2012 The Inconsistent Summer-Update

First off, my apologies for the very sporadic updates to this blog lately. It's been a somewhat trying summer. It began of course with what looked to be a busy run of shows but then spiraled down into a bunch of health related issues. The latest, which I thought was a blood clot, has left me having difficulty walking. As it turns out, the blood clot was a secondary issue but was not the cause of my leg pain. The good news, I'm on the mend, and though I have probably two more weeks left of limping around, I should be as good as new before too long.

As for the blog, well I do have big plans coming up, it's just been really hard to work on it in this state. I've got a Magic History Contest which I'm going to put up soon, which comes complete with prizes, or a prize, I haven't decided. And there is also the first few episodes of The Magic Detective YOUTUBE Show which has been delayed and delayed. I hope to have that project up and running in September.

 Rest assured, I haven't vanished into the night. I'm still working on the site, researching obscure historical magic related events and gearing up for Fall!

Slight Update: A few days after writing this I was diagnosed with a Deep Vein Blood Clot (DVT) so things went from being on the mend to more serious. Then, I had two unexpected trips to the E.R. this past weekend. But as of yesterday, August 21, I got the OK from my doctor to go back to work, which for me means going back to performing. August 2012 will definitely not be remembered as a good month for me, but as I mentioned before, I am doing everything I can to get back on track. Hopefully, I'll be walking like normal again in a week or so. And I also hope to be back to updating this blog on a regular basis as well.

Maid of the Moon Illusion

I have always been intrigued by the poster above, but was never quite sure what the actual effect of this illusion was. 'Maid of the Moon' was a creation of three people William Robinson,  Benjamin B. Keyes of Boston and Will B. Wood. The original idea belonged to Wood who filed for a patent in 1889, but both Keyes and Robinson added things to the concept to take it from a novelty to an amazing act. The original name for the illusion was 'Astarte'.

The illusion first appeared in Harry Kellar's show, as William Robinson and his wife Dot were both working for Kellar at the time. It was a revolutionary illusion for the time. The effect is a levitation where a woman floats upwards and can move up and down, left or right and even spin her body around and turn somersaults. The method was exposed in an article in the Chicago Herald newspaper, but it didn't stop Kellar from performing it. He would eventually alter the name of the illusion to Astarte-Maid of the Moon.

In 1892, William Robinson and his wife Dot left the employment of Harry Kellar and went to work for Alexander Herrmann. It's obvious by the poster, that Robinson either built the Astarte illusion for Herrmann or took it with him when he left the employment of Harry Kellar as it was included in Herrmann's touring show under the title 'Maid of the Moon'. I could not find a Kellar poster advertising Astarte, though he did advertise other levitations over the years. The Herrmann poster for the illusion is breathtaking, and honestly, more beautiful than the effect really is, but I'm judging it by modern standards and perhaps for it's time it too was incredible.

In Kellars Wonders by Mike Caveney and Bill Meisel, there is a picture from the original patent papers showing the elaborate mechanics of the trick.

Astarte was dropped from Kellar's show during his never ending quest for the ideal levitation. It was likely dropped from the Herrmann show after Alexander's death. As better and more realistic levitations were created, Astarte was soon forgotten. That is until 1980, when Doug Henning added Astarte to one of his World of Magic TV Specials. In this special he used Loreen Yarnell as his floating subject. The video below shows Doug Henning presenting Astarte. Enjoy!

By the way, the above poster is also on the latest issue of Magicol Magazine.

Almost the Houdini Course in Magic

In the 1920s, an advertising man named Walter Jordan had an idea of creating a correspondence course on magic for the general public. He spoke with a friend who ran a correspondence school on Applied Science. The two agreed that a magic course would be a good idea and began to try and find someone to help them put together the course.

The first person they approached was a Chicago magician named Jim Sherman. Mr. Sherman drew up an outline of the course but wanted too much money for the finished project. Cooke and Jordan moved on to find a new person to help them and they came upon magician Walter Baker. Mr. Baker put together a few tricks for the proposed course but they weren't up to the standards that Jordan was looking for so they passed on Baker. However, Baker did give them the name of an illustrator if they were interested.

The third person approached was Harry Houdini. The year was 1926 and we know how busy Houdini was in that year. He liked the idea of a course in magic, but writing it himself would be out of the question. Houdini's idea was to get Harlan Tarbell to write and illustrate the course. This might have worked out but Jordan and Cooke had already heard about Tarbell from Walter Baker. So they decided to drop Houdini from the picture and just go with Harlan Tarbell for the entire project! The rest as they say is history. But for a brief moment in time it was almost the Houdini Course in Magic rather than Tarbell.

The 8 volumes of the printed version of the Tarbell Course in Magic still make up one of the finest resources for magic effects ever produced!