Usually the pleasure is all mine when putting together an issue, but not during hot weather. This is being written during some blistering days of August when the thermometer starts at 90 instead of stopping there. Two things pull me down; lack of enough sleep, and heat.
The latter has been mentioned and the former is due to my becoming the substitute mother of an eight days old bird dog. I can raise her as a pacifist and use her pointing ability as a new way to locate cards. Those two excuses are why I dug into my notebook to such lengths for this month. I’m starting a new idea with the October issue and think it will be acceptable. And by that time, the pup should be able to feed herself, and let me concentrate upon something besides a bottle and the warming of milk.
Vincent Dalban has written that he is offering for sale a set of postcard reproductions from photographs of old time magicians. S. W. Clarke, the well known magical historian, supplied the originals and the reproductions are excellently done. The cost of these has been defrayed privately so that every cent received will go directly to the Maskelyne Memorial Benevolent Fund, founded after the death of J. N. Maskelyne as a permanent memorial to a great magician, and is designed to relieve distress amongst magicians. The subjects of the photographs are Bartolomeo Bosco, Comte, Ludwig Dobler, Robert Houdin and Philippe. For 75 cents you can obtain a set postpaid from Mr Dalban, 32, Quinta Road, Babbacombe, Torquay, Devon, England. You’ll appreciate the photographs and know you are helping someone in magic for whom the breaks have stopped coming.
Unethical activities taint magic to no uncertain degree. The public is aware of it only through satiation when a new effect makes its appearance though, and the perennial remark “All magicians do the same tricks” is earned by the magi themselves. Walking Through a Ribbon is a late instance. Utopia Magicalis might be the name of a locality where all magicians would do their own tricks, and originators retain public performing rights. Such a hope however, is comparable to the inventor’s dream of perpetual motion.
Human nature made itself manifest long before magic became a tool for entertainment, and, being what it is, makes the immediate jumping on the bandwagon of a new effect an unextinguishable cause of action. I first saw Blackstone use it in Chicago. We all know that the stage version grew up from the Die and Frame trick of a few years back, and it is an admirable application of the principle. Dr Gordon Peck of Glens Falls, New York, than whom there is no more devout and conscientious amateur, (he revels in that standing, too) obtained it directly from Harry, with whom he isascloseasthis, and first presented it in New York City at the S.A.M. Hecksher Theatre show.
Besides a truckload of illusions, Dr Peck brought with him five assistants, an orchestra leader, and a stage manager formerly with Dante. A clean cut presentation made everybody present ribbon conscious and the dealers wasted non time writing advertisements about ‘a hit at the annual show’. One well known leader of the rear file even put out blueprints. The question in my mind that has yet to be answered is “Why do magicians wait until someone else does it, before taking it up themselves ?”
There are hundreds of catalogued tricks and published effects not being used by anyone. Yet the moment someone with imagination and vision takes an effect from these available to all sources, everybody jumps up and says “It’s great - I can use that’’. And what can be done about it ? Nothing much. My answer is “Develop a little pride along with your magical ability.” What’s yours ?
Magicians in general are eager for publicity, but Humdrum The Mystic knows one so modest that he even sends out anonymous checks.
Like the two embryonic businessmen who were rivals in the backyard lemonade game is the dealer situation. When asked why he kept his price at a nickel while his competitor had dropped to three cents, one shrugged his shoulders. “The cat fell in his bowl a while ago,” came the reply, “and he’s trying to sell out before word gets around.” When a dealer copies a trick at a lower price, you can bet your last thumb tip that there is a cat in the lemonade somewhere. You seldom miss getting what you pay for when you stick to the reputable and settled depots. Sam Bailey’s lamentable death has taken one from earth service and we can ill afford a loss like that. Appreciate them while they’re around to treat you right.
I’ll have to feed my pup now, and wonder if it will grow up to steal other dog’s bones.