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One of the things that has absolutely mystified and aggravated me at the same time during much of my life is magic.
How in the world can a magician take a gigantic crosscut saw, run it back and forth through the body of a woman encased in a plywood box, clearly separate the two halves, then roll them back together and Presto!...she’s whole again?
As a kid, I’d watch black and white television variety shows where a magician would pull a live rabbit from a hat, make his white dress gloves turn into pigeons and a foot-long length of scarf become yards and yards long and all neatly knotted together!
That’s poo-poo material compared to today’s magicians, who seem to come up with more astonishing and grander illusions all the time.
Any day now, one of them is going to make the entire world disappear and reappear moments later.
Driven by my thirst to bring some sense of all this sleight of hand, I once bought a book titled “The Secrets of Houdini.”
For those of you non-magical mavens, Houdini was the first really famous magician /escape artist and a masterful showman at the same time. Among other feats, he would travel around the country challenging anyone to put him into handcuffs from which he’d always escape.
(In the aforementioned book, it was revealed that Houdini could open handcuffs with shoestrings or sometimes with tiny keys which he would regurgitate).
One of my favorite Houdini escapes was from a huge metal milk can filled with water. He’d have people from the audience, police officers and others come onstage and chain the milk can handles to the sides...all of them making certain the chains were not defective and the locks were firmly closed.
Shackled by handcuffs, Houdini then would be lifted into the milk can, and a curtain lowered around him. After a few suspenseful moments, he would step from behind the curtain, holding the handcuffs in the air for all to see.
(The book revealed that the upper portion of the milk can where rivets appeared was slid over the top; all Houdini had to do was push it off from the inside...the chains and locks played no part in holding anything together).
Houdini was a marvelous physical specimen as well. For relaxation, he would tie and untie pieces of rope with his toes and while suspended pick up pins from the floor with his eyelids.
In Houdini’s later life--there now is growing evidence that he used his world tours to gather intelligence for both Scotland Yard and the U.S. Secret Service--Houdini devoted himself to investigating, and debunking, the many spiritualists of the day.
Two current magicians whose acts appear to produce the unbelievable are street magicians David Blaine and Criss Angel.
On a recent TV appearance, Blaine entered a bar where a couple of women were sipping from tall glass drinks with ice cubes. He asked one of the women if she would remove a ring from her finger and hand it to him. He held the ring in his fist over the top of a glass, then yanked it away and the ring had disappeared.
Then he summoned a bartender to bring a bowl to the table. Pouring out the liquid from the glasses, there was the ring frozen inside one of the ice cubes!
He didn’t even say “abracadabra” or anything.
There may be no better way to make yourself a smash hit at a gathering of friends or family than by performing magic tricks for them.
Now, thanks to the magic industry’s loosening of some of its “secrets,” here are three tricks that with a little practice anyone can perform.
1. Ask your group to name out loud ten celebrities, each of which you will write down on a separate index card. Fold each card in half, then place them all in a hat or bowl.
Next, tell them you’re going to write down just one of the ten names on another card and you will seal it inside an envelope. Then ask someone to pull one of the cards from the hat or bowl and read it out loud.
Then instruct someone to unseal the envelope and read the name you’ve written on that card. To their amazement, the names will be identical!
The secret: Although your group will provide ten different names, the trick is for you to write down just one of them ten times on the cards. When prediction time comes, just write that same name and place it into the envelope. Be sure to destroy all the other index cards afterwards, though, or your “secret” might be discovered.
2. Find a book of your choice and go to page 14, writing down on a slip of paper the first word that appears on top of that page. Put the paper in a plain envelope, leaving it in open view.
Ask someone to roll a pair of dice, then direct them to add the top and bottom numbers that appear on each die. Next, hand them the book and instruct that they read the first word that appears on the page number that corresponds with the dice total (in this case, 14).
Then have a guest open the envelope and read out loud the word you have written. To all’s astonishment, the words will be the same!
The secret: No matter how you roll them, the tops and bottoms of two dice when added will always be 14.
3. Tell your audience that you are writing down two words which you seal in an envelope. Have a volunteer think of any number from one to ten, then multiply it by 9. If the resulting number has two digits, add them together.
Subtract 5 from that number.
Now, have your volunteer think of the letter in the alphabet that corresponds with that number (for instance, if you are thinking of the number 1, it would be “A.”)
Think of a country that starts with that letter. Spell the country in your head. Think of the second letter in that country’s name. Now, instruct your volunteer to quickly think of an animal whose name begins with that letter.
Open the envelope, and inside you have written “Denmark, elephant.”
The secret: If the calculations are performed correctly, the country always will start with the letter “D” and your volunteer always will choose “Denmark.” Therefore, the animal’s name also will always start with the letter “e.” Although it’s possible your volunteer may think of an eagle or emu, nine times out of ten they’ll select an “elephant.”
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