Michael (Mike) Ross was a grade school and high school friend. I had a great interest in magic and soon discovered that Mike Ross was related to Faucett Ross, how he was related I'm not sure. No great story to tell here, but it sure was exciting to know that Mike was related to the famous magician Faucett Ross, even though at that time I really had no idea who Faucett was.
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Some of the first real pro magic books I ever purchased and my first introduction to real slight of hand, were Lewis Ganson's Routined Manipulation, Expert At The Card Table by S.W. Erdnase, and Dai Vernon's Inner Secrets of Card Magic. In the 1960's or 1970's I saw a magician on TV clasp his fingers, show the front and back of his hands empty and then proceed to produce cards. Needless to say I was flabbergasted. I had to know how he did that. I wrote to a magic company and they provided me the name of the book, it was Dai Vernon's Inner Secrets of Card Magic (I think it was Bob Hummer's routine). Before getting these "REAL" magic books I was reading stuff like 84 Card Tricks You Can Do.
Around 1963 or 1964 my dad snookered me with one of the simplest, oldest card trick methods known. At this time the extent of my magic knowledge was Clipper (the cut and restored newspaper strip, Rope Thru Neck Routine, and I forget what the trick was called but you stick a pin in a balloon and it magically does not pop, really simple stuff. So it is no surprise how easily I got fooled. I don't think I new very much about card tricks at the time. My dad picked up the deck of cards, handed them to me, let me shuffle the deck as much as I wanted and told me to look at the bottom card, he took the cards back and may have "shuffled" again. Or it may have went like this, he shuffled the cards and may even have let me shuffle, showed me the bottom card, let me shuffle again, and then found my card in the deck. My memory is a little hazy. Then to my astonishment he revealed the card to me. I was totally blown away. First of all I had never even seen my dad do a card trick and it may have been the only one he knew. Well, he was having a real good time knowing how flabbergasted I was with his "Houdini" feat of card dexterity. I was also getting pretty ticked off becuse I immediately demanded to know how he did it, and it appeared he was going to keep the Magician's Code Of Honor and not tell me how the trick was done. He let me suffer for a little while. After I pouted and hollered for a while, and after my mom probably said "Harold, tell him how you did it so he'll shut up, quit being so mean", he finally revealed the method. I was then pretty mad at myself, because it was so very easy to do! My dad was pretty clever, it wouldn't surprise me if he had never done a card trick in his life and made that one up on the spot. These were magical times anyway, as this is the house where I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. Geez, magic, magicians AND the Beatles (they were truly wizards as far as I could tell). I had just started playing guitar at about that time and of course the Beatles have been one of my biggest influences in music.
When I was in, I believe, High School my dad brought a friend of his over to our house. I can't remember his name. I believe he was a teacher, but he was also a magician. He performed quite a few tricks for me and I was really amazed. At that point I knew a little about magic and new some of the methods on a couple of things, but certainly did not let on. I think he did some form of "Oil and Water." That would have been the first time I saw this trick performed. The second time, I believe, was on the Tom Snyder" nightime show "The Tomorrow Show." It was performed by Derek Dingle. It blew me away. He may have also performed another card trick or two that night.
We have several wonderful local magicians; David Sandy, Jim Holt, B. J. Tally. B. J. Talley also puts on a Hypnotist show. I have seen B. J perform his magic show for our local libraries and he is always very entertaining. Every year, around the end of August, St. Joe has it's annual Trails West Festival. As part of the entertainment, luckily, there seems to always be a magic show or a strolling magician. If you ever get a chance you should come and check it out; 3 days of music and activities. Fun for the whole family!
Any kind of magic will please me, but I really like sleight of hand/close-up magic and my favorite is card magic. One of my favorite card routines is the Cannibal Kings. I haven't seen all of the different variations but I really like Larry Jennings' version. Also I love Oil & Water, a classic, and Larry Jennings also has a great version of this. But again, there are many wonderful routines for Oil & Water. I was always glued to the TV set each Saturday when The Magic Land of Allakazam aired. It was a ground breaking series featuring American magician Mark Wilson. It ran from 1960 to 1964 and is credited with establishing the credibility of magic as a television entertainment. The 60's and 70's was absolutely a great time for magic. There was always a magician on TV, wonderful magicians like Lewis Ganson and others. Some other highlights for me; the coin roll that David Hemmings did in the movie Blow-Up (very cool and I think the first time I had ever seen that done), also the slight of hand card work in one of the Rifleman TV show episodes. I remember my first couple of tricks I purchased by mail; Clipper (the cut and restored newspaper strip), and how to pull a rope through someone's neck (I remember I was a little disappointed on this one, as it was instructions only :) perhaps I thought I was getting some magic rope that was able to dematerialize as I pulled it through. I remember how the Clipper trick smelled, it was a wonderful smell and I still smell things today that remind of that very trick. I purchased most of my magic from The House of 1000 Mysteries, Vick Lawston and and his famous pal "Pumpernickel." It was a very cool catalog and is still quite collectible today. In the 60's the mail would run twice where I lived, morning and afternoon. It was very exciting waiting for the magic by mail, running to the mailbox twice each day to see if the mysteries had arrived. Pure bliss when it arrived and the package was in my hands! |
AuthorI am a musician by trade, but magic has always been a love of mine. Archives
August 2014
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