Eradicating TRICKS From Magic :Essay

 

I would like to give you, my fellow magicians, something to think about. I am sure I am not the first person to have this idea, and possibly not even the first to come up with this solution. But I would like to eradicate the word "TRiCK or TRICKS" from the magical vocabulary. And maybe to be more precise eradicate it when performing before lay people. 

First let me begin with the why. The word trick to me and to others sounds negative. "Oh He is going to TRICK me" or "She is going to play a trick on me". These both have negativity in them. It goes along with the word "fool" which is another word, I'd like to get rid of but as long as Penn and Teller have their TV show, it stays. 

Here is another reason. I can state for the record, I HATE the people on social media who expose magic and then treat it like something stupid. I'm not naming names or giving anyone credit for being a jerk. But I hate the demeaning of magic. That's where all this came from actually. All those exposure videos and making magic look cheap or stupid. And they all play into the idea of 'tricking someone'. Most decent magicians are not interested in 'tricking someone', but rather creating a unique moment of magic that the spectator can experience.

Watch this. Magic has some stupid explanation. It's just a fake coin, it's just a fake card, it's a string, it's this or that. OK. But let's attack Music for a moment. WAIT, that's not music, it's just sound. You're just hitting a metal string with your fingers to make that sound. Or you are just using your fingers to hit a plastic key tied to a string which makes the sound. OR Art. WAIT, that's just a bunch of paint on paper, so what. Or PHOTOGRAPHY. WAIT, I can do that on my phone, so what.   See when you break things down to the tiniest degree, everything can be shown to be stupid, especially if you talk like Mitch Pelegi (sorry old reference to another time). 

Jamy Ian Swiss said, "Magicians have taken something intrinsically profound and made it appear trivial." And that is a hard statement to hear, because it's true. But perhaps, our own terminology isn't helping matters. Remember when the movie The Prestige came out. They had these terms that they said magicians used to describe certain things in their shows. One of the words was the Prestige.  That's good. We never used it in real life, but we sure should have.

I propose we ditch the word "TRICK" and replace it with 'composition'. The definition of the word means,  a work of music, literature, or art. EXACTLY! Just add magic, to that definition. We can create all sorts of titles for these compositions. But I love calling an effect a composition. "This is my latest composition with cards, I call it The Dance of the Pasteboards" or whatever. It sounds so much better than, here is another trick. 

I know for me, I am going to make a concerted effort to refer to routines in my show as 'compositions' going forward. What do you think? I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts...

MAGIC CASTLE SAVED

 

JAN 8, 2025. It was a harrowing night, but firefighters and staff at Hollywood's Magic Castle were apparently able to save the building as fires raged a mile away. In one video I saw, you could see the fires burning the hillside and they sure looked a lot closer than a mile. 

Staff and firefighters took extra precaution by soaking the buildings roof and surrounding shrubbery with water. It's never a guaranteed fix given the ferocious nature of these wild fires, but thankfully it worked. Frankly it falls more into the miracle category.

It was only a few years ago that a fire broke out at the Castle, not related to a wild fire. Thankfully, the Castle was saved then too because of some smart thinking members and staff who took action when needed. 

This California WildFire is an unimaginable tragedy. I have friends who are waiting to evacuate. There are people in the magic world we have yet to hear from.

UPDATE: Just heard from John Cox. He is safe. Mike Caveney and Tina Lenert are safe. The Houdini Estate made it through so it's safe. I will post more as I hear.

Doyle Trumps Houdini in New Documentary

 

The relationship between Houdini and Doyle has been talked about over and over and over. It is generally talked about from Houdini's side. Doyle appears as a character in Houdini's life story. But now there is a documentary that is about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and this time Houdini is the character in Doyle's life. And there is a bonus. This documentary has film footage that most believed to have been lost.

We learn about this from our friend John Cox, from his blog WildAboutHoudini.com The documentary called, "Lucy Worsley's Holmes vs Doyle" on PBS, has footage from the 1922 SAM Banquet in NYC in which Doyle was Houdini's invited guest. Much has been written about this particular moment in their lives, but here is the first time you get to view the actual film footage. https://www.wildabouthoudini.com/2025/01/houdini-doyle-sam-banquet-footage.html

I also want to address a bit more about the documentary. I really enjoyed it, though I wasn't thrilled with the magician they chose to be the 'authority'. No offense, but I don't think he had anything more than a passing knowledge of Houdini and Doyle's relationship. The question that Lucy puts to the guest magician is why Doyle wanted to convert Houdini to his belief system. The question is never properly answered. But the truth was, Doyle believed that Houdini himself had mediumistic powers. He saw Houdini's feats of escape to be supernatural in nature and despite all of Houdini's claims otherwise, Doyle believed Houdini had these powers. Of course their relationship sours after the Atlantic City Seance, and they exchange negative words in the press. But I think Doyle had real affection for Houdini, despite their differences. HOWEVER, I could be wrong about his affection for Houdini. In his book, The History of Spiritualism, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he mentions Houdini only twice and both times refers to him as "Houdini the conjurer." No mention of their friendship. In fact, he rather insults Houdini when he is speaking of Margery, and how He (Doyle) was instrumental in getting her before the Scientific American, but also inadvertently putting them in the firing line of Houdini's "preposterous and ignorant theories of fraud".

Ironically, it would be Bess who would have the last word and heal the wounds of this relationship. After, Houdini's passing, Doyle wrote to Bess to share his condolences for her loss. She in turn, sent Doyle a package. It was a portfolio of artwork by Doyle's own father, that Houdini had purchased at an auction. 

One more thing I want to point out and that is the documentary, Holmes vs Doyle, does feature one excellent guest and that is Daniel Stashower. Mr. Stashower is an award winning author, and he has written a number of fictional books about Houdini. These include: The Houdini Specter, The Dime Museum Murders, The Adventures of The Ectoplasmic Man. It also appears that Mr. Stashower has written a couple non-fiction books about Doyle including: Teller of Tales, and A Life In Letters. 

And finally, though this has nothing to do with Doyle, I just learned that Daniel Stashower wrote a book called AMERICAN DEMON. This is about Eliot Ness and his case involving the Cleveland Torso Killer. I mention this because Episode 88 of my podcast dealt with this very topic and one of the people who was considered a possible suspect, and this guy was also a magician. https://magicdetectivepodcast.com/e/ep-88-tales-from-the-dark-side-of-magic/  I need to get Daniel's book to read his account!