Making Magic By
Richard W. Humphries
It was 1961 and I was standing on a small stage with Harry Blackstone, the World’s Greatest Magician. My hands were shaking as he asked me to hold one end of a long silk scarf, part of a magic trick I cannot remember. This was The Great Blackstone, telling me under his breath, “Smile, kid. I’m not gonna bite you.”
The overhead lights were hot. The ceiling was low. Blackstone’s hair was silver. The audience applauded. I fell in love with magic. . . . Colon, Michigan was a small town of a thousand or so and the main industry was the manufacturing of supplies and effects for amateur and professional magicians of every stripe. No matter if you were a Mind-Reader, an ‘Illusionist’ whose cabinetry did most of the work or a working club magician, Abbott’s had an idea, trick, routine, set of patter and/or piece of equipment to help you with your performance. The company’s set of low-lying buildings housed some of the cleverest minds in magic;
ranging from the great vaudevillians such as our own Blackstone and Percy Abbott, the Australian magician, to amateurs of every age. Blackstone’s wife had chosen nearby Angel Island as their family summer residence and all things magical had thus bloomed from his presence.
. . .
The Greyhound bus ticket cost all of six dollars and ten cents to travel from Pontiac to Colon for the annual Get-Together, the largest gathering of professional magicians in the world. All ‘getting together’ for a few summer days near the Indiana border. Trying to amaze one another.
And I was a lonely and leaderless kid with a speech impediment and growing tall and curious. Dad did his disappearing act earlier that summer and it suddenly seemed a big world for a fellow to find his way. My travel arrangements included a sleeping room and use of a bath, rented from one of the town’s grandmas. Lilacs abounded in her garden, hanging heavily outside the open windows their scent permeated the house. Alone in the afternoon, the windows open in hope of a breeze among the hot and humid Michigan air. I stood in front of the tall antique dressing mirror.
‘Watch,” I would say, practicing my moves. I’d practice the fakes and drops and steals and palms I had observed being performed in the town’s coffee shops just that morning by the most seasoned of Magicians. I’d make my attempts over the downy bed, so that the constantly falling coins would not wake my grandma hostess from her lilac-scented nap. ‘Again,” I would require, “closely.”
. . .
Alexander Herrmann Professor Herrmann taught me magic. I won the grand prize grab bag at the closing night raffle of the Get-Together. Under the multi-colored silks, a string of rubber sausages and a trick ‘dribble’ water glass in the large paper bag lay the Professor’s rare book.
“Good luck, Brother,” Recil, the owner of Abbott’s, said as saw me leafing through my find. I had just joined S.A.M., the Society of American Magicians and so was now a Brother Magician. “Just practice and then practice some more.” . . .
‘A little well-arranged patter as an introductory to an entertainment will be found to put you on good terms with your audience,’ the Professor suggested. ‘A few words, something like the following, will suffice:’ “Ladies and Gentlemen, with your kind attention I shall endeavour to amuse you with a series of experiments in legerdemain. In doing
so I wish it to be distinctly understood that I shall do my best to deceive you, and upon the extent to which I am able to do so will depend my success.’ I would follow Professor’s Hermann’s suggested line of opening patter for years—I still have it memorized—and eventually learned to expect the laughter. But I was serious. . . .
My business cards were printed on a pale silver marbled stock. My rate was a dollar a minute; thirty dollars for half an hour and any kid’s birthday party could be the success of the subdivision. I was sixteen years old and owned a tuxedo, background screens, a dragon-draped table with two black wells, hand-sewn pockets in the oddest places of my clothing and the amazing ability to make money as a magician in Michigan as a teenager. And a black wand with silver tips. Like Blackstone’s. It was a delight to make my money from magic, set up and performing in the warm homes in the well-to-do neighborhoods after so many frosty early mornings throwing Detroit
Free Presses from my bicycle at the very same houses. Life took nerve; it seemed to me, if a fellow was to get anywhere. . . .
Squash! ‘Originated by Percy Abbott and first manufactured and sold in 1935, over the years Squash has proven to be a sensation among
magicians and laymen alike. Often copied it has never been equaled! This is our own! You can perform this two feet from the audience and still fool them! And, you can work it five minutes after you receive it!’ --Abbott’s Magic Manufacturing Company Catalog . . . “What is it you want to show us?” ‘Uncle’ Dick asked. He was my grandmother’s friend and they were slightly into the Canadian Club from my Dad’s abandoned but well stocked wet bar. Mom and my older brother were across the room, reading in the huge comfy couch by the picture window. We all were in the knotty-pine den downstairs that overlooked the lakeshore.
It was autumn and the falling maple leaves would float upon the Michigan lakes like strange fish. I was in the mood to pull something off and had recently purchased ‘Squash’ from Abbott’s for a dollar fifty. “If I might borrow a shot glass, Sir?” I inquired. I steadied my nerve, “To use for my experiment?” Dad had installed a rack of glassware against the bronze-veined mirrored tiles of the back bar. “You observe,” I said, stepping back on the linoleum floor, “I hold in my hand a simple shot glass.” My Mom and brother looked up from their books. I held the glass out in my left hand. I
backed against the wall—but not too near-while making sure the gimmick was well concealed in my right palm. “This kid,” Dick shook the ice in his glass and shook his head, “is something else.” “Ssh,” my grandmother said. “And yet,” I said, covering the glass in my left palm with my right hand, “all is not what it seems.” “Presto,” I cried aloud as I threw my hands toward my stunned audience. The shot glass had disappeared in mid-air. “Wow,” said Uncle Dick. “Really, kid, really . . . wow.” My grandmother stubbed her Chesterfield out in the big green ceramic ashtray and applauded.
“That was great, son,” my Mom said. I took a slight bow as the shot glass was thudding against my spiny back, brought home by an amazing form of elastic band available only from Abbott’s Magic Manufacturing Company. “What’s that behind you?” asked my brother. . . .
Hat tricks can be tricky; I had learned the hard way.
‘The uses to which that piece of headgear, the much-abused silk hat, lends itself in l'art magique are almost innumerable. The main secret lays in the combination of the looks and gestures of the performer to misdirect the audience . . .quickness being of little or no avail.’ –Prof. Hermann It was a junior high school stage at the end of the gymnasium. The basketball backboards were rolled up held toward the ceiling by cables. It was a big Cub Scout dinner. I hit the Play button on the reel-to-reel tape recorder—bought cheap at a garage sale-- and my background music began. Erik Satie. Strolling onstage, I’d casually flip my flattened silk top hat against my opposite hand. The hat popped open with a snap! And I slyly placed it on my head, motioning to My Lovely Assistant waiting in the wings. She was either a
girlfriend or my sister. The job paid a generous ten dollars. Doffing my top hat, I’d extend my arm behind my Lovely Assistant so she might take a curtsy as I introduced her. The whistles from the Cubs’ fathers were briefly disconcerting. I was prudish as only the naïve can be and expected better of them. Cub Scout leaders, after all. As my helper would display her legs, my hat swooped up behind her and caught the black velvet bag hanging from a black wire hook extending from the center of her black cape. I now held a small rabbit in a black velvet bag in my twenty-five dollar silk top hat. The important point to remember was to not feed or give drink to the bunny for three
hours before show time. Otherwise you’d find yourself presenting a cute little rabbit-peeingand-pooping-in-the-hat as you pull the critter out. I’d charge another ten bucks if they wanted a rabbit and I ended up having a hutch full of them at home. Their reputation at reproduction is well deserved. When I bought my first car a year later, it appeared the bunny business might have brought in more than the magic business.
. . .
“So amaze me,” the guy said. We were in an Upper East Side steak place known for being expensive. Even for New York. Dinner was recognition for two of us trainees, future stockbrokers. Our host, Wick Somebody, made dinner an inquisition. He wanted us to amaze him with our future sales projections. “Watch,” I said. “Closely. As I change this salt to pepper.” Cover the saltshaker with a napkin, being careful to form the napkin tightly around the shaker in your left hand so that it retains the form of the shaker. Point your right finger at
your audience and ask, “Think I can?” As you point your right finger at your mark, swing your left hand across your lap and make the drop in a smooth motion. Holding the form of the ‘shaker’ with the fabric, move your hand across the table. Your audience should now believe you hold a shaker in your empty left fist and that your intention is to somehow exchange places with the visible pepper shaker on the table before them. Have fun with the eventual disappearance of the ‘salt shaker’ you hold in your hand; snap the napkin in mid-air. “Gone!” “Did you see that?” Wick asked my cohonoree. “Where did the salt shaker go?” My
colleague wondered. . . .
Expert slight of hand takes a great deal of practice and then more practice. I once found myself in a prison for a short while. The place was San Quentin and there is a huge wall running straight through the middle of the cavernous Chow Hall. I was sitting with my back to it, on the west side of the big wall painted with brown shoe polish or some such crap.
I stared at the giant painting far enough to learn to appreciate the small convict artist tricks. On the Western side where I usually mopped the floor from seven at night until one in the morning, I grew to appreciate the small town main street of the World War Two years. The marquee above the movie theater had been announcing the day’s attraction, ‘Crime Doesn’t Pay’, as a daily gag for at least fifty years. After morning chow we remained seated, as told, as carts racked with shelves were rolled down the brown tiled aisles, the Porters happily tossing us our bags of lunch. Four pieces of bread, an apple, a scoop of peanut butter in a paper cup and two hard-boiled eggs. It was the right thing to do to sort through
your lunch sack and toss whatever did not appeal to you on the center of the table. Any man could then take an item. No matter his race. The first egg appeared out of my mouth as if I were regurgitating it. I helped this impression along by gently bumping my fist against my stomach. The misdirection to my belly allowed me to palm the real egg, rotate the half shell in my mouth, and pretend to drop the egg into my paper lunch sack as I snapped my left thumb against the bag to imitate the sound of the egg dropping into it. Thap! I faked a burp, patted my stomach, and rotated the half shell in my mouth to make an
egg ‘appear’, made the egg visible in my right hand . . . and so on. The bag grew obviously heavier in my left hand as more eggs were added. The C.O. ordered me to empty the bag. I wadded it up before them all and tossed it in the air. It lightly landed on the table. Empty. . . . Forcing a card is a difficult slight; you must learn to time your force to the reach of your participant. Use a little finger crimp on the top of the card you are going to force. Mid-deck is suggested. Fan the deck as you invite the mark to pick a card, any card. Your force must seem to naturally coincide with the pick by the mark. Timing is of the essence.
. . . “Amaze me Richard,” she smiles at me over the kitchen table on a rainy Sunday morning. Her hair falls across her eyes and she swipes it back with her thin wrist. It has been a long time since everything, ever. “Okay,” I put my coffee cup down. “Think of a card.” “Just think of one? Just like that? No deck of cards? No shuffling?” “No. Just picture a card in your mind.” “Okay,” she looked at me doubtfully. “I’m thinking of one.” “The card that I see,” I briefly rub my forehead, “is the two of clubs.” “Amazing,” she gasped. “Really, I’m
amazed, Richard.” She was staring at me. “It was the three of clubs. How on earth did you get so close?” “Practice, I explain. “Lots and lots of practice.”
Illustrations: Professor Herrmann's Book of Magic Prof. A. Herrmann, 1903. Collection of the Author. Abbott’s Magic Manufacturing Company, 1968 Catalog, Collection of the Author. Cover Image: ‘Thurston, The Great’, Poster Collection, Library of Congress, U.S.A Cover Design: www.ryanhumphries.com
