• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

of the magician from being made public. getting the description through and generous in helping the mdgician KIINETY per cent of the audience that bother ^ ThUr fs not,a Reactionary measure. No the Patent Office. In short, patenting a keep the mystery of magic. Many edi- crowded, the house for Mr. Powell’s for and it I believe that their readers are one realy wants to know how ,he has trick releases It publication, tors, find, performance was made up of practic^ig been fooled. His amusement comes from then becomes valueless for the stage. annoyed to discover the means by which magicians. Slany who, in Order to at- mystification, and once he knows the they are fooled, just as they are annoyed tend, had had to cancel their own per- OMETIMES of time and thou- mechanism he is no longer amused. C years when a critic discloses a feeling of hatred formances, came on the evening trains ^ for a trick The society includes also ardent stu- sands of dollars are spent between the hero and the heroine of a and returned to Boston, Chicago, Balti- a moment to dents of magic who are amateurs. Many which takes but perform. successful romantic play. Audiences en- more and a hundred other places on the It to and a star of the theater can tell of having has be designed redesigned, joy their illusions and feel disgruntled midnight. made and unmade. The must when the illusions are shattered. run away from home as a boy to travel magician When the lights went out and the be with the “master of mystery,” the “pro- not fail and a trick must mystifying The safeguarding of illusions is thus house grew quiet, Dean Powell walked The trick of one fessor of thaumaturgy,” or the “world’s to every observer. making part of the work of the Society of out on the stage, and, during the wel- a float in cost Kellar and his suc- greatest magician,” who happened to girl air American Magicians. There are other, coming applause, threw his gloves into to play two nights in his town. These men cessor, Thurston, some $50,000 perfect. more entertaining parts. Frequently, so the air where they turned into doves. A little trick in own which that the look back on the years they spent van- my program, younger showmen may know All over the house could be heard a hum takes two minutes a the work of other ishing twice a day, precisely at 3 and during performance, times, arrangements as the magicians in the audience turned has cost me in material and seven are made the have 8:30, or acting as nurses to the rabbits $2,000 by society to perform- to the girls on their right, who get sawed of seems all now, ances men that come out of hats. There is another years effort. It right given by who have been on in half, or those on their left, who float next year I shall the 50 years or in and done.” group who are college graduates, and though probably by stage more. air, murmured, “Perfectly whose memories of the less interesting scrap it and build it again. One of these was held in New York, Dean Powell next produced enough flow- Jack and I were and Frederick courses are confused with card and coin My colleague, Gwynne, Eugene Powell was invited ers to All a large-size basket. During a and a to an tricks, which they practiced during class. together short time ago layman give entire evening of his art. It? this trick, as if in response to a leader, The national conferences, which are friend, who had seen Gwynne’s perform- was arranged so that the performance the entire audience burst into applause was introduced. “I have seen took on the held once a year, are extraordinarily in- ance, your place evening his 73d birth- over a pretty piece of technique, which We meet behind closed doors, act, Mr. Gwynne,” the friend said, “and day, and at the culmination of 53 years only a magician would detect—and then teresting. ” on for inside are traded the secrets of the I think it is perfect the stage. Fifty-three years of trav- later gave the trick itself half that much “I’m magic craft. Addresses are given which "Thank you,” Gwynne replied; eling over this country and Mexico and applause. It was clear by the end of this second would make a sales manager sit up and effect that these men had trav- take notice, because certain reactions— eled so far in order to see the beautiful universal and reliable—are talked about craftsmanship of a master, rather than that would make selling radios or real the tricks themselves. estate child’s play. Models of apparatus The performance went on. Money are shown and described with respect to was discovered where it always is during their scientific construction, their trans- a magic show and never is at any other portability and their appearance. Au- time; coins were plucked from the air, thorities on the humorous talk, which and picked out of hats, and snatched off flows so glibly from the lips of the magi- the top of a very bald pate. Many other cian, give demonstrations of how it feats of magic, such as shooting a bullet should be done. No one who has not at- through a girl who smiled the while, were tended one of these meetings has any performed. An outsider would never idea of the number of angles to the pro- have known, except by bursts of applause fession of mystifier. at unexpected times, that this was not an ordinary audience. CEVERAL of the sessions are perform- Intermission found the lobby crowded ^ with business rivals and ances, where one magician after an- close friends, glad that like it. I feel that it has all Latin America! of whom other perform feats—tricks from the you throughout Fifty- many had been kept apart by many flaws, but, after all, it should run three of and their travels for 10 or 20 past, specialties of their own, importa- years delighting children, years. When for it takes 12 minutes to of their of the call came for tions or novelties. At these shows we smoothly, only confounding parents, chang- the curtain, the man do and I have worked 12 years on that white into doves and with the work for our own amusement and the ing gloves making magician’s correspondence act.” fade in the air! Years marked with school course instruction of one another. Many things girls stood talking to the smil- A year’s rehearsal for every minute’s the greatest success, and the ing, quick-motioned who never which a lay audience would regard as greatest Belgian, And it is not unusual for One of his shows was burned bothers to “vanish’’ a tricks of the trade are not even men- performance. hardships. canary bird with- a magician to practice a new trick five to ashes, another was out its tioned. Not a single rabbit has been swept away by sending cage along. years before it is added to his perform- flood, and a third was ruined in a train pulled from a high silk hat in the last The performance continued, and mys- ance. wreck. Another all of his three conferences, although the trick is time, property tery after mystery was unfolded. Things When the cost and time and effort and was taken a war in Mexico. still a favorite. away during were shown that had not been done in money are considered, it does not seem But through war, fire and illness, he One of these performances takes place kept New York for 50 yeairs, and other tricks strange that the magician tries to safe- on convincing his audiences, in his north after the dinner, to which the newspaper pleas- that had never been done of Mexico. guard his secrets through his organiza- ant and lovable way. that coins men are invited. The magicians have really And it all ended, as so many magic shows tion. Magazine and newspaper editors in whiskers and that rabbits — belonged abolished after dinner speakers no used to end, by the surprising production, have been astoundingly high-minded might always be found in hats. mean evidence of their power—and in- top upon the report of a pistol, of a girl stead stage a performance of magic. holding a large flag. That was the end, In many ways the group resembles the and yet it was not the end, for Mr. Powell usual men The Heroes was still on the the audi- convention gathering. The Unsung of Industry stage receiving might represent business houses collab- ence when 12 o’clock came—and his 73d to a sales And birthday. orating plan campaign. "THIS hero business is a queer sort of thing. after the first director of the United States as we walk through the corridors of the Bureau of Mines and now allied with Some men respond to the supreme test closely hotel little attention is paid to us until the bureau. This association annually gives ANOTHER time the Society of Ameri- before a cheering throng. Others with the '' some one reads “Society of American its medals and diplomas to those who meet the can Magicians brought the beloved confidence of past performances to lend test in the various mineral industries of the Magicians” on our badges. Then we are master, Harry Kellar, from his retire- them and assurance drive through country.

Load more

  1

Copy Link