drhoustoun

[drhoustoun]

Esteemed Readers, and Others…

One of my favourite advertisements from the annals of conjuring is an undated playbill that details the programme for a truly remarkable magic show. The performer, described only as “The Wonder of All the Wonders that Ever the World Wondered At,” prominently featured a selection of violent illusions, graphic descriptions of which are gleefully given by an anonymous copy-writer.

The performance begins innocently enough:

He will heat a bar of iron red hot, and thrust it into a barrel of gunpowder before all the company, and yet it shall not take fire.

Then, as a natural follow up:

He lets any gentleman charge a blunderbuss with the same gunpowder and twenty leaden bullets, which blunderbuss the said artist discharges full in the face of the said company, without the least hurt, the bullets sticking in the wall behind them.

Perhaps in fear that the performance was aimed too firmly at the gun-loving portion of the audience, the closing effect for the first half was planned specifically to entertain the ladies:

He takes a pot of scalding oil, and throws it by great ladlefuls directly at the ladies, without spoiling their clothes or burning their skins.

Those who survived this theatrical onslaught, either in print or in person, might return for the second half, commencing with a piece I am surprised more modern conjurers do not include in their repertoires:

He gives any gentleman leave to drive forty twelve penny nails up to the head in a porter’s backside, and then places the said porter in a loadstone chair, which draws out every nail, and the porter feels no pain.

For any reader who is curious, I can confirm that magicians do use magnets in their tricks.

The grand finale of the show was a version of a routine that many performers use today. A number of audience members are invited to drop personal items into small opaque bags, which are then mixed up out of the performer’s sight. The magician then correctly identifies which object belongs to which person. Let us turn, once more, to our morbid source material:

He […] draws the teeth of half a dozen gentlemen, mixes them and jumbles them in a hat, gives any person leave to blindfold him, and returns each their own, and fixes them as well as ever.

Dental issues cured, one can only hope that even the most demanding audience would have had their money’s worth from the show. To be on the safe side, however, the programme also promises “many other programmes of art, too tedious here to mention.”

Perhaps you are questioning the authenticity of the performance this playbill describes? I am unwilling to confirm or deny anything, other than to comment that the copywriter is reputed to have been either Jonathan Swift (the satirist who wrote Gulliver's Travels) or Thomas Sheridan (Swift’s friend and principal collaborator). As to the impact of the work on the history of conjuring, it has, if nothing else, helped me decide upon a desirable audience for my work. Following the example of the playbill I chose, as my reader: “All Persons of Quality…”

“…and Others.”

[drhoustoun]

Victoria and Albert Museum Research Institute Fellowship

What do puppeteers, surgeons, potters, scientists, artists, musicians and curators all have in common? Well, amongst other things, they are all part of a collaboration between the V&A Research Institute and Imperial College titled Encounters on the Shop Floor. To me, magic has always been about more than just showing people tricks or fooling them, so I am delighted that I have also been invited to join the group and explore the world of conjuring from a different angle.

Over the course of five years the project looks to investigate:

ways of knowing often described as embodied, tacit, implicit. The project explores the significance of embodiment in all processes of cognition and learning and champions its importance in all areas of practice, moving beyond the unhelpful divide between ‘mind’ and 'hand’ and between 'intellectual’ and 'manual’ knowledge and their disciplinary and institutional compartmentalisation.

Thus far, this has involved visits and workshops in locations such as Julian Stair’s pottery studio, Imperial College’s Faculty of Medicine, the Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science, The Royal College of Music and The Art Workers’ Guild as well as the V&A itself. In addition, a number of participants have just been awarded fellowships in order to create small independent research projects, aligned with the interests of the collective. I am involved with three of these offshoots… 

Working with Toby Athersuch (an Analytical Chemist) and Rachel Warr (a puppeteer) we are exploring ways in which the importance of embodied knowledge can be conveyed in a workshop setting. A separate project with Rachel will use our respective areas of expertise to explore the ways in which an object can be transformed into an experience, as well as how that experience can be conveyed in a museum setting. Finally, Fleur Oakes (a three dimensional embroiderer) and I will use our practices to investigate how extraordinary expertise can create seemingly impossible objects.

I will write more here, as the project develops, but suffice it to say that puppeteers, surgeons, potters, scientists, musicians, curators and magicians have more in common than might be expected.

[drhoustoun]

An Avalaunch of Books (Illustrated by Caro Podeswa)

In a previous post I explained why I decided to sneak two copies of Professor Hoffmann’s Modern Magic onto the set for my appearance on ITV’s The Next Great Magician.

I also wrote a little about the book itself, including the somewhat personal response it engendered from the Dean of the Society of American Magicians:

I have always thought that it would have been well had he died in his Mothers [sic] womb. He started this awful avalaunch [sic] of BOOKS. I wish every one was taken and burned.

The good Dean’s comments seem a tad extreme, though the image of an avalanche of books is a pleasing one (bettered only, perhaps, by the image of an ‘avalaunch' of books)… so pleasing, in fact, that Caro kindly agreed to illustrate the potentially disastrous consequences of such an event.

A selection of Caro’s work, in a variety of styles, can be seen here and you can read about a text based game she is developing on her website. To find more of her work on this blog look for posts with “Illustrated by Caro Podeswa” appended to the title in parenthesis.

[drhoustoun]

The Decollation of John the Baptist

A sixteenth century magic trick that references the biblical account of the decapitation of Saint John by King Herod, at his daughter’s insistence, may seem like unlikely fodder for a viral YouTube prank video. The world is filled with unlikely things, however, and so it has come to pass.

In Reginald Scot’s 1584 publication, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, he described a trick titled “To cut off ones head, and to laie it in a platter, &c: which the jugglers call the decollation of John Baptist.” This may well be the most understated use of “&c” (etcetera) in the literature of conjuring.

The method is essentially a special table that allows one boy to conceal his head in a hole in the table whilst a second boy’s head appears to rest at his feet, on a plate. As with every magic trick, however, there are several details that can make it more convincing. After explaining the basic principle Scot suggests:

Then (to make the sight more dredfull) put a little brimstone into a chafing dish of coles, setting it before the head of the boie, who must gaspe two or three times, so as the smoke enter a little into his nostrils and mouth (which is not unholsome) and the head presentlie will appeare starke dead; if the boie set his countenance accordinglie: and if a little bloud be sprinkled on his face, the sight will be the stranger.

In a tantalising afterthought he adds:

There are other things which might be performed in this action, the more to astonish the beholders, which because they offer long descriptions, I omit: as to put about his necke a little dough kneded with bulIocks bloud, which being cold will appeare like dead flesh; & being pricked with a sharpe round hollow quill, will bleed, and seeme verie strange, &c

How has this biblically framed illusion been repurposed for the YouTube generation? At a palm reader’s stall in a shopping centre... with plenty of screaming reactions, of course. Enjoy!

[drhoustoun]

But What If the Poison Doesn’t Work?

One thing I decided early on when planning this blog was that I would try to avoid giving away how any magic tricks were done or revealing the general principles that magicians utilise. I think I can make an exception to that decision, however, and offer some practical advice without adversely affecting the current crop of conjurers. (Ok then, maybe two exceptions: if you find yourself wishing to remove “forty twelve penny nails” from “a porter’s backside” you will find a solution here, if not a willing porter.)

In a recent post I described a trick performed for King Henry VIII by a brave conjurer who went by the name of Brandon. In performance, he:

painted on a wall the picture of a dove, and seeing a pigeon sitting on the top of a house, said to the king; Lo now your Grace shall see what a juggler can doo, if he be his craftes maister; and then pricked the picture with a knife so hard and so often, and with so effectuall words, as the pigeon fell downe from the top of the house stark dead.

In order to effect this miracle Brandon had previously done some research into how long a poison would take to act on the average pigeon, and would feed the local flock an appropriate length of time before his production began. (Perhaps there are three exceptions to my rule, rather than two.)

The more curious reader will be wondering what happens if the poisonous dose is misjudged, killing the pigeon too quickly or too slowly. If the poison is too strong then the unfortunate performer is left to their own devices. If it is too weak, however, then an ingenious back up plan is offered, for which the help of a friend is required.

This might be done by a confederate, who standing at some window in a church steeple, or other fit place, and holding the pig by the leg in a string, after a signe, given by his fellowe, pulleth downe the pigeon, and so the wonder is wrought.

If you were one of the people who read my original post but demurred from a practical performance, either for fear of embarrassment, or a visit from the RSPCA, salvation is at hand. All you need is a good friend, a piece of string and access to a church steeple… “and so the wonder is wrought.”

[drhoustoun]

Alternative History (Illustrated by Caro Podeswa)

In a time when the word ‘post-truth’ has been nominated as the word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries, and ‘alternative-facts’ are thrust into the media spotlight I wonder how magic could have created an alternative history…

A few weeks ago I described a sixteenth century magician who Henry VIII forbade from performing a trick in which the action of stabbing a drawing of a bird would kill the animal itself. He feared the same technique could be used on other living creatures. The talented Caro Podeswa suggests an alternative history of the English monarchy in her illustration based on this story. To quote Reginald Scot:

And so the life of all men in the hands of a juggler.

A selection of Caro’s work, in a variety of styles, can be seen here and you can read about a text based game she is developing on her website. To find more of her work on this blog look for posts with “Illustrated by Caro Podeswa” appended to the title in parenthesis.

[drhoustoun]

Controlling One’s Powers

I suspect that at some point in every magician’s career an audience member will mistake what they do for a real display of other-worldly ability. The chances of this happening are determined, to some extent, by what kind of magic one is performing — I suspect that Derren Brown will lead more people to think that his powers are real than the average children’s entertainer — but everyone will have it happen to them at least once. What I find most interesting, however, is not whether or not people mistake tricks for something real, but how they respond to the performer when they fall prey to this misconception… And perhaps the best response I have ever heard of came from a sixteenth century king.

The Discoverie of Witchcraft, written in 1584 by a man called Reginald Scot, describes a performance given by a magician called Brandon to the King of England. Scot described the performance:

What woondering and admiration was there at Brandon the juggler, who painted on a wall the picture of a dove, and seeing a pigeon sitting on the top of a house, said to the king; Lo now your Grace shall see what a juggler can doo, if he be his craftes maister; and then pricked the picture with a knife so hard and so often, and with so effectuall words, as the pigeon fell downe from the top of the house stark dead.

In other words, and with more modern spelling, when Brandon stabbed a drawing of a bird with his knife a real bird, sitting on a nearby rooftop, fell down dead. The king’s response, presumably after he uttered some regal expletives, was that Brandon:

… was prohibited to use that feat anie further, lest he should emploie it in anie other kind of murther; as though he, whose picture so ever he had pricked, must needs have died, and so the life of all men in the hands of a juggler.

Brandon was banned from ever performing the trick again, just in case he decided to use his powers on something (or someone) more important than a pigeon.

How did the trick work? Well, according to Scot, the performer would prepare by researching how long a particular poison takes to kill a pigeon. Then, armed with this knowledge, he simply had to feed the pigeons poisoned bread an appropriate length of time before the performance, allowing nature to take its course and, perhaps, drawing out the action of stabbing the picture until the bird expired.

Did Brandon follow the king’s decree and retire his performance piece? After a little research, trying to date his performances, I suspect he did. Brandon was first described as “the lord king’s juggler” sometime between 1520 and 1522, during the reign of Henry VIII. Given that information, Brandon would have done well to obey the royal command for, as history has taught us, Henry was not a forgiving man.

[drhoustoun]

A Nineteenth Century Approach to Cyber Security

Last Monday’s print edition of The New Yorker carried a story titled “Trump, Putin, and the New Cold War.” The article sets out the contextual history for the Russian intervention in the 2016 US elections as well as an analysis of the interference itself and thoughts as to what the future holds. It also suggested, albeit rather obliquely, that the diplomatic community’s less scrupulous members might read Victorian conjuring literature.

The article explains:

In 2008, according to “Dark Territory,” a history of cyberwar by Fred Kaplan, Russian hackers accomplished a feat that Pentagon officials considered almost impossible: breaching a classified network that wasn’t even connected to the public Internet. Apparently, Russian spies had supplied cheap thumb drives, stocked with viruses, to retail kiosks near nato headquarters in Kabul, betting, correctly, that a U.S. serviceman or woman would buy one and insert it into a secure computer.

The plan is a rather clever one, but its origins can be found long before the cyber age began, in a scam used by Parisian card cheats.

Imagine you were playing cards and had just made a large bet, say a month’s wages. I expect you would be feeling pretty nervous. Now imagine making the same bet but secretly knowing every card that your opponents hold and, indeed, every card anywhere in the game. That would be feel much more comfortable. Marked cards, which have secretly had their back designs changed to indicate their identity, make this possible. The problem, for a cheat who wants to use them, is to get them into play without arousing suspicion. In an ideal world, the cheat could arrive at a game, played with cards supplied by someone else, and still know that they would be marked without anybody else’s knowledge.

Cue Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin and his 1891 book, Card-Sharpers Their Tricks Exposed; or The Art of Always Winning. He suggests, amongst other possibilities, that the card cheat would find out where the people who run the game he wants to rip off buy their cards. Then, after becoming a regular customer, “he says that his friend has asked him to purchase a dozen or more packs of cards.”

The next morning, under the pretext that the cards are not the right colour, he returns them.

The packs are still sealed; the tradesman, without suspicion, exchanges them for others.

But the Greek [cheat] has passed the night in unsealing the covers and resealing them, by a process known to jugglers [magicians]; the cards have been marked by him; the tradesman has them now in his shop; the trick is done; the Greek waits for them to appear.

Of course, if it were deemed that the effort were worthwhile, the cheat could carry out his plan at every shop near the venue for a game, knowing that then, regardless of where a fellow player buys their cards, they will be still marked.

If you wanted to get a malicious piece of software into a secure computer system, it turns out, you could follow a similar plan, using USB sticks rather than playing cards. “There's a sucker born every minute,” as the saying goes, and it seems that not much changes.

Addendum

Curiously, the term ‘Greek’ may not carry the same political implication as Maskelyne’s performances with his automata, or be designed to associate an entire nation’s population with the traits of the cheat. Robert-Houdin explains the origin of the term at the beginning of his book.

Towards the end of the reign of Louis XIV, a certain chevalier of Greek origin, named Apoulos, was admitted to the Court. He quickly made so much money at play, that his success awakened suspicion as to the cause of such great good fortune.

Notwithstanding his astonishing ability, the gentleman was caught in the act and condemned for twenty years to the galleys.

This adventure made a great deal of noise, and the name of Apoulos or simply that of Greek, was bestowed upon those who by trickery endeavoured to adjust for their benefit the chance of fortune.

[drhoustoun]

There Will Be Fun

This week offers the last chance to see the British Library’s free exhibition “Victorian Entertainments: There Will Be Fun.” Focusing on light-hearted Victorian diversions, including pantomime, magic, circus and comedy, one of my favourite items on display is a drawing made by an automaton called Zoë, built by John Nevil Maskelye (previously mentioned in connection with public toilets). There certainly will be fun, but there are also be powerful political currents running just beneath the surface.

Both Zoë and another of Maskelyne’s creations, Psycho, were tied to the politics of the British Empire. Psycho, first exhibited in 1875, was a card-playing automaton, a mechanical man capable of engaging in games with a member of the audience and also of demonstrating card tricks. Zoë, who made her debut 1877, was a robotic girl capable of writing as well as drawing simple sketches. For his performances, Psycho rested on a glass support, sitting at a table with a number of playing cards arranged before him, dressed as a “Hindoo.” Zoë, who appeared to be a young girl, sat on a pedestal in front of an easel, dressed as a Greek and poised wth her pen, ready to perform. Maskelyne would join the automata on stage, and then guide the audience through an exhibition of their skills. As Kainoa Harbottle, an academic and coin magician, has commented, Psycho and Zoë represent a layered portrayal of Western control over the exotic:

Together the two devices made up an automaton empire: silent Oriental constructs whose purpose of existence was to serve, entertain, and ultimately perform a Western fantasy of the mysterious Other. The British conjurer is both their inventor and conqueror — the creator of impressive devices and a tamer of their unknown powers.

Zoë’s performances would sometimes take this subjugation one step further. For one of her demonstrations, a member of the audience would choose a well known person from a list of over 200 names. Zoë would then draw a recognisable portrait of the celebrity. As the list included political figures of the time, such as Disraeli and Gladstone (each Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on multiple occasions) Zoë was sometimes compelled to draw the very people who perpetuated the Empire that repressed the very people she and Psycho represented.

In his performances with Zoë and Psycho, Maskelyne gave London audiences an enjoyable experience exploring the mysteries of the exotic. But he also allowed them to savour their encounter safe in the knowledge that the intriguing Other was being kept in its ‘proper’ place, enslaved to the will a respectable English performer, within the ordered confines of the British Empire.

[drhoustoun]

To Make Sport with a Maid-Servant

Having already been berated for serving maggoty meat, through no fault of her own, our friendly maid will now face a rather different gastronomic issue.

Quoting from a seventeenth century source:

If the Maid locks up the Victual or Cellar-dore, as there is too many do, contrary to the wills of their Masters and Mistresses, for a speedy revenge used this Receipt; take Ants eggs than quantity of a small Nut-shell full, then dry them, beat them to Powder, and conveigh them into her broth or drink; in half an hour you shall have sport enough, for she will fart without measure, endeavouring to hide her self, but cause all Chamber dores to be lock’d beforehand, then follow her where she goes, and ask her, is she not ashamed to fart so? You need not fear her disobliging you again, for she will quickly smell the plot.

It is entirely possible that ants’ eggs are out of season but fortunately our resourceful writer has another solution for just such an occasion:

Observe when a Cock is treading the Hen, then nimbly snatch a feather out of his Tail, put this privately into the Broom, and when she goes to sweep the House, she cannot leave farting so long as the Broom is in her hand.

The precise mechanism by which the tail feather operates eludes me, but the moral of this practical joke (beyond the obvious ‘don’t lock the door to the cellar unless requested to do so’) is clear. Farting always has been, and always will be, funny…

Parrrp.

[drhoustoun]

To Cause Worms or Maggots Seem on Meat

Once upon a time magic was my hobby. Now it is my job, if it can really be called a ‘job,’ and so a few years ago I decided I needed a new hobby. Collecting practical jokes and non-politically correct tricks from seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century conjuring books seemed like the obvious choice and, in this irregular series, I will share a few favourites.

We begin with a (comparatively!) subtle joke from a late seventeenth century book on sports and pastimes, “To Cause Worms or Maggots Seem on Meat:”

Take Cat-guts and cut them to a length small and great, then strew them upon Meat hot as it comes out of the Pot. Some will eat none; others will deride the Maid that drest it: But the Meat is not at all prejudiced by it.

For those concerned about the feelings of the Maid I can offer no reassurances. For the cat lovers, however, I am pleased to clarify that catgut bears no connection to your feline friends, being manufactured from fibre found in the wall of the small intestine of larger animals such as sheep, goats and cattle. Regardless, I would suggest the above be treated as a source of amusement rather than practical instruction.

[drhoustoun]

Jugglers, Rope-Dancers, Automata etc: A Resolution

Within the magic world there are many important questions that remain to be answered (should one refer to a non-magician as a ‘muggle,’ for example), not least of which is the rather obvious: “What is the point of magic?” In considering possible resolutions for the New Year this seems like a particularly pertinent thing to ask, not least because it may have some impact on what I decide to do with myself during 2017.

So where does one start when trying to answer such a question? To my mind none of the generally proposed responses, which range from “spreading a sense of awe and child-like wonder” to “filling the gap between the main course and dessert in TGI Fridays,” suffice. I did however stumble upon an appealing answer in a late Eighteenth-Century translation of a German work by Johann Beckmann (1739–1811).

Beckmann was a rather remarkable man who made contributions to many aspects of modern life. He is widely considered to be the first person to treat the practice of various trades as a science and coined the word ‘technology’ to signify this new area of interest. As the earliest person to reliably document the development of numerous inventions he is also viewed as the father of the study of the history of technology.

In A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins Beckmann catalogues many of the Eighteenth Century trades one might expect: glass etching, tin making, sewing, gun making and vegetable growing. In addition, he offers a chapter covering “Jugglers, Rope-Dancers, Automata etc.” (Jugglers, at the time, was an umbrella term that encompassed conjurers as well as other similar entertainers.) Here, at last, I could read an opinion on magic’s purpose from a man who dedicated his life to the study of purposeful things.

Beckmann begins by positioning entertainers in general sense:

All our trades and occupations are not only filled up with workmen, but overflow. Our farmers can employ no more labourers, and our manufacturers no more hands than they have at present; our regiments are full; and in every employment there are more candidates and more supernumeraries than is consistent with the good of the public. Must it not therefore give us pleasure, when necessity invents new means of acquiring a livelihood, although they could be dispensed with?

Whilst being inconsequentially “dispensed with” is not ideal, a role for conjuring as “a new means of acquiring a livelihood” does not sound altogether bad. His closing argument, however, convinces me of magic’s worth.

It is much better that those who have learned no useful art; who have lost their youth in the service of others; or who are destitute, through any other cause, should gain their bread by amusing their fellow-citizens, than that they should either beg or steal.

And so I find myself decided. In accordance with Mr Beckmann’s dictum I have resolved, in 2017, to demonstrate the conjurer’s value to society through my actions rather than my words (though I will continue to write regularly here). From the first day of January until the thirty-first day of December I will attempt to neither beg nor steal.

Happy New Year!

[drhoustoun]

Magic Beans? (Illustrated by Caro Podeswa)

Appearing, as it does, between Christmas and the New Year, you would easily be forgiven for thinking that the illustration above might be of Jack’s Magic Beans, or some other timely pantomime reference. In fact it looks back almost exactly two months to a much less family oriented performance:

He […] draws the teeth of half a dozen gentlemen, mixes them and jumbles them in a hat, gives any person leave to blindfold him, and returns each their own, and fixes them as well as ever.

Continuing the comparison, let us not forget that in this rather brutal show “He’s behind you” would carry a very different connotation…

A selection of Caro’s work, in a variety of styles, can be seen here. To find more of her work on this blog look for posts with “Illustrated by Caro Podeswa” appended to the title in parenthesis.

[drhoustoun]

Spending a Penny

Last Friday’s Daily Telegraph reported on Network Rail’s decision to stop charging for access to the public toilets in three major London train stations, a move that will spread joy to travellers:

Commuters finally have something to cheer about after Network Rail revealed it will stop charging to spend a penny at major stations.

The choice of euphemism is particularly interesting. When one can instantly think of gems such as ‘powder one’s nose,’ ‘visit the little boy’s room,’ ‘answer nature’s call’ and ‘see a man about a horse,’ let alone the creative crudities a thirty second internet search will unearth, why would one decide to ‘spend a penny?’ Whilst I suspect the author would not realise this, their choice of euphemism tugs them into a spiralling reference that pulls inevitably towards the legacy of one of England’s most influential magicians, a man called John Nevil Maskelyne (1839-1917).

Maskelyne was a performing magician with a gift for invention. His start in show business came when he saw a performance by The Davenport Brothers, a pair of performers who claimed to demonstrate spiritualistic phenomena in their shows, making contact with the dead. According to Maskelyne’s own account, a chink in the curtains shone a light on the Brother’s performance, both literally and figuratively, revealing it to be the result of trickery rather than a manifestation of supernatural power. Armed with this knowledge Maskelyne teamed up with George Alfred Cooke, his friend and a cabinet maker, and put on a show which duplicated the Davenports effects but made no supernatural claims.

From this humble beginning, Maskelyne went on to build a magical empire, first with Cooke and later with England’s greatest magician David Devant. Between 1873 and 1905 Maskelyne performed a run of shows in Piccadilly’s Egyptian Hall, a record three-decade-residency that led to the venue becoming known as ‘England’s Home of Mystery’ and made the London the magic capital of the world.

A significant part of Maskelyne’s performance repertoire was based on his ability as an inventor and mechanic. A major feature of his show, for example, was a mechanical figure called Psycho, pictured with Maskelyne at the top of this piece. Psycho was an automaton capable of playing games of Whist with members of the audience, as well as answering simple questions, and made over 4,000 appearances in Maskelyne’s shows.

Maskelyne’s inventiveness extended well beyond his theatrical creations and he is credited with designing numerous other items. One such creation was a typewriter that allowed text to be produced with differential spacing, a format which creates a more balanced, legible work. (Today you would be hard pressed to find text set out with monospacing but it was not until the introduction of the electric typewriter that differential spacing became the norm.) Perhaps his most influential creation, however, was a simple and durable coin operated lock that was installed in public toilets throughout London. The cost of using the lock, and therefore the facilities it controlled access to, was one English penny: Hence the euphemism: ‘spend a penny.’

So in one short sentence The Telegraph demonstrated the ubiquity of Maskelyne’s invention, through their choice of euphemism, whilst deploying it to celebrate a step in the demise of his conceptual creation. Perhaps the silver lining, at least from Maskelyne’s point of view, could be that they published it in a differentially spaced typeface.

[drhoustoun]

The Secrets of Modern Magic

In my last post I shared a video of my appearance on ITV’s The Next Great Magician and commented:

There will be bonus points if you can identify the two magical items that are frequently in shot but never mentioned!

The items in question were the orange and green books that rest on the table, to the right of the framed picture. Without them I would almost certainly not be a magician. In fact, without them, the show would probably not exist.

The books in question are two editions of the same work, Modern Magic by Professor Hoffmann. Their contents were first serialised in a Victorian magazine for boys before being collected in book form in 1876. In writing them Hoffmann changed the course of magic forever.

Before Modern Magic was published there were plenty of performing magicians, as well as a selection of literature that explained how magic tricks were done. What was not available was a work that would teach the reader how they could become a performing conjurer. As Hoffmann said in the foreword to Modern Magic:

There is a vast difference between telling how a trick is done and teaching how to do it. The existing treatises, with few exceptions, do the former only. The intention of the present work is to do the latter also; to teach sleight-of-hand generally, as well as particular tricks … to conduct the neophyte from the very A B C of the magic art gradually up to those marvels which are exhibited on the public stage.

Hoffmann did this not because he thought that everyone should become a magician, but because a practical knowledge of conjuring would teach all sorts of other skills — problem solving, presentation, the ability to deceive and the ability to spot deception — all of which could be useful in the furtherance of a professional career in the service of the British Empire.

At the time his work was published the response was mixed. The non-magicians (muggles!) who reviewed the work were positive. Tatler, for example, commented:

the perusal of a very few pages convinces the reader of two things. The first is that Professor Hoffmann possesses a vast knowledge of conjuring matters; and the second, that he has all the literary ability so necessary to describe the proper working of tricks.

Magicians were more circumspect in their responses, and in some cases downright vicious. Frederick Eugene Powell, a popular performer and the Dean of the Society of American Magicians, wrote:

I have always thought that it would have been well had he died in his Mothers [sic] womb. He started this awful avalaunch [sic] of BOOKS. I wish every one was taken and burned.

This vitriolic response was likely provoked by Powell’s fears that Hoffmann’s work made the once secretive business of conjuring far too easily accessible, and that this would lead to the eventual death of magic. In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. Certainly Modern Magic sold in unprecedented quantities to a swathe of the public for whom conjuring would otherwise have been less accessible, but this actually re-invented the art of magic.

Modern Magic, and Hoffmann’s subsequent works, created an audience of amateur magicians who, in turn, created a new community to feed their interests. They created and popularised the idea of trade magic magazines, of magical societies (including England’s Magic Circle and America’s Society of American Magicians, of which Powell was the Dean), of conferences for conjurers, and of the vast privately produced literature that is dedicated to magic.

My own interest in conjuring was forged through Modern Magic, both as the first book that developed my mentor’s interest in conjuring and one of the first books he gave me to arouse my curiosity. At one step removed it was also important through my formative association with The Magic Circle and the magic conventions that flow from Hoffmann’s work.

So those two little books, seen by the best part of four million viewers but, I suspect, noticed by almost none, are responsible for me being a magician. More significantly, as the catalyst that led to a huge change in how magic was, and is, practiced, they are responsible for the programme itself, and, in fact, for shaping every aspect of the magic that we experience today.

[drhoustoun]

The Next Great Magician

Last Sunday was a rather exciting day, as a performance I had recorded for ITV’s The Next Great Magician was broadcast to the world (or rather the three million plus people who were watching). Filmed in Knebworth house with Downton Abbey’s Mr Carson (Jim Carter) you can watch a clip of my section of the show below:

If you enjoyed the performance you might like finding out about a few of the magical connections that ran through the location... and there will be bonus points if you can identify the two magical items that are frequently in shot but never mentioned!

[drhoustoun]

Conjuring Connections and The Next Great Magician

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets, rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. Listening to the sound of the storm I lay in bed, thinking about the filming of my performance for ITV’s The Next Great Magician. My thoughts inevitably wandered to the profound connection between my day and Charles Dickens…

Dickens was, of course, a writer. What is less widely known is that he was also a keen amateur conjurer. For friends and family he performed under the name of “The Unparalleled Necromancer, Rhia Rhama Rhoos,” as part of a tradition in which people at social gatherings would all contribute some form of talent to an evening’s entertainment. Jayne Carlyle, a friend of Dickens and one half of the querulous literary couple about whom Samuel Butler wrote: “It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry one another, and so make only two people miserable and not four,” saw one such Dickens performance and described it in a letter to her cousin:

Only think of that excellent Dickens playing the conjuror for one whole hour — the best conjuror I ever saw — (and I have paid money to see several) — and Forster acting as his servant! This part of the entertainment concluded with a plum pudding made out of raw flour, raw eggs — all the raw usual ingredients — boiled in a gentleman’s hat — and tumbled out reeking — all in one minute before the eyes of the astonished children, and astonished grown people! That trick — and his other of changing ladies’ pocket handkerchiefs into comfits — and a box full of bran into a box full of — a live-guinea-pig! would enable him to make a handsome subsistence lest the book-seller trade go as it please!

In addition to practical performance, Dickens also seems to have taken direct inspiration from conjuring for his books. A Christmas Carol, for example, features a scene in which Scrooge snuffs out the Spirit of Christmas Past with an “extinguisher cap.” This alludes to a famous, and then popular, illusion: The magician would cover his assistant, in the middle of the stage, with a giant candle snuffer. Upon lifting the snuffer, the assistant would have completely vanished.

I’d now like to lift the snuffer on the question of what made me think of Dickens on this particular stormy night. My performance for the programme was recorded at Knebworth House, a Tudor stately home just outside London. And the room in which I conjured was the library, formed by The High Honourable Lord Lytton (‘Litto’ to his friends).

Lytton, who was a friend of Dickens and a writer himself, has notably contributed to English literature, devising a number of memorable phrases that have endured to the present day. “The pen is mightier than the sword,” “pursuit of the almighty dollar” and “the great unwashed” all emanated from his pen (which, bizarrely, was mightier…).

And indeed he left a decisive mark on one of Dicken’s most-loved works, to be precise the ending of Great Expectations. When the novel was serialised, Dickens sent a proof to his friend and Lytton suggested a change to the story. At the end of Dickens’ original draft, Pip and Estella remained apart, with Estella having remarried and therefore being unavailable to Pip. Lytton suggested that this was too sad and Dickens, in a move that proved popular with the public but which is still questioned today, revised his text to allow for the possibility of the two characters’ future union.

So, to summarise the logical steps that flow through this post with a sense of perfect inevitability: I did magic tricks in a room containing books bought by an English Lord who was friends with a novelist who occasionally enjoyed conjuring himself. And the night after doing all this I thought about it during a storm.

There is one final thing to mention. Lord Lytton is perhaps best known today as the man who wrote the infamously convoluted, opening lines to the 1830 novel, Paul Clifford:

It was a dark and stormy night…

My appearance on The Next Great Magician will be broadcast at 7pm on Sunday the 13th of November 2016 and then available on the ITV Hub. The series comprises of six episodes featuring thirty wonderful performers. None of the performances will be as convoluted as this post.