There are several programs on the internets that allow a very lazy web master or mistress to publish articles about any topic in seconds.  Better yet, these programs can write the articles to neatly incorporate trending Google search terms to suck traffic to their owners' website to generate the all-important pay-per-click revenue.  The programs are not smart but quick.  They search the webs for real content about any given subject and then steal from the articles located to generate or "spin" an allegedly unique bit of content. 

Fresh content is essential to making one's website appealing to Google.  Fresh content that contains key words used in searches moves the site up the Google Page Rank chart.  But there is apparently no requirement that the fresh content containing key words make any sense at all.

We received a Google Alert this hour for an article meeting our pre-set search terms.  We try to search for magic news constantly and have layers of filters to get breaking stories about "Harry Houdini" rather than a professional athlete surviving a close game with "an escape worthy of Houdini."   The notice we just received met up with several of our Google Alert terms and so the automated sms notification system alerted us to possible breaking news.

Here is the article in part.  It ostensibly exposes the Svengali Deck.  Perhaps it does, we cannot tell.

The Svengali deck is made up of 47 business cards, 23 that are most of duplicate and are also slightly shorter as opposed to 23 which are all distinct and slightly longer. There are actually coin tips, card tips, mind-reading tips, rope tips, all different types of tricks easily together with objects that you’ve in the pockets as well as lying savings around your house. If you need a number of really straightforward magic tricks to master which you can try in your own friends the two observing ones is going to be perfect in your case.

We are not trying to be harsh.  Maybe this is one author's earnest attempt to expose a very commercial trick and it falls short because the author has yet to master the English language.  Or, maybe there is a different Svengali deck — one made with 47 business cards, 23 of which are most of duplicate of something.  We have checked with all of our reliable sources and no one is familiar with a Svengali deck made of business cards that are either most of or not most of duplicate of anything.  Yes, we recall that Burling Hull claimed to have created a deck that was part Mene-Tekel, part Two-Way Forcing and part Brainwave but to the best of knowledge Mr. Hull never released the deck and even if he did, it wouldn't be one of those "really straightforward magic tricks to master which you can try in your own friends the observing ones is going to be perfect in" anyone's case.

Actually, our read of the local ordinance here in Mystic Hollow, Michigan (and we are guessing in your locale) is that any type of magic trick performed inside another person is technically a battery under civil and criminal codes.  In the late 1960s, some towns experimented internal magic trick performance but those care-free days are long gone.  People (especially the younger of our villages) no longer welcome the performance of any sort of trick within their physical body — even if performed by a "Master Magician."

We read somewhere that Lance Burton — our current Master Magician — affirmatively committed to forever forego performing any trick — including a packet trick — inside someone's body.  And recall, he is a Master Magician.

But the article went further than the mere incomprehensible exposure of the Svengali deck.  It attempted to explain the attractive power of magic as a hobby and refute the belief that exposing a magic secret is bad for our art.  The author (real or robotic) makes the point clearly:

This has triggered the realisation that will exposure with former enchanting secrets will not actually hurt the job. On your contrary, it causes a increase in the interest and affection. In this last decade you’ll find that seen your democratisation with magic. Knowing what sort of trick is performed, or no less than the vast theory, seems in no way spoil the effects on your audience since it is finally understood it is not your raw mechanics of each effect which usually creates your ‘magical experience’ for your personal audience about the skill as well as psychology of your presentation. Everybody loves breathing in fresh oxygen perform fascination tricks even in the event they may not be as large or difficult as all those performed by the kind of David Copperfield.

Tough to argue with the logic.  Who doesn't enjoy breathing fresh oxygen and who doesn't support democratisation in general or specifically as it applies to magic? 

We tried to reconstruct the various websites from which these sentences were drawn but to no avail.  The spinner program did a great job of taking just enough from many sites to cover its tracks and thoroughly confuse its readers.  Pretty amazing stuff.  It is like fresh oxygen to be breathed through our affection and fascination tricks performed inside or outside the human body. 

One of the things we love at Inside Magic is the news feature Magic From Unexpected Places.  The column appears weekly in The Mystic Hollow News and brings treasures from the secular, non-magic world to its primarily magic-oriented readership.  For instance, most readers are not aware that Charles Lindbergh stayed awake during his record-breaking trek across the North Atlantic by mentally re-arranging an imaginary deck of cards in the Si Stebbins’ stack.  We don’t know if that’s true, but it was in the column last week and caught our attention.

Today’s edition was a celebration of Charles Dickens because this is (or was) his birthday or death day or graduation day or something of significance celebrated for the last century.  We will look up the exact day we’re celebrating and supplement this post if it seems important or makes us look better.

The point, though, is Magic from Unexpected Places has portions of two tricks that were to be included in a magic book Charles Dickens was drafting at the time of his death – which may or may have been 100 years ago today.

The first is apparently some sort of card trick:

Magic of a kind but unlike the kind thought by the idle minds of youth or recalled fondly by the old.  Not a magic of love or nature but of things! – created not by God – at least not directly, although all concede it must start with Him and proceed through substances of nature to be hewn by man for noble purpose.  A tree to be felled, be sawn into boards, or slivered into to pulp for paper upon which the markings of gamblers and the tarot would imprint  to make one side memorable (by the fashion of numbers and symbols of hearts and other fanciful images selected to stir one’s memory and emotion) and the other quite forgettable.

We have read this passage several times and think it is just describing a deck of cards: different on one side, same on the other. 

The second passage begins what we understand to be a 35-page (single-spaced) description of Charles Dickens’ version of The Cups and Balls:

Appointed as if by chance but clearly anything by random, each of the three orbs had in their respective chalice a home and hiding place but from what?  The balls were not vulnerable nor impervious to injury – they were just perfect, round and solid with nothing more and nothing less.  Their partners in performance sat in perfect line awaiting movement from within or, if some real  magic were to occur, without their gilded sides.

We are guessing that despite his knowledge about the nitty-gritty world of London’s poor and homeless, Charles Dickens would have failed miserably at street magic proper.  In the time it would have taken to ask a participant to take a card, the seasons would have changed or the volunteer would have passed on from old age. 

There was a great exchange between Charles Dickens and one of his readers on the topic of magic books and the tendency to describe all volunteers with disrespectful terms; like “stooge,” “fool,” “victim,” “dope,” or “ne'er-do-well.”  The topic is relevant to magicians today:

When upon being invited to the platform not as a gallows or stump for final passing but to join – ho! Join indeed! – in the show proper portrayed from the perspective of the audience but now on stage yet not quite a performer but nonetheless performing as if he – and it is almost certainly a man because a woman being either too wise or weary to permit such an invitation to be extended towards her from any stranger much less the stranger who has already professed the ability to lie and trick with such guile and skill that the assembled patrons are to give their best attempt to catch him in (or catch him out – as may be the case, as it certainly would be) – had their collective wits within his own sweating skull and through his confused eyes blinded by the lime-fed lights before him could see any clearer what was about to happen or, to the point, happen to him in retribution for his bountiful spirit and delightful joining in an event for the benefit of all at his sole expense.  The “dunce” or “spot” becomes the full lever and fulcrum of the cruel effect visited upon him and exposing (accurately or no) his ignorance or lack of grace or lack of schooling or (in the case of a poor old codger who was apparently a professor of some local university, Professor Cheer) a lack of undergarments. 

Boy, they sure don’t write ‘em like they used to.  Happy birthday or whatever it is to Charles Dickens and of course to David Copperfield, his son, we think.     

The couple will perform two shows at the 10,000 seat Sun Arena as stars of the Master of Illusion Live tour. 

Jinger is a favorite daughter of Bridgeport, Connecticut and her parents still reside in the Nutmeg State.  

The lithe and talented performer told the local media, “It's great to perform in front of people you know. It makes it special.”

"Special" is the perfect adjective for Kalin & Jinger's act and career.  We had the distinct honor of sitting next to Jinger as a committee person for their Spirit Cabinet performance.  As you loyal and disloyal readers of Inside Magic are aware, we will never expose the secrets of any magic effect unless it somehow makes us look good, smart or could serve up more internet hits to boost our ad revenue. 

We can say that while being immediately next to Jinger was thrilling and magical in its own right, we were unable to learn their secret.  We assisted in tying charming and beautiful better half of the Kalin & Jinger show and then sat as close as possible to her whilst the curtains closed around us. 

Perhaps we were still unnaturally giddy being so close to someone of such renown and talent, intoxicated by her incredible beauty or startled by the rapid-fire succession of events, but we remain clueless as to how she was able to manifest the loud, chaotic spirit that literally filled the ad hoc cabinet, put a bucket on our disproportionately large skull and pulled up our pant legs all within no more than five to ten seconds.   

You can read our full review of that fateful night here. Inside Magic Review: Mark Kalin & Jinger (November 25, 2006).

Jinger began as a dancer at the age of four and by 15, she was in demand around the United States.  She worked with Disney, Fuji Television and Southern California dinner theaters and bestowed with the a scholarship to the “Young Americans' College of Performing Arts.”

Mark and Jinger became a couple when she filled in as his assistant while performing in Guam. 

If you have not seen the couple perform — and that seems unlikely given their exposure through nationalize televised shows like NBC's “Word's Greatest Magicians”, “Hidden Secrets of Magic,” Fox Family's “Magic on the Edge,” Fox TV's “World Magic Awards” and  “Entertainment Tonight”, CBS and ABC — you need to make the trip to the Sun Arena this weekend or one of their upcoming performances.

They perform true magic. 

Jinger told the Milford Mirror she is able to use her dancing and singing skills while performing illusions. As an example, she does a self-levitating performance that thrills the audience.

"Of course, doing illusions brings an element of danger. She has some nicks from being apparently sawed in half to attest to that. 'We use a lot of fire, flash, and tigers,' Jinger said. 'It has appeal to large audiences.'"

As she noted, “Illusion is meant to be seen live and in person where there is a great sense of wonder and magic. That way the audience can see the illusions right before them with no camera tricks. Performing as illusionists has allowed me to use all my talents, which I love.”

Escape Artist and Inside Magic Favorite Dean Gunnarson is back in China and freezing.

His latest escape attempt defies both belief and the naturally imprinted sense of self-preservation.  Mr. Gunnarson's had him miles high in the frigid mountains of  Xining, China.  (Think Superman's crystal home or Wolverine's den).

He intended to be locked and chained by the Chinese military inside a tomb of ice on a frozen lake high in the mountains. His goal: to escape within 100 seconds before a bus explodes and drops on him. 

From the press release:

Locked and chained by the Chinese military inside of a tomb of ice on a frozen lake high in the mountains in China. A ten ton bus loaded with explosives will be raised above him by a crane and then, Gunnarson will have exactly 100 seconds (an important number in China) before the bus will explode and drop on him from a timer, crushing the ice tomb and him if he  is inside. Dean will attempt this escape on a frozen lake that is the largest in all of China.  It is located about 100 kilometers (about 62 miles)  west of the provincial capital of Xining at 3,205 m (10,515 feet) above sea level in a depression of the Tibetan Plateau in the traditional Tibetan province of Amdo, located between Tibet and Mongolia.  This escape is extremely dangerous because of the cold but even more so from the high evaluation and lack of oxygen this high up.

Mr. Gunnarson told Inside Magic that he has been training in the thin air but it brought on altitude sickness.  “The lack of air and trying to do even small things just leaves me grasping for breath. This is like nothing I have ever encountered before.”

If he lives, the Chinese government will award him  the title "World's Greatest Escape Artist."   If he fails, he will likely not be given the title of World's Greatest Escape Artist.  We're just guessing about this.  The Chinese press did not discuss what happens if the bus explodes and lands on him whilst still chained.

As loyal readers of Inside Magic know, Mr. Gunnarson is a very scary man.  He seems so nice and gentlemanly but there's a crazy side to him.  He does stunts that are anything but sure-fire or fixed.  Check out his mistiming while trying to escape from a roller coaster track.   That escape (sort of) was in China as well.  We hope he has correctly converted the 100 seconds into the metric equivalent and escapes unharmed.  The roller coaster collision shattered his ankle and fibia.

Mr. Gunnarson has performed more than 200 times for Chinese television over the last ten years.  They love him and that is why they hope he succeeds today. 

"It's quite an honour to have had so much success in China," Mr. Gunnarson said. "A lot of the people here don't have a lot of freedom of expression, which is why they keep hiring escape artists to . . . entertain them. We symbolize freedom to them."

We'll let you know as soon as we hear.

Check out Mr. Gunnarson's web site to see videos of stunts that will make you fall into a fetal position, searching for your "happy place." 

We still have our two real ones but like having the third for status.  We are so cool when we go to the manicurist shop and all the gals with their lousy one or two soak dish set-ups have to stare with envy.

We used to have a little (and we mean little) shop right in front of one of the big-time theaters.  This was a while ago and the theater went by a different name and we cannot print the name or our website will be thrown out of public libraries, again.  

Our shop was designed to look like a card table with a Navajo blanket covering the top.  We sold us some Cups and Balls, Ball in Vase, Multiplying Billiard Balls, Magic 8-Balls, Bounce/No-Bounce Balls and our knock-off version of the spring and fake fur puppet, Rocky Raccoon.  At the time, the real ones were selling for $17.00 over at Tannens.  We cut out the middle-man, the man who enforced the child labor laws and the “you don’t need to go through Customs” man; but we could not eliminate the “It would be a shame if something were to happen to your cute little store or cute little wife” man.

Broadway was a tough place where guys like us would walk the mean streets with our pants weighed down by coins in our pockets.  All the sales people on the Great White Way jingled.  There was almost no paper money on Broadway then.  The Automat served meals and hot coffee but only if you had exact change.  The restrooms in the nicer establishments cost a dime or a quarter.  Showers were half a dollar and all of the better movie theaters charged per three minutes per $1.00 in coins.  You could always tell a fellow salesperson by the tension on his or her belt, the bumpy, dimpled bulges projecting like a topographical map over their pants legs, and the bar of Ivory Soap in their back pocket. 

Ivory Soap was started right on Broadway and they never forgot their roots.  They went from selling cheap turquoise or silver plated jewelry to becoming one of the largest companies in the world.  If you were from the Broadway Sidewalk Sales Society, you could walk into any store – it didn’t have to be on Broadway – and pick-up one bar of Ivory Soap per month.  Most of the times no one even noticed or cared.  They likely knew about Mr. Ivory’s promise to his fellow merchants and were happy to see his wishes fulfilled.  Sometimes you’d get a new clerk or cashier and we’d have to go through the whole story.  They usually gave in about an hour into our spiel and we’d  walk out cleaner.

Rumor had it that there were folks on the south side of Broadway that worked with their version of the Ivory Soap man.  He was the person who invented orange juice and they could go into any store that sold orange juice (fresh-squeezed only – we guess he didn’t invent the concentrated version) and take one gallon a month. 

So the north side merchants smelled good and the south side guys smelled bad but didn’t have scurvy.  Life is all about trade-offs, though.

Our point was that we cannot wait until Hugh Jackman takes on the role of our hero.  In fact we named other people’s children “Harry” and “Houdini” and “Bess” when we were employed for a week as a temp at the Mystic Hospital for Women and Childrens.  (Yes, we know the “s” is grammatically incorrect and there is not even a word with that spelling but the benefactor of the MHWC was a self-taught Polaroid Land Camera repairman.  He knew everything about every version of that famous camera from the 1960s, 70s and 80s.  He could fix your camera as good as new in no time but he was otherwise unintelligent.  He couldn’t count (except to 60 – the number of seconds to wait before exposing pictures taken with the first film stock) he chewed with his mouth open, he sewed his own clothes – while they were on – and they remained in place for years as a consequence.  Jimmy knew those dang cameras though.  He would lose all the money he made on one repair job when the next customer would get him confused about the amount of change he was owed.  Poor guy.

Even though he was destitute for most of his life, he loved what he did and folks in town loved to have him roam the streets looking for Polaroid Land Cameras in need of repair.  People wonder how he could afford to fund Mystic Hollow Michigan’s largest building and most important medical service when he rarely had a dollar in his usually securely sewed pocket.  Apparently, one of the big celebrities heard of Jimmy’s abilities and brought his camera for repair while he was performing in Chicago.  He couldn’t stay for the hour or so it would take to repair so he asked Jimmy to send it to the Schubert Theater in Chicago when it was ready.

Jimmy was surprised to find two photos stuck in the mechanism.  He wasn’t sure if he should look at the pictures to make sure they weren’t ruined from their cramped position inside the camera for years.  He decided he wouldn’t look because he thought that would invade the celebrity’s personal life.  Instead, he caught a series of trains to the Schubert Theater and tried to drop the pictures off at the box office.  They wouldn’t take them and they directed him to the stage door outside and down the alley.  It was raining pretty heavy and Jimmy put the pictures in his tattered but well-sewn pants.  His pockets were completely sealed from years of stitching practice and probably of the natural glue we all produce through our skin pores if we don’t change clothes or bathe properly. 

When he got to the stage door, it was open and two stage-hands were smoking hand-rolled cigarettes.  Jimmy explained that he had something for the celebrity and they sent him inside.  Unbeknownst to Jimmy, the play had started.  Jimmy saw the celebrity on stage and walked directly to him.  He admitted later it must have been a startling sight to see.  Jimmy was soaking wet, his clothes were oozing lather and bubbles from his “natural juices” and sweat, and he couldn’t see because of the stage lights.

He walked to the celebrity and said, I have something you left.  It was all crammed up inside and that’s why nothing was coming out when you pushed the button.  You could have pushed and pushed all day but it wasn’t going to move because it was all scrunched up. 

Jimmy said the audience laughed and the celebrity looked horrified.  The audience thought it was part of the act and the celebrity thought it was the end of his career.

Jimmy saw the anxiety on his customer’s face and so he tried to calm him by getting to the point and leaving.

He reached down the front of his pants and said, I kept the two that were all scrunched up in there.  I couldn’t tell if they were developed or not but I figured since they were yours to begin with you should be the one who looks at them first.  They may not be something you want to show or they may have ended up ruined because of all the pressure and heat up there. 

The celebrity called quietly to his assistant off stage.  She wrote a check to pay Jimmy and end the chaos.  Jimmy walked over to give the pictures to the assistant and she handed him the check.  Jimmy said it was for $100.00.  With that amount, he could afford to take the train home in luxury but he noticed something weird as he walked across the stage towards the wings and ultimately the stage door.  He stopped half way across the performance area and announced, “there’s something wrong with this check.  It’s the zeros.  It’s the wrong number.”  Apparently the assistant understood Jimmy to be demanding more zeros on the check; as if he was complaining that it was too little.  She took out another check and invited Jimmy to her side of the stage while the actors and the audience watched in amusement and horror respectively. 

Jimmy was going to tell her that according to his studies, all zeros must have a complete, closed circle.  Someone had told Jimmy that a zero that isn’t a round circle is just the letter “U".  “And you know who will let you buy food with a letter U?  No one, that’s who.”  Jimmy remembered that rhyme and repeated almost daily. 

The assistant asked Jimmy, “Is this zero okay?” as she drew figures on a check.  Apparently she upped the payment to $1000 by writing a new check with additional zeros. 

Jimmy shook his head and started to explain his concern with the way she was writing her zeroes, “If we don’t close the circle, it will be a letter and no one will let you eat anymore because of the letter.” 

Her interpretation led to Jimmy’s riches.  She understood his comment to mean that if she didn’t pay off the blackmail, he would send something in a letter and the celebrity would never “eat in this town again.” 

Both concerns were mollified when she gave up the struggle and asked Jimmy to show her what she was supposed to put on the check.   Jimmy said he wrote, very slowly, but correctly a perfect circle.  He announced to the crowd as he picked up the check to show everyone, “See, no letters, nothing in my pants to keep dry and no pictures to worry about.” 

The celebrity vomited in a likely unscripted moment and the show ended early. 

Jimmy had the good sense to have the check deposited in the bank and from that investment the hospital was built. 

Now where were we.  Oh, yes, we can’t wait to get back to the Great White Way to see Hugh Jackman – our favorite Stage and Screen Actor – play Houdini – our favorite magician.  We’ll be there with our lucky pants with the sagging pockets but filled with wrapped Ivory Soap this time around. 

Read the articles about Mr. Jackman’s upcoming show here.

NY Daily News: Jackman to Play Houdini

Broadway Buzz: Abracadabra – Hugh Jackman to Return as Houdini.