It is to be regretted that the Servais LeRoy show on June 6th, and to which we looked forward with printed words and thrilled soul, did become a fiasco of the first water. We were about to try and forget it, because of sentimentality, until contact with a number of the newer magi changed our view. That many of the younger generation dug up $2.20 for an unrehearsed performance of what undoubtedly was the ultimate in bad magic and worse stage deportment by a slew of nincompoops who didn’t know enough to leave quietly after the first so-called act is a disgrace that the older of us will have to shoulder. LeRoy’s handling of what animals he could manage to grab killed any glory attached to him. The audience didn’t hesitate to voice protest when he nonchalantly wandered from dusty box to cobwebbed table holding a rabbit by one ear, nor when one of his uncombed and unmade-up dum-dums did the same thing and shook it to make it wiggle. But perhaps she had never seen a rabbit outside of a zoo.
Sam Margules, producer, can be excused for his magical enthusiasm and desire to present a man revered in magic as a showman and great inventor. But our consensus, from those new faces not living in the past, is that a great miscalculation was made when he didn’t see a dress rehearsal. As it was, the stuff trucked in at 4 P.M., countless Keansburg cockroaches ousted from homes of 20 years, and a lonely pianist told to play when and as directed from stage. The glory part of magic lost the letter L, and outsider guests of magi, to whom we all should cater, must have had a tough time thanking their hosts to the touted tragedy. With such presentations hurting more than exposes our future tirades will be tempered with memories. We do know that Sam cut the show short when he saw how it was going. Respect skidded into apathy and glanced off to hit a ludicrous mile post. However, we think the show should have continued.
This night of nights should have been allowed to go on as long as LeRoy desired to play Pigs in the Clover amongst his apparati, shrugging to the audience when he couldn’t find that which he didn’t know he was seeking, with “What’s next ?” queries off stage, with “after-trick” remarks that it hadn’t been rehearsed, with non-sotto demands for something which got loud off stage replies, “We can’t find it !“, and with stage waits filled by an exposition of daily exercises with illustrations of how he snapped his spine, ending with the remark, “Are there some gentlemen who would like to come up here and try to break my neck ?” The show should have gone on — for it was worth untold amounts to embryonic magicians. People generally don’t appreciate value unless they pay for it. They paid this night to learn that no one, in any public-appearance profession, not even the very greatest in his line, can do without constant rehearsing and practice !
Here’s a newspaper clip for you and your friends : “You can find the approximate number of years you have left to live, according to life insurance actuarial tables, by subtracting your present age from 80, multiplying the result by seven and dividing the result by 10.” The clipping ends with “But if you’re past 70, just forget about this system.” It might have the beginning of a cute “back-of-the envelope” figure trick. Any suggestions ?
Federal lawmaking ends fire-works sales after this coming July 4th. Magi who need firecrackers better stock up. The Al Baker variation in the Stewart James trick, of this issue, gave us an idea. Magicians often don’t like to have to have a lighted cigarette to set off flash paper. A match is not practical. Use the “punk” sticks for setting off the firecrackers. Light one before the show’s start and keep it in a ready spot. It will be ready when wanted. Sticks of about 7 inches cost a cent. They’ll last more than half an hour.
That deck now being dealerized wherein a card’s name appears to be written on the backs as the deck is riffled was very much a novelty at Ducrot’s (Hornmann, N.Y.C.) in 1928 when Al Wheatley (Tung Pin Soo) made a set by hand, but pictured a pen’s point writing.
Juanyta Clivette, daughter of Clivette, “The Man In Black” does a Sunday “Maid of Manhattan” column on the New York Enquirer. Recent Father’s day brought thoughts and she gave it over to his memory. I wish I had room to reprint it all, but just can’t. “He graduated from tramp printing to show business. As magician and illusionist he created over thirty illusions – some of them being used by magicians today.” We were passing Ripley’s Odditorium a couple of days ago and we saw billed : “Ed Rikard, hand-made movies.” (Rikard is our own Dave Bamberg’s uncle. Ed.) It made us pretty blue for the moment. Our dad was a shadowgraphist, too. Made over two thousand pictures by hand manipulation. — The London Times of that period wrote : “Necromancer, equilibrist, shadowgraphist, Clivette at the Palace is the cleverest performer ever seen in London.“
On Wednesday, June 5th, Kansas City, Leavenworth and St. Joseph, Mo., magi entertained Ade and True Duval. The party made the papers in beneficial-to-magic style. We were stopped short by the name of Arthur Spratt, who was reported as doing a veritable Vernon-Horowitz mystery. Do many of my readers remember when Arthur ran the Amateur Dept. of The Sphinx, under Dr. Wilson, and without personal comment on the tricks submitted ? That’s one angle that will find the waste-basket if we are able to buy The Sphinx before November 1st, deadline patience date of our investor friend.
Bernard Zufall is making his series of Memory Trix booklets an up-to-date performer’s eye view of Loisette, Roth, and many other “association” exponents. N°s 3 and 4 are now on the market with no clue as to how many more may come. We hope they are produced incessantly for they are definitely for the active magus and not written in the “Addison Simms of Seattle” public vein.
The Paul vs. Carl (Rosini) $35,000 suit for the former’s use of a name to which the latter aspires is bogging since the injunction to stop Paul from working didn’t take effect. That might have happened if Carl couldn’t post a bond necessary to repay Paul for lost time should the suit be lost. If Carl can’t find that much it is our opinion that it’s because he simply has no earning power in present day entertainment spots, because of himself and not his name. It takes a long, long time to build up a name before the public. Present day habitues generally like a performer and say, “Let’s go down to the Rainbow Room and see that fellow who does the so-and-so trick. He’s good.” That’s what makes Carl’s claim of name-usurping by Paul ridiculous. We’re home every day between 3 and 9 A.M. for acceptance of any libel summons, Carl.
We’re sorry we can’t watch you have a merry convention time, whichever you attend, but think of us whenever someone does a JINX trick.
