Jerry
Andrus signed our instructions to Linking Pins back in 1974 and we’ve
kept it ever since. When we replaced the pin set, we tossed the
instructions and kept our personalized version.
The Jerry Andrus
depicted in the article on today’s wires is a strange man, with crazy,
half-completed inventions littering his “Castle of Chaos.” The
100-year-old ivy-covered home is described in almost Dickens-esque
prose:
Peeling stucco on one corner reveals a
crumbling foundation. Sheets of plastic and old curtains block the
windows, some shaped like keyholes. From the street, the place looks
abandoned. Certain wintry branches of candles on the high chimneypiece
faintly lighted the chamber: or, it would be more expressive to say,
faintly troubled its darkness. The only way in is through the back
door, where the bell produces alien tones that summon 87-year-old Jerry
Andrus. With a great flourish, he waves his arms toward the dark,
unheated interior.
Okay, all but the last sentence is
from the article, the third-to-last sentence describes the inside of
Miss Havisham’s house in Great Expectations. Still, it fits the
theme.
The reporter goes on in vivid-detail to describe the
room “jammed floor to 10-foot ceiling” with tools and gizmos. He
tells the reader “no more than three people can fit in what once was
the dining room of the house Andrus has lived in since childhood. Even
then, they must walk single file along a 2-foot-wide trail worn into
the hardwood floor. The path ends in a small clearing surrounded by
mountains of debris. Buried somewhere is a manual typewriter Andrus
last saw about 1970. Years ago, junk filled the living room and blocked
the front door, which hasn’t been opened since the Kennedy
administration.”
The author shows appreciation for Mr. Andrus,
however. He suggests trying to explain the magician “to the
uninitiated is like trying to describe the color blue.”
You should read the full article to drink in the full-bodied description of Mr. Andrus and his life. We cannot do it justice here.
He
is hailed by Milt Larson and Rick Killion for his skills and
knowledge. “People consider him the last of the living legends,”
Mr. Larson says of one of the oldest members in the Academy. “Most
tricks are based on old principles. He does things that are difficult
to explain. You’ve got to see them. He pulled off an optical illusion
where a giant mask that was on the stage suddenly appeared over the
audience and scared the hell out of everyone.”
The story ends with a poignant piece.
He
pulls out other illusions he invented and explains them, one by one.
Finally, he packs them away and leans back in his chair. He holds out
his right hand. His thumb trembles. “Don’t know how much longer I’ll be
able to do this,” he says. “That tremor isn’t going away. And my memory
isn’t as good as it used to be.”
New York’s Newsday asks the musical question,
“Hot?” and answering with a less than musical but still true statement,
“[t]his guy is on fire – Criss Angel’s star burns brightly with a hit
series and a Halloween special.”
The article portrays Mr. Angel as a cult celebrity on this way to “the celebrity mass market.”
Burning
himself alive on the Las Vegas strip is just a way of sharing his
“ability” with his fans whilst giving his mother a special 70th
birthday gift.
Mr. Angel uses the terms “ability,”
“special ability,” and “natural ability” to describe that “something”
he has been fortunate to discover.
With all due respect
to Mr. Angel, the way he is quoted in Newsday reminded us of Mavin
Johnson’s search for and finding of his “special purpose” in the Steve
Martin movie, The Jerk. Mavin’s mother promised one day
he would find his “special purpose,” although she never translated that
term to her inteneded meaning, his sexuality.
But that’s just us. But it also tainted how we read the rest of the article.
“Everybody
has a gift, a natural ability,” said Angel, as he stabbed another piece
of chicken off the shish kebab. Outside the Best Shishkebab restaurant
on Hempstead Turnpike in East Meadow, rain fell on the car waiting to
take the magician-producer-TV series star to another talk-show
appearance in Manhattan.
He added, “I’ve been fortunate to discover what my ability is.”
Setting yourself on fire?
“It’s
not about how I do the tricks,” he said. “What I do is mental – it
involves the mind, body, spirit.” He took some water and fluffed his
hair.
Mr. Angel and A&E are happy with each
other. There is mutual respect and admiration for the partnership
that brought in 1.7 million viewers per episode in July and expected to
bring in far more Halloween night.
On Halloween night, Angel work
his special purpose at the first magic shop he ever entered. The
Hicksville shop will serve as backdrop and history as Mr. Angel works
magic to freak his already well-freaked audience. One of the
effects planned will have Mr. Angel locked in a coffin with his paws
manacled.
Mr. Angel has captured the key demographics groups
with his approach to the presentation of magic. The paper notes
in hyperbole:
Historically, magic hasn’t played well on
TV, and hasn’t played particularly well elsewhere, unless the act had a
twist (Siegfried & Roy, anyone?) or powerful personalities (Penn
& Teller, David Copperfield).
But Angel claims to be smarter
than the average magician; a story in Forbes recently noted that he
earns $1.5 million a year.
In fact, he says, he’s not a magician at
all, but an artist who employs music, cinema and theater to “blur the
line between reality and illusion.”
Their love was magic, says The Vacaville Daily Republic of Jonathon and Charlotte’s four-day courtship 29-years-ago.
The article considers the team through the eyes of Ms. Pendragon who is more than just an assistant.
For Charlotte Pendragon, the second and considerably muscular half
of the illusion duo named The Pendragons, creating figments of the
imagination are second nature.
After all, she and her college sweetheart turned husband, Jonathon, have been doing this sort of magic for 29 years.
Despite her muscular physique, Ms. Pendragon must make everything
look “simple.” “The levitation is difficult because of muscle control
and balance,” she confesses, who weight trains twice a week and fills a
solid three days with Pilates.
“It’s difficult to make it look like you’re airy and relaxed and really feel and look like you’re floating.”
Ms. Pendragon says her husband helps her maintain her shape and
weight. “He works as a scale. He has to carry me around on stage and
sometimes up the stairs, so he knows when I’ve gained some weight, ”
she says, slightly embarrassed.
This is not our joke but that won't keep us from using it.
Our beloved father, Tom Hardy III, son of Tom Hardy IV, once said, "Son, there are three kinds of people in this world: Those who can count; and those who can't."
We love math but math doesn't love us back.
It doesn't even feign civility when we are at the same parties. "Two's a couple, three's a crowd," it says.
Its haughty disposition towards us is understandable, we failed it.
We were so caught up in the accoutrement of the arcane science — the slide-rule (we're old), the compass, the protractor — we missed the essence of our boyhood crush.
Some magicians, however, are good with math. We dislike these people and want to say bad things about them. We even challenge their tricks or lie when they announce the correct sum in their speedy magic math square demonstration.
In so many ways — perhaps a million or a thousand — we are bad.
"Magician squares fun with math: Nimble-minded numbers cruncher Arthur Benjamin uses 'Mathemagics' to have the pitter-patterns of squares and weekdays multiplying in the minds of his audience."
If you can't relate to our pain, consider a headline to fit your insecurities. Perhaps, "Mrs. Jones Loves Neighbor Boy More than Own Son — 'He Never Did Anything Good!'" or maybe, "Mrs. Jones to Join Convent — 'My Husband Convinced Me Married Life Was Wrong and Wasteful.'"
So Benjamin Arthur use math the way we use a Kleenex or sleeve – a necessary tool that is also a plaything. We hate him.
What does Mr. Arthur say to that?
"When it comes to numbers, Arthur Benjamin wants people to be players, not haters."
Now we feel worse.
Enough about us. Let's talk about Mr. Benjamin.
Who is he? Where did he come from? How does he know our beloved mathematics so intimately?
The young professor teaches audiences to love math through his magic program called, "Mathemagics."
The show will be offered at the Modesto (CA) Junior College this Friday.
A math professor at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Benjamin said he can demonstrate and explain how to do math in your head.
"With even just a little bit of practice, most people can get a lot better," he said.
Like most boys in eighth grade, he said, one day he was thinking about numbers that add up to 20.
He had "the pleasure" of discovering the patterns in squared numbers and saw a way to work numbers from left to right in his head — the same way we read text. He understood a quicker way to multiply. It's not a method he conjured up, just one he realized without a teacher.
"It was really just a matter of playing with numbers," Mr. Benjamin said.
Mr. Benjamin is a real-live magician as well as a mathematician…
Monday’s
Forbes Magazine will profile Steve Cohen and his unique ability to
perform “lots of neat tricks” “like how to get hired by people with
deep pockets.”
Sure, but once you’re hired by bazillionaires, how do you
entertain them? Mr. Cohen has a routine called “Instant ROI” (that’s
rich-person language for “Instant Return On Investment”).
On a recent night at the Waldorf Towers Hotel in Manhattan Steve
Cohen was casting a spell over the room. Primped up in a tux and
horn-rim glasses, Cohen, 34, sidled up to a few people and asked if
they’d lend him some one-dollar bills. After teasing the guys and
flirting with the girls, he crumpled up the bills in his fists and,
when he opened his hands, out came a few hundreds.
Mr. Cohen is doing more than rubbing elbows with the richest in the
world — which in itself would get us tossed in to jail where we’d like
be rubbing different things with poorer folk — he’s becoming rich as
well.
Forbes points out, “Cohen made $1 million last year turning tricks
like this at the homes and corporate events of America’s richest
people. He’s been flown in private jets all around the country, from
Aspen to Cape Cod, playing at the homes of Forbes 400 members Martha
Stewart (where he made three spools of thread pop out of a loaf of
bread), New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Reebok founder Paul
Fireman (where he miraculously pulled some freshly torn-up $20
bills–intact–from the toe of a sneaker). His fee: $10,000 to $25,000.”
His roll in the tub of big bucks came in 2001 when he convinced the
folks at the Waldorf to give him a suite to perform in every Friday
night. The shows created word of mouth among the well-off who frequent
the grandiose hotel, and Cohen’s career began to flourish. People still
pay $55 each to see him perform weekly at the Waldorf. “Event planners
come and immediately book me for their corporate entertainment,” he
says. He spends one week per month on the road.
Here’s a strange end of the story, however. Forbes reports Mr. Cohen
is putting together a new show that highlights some of the custom
tricks he has performed privately for the ultra rich and powerful.
For whom would this show be performed? Not the rich, super-rich, or
the ultra rich. They already see it. Would it be for other magicians?
Like a lecture? No, the article says he won’t be giving away the
secrets.
Would it be like a taste of what you could see if you were
super-rich? Sort of like when we go to Costco and make a lunch of the
free food and drink samples? We chew our pizza-puffs and sip our new
Tropical Berry-Berry Punch dreaming of the day we could afford such
food stuffs for our very own toaster-oven.
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