Steve Dacri wrote a wonderful tribute to Carl Ballantine.
He graciously gave permission for Inside Magic to re-publish here for our readers.
Whilst we were formatting the essay, we began to get a lump in our throat and by the end, we were in tears but with a smile. We really miss The World’s Greatest Magician, are envious of the friendship he shared with Steve Dacri, and so grateful Steve allowed us to republish his work here.
The phone rang, it was a little after noon. The familiar gravelly voice said, “Where are we having dinner?”
It was Carl Ballantine.
For a number of years, when we lived in Los Angeles not far from Carl’s Hollywood house, we had dinner at least 5 times a week together. It would start with the phone call, and we would plan the location. Sometimes it was a restaurant, other times, it was his house where he would cook a fabulous meal, and sometimes it was our house, which meant Jan and I cooked for him.
About an hour before the meal, I would drive to his house and pick him up. He would always have the cigar in his hand, and he’d climb into my car and I would say, “Carl, I have never smoked in my car.” And he would say something like, “you should try it.” Then he would re-light his stogie and off we went. He always had a few stops to make along the way (the news stand for the Daily Racing Form, or the coin change machine to cash in some of his seemingly endless supply of gigantic bags of money, for example.)
Jonathon Bryce will be performing a different kind of burial escape this Saturday in Shakopee, Minnesota.
Anyone can escape from beneath 128 cubic yards of packed soil, cement, or even ice.
Mr. Bryce is going to escape from corn.
According to the Pioneer Press, the 30-year-old Escape Artist wanted a different kind of escape for his leg of the International Brotherhood of Magician’s World Wide Escape Artist Relay.
Corn is different.
Mr. Bryce will allow himself to be handcuffed, chained, and securely locked into a wooden coffin buried four feet beneath approximately three tons of corn. He hopes to not only escape with his life but also raise money for the Twin Cities Shriners Hospital for Children..
“I’ve always wanted to do a buried-alive stunt,” Bryce said. “It’s very heavy and dark. The corn is freezing cold. When you’re under that much corn, the weight is indescribable.”
He tells reporters that he revised his vocabulary as he prepared for the stunt.
We have not withheld our admiration for The Fox Sisters as both innovators and debunkers in the past.
True, both Katie and Maggie Fox recanted their recantation of Spiritualism before they died but for a brief, shining moment, they did the right thing.
On the way to the right path, they developed a whole new industry catering to those in sorrow and doubt. Through their single-handed innovation of the modern seance, they struck gold figuratively and literally in the fearful psyche of the common man or woman.
The three sisters established the ground rules for all who would claim skills in Spiritualism; darkened room, physical contact with the medium, coded responses from beyond, and even physical manifestation of a passed loved-one’s body in part or in whole.
As we head into the Seance Season, it is proper to recall that the three girls from New York who began the practice also sought to end by complete exposure of their methods and motivations. But it was too late, common wisdom had already accepted the principles and ritual behind Spiritualism. Even complete exposure of the methods used to dupe those who now held fast to their conviction that it was real, was insufficient.
Victor Hugo wrote, “An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.”
Apparently that was true whether the idea is based in fact or fiction.
“They took me to the hospital DOA (dead on arrival). I died three more times there, spent 30 days in a critical coma, and went from critical care to intensive care, then step-down care,” he said. “Finally, about four or five months later, I got into my own room and they started putting me back together again.”
During one of his many hospital stays while recovering, an uncle introduced Frank to an old-time Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey magician.
“He knew how everything worked with magic, but his hands were so arthritic. Of course I was a young pup then, so my hands were young and agile, and he showed me everything he knew,” the magician said.
“After that, I started attending numerous magic lectures, magic seminars, weekend schools I just became fascinated with the craft and wanted to learn all I could about it.”
Check out the great profile of this remarkable man in today’s Lehigh Acres Citizen.
This is revised (we made it English) and republished from the January 25, 2006 edition of Inside Magic. 
The phone rang, it was a little after noon. The familiar gravelly voice said, “Where are we having dinner?”
Jonathon Bryce will be performing a different kind of burial escape this Saturday in Shakopee, Minnesota.
We have not withheld our admiration for The 
Former Ford Executive Frank Mikeska was pronounced dead on arrival after a horrendous automobile accident in 1973.
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