasses a day, 7 days a week, He “consumed” 140 glasses a week. At least, he consumed parts of those glasses. He supplied his act with glasses for the Riverview Beer Garden. During breaks from the show, he would slip out to the beer garden and pick up a handful of glasses off the table before the waitress could clean up.

You just don’t lose that many glasses and the loss of 140 glasses a week drove the owner of the garden crazy. Until one day, his family was at the park and he took them to the sideshow. When he saw Pryo Sam’s act, he stopped the show with a rant that would be legendary in the world of Riverview.

Marshall didn’t know where Sam got his glasses after that.

Pryo Sam also had a great ding (A ding is an attempt to get money at the end of the act) and blow-off. Sam would hold a large piece of paper between his hands and ask for change, Quarters, Dimes, Nickels, and Pennies. He then folded the paper almost into a funnel and poured the coins into his mouth. With a glug, glug, glug and a chaser of water, he swallowed the currency down and had his mouth examined. With a slight choking sound one associates with vomiting, he regurgitated the coins with a long tail of slime. He held up a coin and said, “Who gave me the quarter?” No one came forward.

In back, Sam had a bucket of clean water-full of coins.

Man, I missed out. If I had only been born 30, 40, or even 100 years ago.

The Untold Story of Harry Kellar and The Tribune Spook Case

Jamy Ian Swiss, book review, Genii (May 2006):

“This is a terrific story that readers will not find in the recent Kellar biography...”

“All of this background is well designed by Mr. Pack to prepare us for the heart of the matter...”

“...once again, we must offer thanks to intrepid reporters and researchers like William Pack who rescue our own history from the dustbin of the past.”

The book Exposed! is an outgrowth of my Chicago Magic History Project. One of the things that I realized early in my work is that my process of writing the history of Chicago Magic was going to take 10 to 20 years. So, I wanted to find smaller stories to tell. Plus, the income derived from the smaller books could be shoveled into the furnace of research.

This book is a brief look at Spiritualism in Chicago during the 19th century. It touches three spirit medium stories.

First, the Bangs Sisters, of spirit painting fame, starting as children, ran their spirit swindle in Chicago for over thirty yearsand elsewhere for more. Information in the book includes a detailed account of their séances and a spectacular police raid on one of those séances.

Second, Carrie M. Sawyer, now forgotten was a nationally known spirit medium, who also worked her fraud for nearly forty years. Kellar exposed Carrie in New York and testified against in Chicago. I continue to research Carrie, and there is actually more information being discovered all the time.

Third, there is a comical look at medium Harry Archer, who may be one of the worst mediums in history. It is odd because he worked quite successfully with other mediums outside of Chicago, but solo...well, you have to read it.

Now, for the commercial, I have twenty of these books left. They are $40 post paid. Just e-mail for availability.

Many of those who bought the book have sent me nice letters. The most exciting letter arrived by e-mail:

“William, I wanted to thank you for the welcome copy of the Kellar/Tribune book...I’ve enjoyed the book very much, and if it is all right with you, I may publish a few excerpted paragraphs from it on my web page sometime...” –James Randi

And yes, it was okay with me.

Homer says...
"I wasn't lying, I was just writing fiction with my mouth."

I lived the first 24 years of my life on the southwest side of Chicago. Now, I live in the western suburbs.

Magic was not so much a hobby when I was very young. I did get magic sets as a child; the one most remembered is the Marshall Brodien Money Magic Set. I must have been six.

The first magic shop trick I still have. It is a small wooden production box. It sucks and is difficult to use convincingly. That same trip to the shop, my father and I went across the street to a restaurant, “Little Bit O’ Magic.” I don’t have any specific memories about that lunch, save one: The magician who performed at our table performed the color-changing knives with the smash finish with all the little knives. It changed my life. I’ll never forget it. I was nine or ten.

My sister fluked into a job at Izzy Rizzy’s House of Tricks, one of Chicago’s neighborhood magic/novelty/ costume shops. She quickly became manager. I hired on to do odd jobs on Saturdays. I always say it was for $1.50 an hour, but to be honest I don’t remember the wage.

Soon after that, I put together an act. It was kids’ birthday parties at $50 a half-hour for me. By the time I was thirteen, John Measner and a girl named Alice (Forgot her last name years ago) started to train me to do sales. In the decade I spent at Izzy’s, I became a top salesman and learned the right (I hope) kind of work ethic. I am also unusual in that I never really did magic as a hobby. It was always a job. John, by the way, is a outstanding family show magician here in Chicago.

There were 3 Bit O’ Magics. I worked the third. It was one of the most creative times in my life. It was my first restaurant gig. You worked the floor with two other magicians and performed at perhaps 30 to 40 tables a night. I got good fast and worked out many new effects. From when I started the night to the end of the night, a new trick would never look the same. My audiences help me re-create it. The other thing that is quite odd in my development is that I usually worked with two veteran magicians, so I never wanted to do the same tricks they did. At the time I should have, I never developed a chop cup routine, sponge ball routine, etc. My magic was different. I was also named one of the top teen stand-up comics in Chicago. One of my few forays into performing without magic.

Bill Weimer was one of those veteran magicians. He was my mentor and friend. He started by taking me under his wing and now he is more like family. He is a wonderful magician and a terrific comic, who has a real sense as to what works for an audience. He taught me a lot. Glenn Bishop was another and, despite the nasty things recently said about him, I always remember him as a good close-up magician who was kind to an 18-year-old kid just starting out. The third magician I worked with that moved me was Terry Veckey. Terry is simply one of the finest magicians you will ever see. The best blend of skill and humor. He will fool you and you will love it.

During my time at Bit O’, I was still at Izzy’s and I took the Chavez Course with Neil Foster. I was lucky to have Neil as my teacher, unlucky in that he died near the end of the course. (I don’t think there is a connection.) As it happened, he left an able assistant to take his place, the very talented Chris Jakway.

I performed my Chavez act as no one had ever before; I was a drunken tramp magician. No clone was I. This won 1st place awards at the Abbott’s Magic Convention and the Houdini Convention. The year after I won Abbott’s, they had me back to open for Harry Blackstone Jr. on Wednesday night.

Soon after, I began to get burned out and walked away from magic. I worked odd jobs, mostly retail. Until, I stumbled into the gambling industry. Rockford Casino Players was once the highest grossing charitable games company in Illinois. I dealt blackjack and poker for them for just over a year. My skill as a magician came into play as I learned that this was not just an ordinary casino night business. They were outfit. The pit boss Ken Oddo and I became friends and he taught me how to skew the game odds to our favor. I showed him how I could combine that information with sleight of hand. I became the stopper, if a table was losing money; I fixed it with a combination of speed and guile. There is a book in there somewhere. After about a year, I got out. Just in time, because a few months later Rockford Casino was raided by the State Police and the bosses were indicted. Two of them escaped to Canada and are still at large.

I moved to the other side of the law or so I thought. Hollywood Casino opened in Aurora, IL and I became a surveillance agent. Eye in the sky. They would not let me deal; they feared my magic background. But I was a natural for surveillance. Two years I spent training the other staff and stopping practically every card counter and dice cheat that hit our joint. Not that I have anything personal against card counters, I’ve made much money off it myself, but it was my job. After two years, some personal issues with other department members boiled over and I was forced to leave. I miss it. I really did enjoy doing the job.

Soon after I left the casino, Magic Masters called. I was back. I am now starting my 11th year with the company.

During that time, I also worked the tables part-time at the world famous for its magic, Schulien’s Restaurant. This was the best performing situation I have ever been in. The great thing is that they were great audiences, every one of them. I still worked under more veteran magicians. I still developed magic different from everyone else there. When I started, I carried a lot of shit with me, but as time progressed (and I matured), I want to minimalize and create more powerful sets. Just a deck or two of cards and a few coins, that is all in took to work the tables.

Schulien’s closed. With the new owners it never seemed right, so that was the last restaurant performing I've done.

What next? I mounted my own show, Familiar Spirits, a theatrical séance. I first experienced Eugene Burger’s style of magic at a lecture at Bishop’s Magic Shop. It was 1986 and he lectured in support of his book, Spirit Theater. Gene is one of my favorite people in magic. Spirit Theater has meant more to me than practically any other magic book I own. It inspires me always. My show did all right and at the time I was the only guy doing séances in Chicago, now, there are more than a few.

Still at Magic Masters making a living. The store did open a couple of doors for me. I taught director Harold Ramis magic. I have consulted on several plays and movies including teaching Wil Smith magic for the film Ali.

Now, I direct most of my attention to the history of magic. If you read my Magic Magazine article, you know I’ve been busy. Hundreds of thousands of 19th century newspapers have passed before my eyes, while I picked out everything there was to find about magic. I spoke at the LA Conference on Magic History. (I am told it was well received. I was too scared to remember anything.) I wrote two books on Chicago magic history and have more coming. I will be writing about the books and posting excerpts from Jamy Ian Swiss’ kind reviews (Genii, May 2006) in future posts.

Last week, I started a blog. I want to write and that is what I am going to do. If I can’t sell it I publish it here. If I can sell it, I’ll let you know where you can find it.

That is really just a thumbnail sketch about my life and my magic.

In the end, Lee Levin gets the only confirmation he really wanted. The poster is real. He also receives a parting gift, a program from Houdini’s appearance in Chicago. The History Detectives got their magic themed story. However, they never answer their own question, “Does this poster hold a secret about escape artist Harry Houdini and his desperate attempts to speak to the dead?”
If covered properly, the spiritualism exposure story is as thrilling as any crime novel. They missed most that story. The frustrating thing is they usually do a good, in depth story. The other two stories reveal this depth. Perhaps their audience is ignorant to Houdini and needs his whole overview of his life. Yet, in trying to cover the forest, they missed the tree. The background becomes the story, and the story of the Houdini poster and Chicago is lost.
If you wanted to make a living as a performer, Chicago was the place. It had always been good for Houdini. Sure, in his first few years his name was misspelled almost as often as he appeared. Nevertheless, his earliest appearances as Houdini the Wizard of Shackles at Middleton’s Clark Street Museum in 1899 thrust a new kind of performer into the world. Seven months before he perished, during pinnacle of his career as magician, escapist, and anti-spiritualist crusader in 1926, Houdini came back to Chicago.
While his show took much of his time, Houdini waged a war of many fronts against the spiritualism fraud. Exposed mediums fought back and began filing lawsuits for slander and libel. He estimated that he was being sued for more than one million dollars (including, I’m sure, the lawsuits filed by irate investors of his failed Houdini Motion Picture Company).
Houdini also found opportunities to socialize with his brother magicians. The Chicago Daily News reported, “The Society of American Magicians, Chicago assembly, numbering 150 members, will attend the Princess Theater this evening in honor of their national president Houdini. Twenty of the local members will appear on the Princess stage with Houdini and demonstrate their sleight of hand ability. This is the largest number of magicians to appear on a Chicago stage at one time. President A. P. Felsman, of the local assembly, will give a banquet in honor of Houdini immediately after the performance.”
The May Sphinx reported that Houdini attended the assembly’s 4th Annual Mystery Show on April 22. Unexpectedly(?), Houdini favored the crowd with a selection of tricks with handkerchiefs from his popular show. His exuberance took over and the curtain at the Princess was held. He was late for his own show.
Chicago American, April 24, 1926:
“Probably the hardest worker in the entire amusement world is Houdini, the master mystifier, who will end his engagement at the Princess Theater Saturday, May 1, establishing the world’s record for the greatest number of performances and length of run in America, as far as mystery and magic are concerned.
“Houdini’s success is due to persistent work and the love of it. He loves everything he does; he loves his profession and his work; he finds recreation in turning from one interest to another. He is never idle. Each thing he does, while he is doing it, is as important to him as the rest and even the smallest undertaking is given the most minute attention.”
That, in the end, is Houdini and Chicago.

Gwen moves on to Proquest, an on-line newspaper archive to confirm the Houdini show in Chicago. She finds a brief notice from the Chicago Tribune, which lauds his performance. This longer review appeared in the Chicago American:
“Houdini is a good showman, with all the tricks, traps, and talkee-talkee of the hanky-panky man. He is an ingratiating deceiver, gabbing the while he proves to you that the hand is quicker than the eye, and telling you that his magic is not black. He warns you that he will confound you with the non-existent, and that you will not see what you think you will see. An honest fellow!
“He fills the stage of the Princess with cabinets, boxes, and things that appear out of nothingness or vanish into nothingness. His implements and agents include ringdoves and goldfish, canaries and alarm clocks, cards and carving knives, flowers and fabric, rabbits and women folk. He conceals nothing in his sleeve for he wears no sleeve and he plays along aimlessly like a boy by the poolside, but he holds the eye enthralled.”
Again, nothing revealed about the Spiritualism aspects of Houdini’s show, so back to New York and Houdini biographer, Kenneth Silverman. Mr. Silverman fills in some blanks on the spirit obsession of Houdini and the spirit portion of Houdini’s show. Yet, even though it is the main thrust of their tease, (“Does this poster hold a secret about escape artist Harry Houdini and his desperate attempts to speak to the dead?”) they still only briefly cover this exciting story.
The March Sphinx accessed the situation for us, “Chicago mediums are curtailing their regular séances in expectation of a visit from – not the spirits, but Houdini himself. This is a fight every magician should be interested in and each should co-operate in putting an end to the work of fraud spiritualists.”
Houdini made direct challenges to mediums like John Slater. In response, spiritualists held “indignation meetings,” a phrase of Houdini’s. One such protest meeting convened at Orchestra Hall and the Sphinx reported it “was a total failure in serving the means it was intended for. The Great Kolar and others in the audience were quick to catch John Slater at every turn and did not hesitate to call his attention to the fraud being practiced.”
Houdini and eight of his investigators caught Mrs. Minnie Reichart during one of her séances putting her spirit-trumpet to her lips. The well-timed flash photo was indisputable.
Miss Rose Mackenburg, Houdini’s most formidable spook-buster, received spiritual investment advice from a Rev. Herbert Parker, the 60-year-old pastor of the Central Spiritualistic Church. The Reverend advised Mackenburg to invest in the Wilcox Transportation Company, a concern that turned out to have only one truck and no permit to sell stock. John Wilcox, the owner of the company, joined the Rev. Parker in the lock-up.
His exposés reached the level of religious zealotry, his passion was unrestrained, and his pulpit was the theater stage. The Chicago American wrote, “Houdini has a mad on the spiritualists and sees all shades of red at the mention of any medium’s name. He held up the names of some seventy or eighty Chicagoans who communicate, for pay, with the unseen and he has on exhibition in the opposite boxes two of his investigators who stand like the pious testifying at a prayer meeting and narrate their adventures among the wraiths and ectoplasms.”
On stage, he duplicated various standard spiritualistic stunts, slate-writing, sealed messages, table tipping, etc. He finished by opening the floor to a question and answer session. Houdini traveled with huge files on spiritualism and enjoyed turning back any challenge. The Chicago American, “...he can escape from anything even from a corner in which a question may put him.” Max Holden raved about the Anti-Spiritualism act and many believed it was the best part of his show.

Two cows were standing in a field...

One turns to the other and says, "Moo."

The other one says, "Damn, I was just about to say that!"

As I am jumping atop a soapbox, I want to be careful to say that these are the things that I believe and work for me. Everyone is different and as the saying goes, “one man’s wand is another man’s stick.” (Do not read anything into that!)

Briefly, I believe that...

1) We are all in this to elicit a response from our audience: gasp, laugh, or applause. To say otherwise is to be a fool or a liar. We all seek our audience’s approval.

Think of these acts: Johnny Thompson, Eugene Burger, Max Malini, Lance Burton, David Blaine, Mac King, Harry Blackstone, Harry Kellar, David Copperfield, Doug Henning, Tom Mullica, Matt Schulien, Houdini, etc. Each one of these acts is different. Each act is uniquely individual, (yet each has a precedent.) Each one has reached the heights of our community.

But I will wager that the thing first in their minds is their audience, not self-expression. Their acts were chiseled into form by the sharp edges of the audience. If something pleased the audience, it stayed in; if something did not, it went into the garbage. They did not keep stuff in that wasn’t working because it was an expression of self. The audience determines what part of you they want more of and what part they want less of. Successful magicians learn from their audiences. Their acts exist by the good favor of their audience. The main problem is most magicians never listen to their audience.

2) “Magic” is a word that has many meanings, it this instance I am using it to describe the experience one receives when seeing a trick. Magic does not exist...except in the minds of our audience. To go further, it only happens in the minds of a layperson. Although it will rarely and briefly happen in a magician’s mind also. Magic is not in our cards or our hands or in our minds.

If you are skeptical, try this experiment: First, perform your best trick for yourself, in a mirror. Second, perform the same for another magician. Third, perform the same for the first stranger you meet on the street. Where did the magic occur?

Magic is created by the congruent and incongruent images we give to the spectator’s mind. You can’t fool yourself. You can rarely fool another magician, but the magician’s mind moves quickly to the intellectual exercise of the method. You can only create magic in the mind of someone closed to the secrets. Other “arts” can exist in a vacuum. Painting, poetry, dance, music can all exist without an audience. I can argue that acting may be able to exist without an audience, but I am weak on that subject. I waver because magic and acting are so closely allied. However, magic cannot exist without an audience. By extension, we do not exist without an audience.

I’ll speak more to the differences between the MagicianCentric (egocentric) view of magic and the AudienceCentric views of magic in a later post.

The show begins with a bouncy reggae theme, “Watchin’ the Detectives”, and a voice over teases the story segments. We are to find out if a Chisom Trail historical marker in a southern Texas border town is for real. (It isn’t.) Could that American Flag, which according to family legend was draped over the coffin of assassinated President McKinley, be authentic? (Well...no, but close.)
Sandwiched between those two stories is the Houdini poster segment. The tease: “Does this poster hold a secret about escape artist Harry Houdini and his desperate attempts to speak to the dead?”
The segment itself starts out in troubling fashion when the host in charge of answering our questions, Gwendolyn Wright, mispronounces Lee Levin’s name, Lee Lubin. This kind of mistake, in this kind of show, is unforgivable. The entire premise of the show is to get the facts right.
Gwen meets Lee and interviews him on the story behind the poster. He asks if the poster is authentic, if it was from Houdini’s final season, and what Houdini performed in his show. She does not believe she has much to go on: only the poster, the month and day printed on the poster, the name of the theater on the poster, and that the poster came from Chicago. Not much at all.
First Gwen visits her colleague, Elyse Luray, to authenticate the poster. Measuring 14” X 22”, the poster is really a window card. It is printed on the right paper and in the right format. At the top of the card is the show information, SCHUBERT PRINCESS THEATER, BEG. MARCH 8, HOUDINI THE MASTER MYSTIFIER, underneath the information is the image. Elyse dates the card to the mid-1920s. So far, so good.
At this point, I hoped the show would cover the Chicago aspects of the story. They don’t. Houdini’s 8-week stand (one his longest anywhere) was one of tumult and triumph. He earned 10 to 12 thousand dollars a week (some of the highest receipts of his career) and some of the best reviews of his career (as a magician!).
Instead of the untold story, the History Detectives tell the told story, a brief biography of Houdini. During which is a visit to Las Vegas and Lance Burton. Gwen gets to perform some magic on stage with Lance. Then, Lance speaks to the fame of Houdini in his time and his continuing influence on modern magicians.
The Houdini name, while not on those lists of top earning dead celebrities, is still a household word. At the time of my last Google search there were over 300,000 web pages related to the Houdini name. Besides selling magic tricks, his name sells animation software, golf clubs, and fancy corkscrews among others. However, Gwen is no closer to the answer of the Spiritualism question.

Chicago magician, Lee Levin made a request to a friend who was a poster dealer, if anything magic related appeared in the shop; he wanted to know about it—first. In 2006, the call came. There were two posters he needed to see.
You would never expect it, not in an ordinary Chicago neighborhood, not in a depression era bungalow, certainly never hidden in a ceiling for near seventy years. Yet, the story really starts around 1996 when urban legend becomes reality.
An immigrant roofer, rehabbing an attic, tears open the roof and, used as insulation, a group of 50 to 100 posters. Houdini posters. Water stains, mildew, and a crust of bird waste make them appear to be garbage. Yet, the worker, knowing the name Houdini, rescues a precious two from the dumpster. He displays the posters in his home until a special on the Houdini auction and the thousands of dollars paid the magician’s memorabilia inspire him to sell.
After viewing the posters, Lee did his homework. He searched the internet for related information. He quizzed to several experts. Convinced the posters, from Houdini’s final season, were authentic and with some understanding from his wife, he made the investment.
The end.
Except...
Lee’s profession is a television director for a local Chicago news station and he knew the discovery of new Houdini posters was a good story. It just needed the right venue. Lee chose to call PBS’ History Detectives to confirm what he already knew and, perhaps, find something he didn’t. (In a twist of fate, the show had been looking for magic related stories for some time.) For those not familiar with the show, four history experts investigate “untold stories from America’s past.”
Lee’s story aired nationally on June 19.

"Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words."

--Dorothy Parker

I’ve known Bill Weimer for over 20 years. He is one of Chicago’s best magicians, although you may not ever heard of him. He doesn’t hang out too much in the magic community. He worked the New York Lounge and Schulien’s restaurant, among other places. At the New York Lounge, he worked a year with, perhaps, the original bartender magician Heba Haba Al. Now there are many stories about Al and Bill is collecting them along with a history of the New York Lounge for an upcoming book project.

One quote that may or may not end up in the book was when Heba explained to Bill the real work behind the Card under Glass trick. It shows how a canny old man can fool the pants off even the best magicians.

One night Heba said, “The real secret behind the Card under Glass is to bring your own glass.”

Think about it. Do you know why?

I wish I could explain this voodoo curse,
but all my conversation must be kept terse,
I’m a poet you see,
though annoying it must be,
‘cause all I can do is talk in verse.

20 years. That is how long I’ve make a significant amount of my living selling magic retail. 20 years, two 10-year blocks. The first block was from age 11 to age 21. I started sweeping up the floors of a magic and costume shop for a few dollars an hour. The second block continues. I just began my eleventh year at a national chain magic store.

Now, I have a love/hate relationship with this part of my chosen profession. At times, I feel like a whore; selling off my life piece by piece. Mostly to people who don’t love it or respect it. Every dickhead with a Svengali deck thinks he is a magician. I fantasize that the secrets are not so available. I dream of another time when the real secrets were hidden in a back room, only for a select few. Magicians would serve an apprenticeship. The art was earned, not just given up for a few pieces of silver. You would be part of a legacy that spanned centuries. But, I am not naïve; the capitalist box of tricks, once opened is a bottomless pit.

Yet, there are days behind the counter when everything I do is right and every ad-lib I tell works and life is beautiful. Most performers get to feel this type of euphoric moment, but in the shop, I get to feel it a couple of dozen times on a good day. Some days, I am lucky. I get to meet some very wonderful and interesting people. (Even one special woman, Danielle, who was in my life for three years and someone I still think about, everyday.) These people come from all walks of life and all over the country. I love stories. They all have one, whether they know it or not. A few come in to tell me that as a child I sold them their first trick and started them on the path. I knew I was starting to get old when that happened. I still enjoy it.

That’s it for now. I’ll write more about the things I’ve learned in future installments of Selling Magic.

Most of this last year, I've done my research online. For those of you who don't know ProQuest is an online newspaper archive. Their historical archives save me lots of time and supplement my physical searches. Sometimes things I miss, they find and vice versa. My problem is.... I joined the Society of American Baseball Researchers ($60 a year) to gain access to ProQuest. Now, SABR is losing Proquest.
If anyone out there knows of a relatively inexpensive way for me to access Proquest and all their historical archives, Please let me know.
I don't know how I will be able to continue my project without it.

This is a slightly edited version of an editorial I wrote for Magic Magazine. ( One of the things we should do as a community is support magazines like Magic and Genii. They generally provide wonderful opportunities to tell the stories of our art.)

Ever wanted to solve a mystery? It’s our job, you know, as magicians. We solve a mystery. We show it to our audiences. They wonder at and often try to solve it themselves.
What if I was to tell you there are other mysteries—normally reserved for a select few—waiting for your discovery? Would you say yes to your adventure?
I did.
Let me tell you what I’ve gotten myself into. In 2004, I naively decided I would write the history of magic in Chicago. A great idea, so great nobody has ever thought to try. A project so monumentally large, no one has ever dared to try. So, where to start?
Well, to get the full history, you start as early as possible. My local library owns the microfilm archives of the Chicago Tribune starting at 1864. To date I’ve gone through nearly a quarter of a million pages up to 1894. Now you are asking yourself, besides a mind-boggling stack of paper what do all these pages add up to?
I found a previously unreported event in the life of Harry Kellar. I discovered the first magic shop in Chicago and uncovered an interview with August Roterberg that has not been seen since it was first published. That is just a start to the discoveries.
There is so much information that I have been unable to process it. I did manage to self-publish two books, got invited to the Los Angeles Conference on Magic History, lectured at the same conference and rubbed shoulders with Jim Steinmeyer, Mike Caveney, Ricky Jay, and Teller, among others.
The good news is that you can do it too.
Now, I don’t expect that you will make the same commitment of time that I did. And I am sure I do not have to explain to you how important it is to preserve our collective history. The thing you have to know is that history is a democratic process. Look at the back of any book of history. It is written by the hands of the many, not the hands of the few. Our history should not and cannot be left to the few of our elite storytellers. The great thing is—they want to share it. The men named above are generous with their knowledge and they acknowledge that they cannot continue to write the complete story alone.
They want your help. You can continue to add to our knowledge. After I received the book Kellar’s Wonders, I thought there was nothing left to report about Kellar’s life. I was wrong. The story is not finished when the writing is done. Who knows what discoveries are waiting to be found in the newspaper archives in your town?
Did Kellar come to your town? Or Herrmann? Or Houdini? The stories are there. Silently waiting. When and what theater did they play? What did the press write about them? The smallest fact you may uncover may change the way we look at a legend. You may even uncover a forgotten master, lost to the world.
Most importantly, you will be saving the stories. It is all about the stories. I cannot afford the prices of posters, props, or antique books. The fact that those things seem important is magic’s greatest illusion, it’s the stories attached to these things that make them valuable.
I collect these stories. I relish the humor, sadness, and drama in the lives of the past. I try best to learn lessons from their experience.
Did you enjoy reading Ricky Jay’s Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women or Jim Steinmeyer’s Hiding the Elephant? You’ll meet the legendary, the anonymous, the unusual and the most interesting performers, personally.
You do not have to be a writer. The ads and articles will speak for themselves. You do not have to decide what is important or not. Every bit of every story is important. So how do you start playing Indiana Jones?
In small ways.
Save the stories you are told. Write them down. Pass them on. Seek out new stories, listen, and ask questions. In the last year, we lost Jay Marshall and Bob Read and all the stories they had to share. Can we afford to lose any more? You can find a history in all men’s lives.
Also, support your local library. Find your town’s local newspaper archives; these are your most important resources for information. Again, you do not have to make the same commitment of time that I made.
But, spend some time, any time, going through the papers. Do not get discouraged, discoveries come by the application of persistence, they rarely occur instantly.
There are mysteries waiting for you. Isn’t time you found them?
For all of us.