Houdini Going Postal

The examples of Houdini being less than friendly, keep showing up. I'm not implying that he made a regular thing of it, but it did happen. A couple weeks ago I posted When Houdini Got Arrested. Now a regular reader of my blog has alerted me to another example. This time the year is 1925 and Houdini is summoned into court in NYC. But why?

It turns out that there was a business in the city called 'Francis P. Houdina Company' at 1476 Broadway. The owner Francis Houdina was an electrical engineer and inventor. His mail, and Houdini's mail often got mixed up which is how Harry Houdini found out about them. Houdini assumed that the electrician was trying to capitalize upon the magicians name and fame by using a name which sounded similar.

One hot July evening in 1925, Houdini burst into the offices of the Francis P. Houdina Company and accused them of unlawfully using his name. The newspaper article says 'he tore from a packing case a tag addressed 'HOUDINI', the complaint says'. They demanded he return the tag and he refused and that is when a scuffle broke out and property was damaged, by Harry.

A few days later, George Young, the secretary of the company, presented Harry Houdini with a summons just before he was about to go on the air at WOR Radio in New York. He was being charged with disorderly conduct and destruction of property. Mr. Young had two policemen with him when he served the summons, probably a smart move on his part. Houdini began a heated argument with Mr. Young and Young accused Houdini of disgraceful behavior. Houdini followed with "I would have been killed if I had not used force to get out of the office." 


Following this altercation at WOR Radio, Houdini did go on the air and spoke for fifteen minutes about his on-going fight against spiritualist fakery. 


Houdini did appear in court and the charges were apparently dropped because no one from Francis P. Houdina Company showed up. All of this began because the post office initially mis-delivered mail belonging to Houdina and Houdini, which alerted Harry to the similarity in names. 


*Thanks to Ron for the heads-up on this article!

UPDATE: Just learned that this story is actually false. Please read 'Clearing the name of Houdina' to find out the actual story.

Happy 200th Birthday Charles Dickens

Today is the 200th Birthday of famed writer Charles Dickens. The author of such stories as A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, and A Christmas Carol, some might not be aware that Mr. Dickens was also an amateur conjurer. Born Feb 7th, 1812 in Portsmouth England, he went on to become the most famous novelist of his era and his fame continues to this very day. A more thorough biography of Dickens and his magic is certainly warranted but it will have to wait for a later date.

Just imagine, had there been no Charles Dickens, today there would be no David Copperfield. David Kotkin borrowed the name of the famous Dicken's character and used it as his stage name.

By the way, I found the picture below online, and swiped it! I fully admit that in this case. The photo is from a flier or poster for a talk by magician Ian Keable of England. Mr. Keable just presented this at the Churchill Room, Goodenough College, Mecklenburgh Square, in London. I'm very intrigued by the poster and I hope that it's a very successful program and maybe one day Ian Keable will present it here in America...because I want to see it!

Doug Henning, Remembered

It was 12 years ago today that Doug Henning passed away from liver cancer. Feb 7, 2000. What a shock it was to the whole magic world and especially those of us who were so inspired in our youth by Doug Henning's magic. I still remember the very first issue of Genii Magazine I ever purchased, it had that photo above on the cover and a huge ad for the LeGrand David Magic Show. Both Doug and the Le Grand David folks would be instrumental in my magical education.

Below is a video of Doug doing his 'Things That Go Bump In the Night' Illusion. This was a Servais LeRoy idea originally known as The Three Graces. I'm not sure but Doug might have been the first magician of the modern age to bring that illusion back to the masses.

McDonald Birch Magic History Photo

The photo above is a very famous publicity photo of George McDonald Birch and his wife Mabel Sperry.
I'd seen the photo many times over the years. Mabel is sitting upon a stack of 'Next of Boxes' that were used in his act to find a borrowed object.

One day a few years ago I was visiting with Bill King, the magic collector from Hagerstown MD. Imagine my surprise as I walked through the various rooms of his collection and came face to face with the iconic boxes!!! Below is a photograph of those boxes. I imagine they have found a new home since I visited because Mr. King passed away not long ago.

The Inexhaustible Bottle

The Inexhaustible Bottle-A magic effect wherein a bottle is filled with water to wash it out and then emptied. Once cleaned out, dry ribbons of different colors would come out of the apparently empty bottle. But upon command of the magi, several different drinks pour forth from the bottle in a seemingly never ending succession. Some versions of the trick have the performer breaking the bottle open at the end and producing a ring, scarf and/or even a guinea pig.

I suppose it was inevitable that I would come face to face with the trick known as the Inexhaustible Bottle. In my youth, I worked with my younger brother on a version of this using a tea kettle. But back then, I hardly knew anything about the trick and really did not do the famous routine justice.

Robert Heller 1870

Over the years there have been many variations of the Inexhaustible Bottle. Of course, there is the version with bottle, and then there was also a punch bowl, a tea kettle, a milk carton and I’m sure there are variations I have yet to discover.

Robert-Houdin presented this trick for the first time on December 1, 1847 and claimed it as his own creation. It was said that Robert-Houdin produced 100 glasses of wine/port and other drinks from his bottle. Robert Heller and John Henry Anderson first brought the trick to America and made it popular. Harry Kellar, Compars Herrmann and Alexander Herrmann also presented the trick using a bottle.

In the book, The Secrets of My Magic, David Devant explains that it was his wife who came up with  the idea of using a common Tea Kettle rather than a bottle. Devant's routine was called 'The Obliging Tea Kettle'.  Charles Hoffmann or Think A Drink Hoffmann as he was known, used a cocktail shaker and built a career out of this one trick. Today, Steve Cohen presents his version using a Tea Kettle in his show Chamber Magic.  I’ve not seen Steve perform his full routine, though I have seen clips on video. I have no doubt his work is brilliant.

Although, Robert-Houdin claimed to have invented it, Houdini in his controversial book The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin actually proves that this was not the case. Ludwig Dobler, Phillippe, Henri Robin, and others all presented the Inexhaustible Bottle years before Houdin. It had been presented under a number of different names including: The Infernal Bottle, The Traveling Bottle, the Interminable Bottle, and the Bottle of Sobriety and Inebriety. But the trick is even older than the 1800s.

Houdini reveals that the trick can be traced back to the book Hocus Pocus Jr. in 1635. During this time period the trick used a barrel or wooden cask rather than a bottle but worked on a very similar principle. 

The inspiration for the trick possibly comes from two biblical stories. These two stories are when Jesus was at a wedding and turned Water to Wine, the other is the story of the loaves and the fishes certainly an ‘inexhaustible’ miracle.

I added a version of the Magic Tea Kettle to my summer show in 2011. My version was based on an idea by Jim Steinmeyer but I came up with a decidedly different climax to the trick. In all the Tea Kettle versions there is no real climax other than pouring more and more unique drinks. The ending I came up with gave the trick a definite 'ta-da' ending, but it proved to be more shocking than I expected. I actually had to rewrite the set-up for the ending in order to not freak people out.

What was my ending to the Inexhaustible Tea Kettle you ask? After pouring numerous drinks like milk, cool aid, tea and so forth I announced I would attempt Orange Juice, but I apologized in advance in case it didn't work because, as I explained, Orange Juice was the hardest drink of all. Then I told the audience for some odd reason the oranges would separate from the liquid in the strangest way. At this moment, I would pour the remaining liquid and the oranges slices could be seen separated in the water  for a brief moment....then suddenly the audience realized the orange slices were actually GOLDFISH!

Tremendous ending, I thought. First time I tried it, two of the people who took drinks of the other liquids almost puked thinking they just drank 'fish water'. It was terribly funny and somewhat embarrassing and thus required a rewrite in order to have the ending make sense and for the audience members not to get ill thinking they drank dirty fish water. The 'corrected' script solved the problem and it made for a tremendous effect in my show. As enjoyable as my twist on the trick was, I still long to one day present an actual Inexhaustible Bottle effect...if I can ever locate one.

Now if you'd like to see a novel presentation of the 'Think-A-Drink' act presented by Charles Hoffman, please watch the video below.

*portions of this blog were reprinted from my old magic blog dated Feb 9,2010.