Hitfix.com describes young magician Rob Zabrecky as "wraith thin as an Edward Gorey drawing with a piercing stare and an unnerving wide selection of bow-ties, Zabrecky's creepy, witty Odd Man character might best be described as 'a mix of Vincent Price and David Byrne.'"
Flattering, no? We think he looks more like Chess Immortal Bobby Fischer.
Mr. Zabrecky is a multi-talented package with a résumé as the lead singer of Possum Dixon, a 1990's band who recorded three records with Interscope Records (former label of Mystic Hollow resident Eminem).
'I did a show at Brookledge (the site of invitation-only performances for magic aficionados) and he came up to me afterwards and paid me a nice compliment,' recalls Zabrecky. 'And I thought he was a magician, because he said "I really like what you do and it's really inspiring." And all I'm thinking is stay away from my act, buddy. No, you can't do my diminishing cards act and dance.'
Magic Man Zabrecky finally got hip to the identity of his new fan, and agreed to perform magic and tap dancing along with Mr. Gosling's music. The mainstream star helped the "Odd Man" with his appearance for French television and offered Zabrecky advice from the perspective of an actor or director.
"Ryan really looked at my character through an actor's eyes, which was something that hadn't really been done before," says Mr. Zabrecky. "I've gotten a lot of great input from magicians who know some things about theater, with my friend John Lovick (Handsome Jack) being the only guy who could look at my act and tell me theatrically what was wrong with it or what was good about it. But Ryan has no magic background, so for him it was all character."
Mr. Gosling's questions are appropriate for all magicians. "What is this guy doing? Why is he coming out here? Does he just reach for that? What if he reached for it here?"
The "Odd Man" was inspired by a walk in streets of Baltimore made famous by Film Director John Waters He happened upon Kenzo's Yogi Magic Mart in Baltimore whilst touring with Possum Dixon. "The air conditioner was shaking from the outside, so I said, that's where I'm going to cool off."
One of the downsides of being a well-respected news organization is the requirement that articles have some hook to current events. Fortunately, Inside Magic has never been confused with a well-respected news organization and, therefore, these rules do not apply. This is not the primary reason we are not well-respected or even considered a news organization, but it is a benefit.
Consequently, if The New York Times desired to publish an article gushing about the outstanding writing skills and style of Charles Dickens, it would need to find some way to associate the effusive tribute to the news of the day. Even then, The Times would feel obliged to find parallels to some event or person familiar to both readers of Dickens and today's newspapers. It could not just be a gush piece 1 or homage to the incredibly relevant author for today's modern society.
But as we noted, we have no reputation to squander and we are not convinced we would worry about squandering even if we did. Irregardless and nonetheless 2 we wanted to talk about Ian Rowland and how much we like his work today. We worried for hours how to work it into the current news from magic or non-magic sources. Yes, there was the big news that Folger's Instant Coffee intends to bring back its "Magic Morning Mud" contest awarding $1,000.00 to the worst cup of coffee available to commuters. That really had little or nothing to do with magic in its proper sense. It just used the word "magic" and that was good enough to trigger a Google News Alert.
Unfortunately, we don't know if Mr. Rowland even drinks coffee and we worried about stretching too far to make a story relevant.
Mr. Rowland is an Inside Magic Favorite from way back. His brain is a fertile medium for the weed-like growth of leafy, green magic. 3
We have purchased his writings with the drive of a man (although with a slightly effeminate laugh) possessed. His Real Work on Cold Reading is one of the most comprehensive and accessible books on this very arcane subject. We have stolen his spoon bending routine without shame to great success before US audiences. Plus, his writing style is gooder than almost anyone we know. He is pithy, funny and substantive. We shoot for any one of the three and often miss or clip one our own essential arteries.
Today, Mr. Rowland is offering two very unique and free items for visitors. The first is an instant download about persuasion entitled Mind Twists. It asks, "How can you persuade anyone to do anything? How can you be happy? And what very strange thing did I do in 1997?" The download is free in the most basic sense of the word. You are not required to give up your email address, join a mailing list, post a badge on your site, or even foreswear some habit others claim could harm you and your offspring. You simply go to the page and download the PDF.
A second freebie does come with a string attached but it is a nice string or at least not a string that one would mind. 4
Mr. Rowland will give you access to a stunning group of effects in exchange for proof that you have helped a charity.
4. Put your full 'normal' name (e.g. John Smith) at the top of the email, whatever else you write.
5. Tell me in a few words about your chosen charity and what they do. Don't cut and paste from official blurb. Don't tell me how much you donated.
Mr. Rowland promises he will not put you on a mailing list or give your details to anyone else. Like all good things, the offer ends soon. You need to get your submission to him by March 31, 2012.
We thought about this for a very long time but cannot figure his angle unless it is just his way of encouraging charity. If it was our offer, you know we'd have some way of making it pay but not so for Mr. Rowland. His interest is sincere and his goals noble.
True, we don't have a timely hook for this story but then again, relevance and professionalism are merely words here at Inside Magic. What Mr. Rowland offers is substance and good tidings – and that has to be sufficient for ample news coverage, right?
Ironically, Gush Piece is also the name of our hard-boiled detective with an eye for the ladies, a finger for the trigger and salivary glands for a spit take. Gush Piece is not related or connected in any manner to the iconic Belgian comic strip of the same name featuring the beloved character Gush Piece (“Le Garçon Avec la Bouche Très Mouillé” – “The Boy with the Very Wet Mouth”). ↩
Please see our law review article, “Useless and Pedantic, a New Lawyer Guide to Language and Artificial Profundity”, Cosmopolitan Styling Academy Quarterly, June 1999. The original article was 25,000 words but the editor slashed it to 250 words before adding an irrelevant, although very helpful, paragraph about the need to avoid “generic acetone” as a nail polish remover. ↩
See, “Up an Analogy without a Clue: Modern Statistical Study of Poor Analogies and the Devastation Wrought Upon Innocent Sentences,” Timothy Quinlan, Car Wash Attendant Journal, Winter 2009. ↩
Speaking of which, look for our premier episode on Mystic Hollow, Michigan Comcast Community Access Channel 81, “The Magic and Deviant Behavior Hour.” Our first show will feature a psychologist from the University of Michigan, a Gaucho (an Argentinian Cowboy), an alpaca and a magician working together as a team to place an effective classified ad to meet the group members’ divergent needs. ↩
Inside Magic is honored to bring its readers John Cox’ great review of Christopher Sandford’s book, Masters of Mystery: The Strange Friendship of Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini. Mr. Cox owns one of our two favorite Houdini sites on the world wide webs, Wild About Harry (http://www.wildabouthoudini.com). The other Inside Magic Favorite site is Houdini.org, the incredible work of Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brooks. Both of these sites should be on your bookmark toolbar or made your home pages.
Full confession. In my 35 years of obsessive Houdini research, I’ve always found his anti-spiritualism crusade to be the least interesting aspect of his life and career. In fact, I’ve sometimes felt I’ve had to slog though these sections in biographies. But all this has changed with the new book Houdini and Conan Doyle by Christopher Sandford, which had me riveted, and is one of those rare books that I came away from feeling like I know Houdini better.
Houdini and Conan Doyle (which will be titled Masters of Mystery: The Strange Friendship of Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini when it is released in the U.S. next month) is the third major non-fiction book written about the curious relationship between these two famous men. The other books are Ernst and Carrington’s Houdini and Conan Doyle: The Story of a Strange Friendship (1932) and Massimo Polidoro’s Final Séance: The Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle (2001). While full props must go out to these first two books, especially Polidoro’s scholarly work, I do feel like Sandford has synthesized all previous research with his own new findings and formidable skills as a biographer to create the best book yet written on the subject of Houdini and spiritualism, and maybe the most skillfully written book about Houdini in general since Silverman (Houdini!!! The Career of Ehrich Weiss).
Houdini haters will be upset to learn that Houdini actually comes off as quite scholarly and rational in this book. For all of Houdini's efforts to portray himself as a man of letters, it really wasn’t until this book that I finally saw that man clearly. Houdini was a man of action (and reaction) to be sure, but Sandford shows he put more thought into these actions then he is generally given credit for. In other words, he really was a smart as he said he was! This is because Sandford has gained access to some key Houdini diaries (as well as some "unpublished writings" of Bernard Ernst, Houdini lawyer and close friend) that offer a counterpoint to what was going on between the two men in their letters and in public. There was what Houdini said to the papers; there was what he said to Doyle in letters; and then there are his own beliefs and private feelings that are sometimes very different.
While there are no Charmian London level bombshells in Houdini and Conan Doyle, there are a several things that I found revelatory (my apologies if these are in Polidoro – I hoped to re-read that book before I wrote this review, but that didn’t happen). My jaw hit the floor as early as page 3 when Sandford says Houdini, at age 11, attended a "series of séances" in a failed attempt to contact his dead half-brother Hermann. Also, at age 18, Houdini sold his watch to pay for a "professional psychic reunion" with his recently deceased father. Forget the death of Mama in 1913, certainly the seeds of Houdini's hostility toward mediums can be at last partially attributed to these early disappointments in his youth.
I was also fascinated to learn that Houdini purchased Doyle's father's art portfolio in auction, and that Bessie returned this treasure to Doyle after Houdini’s death; that J. Gordon Whitehead was born on the same day Houdini performed his first ever public handcuff escape (Nov. 25, 1895); that Houdini prided himself on having a substantial collection of Sherlock Holmes memorabilia, and struggled to prove that Doyle lifted his Holmes material from the writings of Edger Allen Poe. (Houdini seems eager to unleash this evidence on the world, he even teases it in his spiritualist lectures. But despite spending "long hours in his library comparing the two texts", he doesn't seem to be able to prove the theory to himself and never publishes.) And then there's the suggestion from Will Goldstone that Houdini occasionally "partook in a nip of opium"(!).
(Also, on a fun personal note, I had no idea that Dr. Daniel Comstock, inventor and founder of Technicolor – my current employer – was on the Scientific American committee with Houdini.)
The narrative of Houdini and Conan Doyle is pretty evenly split between the two men, relating their respective biographies in equal measures (maybe a little more weighted to Doyle in the first third). Of course, I came for Houdini, but I found the Doyle material just as fascinating, and sometimes downright shocking! I had no idea just how far off the rails Doyle went near the end of his life, firmly believing his prophetic spirit guide, Pheneas, that the end of the world was imminent and preaching preparedness to his followers. One thing Sandford never really addresses is why Lady Doyle, as the voice of Pheneas, perpetuated this fiction for her husband. (At times
Pheneas would implore Doyle to buy new home furnishings or kitchen appliances.) Unless they were both just flat out bonkers. It really is a strange, strange story.
My only complaint might be that the collection of photos included in the book leaves something to be desired. There is not even a single photo of Houdini and Doyle together (at least not in the UK proof edition, which is what I'm writing this review from — maybe the final book will have more photos*). But photos are not what's important to us Houdini nuts and historians. It's the text that matters, and this is where Houdini and Conan Doyle by Christopher Sandford delivers!
UK edition (left) and U.S. edition (right).
*UPDATE: Having now received my copy of the finished book, I'm happy to report that it does indeed contain more photos than what was in the proof, including a photo of Houdini and Doyle together.
Magician and television star Brian Brushwood filmed a segment for his very cool “Scam School” series at Stanford’s Chess Club last Friday night.
The fact that the club was packed with players is either a testament to Mr. Brushwood’s fame or because most of us hard core chess players do not have other pressing social engagements on a typical Friday evening. It is probably a combination of both factors.
Mr. Brushwood started his presentation with a challenge to the assembled players; it was a puzzle.
The puzzle was this: place eight queens on a standard eight-by-eight chessboard such that no queen is able to attack another.
By saying this is a classic chess puzzle, we do not mean to imply that it is easy. We have seen the answer and still cannot replicate it.
Mr. Brushwood filmed the students in their respective piques of frustration for his very popular internet series, “Scam School.” We want to enjoy the series but have significant reservations about Mr. Brushwood’s exposure of substantive effects. Unfortunately, his time with Stanford’s chess club exemplified his disregard for one magic’s most important doctrines.
Mr. Brushwood demonstrated his powers of mental telepathy after claiming he and a chess club member had been “’struck by radioactive lightning’ and gained the miraculous ability to read each other’s minds.”
The trick is a standard but it clearly got the imagination of the reporter covering the event.
While his co-conspirator looked away with his ears plugged, another chess player selected a piece and placed it into Brushwood’s mug. Brushwood slammed
the mug onto the chessboard and told his accomplice to turn around and take a guess. “White rook!” his accomplice said to the stunned disbelief of the other club members.
Mr. Brushwood confesses an “intense interest in chess” that surfaced whilst in college himself. He believes chess players may have an advantage over non-chess playing magicians.
A magician maps out these probabilities and possible audience reactions in the same way that a chess player maps out moves. According to Brushwood, having a chess player’s intuition aids him in his performance. It allows Brushwood himself to “begin acts without having any idea how [he’ll] be
proceeding,” because he has enough tricks up his sleeve for every move and outcome.
He justifies his blatant exposure of magic’s secrets saying, “
“When I first started out with magic, it was hard to find tricks,” Brushwood said. The shortage of magic tricks motivated Brushwood to spread his own knowledge. This “open source” approach to magic can capture an audience as much as a well-executed act, Brushwood argued.”
David Kaye is featured in this month's Genii magazine; with a cover story and two chapters from his upcoming book to be published by Genii's publisher Richard Kaufman. The two chapters from Mr. Kaye's new book are interesting reads: one is about the history of magic for children; and, the other seeks to define the origin and path of a child's need for power.
There is a question and answer interview in which Mr. Kaye discusses his start in the magic business and particularly his beginnings as a children's performer.
You already know Mr. Kaye's most famous persona, Silly Billy and through the Genii article you meet his two new characters. Og is a Jewish Caveman from New York and Dr. Blood is a sadistic mutilator and amputation specialist. Og is designed for the tradeshow circuit, and Dr. Blood is for six and seven year-olds. The six year olds get a toned-down version of the act; with less blood and gore.
We saw Mr. Kaye's lecture and his Silly Billy performance at the Abbott's Get-Together a couple of years back. We understand from his lecture as well as the Genii articles that he is the highest paid children's performer working today.
But this article isn't about Mr. Kaye at all. Actually, it is about the opposite of Mr. Kaye, if that makes sense.
When researching the article we intended to write, Mr. Kaye came up in some Google searches for children's magicians arrested or convicted for molestation or abuse of kids.
We were surprised to read the story of how his father and brother had been convicted of child sexual abuse and were imprisoned. We were even more surprised to learn that Mr. Kaye had videotaped his family as they faced what had to be an incredibly arduous time and that those films an videotapes had to be an incredibly arduous time and that those films an videotapes had been turned into a documentary.
Hitfix.com describes young magician Rob Zabrecky as "wraith thin as an Edward Gorey drawing with a piercing stare and an unnerving wide selection of bow-ties, Zabrecky's creepy, witty Odd Man character might best be described as 'a mix of Vincent Price and David Byrne.'"
Reprinted from April 2008.
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