Letters to Editor: Co-Dependent Magic
When required by court order or self-interest, Inside Magic posts questions from readers and our responses. If you have a question or comment for Inside Magic, please send it to questions@insidemagic.com.
Dear Mr. Medico:
I want to make money reading Terrets cards and am looking four a good books to red. What do you sugest?
Mr. Amazing
Dear Mr. Amazing:
Actually, from the salutation “Mr. Medico” and the question about “Terrets cards,” we think you may have intended to ask your question of the webmd.com doctor panel.
The Tourette Syndrome Show hasn’t been performed for years. The last practitioner of the thankfully dead routine was the amoral and incapable Tony Spain.
And even Tony no longer performs any tricks involving or utilizing the unfortunate neurological syndrome known as Tourette syndrome.
In fact, Tony wrote to his parole officer last year that he no longer performs his profitable but offensive hour-long school assembly show; “showcasing different neurological and psychiatric maladies while entertaining kids and teachers alike with witty asides and magic.”
Apparently the foul mouthed and bad breathed Mr. Spain came to understand the plight of the afflicted or his bookings dried up. We’re guessing it was the latter.
You can still find YouTube videos with his rendition of FRESH FISH SOLD HERE TODAY foisted upon the frail self-image of a stutterer or Tourette syndrome victim, forced to read into the nicotine streaked microphone whilst facing his or her classmates.
If we are not mistaken, you could buy the whole routine with props and script on Tony’s website for $200.00 a while back. We don’t know if anyone took him up on this offer but our belief in human nature gives us reason to hope that era in Magic is gone.
========
Dear Insidious Magic:
How come you never publish any of the letters I send to you?
Jeremy
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Categories: Latest Magic News, Letters to Editor Tags: Letters to Editor, Puppet Psycho Therapy Insurance Limits, Tony Spain
Prison Was Too Good for Her – Our Take on the Tony Spain Fracas
Inside Magic’s home base is and has always been in beautiful Mystic Hollow, Michigan.
We are stone’s throw from several other hubs of performing arts, including Puppeton, Michigan (home of the Hand Puppet Capital of the World); Nodrop, Indiana (Home of the Ball Juggling Mecca); Meltmouth, Massachusetts (Fire Eating’s Home on this big blue marble); Bisect, Arizona (the Razor High Wire practitioners’ gathering spot); and Mushgrin, Iowa (The Royal Order of Her Majesty’s Mouth Catchers of Croquet Balls built the first non-UK facility there).
We are not on the payroll of any town mentioned. Indeed, there are some in each of the above hamlets who would prefer their special gathering place remain secret and thereby more special. Each of the towns offer a wonderful opportunity to meet and greet our fellow (and the feminine form of “fellow,” fella) performers in a non-threatening setting.
In modern society, it is considered gauche for one’s breath to smell of paraffin, in Meltmouth it is expected. “It is a strange character indeed,” wrote Chris Flagler in a 1937 edition of The Meltmouth Daily Telegraph, “to encounter a citizen of this town who sports not a single blister on their lips or tongue.” There are few brave enough to brush one’s teeth with anything other than a regulation toothbrush. In Mushgrin, Iowa, you will likely not find a single such dental tool in any shop up and down the High Road. In Mushgrin, most people use a cloth towel imbued with hydrogen peroxide to cleanse their crumpet hole.
So too is Mystic Hollow, Michigan. It is expected that everything will be something other than what it appears to be. A hat is not a hat but a home to birds, bunnies, or a bountiful bonanza of bandanas and bemusement. A coin on the floor will likely stay there because it is attached with a hidden nail; the police do not use handcuffs to restrain evil-doers (alleged) but a special elixir of Magician’s Wax and Velcro attached to the almost always oversized eyebrows of the malicious magi.
So what is our point?
We cannot judge others based on our own perception of what is normal.
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Categories: Latest Magic News, Mystic Hollow Tags: Magic Controversy, Mystic Hollow, Tony Spain