Inside Magic

Fantasy Poster of Dorothy Dietrich

Dorothy Dietrich and The Houdini Museumis featured in a new promotional guide called “Fun with the Family in Pennsylvania.” The guide is designed for families seeking fun in Pennsylvania ? and so it is appropriately named.

The guide gives all you need to know for hundreds of day trips in the Keystone state. The guide describesthe Houdini Museum in Scranton, as a “must-see for budding magicians,” that “brings back the Vaudeville era, when traveling performers such as Houdini frequently visited the Scranton area.”

Ms. Dietrich and John Bravo serve on the board of directors for the museum and are two of the magicians that perform for the crowds that visit the site each day.

Mr. Bravo has performed for Brooke Shields, David Copperfield and others gaining him the title of Magician to the Stars. He was the owner and publisher of Hocus Pocus Magic Magazine as well as the owner of the famous New York City?s Magic Towne House.

Ms. Dietrich has performed some of the more impressive effects in our Art and earned the title ?The Female Houdini? for her suspended straight jacket escapes and fearless presentation of the Bullet Catching Trick. The latter effect was responsible for the death of 12 magicians and is one of the few tricks Houdini would not perform.

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Continue reading Houdini Museum Featured As Outstanding Family Attraction

Some Kind of Bizarre

My father, Li’l Tom Hardy, America’s Foremost Psychic Entertainer, used to say, “there’s two kind of bizarre: the kind you’d pay 25 cents to see at a sideshow, and the kind of bizarre that you would pay $30,000.00 to buy a house in a different neighborhood to avoid.”

Home prices have gone up since then but his saying still rings with the resounding dong of a bell that is built to make a “dong” sound.  

In today’s Magic News we have the ends of the spectrum of bizarre magic.  One end you’d pay for, the other you’d pay to avoid.   

Read On . . .

In Mount Vernon, Illinois, William E. Smith a/k/a “Dr. Strange” of the famous “Dr. Strange’s Magic Show” was arrested for illegally videotaping juveniles.  The local authorities say they are not familiar with Dr. Strange’s act but “have learned that he travels with the act to wherever he can get booked and may have performed out of state as well as in other parts of Illinois.”

The Evil Eye

Dr. Strange was arrested in June by the Saline County Sheriff’s Department after the family who took him in and gave him a place to stay discovered his freakish videotaping habit.  According to the Sheriff’s Office, one of the members of the family was a magician and took pity on the 56 year-old man after learning Dr. Strange had lost his home.  

An adult in the household found the video camera and tapes. “They knew him, they thought he was a nice guy,” Deputy Jones said. “And then this happens.”

No sexual acts appeared on the tapes confiscated by the sheriff’s department.  Dr. Strange was released on bail.  A raid of his former home produced tapes but they did not depict “specific sexual acts” but do show more than one juvenile and are being called “improper.” He said it isn’t clear if the juveniles knew they were taped.   

The Sheriff’s office did not comment specifically on the tapes’ contents but “said it was ‘pretty disgusting’ to have to review them. He said he did not want to reveal yet how many juveniles were shown on the tapes. The review of the tapes is incomplete, he said, but so far no adults have appeared in them. The investigation continues.”
 
Mount Vernon police are asking anyone with information about Smith or these charges to contact the detective division at (618) 242-2131 or (618) 242-0215.

Read the full article here