Happy Magic Day, The 90th Anniversary of the Passing of Harry Houdini

Happy Halloween, Happy Magic Day. Today marks the 90th Anniversary of the passing of magic's most iconic performer, Harry Houdini. There has been quite a bit written over the past 2 weeks concerning this 90th Anniversary. Events are planned and some have already taken place to commemorate Houdini's life and to try and contact his spirit, again.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Houdini isn't coming back. Ouch, that was harsh. But there is good news. Houdini does speak from beyond, sort of. He speaks through folks like Patrick Culliton, John Cox, Arthur Moses, Fred Pittella, David Saltman, Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brookz, Joe Notaro, Tom Interval, Bill Kalush, Kevin Connolly, and yours truly. And there are probably a few others whose names I missed, my apologies to you if I did. The point is, we are sort of the keepers of the flame. We collect, we research, we discover new things about Houdini and we share them.

Some of us even perform. Just yesterday I did 2 shows which opened with three back to back escapes. I had heard there was a young fellow from Pittsburgh who was going to recreate Houdini's upside down hanging strait jacket escape, and my friend Andrew Basso pays homage to Houdini every time he performs the Water Torture Cell in the show The Illusionists.

Ironically, for us, there is no escaping Houdini.

I had been working on two separate articles about Houdini, both of which I just have not had time to complete. I don't want to put up a partially researched articles when it could be a real gem, so those two articles will have to wait until I have some time to work on them. My fellow Houdini bloggers have more than filled up the space that I've left by not posting, and then some. I had some big plans for #90, but events in my personal life have occupied the majority of my time and prevented me from following through some of the more interesting things I wanted to do.

For now let me wish the Spirit of Houdini the best. I don't think you should congratulate someone on the day of their death. But I can say, even 90 years later, Mr. Houdini, you are sorely missed.

A few years ago I wrote an article tracking the body of Houdini after he died until his funeral. You can check that article out here: http://www.themagicdetective.com/2012/01/tracking-body-of-houdini.html

And if you want MORE Houdini, just follow this link to all the articles on this site about Houdini
http://www.themagicdetective.com/search/label/Houdini

This Is What Real Presidents Look Like!

Of course, I'm speaking of Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States and Harry Houdini, President of the Society of American Magicians from 1917 to 1927 though he died in 1926 during his last term. I believe Houdini was the longest serving President of the S.A.M. as well.

The photo was created by Houdini as an example of Spirit Photography. He wanted to show how easily such a process was faked. There are numerous versions of this photo, and I found a very interesting one that is stored at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. You can see the photo and a handwritten letter of Houdini's here: http://alplm.tumblr.com/post/40018587432/houdini 

That is as 'political' as I will get. Sorry, I don't discuss politics as a rule.

Paul Osborne Passes Away

I just got word that Paul Osborne passed away suddenly this morning. No news on what happened, yet.

I found out when I saw Jay Johnson's post on Facebook.  Where would I be had it not been for Paul. My first sub-trunk was built with Paul Osborne plans. One of my very popular Santa Claus productions was Paul's. I have a huge double Tip-Over Trunk in storage that we built from Paul's excellent plans and my latest steampunk effect, Tri-Section, came from Pauls incredible workshop plans. Anyone who works with illusions will feel profound sadness this day. RIP Paul. Below is a link to the piece that Jay Johnson wrote on his blog.

THE WORLD IS A STAGE: Good Bye Paul:  The tradition is to break a magic wand in half in honor of a magician who dies.  Symbolically it says that his magic will not be done aga...


For those interested, here is a wonderful article about Paul. It gives more details on his life and it was written while he was still alive. http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2012/october/paul-osborne-jr-selling-magic-wholesale/