31 Tuesday Mar 2020
Posted in Comedy, Life, Music, Performance, Writing
Tags
Alone, Arts Express, coronavirus, limerick, Pacifica, performance, poem, poetry, quarantine, radio, virus, WBAI, writing
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Here’s a little piece I put together that was broadcast today on WBAI radio’s Arts Express program and on Pacifica affiliates across the country. Just a fun segment about the current craziness, along with some appropriate music for the time.
26 Thursday Mar 2020
Posted in Books, Life, Performance, Photography, Writing
Tags
April, Arts Express, culture, Dennis Broe, interview, newsletter, photography, poem, poet, poetry, politics, Prairie Miller, radio, review, writing
And here we are with a preview of our third free issue of the Arts Express Newsletter, the jam-packed, super-duper April Issue.
As always, think of the Arts Express newsletter as a print extension of the conversation started on our global radio arts magazine, Arts Express, heard on WBAI 99.5 FM in NYC, WBAI.org, and Pacifica affiliates across the country, in Paris, Beijing, and Berlin.
Every month, it’s full color pages of Arts Express goodness, filled with fascinating interviews, reviews, scripts of our radio drama, photo features, gossip, film, theatre, book recommendations and more.
Here’s a preview of what’s in our April issue, which if you subscribe (just send an email to ArtsExpressList@gmail.com and put Subscribe in the subject line) , you will receive for free the first week in April and every month thereafter:
* Prairie Miller’s interview with South African writer and anti-apartheid activist Tim Jenkin, who talks about his film Escape From Pretoria, which details his escape from Pretoria Maximum Security Prison, and his work setting up a communication system for the imprisoned Nelson Mandela.
*A joyful portfolio of photographs of the world’s largest flower parade held every year in Zundert, Netherlands, the birthplace of Vincent Van Gogh.
* Red Vienna: An Arts Express Extra: Culture critic Dennis Broe writes about the city of Vienna in the 1920s, when a socialist city government planned and built public housing and public facilities throughout the city, which to this day makes Vienna one of the most livable cities in Europe.
* The poetry of Trinidad and Tobagoan poet Camryn Bruno, also known as “Queen Bee,” from her book Queen Bee Cavity.
*And Announcing the Arts Express Community Call-in. Would you like to join your fellow listeners in a telephone conversation about culture in a time of pandemic? Write us at artsexpresslist@gmail.com and we’ll give you more details!
*Plus: The Guest List–our recent and upcoming guests; The Back Room–news and gossip about WBAI and the Arts Express crew; and information about exclusive giveaways, and how to win an opportunity to broadcast your own work on the air.
It’s all in the new free Arts Express Newsletter.
If you’re not yet subscribed, you can get your free pdf copy every month to your email address, by sending an email to ArtsExpressList@gmail.com and put Subscribe in the subject line. We’ll do the rest!
And don’t miss our next radio show, Tuesday 3/31 at 4am NYC time, which you can hear on WBAI.org or WBAI 99.5FM NYC., featuring:
Film: Mrs. America – Actress Margo Martindale discusses playing Bella Abzug in this upcoming feminist mini-series
TV: Asian American actress Keiko Agena on Prodigal Son, Gilmore Girls, Better Call Saul
Report From The Front: Europe And The Coronavirus. Arts Express Paris correspondent Professor Dennis Broe’s news and analysis from the European pandemic epicenter. And what all of this may have to do with austerity and automation; Shakespeare, the plague, King Lear and Macbeth; and Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal – where the poor are served up as a source of nutrition and fine dining.
Plus…Pandemic radio drama, Syrian comic pandemic satire in the No Laughing Matter Comedy Corner episode – and Bernie Sanders in performance.
14 Saturday Mar 2020
Posted in Books, Life, Performance, Writing
Tags
Arts Express, book, Camryn Bruno, KeShaun Luckie, performance, poems, poet, poetry, Queen Bee Cavity, WBAI, writing
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Our newest Arts Express contributor, KeShaun Luckie, put together this audio segment highlighting the wonderful poems of Camryn “Queen Bee” Bruno, performed by the author. It was a pleasure to have two such talented artists over here recording.
You can listen to Queen Bee’s reading, as broadcast today on Arts Express on WBAI 99.5 FM NYC, by clicking on the triangle above.
07 Saturday Mar 2020
Posted in Books, Life, Performance, Theatre, Writing
Tags
Arts Express, Kate Chopin, MAry Murphy, Pacifica, performance, radio, short story, The Story of an Hour, WBAI, writing
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The remarkable Mary Murphy performs Kate Chopin’s proto-feminist classic short story, “The Story of An Hour.”
Click on the triangle above to hear Mary’s performance of the story on the segment I produced, as broadcast on WBAI NYC radio today and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
01 Sunday Mar 2020
Posted in Books, Life, Music, Performance, Photography, Theatre, Writing
As promised, our second free issue of the March Arts Express Newsletter is here and people have been saying nice things about us.
“That Arts Express newsletter is so remarkably beautiful and brilliant and fascinating and clever and well done!”
“Looks great. You have all been very busy. I was very pleased to read the review of Parasite. I wholeheartedly agree!”
If you didn’t catch our inaugural issue, think of it as a print extension of the conversation started on our global radio arts magazine, Arts Express, heard on WBAI 99.5 FM in NYC, WBAI.org, and Pacifica affiliates across the country, in Paris, Beijing, and Berlin.
Every month, it’s full color pages of Arts Express goodness, filled with fascinating interviews, reviews, scripts of our radio drama, photo features, gossip, film, theatre, book recommendations and more.
Here’s a preview of what’s in our March issue:
* An interview with Canadian-Iranian actor Cas Anvar, who talks about his anti-Mossad film, The Operative.
*An extraordinary portfolio of photographs of the work of artist Alexandra Dillon, a surrealistic painter who creates art on found objects.
Alexandra Dillon
* Women Film Critics Circle reviewer and Arts Express Executive Producer, Host Prairie Miller, reveals her pick for the Women’s Movie of the Decade.
* An Arts Express Extra: The script to our original radio drama, Three Secrets.
*Plus: The Guest List–our recent guests; The Back Room–news and gossip about WBAI and the Arts Express crew; and information about exclusive giveaways and how to win an opportunity to broadcast your own work on the air.
It’s all in the new free Arts Express Newsletter.
If you’re not yet subscribed, you can get your free pdf copy every month to your email address, by sending an email to ArtsExpressList@gmail.com and put Subscribe in the subject line. We’ll do the rest!
Cas Anvar
And don’t miss our next radio show, Tuesday 3/3 at 4am NYC time, which you can hear on WBAI.org or WBAI 99.5FM NYC. The show features:
** Hanging With Sam Jackson In Romania: A Conversation With Actress Maggie Q, the international action star talks about beating up burly men in her movies—while knocking down those submissive China doll stereotypes at the same time.
**The Amanda Selwyn Dance Theater performance in rehearsal, at the Alvin Ailey Theater in NYC: A look at a collage of their works exploring fundamental human questions–in dance and conversation.
** Poetry Corner: Spotlighting Black youth in spoken word performance.
** Screening Room: Who is Gargamel, and what do the Smurfs have to do with war criminal and Trump official for meddling in Venezuela, Elliot Abrams? And connections to pirates, snakes, Smurf fairies, Karl Marx, the Cold War, untamed eyebrows, and the Smurf village as a giggly caricature of a Marxist commune.
25 Tuesday Feb 2020
Tags
More Lynda Barry at https://www.drawnandquarterly.com/author/lynda-barry
and
http://www.adambaumgoldgallery.com/
21 Friday Feb 2020
Posted in Comedy, Life, Performance, Writing
“I’m the only one on the stage who…” — Wednesday, 2/19, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobachar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren
***
(With a tip of the hat to masercot)
“I’m the only one on the stage who has mudwrestled with a ferret.”
“I’m the only on the stage who has chopped down all the trees west of the Mississippi with Babe, The Giant Blue Ox.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who doesn’t give a crap that I took three tabs of LSD ten minutes ago.”
“I’m the only on the stage who speaks nightly with Elvis.”
“What are you talking about?! I’m the guy who passed the Silly Walks Amendment.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who played Mah Jong with Barack Obama.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who isn’t on the stage.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who is wearing three jock straps.”
“I’m the only on the stage who’s wearing two clown shoes—on each foot.”
“A little girl in 1850 jumped on a train, took dead aim, and shot Jesse James. That little girl was me.”
“I’m the only one on the stage with an outty belly button.”
“I’m the only one on the stage with a dead body in my refrigerator.”
“I’m the only one on the stage lip -synching the whole debate.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who’s a graduate of the DeVry Institute.”
“I’m the only one on the stage, Chuck, who has undergone nasal irrigation.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who’s playing a kazoo.”
“I’m the only one on the stage with a banana in my ear.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who is wearing a mustache made of yak hair.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who’s speaking in Klingon.”
“Socks keep falling down whenever you limbo? I’ve got a plan for that.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who’s a Siamese twin.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who’s having open heart surgery performed on me as we speak.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who can open a bottle of Perrier with my teeth.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who can beat Donald Trump at Chinese Checkers.”
“A little girl in the year 2050, donned her jet pack and flew to the moon. That little girl was me.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who is hopping on a pogo stick.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who’s done the hokey-pokey with Martin Luther King.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who sleeps in jammies with built-in feet.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who has Borscht dribbling down his chest.”
“Let me be perfectly clear: no one should have to choose between slaughtering a porcupine and caressing a weasel.”
19 Wednesday Feb 2020
Posted in Comedy, Life, Performance, Writing
Tags
comedy, horseracing, horses, Jim Gaffigan, performance, stand up, writing
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Jim Gaffigan does ten minutes on horses–and yes, it’s funny as hell even to this city dweller.
More at Jim Gaffigan
12 Wednesday Feb 2020
Tags
02 Sunday Feb 2020
Posted in Life, Performance, Theatre, Writing
Tags
acting, Arts Express, essay, MAry Murphy, performance, radio, voice acting, WBAI, writing
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Mary Murphy performs my piece, What’s Important? broadcast yesterday on WBAI’s Arts Express radio program.
You can listen by clicking on the triangle above.
01 Saturday Feb 2020
Posted in Comedy, Life, Performance, Writing
Tags
colonoscopy, comedy, Jim Gaffigan, performance, stand up, writing
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I once heard someone describe Shakespeare’s lead actor, Richard Burbage, as the powerful impetus for Will’s complex characters. “Okay, Richard, you think you did well acting the jealous Moorish general, and the evil humpbacked King, and the young moon-y swashbuckler Prince? Well how about a senile old King who goes insane in the middle of a thunderstorm? Take that!”
While not Shakespeare, I think the very funny Jim Gaffigan must constantly challenge himself to come up with comedy about the most unlikely comedic subjects: horses, brain surgery, hiking, glasses. In this clip, he talks about… his colonoscopy. No, it’s hilarious.
Thanks to YouTuber Comedy Central Stand-Up
31 Friday Jan 2020
Posted in Books, Magic, Performance, Writing
Tags
Andy, book, books, card magic, David Regal, Gambling Sleight Of Hand, Interpreting Magic, magic, Magic Christian, magicians, performance, review, sleight of hand, Steve Forte, The Jerx, The Top Change, Thinking Of You, writing
Here’s an update on three magic books I’ve received recently, each of which I can recommend to aficionados.
First, The Top Change by Magic Christian. Christian, a seasoned performer and recognized expert on 19th century card magic history (he wrote the massive two volume work on his Viennese forerunner, J. N. Hofzinser: Non Plus Ultra) has written a monograph on the top change and its variants, illustrated with over 200 sharp black & white photographs, and includes an extensive bibliography from Denis Behr. It begins with a chapter on the history of the sleights, then gets down to basics teaching them.
The section describing the basic top change that Christian prefers is actually fairly brief—four pages of Christian’s general philosophy about the top change, and then about ten pages of photos and text breaking down the move, step by step. Those familiar with the description of the move in Expert Card Technique or Giobbi’s Card College may be surprised by some of Christian’s recommendations. He prefers a subtle, subdued approach: he does not try to cover the move with wide sweeping arm movements, and he prefers not to move both hands.
The top change is one of those sleights which is extremely useful in card magic—Christian calls it “the most useful, the most regal sleight” in all of card magic. I have to admit that while technically it’s a much easier move than palming or doing a classic pass, I feel much more comfortable with the latter sleights than doing a top change. Like many, I am afraid of being caught out because of the boldness of the move. But I can say that with some study of the book and practice, I have been gaining in confidence, and my current efforts, as recorded on video, are not too awful. So thank you, Magic Christian.
Next up is David Regal’s new book, Interpreting Magic. It’s a big book, with the usual kind of Regal attention to close-up card and coin magic. Regal is a guy whose roots are in improv and scripting (no, not mutually exclusive at all!) and his focus is always on presenting an entertaining story and premise for his audience. If you’ve seen any of Regal’s other books, you know he’s got literally scores of such workable effects. But curiously, my favorite part of the book was not the close-up magic, but rather the platform magic section. His imagination really lets loose with the larger effects. He’s got very original, ingenious premises and presentations with props that are more unexpected and amusing than the usual card or coin routines. Also, scattered throughout the book, he has some great interviews and essays. There’s not a whole lot of organization to this huge book, so at 500+ pages it’s a bit of a hodge-podge, but I really like dipping into it at random. Definitely recommended.
And finally, there’s Thinking Of You, the latest annual offering from Andy of the magic website, The Jerx. The previous book from The Jerx, Magic for Young Lovers, was one of my all-time favorite magic books. The current book is also quite good, though unsurprisingly, not in the same league as its predecessor. MFYL set a high bar to reach and Andy seems to be aware of that. While the earlier book was conceived as a whole philosophy and approach to amateur magic—and largely succeeded—this one is much more modest in its aims. Thinking Of You is mainly concerned with the performance of mentalism in an amateur social context, and as such it’s more of a toolkit—okay, a bag of tricks—rather than some overarching vision, despite some valuable advice on how to approach social mentalism. That said, many of the individual ideas and effects are quite strong and without the comparison to the other book, it’s quite a respectable piece of work. The book is physically similar to the last two Jerx books, though there are no illustrated endpages as the previous books had. However, for those complaining about the high price of subscribing to the site and receiving the book, here’s a hot tip: some of the best ideas and effects in the book are already on the Jerx site for free, if you comb through the site. Either way, Andy has a ton of great advice for those performing in an amateur social context.
And upcoming: the gambling subset of magic fans has been eagerly awaiting Steve Forte’s new double volume opus on gambling sleights i.e. false deals, shuffles, switches, and so on. It’s Forte’s name that’s the draw here, as his status as a card worker is legendary, and his knowledge and invention of gambling sleights is second to none. In any reasoned list of the best living card workers, Forte’s name is probably going to be right at the top. Forte printed up a first run of 1000 copies, and by the time you read this, it probably will be all sold out, despite the fact that it won’t even be published for another few weeks. A special section on Erdnase’s Expert At The Card Table in the book promises to be a paradigm-breaking re-imagining of the old master. It will be interesting to see if Forte’s book, called Gambling Sleight of Hand, lives up to its high expectations.
All of the books are very good. Depending on your taste in magic, at least one of these books will make a worthwhile read for you.
24 Friday Jan 2020
A title is a frame,
An instruction,
A message from above,
A set of clothes.
Untitled: too lazy to do it myself? Too coy?
Like: you do the work. Like: go ahead,
I’ll hide my eyes.
Whatever you say.
Unserious. Nice Guy. Idiot Savant. Poet.
To be or not to be?
It’s enough to make me think
How entitled to be untitled.
09 Thursday Jan 2020
Photo by Joonas kääriäinen on Pexels.com
What’s Important? Their parties and their affairs. Their politics and their children and their schools. Their colleges and their internships.
Their museums and their theatres and their writers and their vacations and their marriages and their infidelities; their pets and their drunkenness and their doctors.
Their beaches and their summer homes and their nameplates and their cars and their morals and their bankers and their finances and their magazines and their dresses and their jewelry and their connections. Anything else is in agreement or opposition to them.
Their music and their institutions and their candidates and their newspapers and their stocks and their bonds and their penthouses and their department stores and their linens and their towels and their privilege, their vast vast privilege.
Their intellectuals and their painters and their dealers and their playwrights and their novelists and their poetry and their foundations and their PBS and their NPR and their film festivals and their Pulitzers, all of a piece, one big connected piece: their businesses, their Green New Deals, their social register, their churches, their synagogues, their causes, their donations, their fashion, their unmentionables, their stories, their bodies, their color, their hair, their tuxedos.
Their television shows, their late night hosts, their pundits, their news columnists. Their op-eds and their editorials and everywhere everywhere their offices, their architecture, their downtowns, their urban renewal, their zoning boards, their free-fire zones, their armies, their wars, their front pages. Their water, their vitamins, their foot massages, their masseuses, their exercise machines, their angst, their problems, their shrinks, their gurus, their meditations. Their guns and their guards and their ocean cruises and their executive class and their private helicopters and their gold plated bathrooms and their penthouses and their literary supplements and their trust funds and their restaurants and their chefs and their poodles and their desserts and their musicals, their sculpture, their police force, their mayor, their bribes, their musclemen, their crime and their punishment.
Their shock jocks and their PR people and their advance men and their drug dealers and their psychiatric hospitals and their doormen. Their elevator operators and their operas. Their Christmases and their bonuses. Their playgrounds and their baby carriages. Their smoothies and their lattes. Their Siri and their Echo. Their maids and their housekeepers, their butlers and their caterers, their golf courses and their tennis courts. Their charities, their bequests, their billionaires, their philanthropies, their checks and their balances. Their lawyers and their judges, their pastors and their rabbis, their endowed chair professors and their university presidents. Their fall guys and their stooges. Their saints and their sinners. Their cocktail hours and their cigarettes. Their appetizers and their entrees, their champagne and their caviar, their perks and their lighting. Their make-up and their make-up artists, their voices and their songs.
Their money money money all over the place in every conversation, in every action, in every thought, in every deed, from getting up in the morning to puking up at night, to the sheets and the covers and the beds. Their deaths and their inheritances.
Their lives, their world.
That’s what’s important.
08 Wednesday Jan 2020
25 Wednesday Dec 2019
Photo by Harrison Haines on Pexels.com
Twas the end of the year, and I noticed the clock,
The months had passed by, it was time to take stock
Of our magical friends and the pleasures they’d brought
A harkening back to some memories, I thought.
In my mind there’s a party of magical folk
Right here on my doorstep, but as I awoke
The doorbell was chiming, is this just a dream?
In front of my house, a whole magic team:
Chief Geniis are here, both Richard and Liz
The number one names of the magic news biz.
Hi Dustin, Hi Chloe, they seemed to prefer
No small talk, but writing up ten thousand words
The party began, with effortless ease,
The boundless good will of Juan Tamariz.
And here’s another great Spaniard, ah please!
Not Buddha, but better, Dani DaOrtiz
In walked juggler Penn, with his close partner Teller
Assuring us all, Ray’s back was much well-er
Harrison Greenbaum and Max Maven, too
Came with menorahs, ‘cause they both are Jews.
Next was a couple with talent and looks:
Dorothy Dietrich and partner Dick Brookz.
The next four, indeed, were also a thrill,
Regal and Mancha and Vincent and Spill.
The company’s magic just couldn’t be grander
Without the flotations of Mr. Losander
And candy and ice cream—you wouldn’t believe!
Came tumbling out of dear Rocco’s big sleeve.
Lucy Darling, (Carisa is really her name)
Hilarious magic, she plays a tough dame.
And who says a lawyer can’t be a charmer?
Her fellow Canadian, “Bammo” Bob Farmer.
The English chap Hollingsworth, in tails and in tie,
Did some cool sleight of hand, he’s a heck of a Guy.
Mark Lewis walked by, with some jokes and some jollies
Then immediately sold me a deck of Svengalis.
Pop Haydn, Todd Robbins, they put the log on,
And threw us some hype, ye masters of con.
Then cards flew about and changed at his whim:
The marvelous fingers of Master Shin Lim.
What’s this that we see upon the white drapes?
A bear and a dragon and other strange shapes.
The shadows appeared midst the bottles and cans
Sigh of relief—‘twas Raymond Crowe’s hands.
The bubbly’s flowing it’s time to converse
While Jerry Deutsch shows us some magic perverse.
And here comes Greg Chapman, fresh off of Four F;
Masks off to McBride, you know him as Jeff.
The blowout was awesome, the guests all a treat
To see all those folks on my little street!
Pit Hartling, Yann Frisch, and cool David Blaine,
The greatest legends of legerdemain.
And you were there, too, I remember it well,
Your name is too secret for us to re-tell
You showed us a trick in the house where I dwell
It was there that we all fell beneath your deep spell.
But all of a sudden, without a portent
The house was devoid of a lady or gent.
My head got too dizzy, was feeling all weird
For poof, gone and vanished; it all disappeared!
My eyes they were hurting, both bleary and groggy
I lurched around drunk, too high and egg-noggy.
I shook off the feeling, I got myself sober
But one thing was clear, it now all was over.
The people were gone, the food and the drink
The fantasy popped, but you know what I think?
Don’t look at me strangely, don’t think me insane
While the dream is a whisper, the magic remains.
And so as you enter the coming New Year
Be kind to your neighbors and wish them good cheer
For more than our cards, either red-backed or blue
The magic is in what we say and we do.
This story was brief, but I had a ball.
Happy holidays, my friends, and Peace to you all!
14 Saturday Dec 2019
Posted in Books, Life, Magic, Performance, Writing
Tags
books, Ginny Aronson, magic, magician, mentalism, performance, Simon Aronson, writing
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I read the news today, oh boy.
Simon Aronson died this past week.
He was one of the most brilliant and clever creator of card magic effects of the past 50 years. His methods were… shall we say?…memorable. The house of magic is large, as Eugene Burger was fond of saying, and Simon’s creations fit a particular room. His magic was brainy, intellectual, and absolutely fooling. There are magicians who are great at fooling laypeople; there are magicians who are devious enough to fool other magicians; but the amazing thing about Simon’s card magic is that if you were doing it, it would fool even yourself. To this day, there are probably legions of magicians who perform his “Shuffle-Bored” or “Prior Commitment” who still have absolutely no idea why they work. What they know is that they do work, and they blow the minds of people who see them. If the performers themselves can’t figure them out, you can imagine, then, that the spectators have got zero chance. (If you like, we can discuss in the comments about your personal favorite effects of his.)
But make no mistake, Simon’s tricks impressed non-magicians as well. There’s a funny story that magician John Bannon tells in his introduction to one of Aronson’s books. He shows the secretary of Simon’s law firm a card trick, hoping to impress her, and she only smiles pleasantly. Then she says with wide open eyes, “But have you seen Simon’s card magic?”
Speaking of Aronson’s books, I doubt there has ever been a more meticulous, detailed magic writer than he was. His books—Bound To Please, The Aronson Approach, Simply Simon, Try The Impossible, and Art Decko—are masterpieces of explanation of intricate methods. While Simon was not above using sleights and gaffs in his magic (and he delighted in upsetting fellow magicians’ expectations of what his bag of methods might include) his claim to fame really rests on thinking very hard about a few tools which required mostly sleight of mind. As he would say, just as you have to plan things so that your sleight of hand doesn’t show, you also have to plan effects so that your sleight of mind doesn’t show either. In Simon’s books, he takes you through all his thinking point by point, thoroughly exploring variations and improvements, telling you what versions he threw out as weak or too revealing, giving you his scripting, and moreover, unlocking the reasons why his methods work. Simon’s training as a lawyer shows—his books are not just explanations, but thorough briefs with points and subpoints. In magic circles people like to debate, with near religious ferocity, whether it’s better to learn magic from books or DVDs. Of course both sides have valid views, but for the book-lovers, their strongest argument is two words: Simon Aronson.
No one would call Simon an extraordinary performer, but on occasion he would step away from the card table to do another kind of magic: his mentalism act that he created with his college sweetheart and wife of many years, Ginny. (There’s a great photo of college-aged Simon and Ginny on the Jerx website that speaks volumes about them. And Bill Mullins on the Genii Forum posted a wonderful remembrance from Simon about his father who was very active in the 60s Civil Rights movement). They did a classic two-person mindreading act, and fortunately it was captured on video as an extra on one of his videos. It’s something that neither he nor Ginny have ever revealed, and while clearly there must be some code going on, I have resigned myself to the fact that if Simon created it, I’m never going to be able to figure it out. You can see their act for yourself in the L&L video I posted above.
At the first run of mentalist Derren Brown’s Secret here in NYC, Derren pointed to a man in the audience to volunteer for the next effect. It was dark in the theater so I couldn’t see that well, but I thought the man looked familiar; when he said his name was Simon and the woman sitting next to him was Ginny…
I made sure to “accidentally” bump into him as the theater was emptying, and nervously introduced myself to him. He was so nice—he said he knew my name from this blog, and then proceeded to describe the photo I have on the title page of it! I got to talk with him a little longer as we walked together in the rainy weather, and found them a cab back to their hotel. Really couldn’t be nicer people. I treasured that comment from him, as one of the very first essays I wrote on this blog was inspired by an essay of his.
Simon Aronson was a full-out, full-deck memorable mensch, and I’m sorry to hear about his passing. From the Jack of Spades to the Nine of Diamonds, he will not be forgotten.
08 Sunday Dec 2019
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
***
Well, Grubstetter figured he was going to get an easy A in Psych 1, after all, he’s good with people, didn’t he get his college roommate to buy him a keg of beer based on the premise that it would be worth it just to see him get drunk and f’d up? On the other hand, it turned out that the professor didn’t talk once about how to get free drinks from your roommate in his bogus Psych 1 class, in fact they didn’t talk about people or alcohol at all, all they talked about were wily brown rats and albino mice and stimulus-response reaction times. At least that’s what they talked about the last time he was in class, which was also the first time he was in class, when they gave out the syllabus. He needed to pass the course, because frankly he hadn’t passed many others, and if he didn’t pass this one, he would be kicked out, seeing that he was already on probation for last semester’s stunning non-production.
The term paper was worth 50% and the final exam was worth 50% of the final course grade. Grubstetter’s calculation was that though he hadn’t gotten it back yet, the term paper was probably an A—at least that’s what it received according to the website he got it from—so really what he had to turn his attention to now was the final. That would have made sense had not the final been so cruelly scheduled for 2:20 pm, two solid hours before Grubstetter’s usual wake up time. His roommate, Porter, who had returned to the room at 2pm from his bio class to grab the other half of the pulled pork sub sandwich which he had left in the room’s mini-refrigerator, didn’t think much at first of seeing Grubstetter passed out on the couch. It was not that unusual a sight at this time of the afternoon. But Grubstetter let out a groan, and Porter suddenly remembered that sometime before Grubstetter had passed out last night, Grubstetter had asked Porter to get him up in time for the big exam.
So Porter slapped Grubstetter’s face a few times and Grubstetter started yelling, but soon calmed down after it was explained to him that he had to get himself to the exam room, and pronto. Grubstetter’s face went ashen, for as he came to, he realized that his study plan of reading the entire Psych text that night—okay, the first and last sentences of each chapter’s final summary paragraph in the Psych text—had been thwarted, due to his inability to read while passed out. It was a genetic fault, he explained.
But Porter ignored his roommate’s excuses, and after rolling Grubstetter out from under the pile of dirt laundry on the couch, he bundled him up in the reclaimed old parka under the broken television set cart that was used as a bed for his girlfriend’s mean tabby cat. Like a stage manager pushing a reluctant actor onto the stage, Porter gathered all his strength, and pushed his friend out the door.
Grubstetter was immediately stung by the cold of the Maine winter on his now even pinker cheeks, and the glare of the sun on the iced over snow blinded him for a few moments. He fished around in the deep pockets of his coat and pushing aside several Slim Jim wrappers and an invasion of sunflower seed shells, he dug out a pair of pink sparkle-covered sunglasses from some forgotten costume party. “Screw fashion,” he thought to himself as he put them on and got himself re-oriented to the campus quad, the large Clock sounding the quarter hour. He stumbled up the steps of the Founders Hall and marched himself through the corridors to the lecture auditorium, six hundred wooden seats looking down upon an old lab table, with a large projector screen in back of it. Grubstetter stood tentatively in the aisle, looking for a smart student to sit next to, but realized that he knew no one in the class because he had never been to it before. He cursed his rotten circumstances, and took his chances with a student who looked like he might have had intimate knowledge of rats. There was no empty seat exactly near him, but Grubstetter calculated that if he sat three rows behind him, and three seats to the left of him, due to the staggered arrangement of seats in each row, and the greater height of his back row, he would have a perfect diagonal view of the rat lover’s paper.
The teaching assistant entered the room with a big pile of official looking blank exam booklets. “Oh, no,” thought Grubstetter, “It’s going to be an essay exam.” What good would his superior vantage point mean now? Almost nothing. With a multiple choice test and a bird’s eye view you could delineate the pattern of darkened answer circles from afar, like an astronaut’s view of the Great Wall of China, but with an essay test you had nothing. “Gimme something to work with here,” he muttered to himself. He braced himself for the essay question they were about to receive, summoning up all his considerable powers of bullshittery to the fore, but he was still nervous.
“No multiple choice? No multiple choice? What kind of fresh hell is this place anyway?” he called out. Several students turned around in their seats and shushed him, like patrons of an art movie theater reprimanding a particularly recalcitrant viewer during an Ingmar Bergman film festival. But it was clear to Grubstetter what must have happened. The professor, who was known to give multiple choice tests with a hundred-plus questions, had finally figured out that the answers to the test had been in circulation long before the test date. But the guy was lazy. He didn’t want to make up a new hundred-question test. It was easier to make up an essay question on the spot, and have some grad student mark it, than to put in the sweat necessary to re-make a new multiple choice test. “The inconsiderate indolent bastard,” he said to the woman next to him who ignored him.
The teaching assistant at the front of the auditorium, who for some reason couldn’t get the microphone to work, announced in his loudest voice that the test was about to begin, the essay question would be projected on the screen, and that the students would all have one hour and twenty minutes to complete their essay in the exam books. “The use of computers and other aids are not allowed, no pencil, and be sure to sign the no cheating declaration on the back cover. Do all your scrap work and planning in the book, and when you need a new book, raise your hand and I’ll bring you a new one. Okay, I’ll put up the question on the screen and then you may open up your exam booklets and begin writing.”
There was a sharp intake of air in anticipation from the crowd of students and then after some focusing adjustments, the question appeared on the screen. “Holy Mother of Pringles,” Grubstetter exclaimed. “He’s even lazier than I thought.” Grubstetter again read to himself the essay question which was printed in block capital letters:
IMAGINE THAT YOU ARE A PSYCH 1 PROFESSOR. (1) CREATE A SUITABLE ESSAY QUESTION FOR THE FINAL, (2) AND THEN ANSWER THAT QUESTION.
“What the—?” The devious bastard. It took him no thought at all to come up with that. Grubstetter started to look up and down his row and along the diagonals in desperation. Students were looking up, biting the ends of their pens, and then suddenly, as if diving for sunken treasure, swooping their heads back down onto the pages, furiously writing, filling up pages. But Grubstetter could only catch snatches of paragraphs amid the bobbing heads and writing implements. Describe the so-and so effect along with its implications and uses wrote the guy to his right. Given the current state of the scienific research regarding so and so, and so and so, which do you think is a more effective approach and why? wrote the woman to his left. Name three methods of behavioral psychology and compare and contrast among them as to their validity and reliability wrote the rat boy three rows ahead of him. Grubstetter shook his head in despair. These intermittent flashes of ideas were not enough to get him started on an essay of his own. He wasn’t familiar with anything enough to even bullshit about it.
And then, all of a sudden, he sat back in his wooden chair, relaxed full of cheer and merriment, and gave a great hardy guffaw, like a jolly king upon his throne. The answer had, miraculously, come to him. Grubstetter wrote like a demon for a few moments, then turned in his exam booklet to the bewildered teaching assistant, and triumphantly marched out the door, a forgotten Slim Jim now victoriously clenched between his teeth.
Yes, the Gods had looked favorably on Grubstetter that memorable day, as he recounted a week later to Porter. The proof of the passing grade was right there in the professor’s reluctant red ink on Grubstetter’s returned final exam booklet. A big scarlet “A.”
“So how the fuck did you answer the question?” demanded Porter. “You knew nothing, nothing at all. You never went to class, never cracked a book. How the fuck could he have passed you?”
Grubstetter, who by this time was about to pass out again, tossed the exam booklet to Porter. “Read it, kiddo, read it.” And with that, he fell off the couch and slept the sleep of the angels.
Porter opened the booklet and saw:
IMAGINE THAT YOU ARE A PSYCH 1 PROFESSOR. (1) CREATE A SUITABLE ESSAY QUESTION FOR THE FINAL, (2) AND THEN ANSWER THAT QUESTION.
So you think you’re smart writing an exam question like that? Okay. Here are my answers to the two parts of the essay.
(1) My imagined Question: IMAGINE THAT YOU ARE A PSYCH 1 PROFESSOR. (1) CREATE A SUITABLE ESSAY QUESTION FOR THE FINAL, (2) AND THEN ANSWER THAT QUESTION.
(2) My imagined Answer: IMAGINE THAT YOU ARE A PSYCH 1 PROFESSOR. (1) CREATE A SUITABLE ESSAY QUESTION FOR THE FINAL, (2) AND THEN ANSWER THAT QUESTION.
Have a great summer, prof!
Porter closed the exam booklet, struck dumb. For surely, he thought to himself, as he looked at the crumpled sweetly smiling body on the floor next to him and slowly re-read his friend’s exam paper, he was in the presence of genius.
06 Friday Dec 2019
Posted in Comedy, Performance, Writing
Tags
04 Wednesday Dec 2019
Posted in Comedy, Life, Performance, Writing
Tags
comedy, performance, satire, Saturday Night Live, sketch, SNL, Thanksgiving, writing
01 Sunday Dec 2019
***
I’m a magazine junkie, but unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, magazines are fast becoming a thing of the past. It’s a precarious business. And magic magazines historically have been even more precarious than most other categories of periodicals. It’s not unusual at all for a magic magazine, first announced with the boldest of intentions and good will at the beginning not to make it through even a year. The subsequent cancelling of subscriptions, unreturned money, late and missing issues are the stuff of legend and also often enduring acrimony in the magic world.
And yet new magic periodicals are announced all the time, and folks plunk down their dollars, hoping to get their latest magic fix in measured doses. But to a true magazine junkie, there’s nothing sweeter than pulling down a bound volume of ancient magic magazines from days past and thumbing through it. There’s a saying that if you want to hide the secret of a magic trick, write about it in a book. My corollary to that is if you want to fool the book readers, do something from a magazine. That’s where you’ll find your really obscure effects.
But the pleasure of reading the old magazines is not just to find another magic trick, but to get a sense of the smell and taste of the time, the ads, the news of who was playing in what theater, which dealers were pushing which effects, what the in-group gossip and backbiting was, but most gratifyingly, the imprint of the editor. Because really that is the most important factor in my enjoyment. I love a rag with a voice, an opinion, a personality, a sensibility, even if it’s not one I share with the editor.
Here is a list of five of my favorite classic magic magazines of the past, all of which can be found in bound volumes.
The Sphinx has had a long, long publication history. It ran from 1902-1953, quite a feat in a field where it’s often a wonder when a publication makes it to issue #2. I’ve written a series of posts about this magazine, but even that only scratches the surface in describing its wonderfulness. It is filled to the brim with great stage magic, photographs, and feature articles on famous magicians of the day. The complete print run costs thousands, but the entire number is available on CD for a ridiculously low price.
The Jinx was the newsletter started by Ted Annemann, which ran from 1934 to Annemann’s suicide in 1942. The magazine’s name was a play on its predecessor, The Sphinx. Annemann was a clever inventor of tricks who preferred subtlety over sleights: unlike The Sphinx which focused more on stage and apparatus magic, The Jinx was oriented more to close-up and parlor magic. The Jinx specialized in particular in mental magic, and the bible of mental magic, Annemann’s book Practical Mental Effects, was drawn from effects first printed in The Jinx. Annemann’s honest editorials in every issue managed to offend many, but his observations were often quite sharp.
The Phoenix, which ran from 1942 to 1954, was writer Bruce Elliott’s tribute to Ted Annemann’s The Jinx. In format it was much the same: a newsletter every two weeks or so with some featured tricks and then a column of observations by the editor. Elliott had more outside interests than Annemann, which gave it a bit of a more varied texture than The Jinx. There were lots of contributions from the great names of the day, including Paul Curry, Dai Vernon, Ed Marlo. Like Annemann’s periodical, Elliott’s taste ran to the kind of thing you could show to the boys after the poker game without too much practice. The first Phoenix volume was the first I ever bought from Tannen’s as a youngster, and it holds a special place in my affection. Elliott gave it up in 1954 after 300 issues, and it was succeeded by The New Phoenix for 100 issues with different editors. The magic content of the periodical remained high, but without Bruce Elliott’s savvy Back Room columns, I didn’t find it as enjoyable a read.
Hugard’s Magic Monthly had a run from 1943-1964, basically contemporaneous with the two Phoenix publications, but it had a very different flavor about it. The individual issues had a higher page count, and in its stride it had a number of regular columns and features by contributors in each issue. There were regular book reviews, listings of the latest stage shows, excerpts from books, and historical features. Although it was printed on newsprint like The Jinx and The Phoenix, and illustrated mainly by line drawings, it had a larger sense of worldliness than those two publications. Because Jean Hugard and Milbourne Christopher, the two main editors and often pseudonymous contributors, had extensive experience in stage magic and the world of show business, their magazine combined the more professional, international feel of The Sphinx with the magic clubbiness of the other two periodicals.
Apocalypse was a monthly magazine put out by Harry Lorayne from 1978 to 1997. Richard Kaufman, the current editor of Genii magazine, started it with Lorayne when he was a young man, but by its second year, Lorayne was the sole editor. The magazine featured close-up magic effects from the top magicians of the time, with many contributions from Lorayne himself in the field of card and coin magic. Lorayne was a tireless self-promoter and writer, and managed to get great material from his contributors. Lorayne also always provided yearly trick and author indices with each volume, a welcome addition, especially in a day and age before digital searches were possible. Harry famously would include his “Afterthoughts” to many effects including his own, which were short paragraphs of variations and additions to a given effect, sometimes useful, sometimes not. While there’s no doubt that Harry had (and still has in his 90s) a distinctive voice and take on magic, for many, including myself, his narcissism and pettiness make it hard to enjoy the more newsy items he reported on. Still, the magic contained within (check out all the great contributions by David Regal over the years) make this a nominee for desert island reading.
Some of my other past favorite periodicals were Karl Fulves’s publications: Chronicles, Pallbearer’s Review, and Epilogue, though they don’t have the voice or editorial content that the others mentioned above have. Another favorite of mine, too, is Steve Hobb’s more recent periodical Labyrinth. It, also, has little editorial content but contains lots of very clever card magic and sleights.
And, finally, if you don’t find something appealing here, you might take a look at this list of magic periodicals:
https://geniimagazine.com/wiki/index.php?title=Magic_Periodicals
Magicpedia estimates there have been over a thousand different magic periodical publications since 1895. So magic magazine junkies take heart—you have plenty of choices to keep you busy for a very long time.
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16 Saturday Nov 2019
Posted in Comedy, Life, Magic, Performance
Tags
Bill Palmer, convention, Dai Vernon, magic, magicians, mentalism, performance, teaching, writing
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
***
This one is for the magic nerds. For the rest of you, nothing to see here, move along.
The close-up magician, Dai Vernon, was perhaps the most influential magic teacher of the twentieth century. His impact was so great that he was known simply as “The Professor.” In his later life, still sharp as a tack in his 80s and beyond, he would hold court at The Magic Castle and other such venues, where conjurers from around the country would come to get The Professor’s critique of their magic. Vernon was a pretty mischievous fellow by most accounts, and his lessons could sometimes be quite pointed. My favorite story about him is one that magician Bill Palmer has told on The Magic Cafe internet forum, which I’ll repeat here.
Palmer was attending a magic convention in Texas where Vernon was one of the headliners. Now one of the nice and maybe unique things about magic conventions is that the performers often mingle with the attendees in their off time. So Palmer is wandering around the lobby of the hotel where the convention was held, and who does he see sitting on a sofa, but The Professor himself, Dai Vernon. He’s startled to see that Vernon is all alone on the couch, so he decides to take this opportunity. He gathers up his courage, goes over to Vernon and introduces himself, gushes a bit, and then Palmer decides he’s going to make his impression on The Professor by showing Vernon a feat of mentalism. After all, though Vernon was expert with cards and coins, mentalism is a whole different branch of conjuring.
Palmer says to Vernon. “Please think of any three-digit number. Concentrate, please. Visualize that number in your imagination.” Palmer then takes out his business card, cogitates furiously, writes something on the back of the business card, then puts the pencil down, and says to Vernon, “I have committed my answer in writing. Would you now, for the first time, name your number, please?”
Vernon replies, “4-5-8.”
Palmer continues in the canned patter of the day, “Aha! Does that number have any special significance to you?”
“Yes,” replies the elderly Vernon, with narrowing eyes, “those are the three most difficult numbers to write with a nail writer.”
15 Friday Nov 2019
09 Saturday Nov 2019
Posted in Books, Life, Magic, Performance, Writing
Tags
contest, Fifth annual, magic, performance, prizes, results, winners, writing
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com
And drumroll, please. Here are the names of the winners of the Fifth Annual Shalom Blog Magic Contest. The contest this time was a repeat of the very first one: describe three actions or ideas that have most improved your magic.
The first-place winner was Dennis Mayne. Dennis’s entertaining entry described a trio of intriguing, uncommonly referenced mindsets and preparations that help him get ready as a working street performer. Dennis chose The Vernon Touch as his prize.
David Kaplan was the second-place winner. David spoke of the wisdom he acquired along the way to becoming a part-time professional, and what it took him to get to the next level. He chose Blomberg Laboratories as his prize.
Third place went to John Allen. John talked about some of the realizations he came to when trying to integrate his magic interests with the rest of his life, and what helped to make that transition less bumpy. He chose Maximum Entertainment as his prize.
And finally Honorable Mention to Rick Benstock for his iconoclastic advice for amateurs.
Thanks again to all who entered. It’s always a treat for me to read what you have to say. Sometime next week, everyone who participated will receive a pdf compilation of all the entries that were sent in.
07 Thursday Nov 2019
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
***
Your honor, I am guilty, but consider:
At some point in every enlightened young human’s development, the following two truths become crystal clear:
1) Due to the extraordinary violence of the few, the majority are subjected to murder, torture, and unending exploitation for the benefit of those few.
2) If we are to survive as a species, humans must love their neighbors as they love themselves
For young people with a natural predisposition towards action, and an intelligence that forces them to follow premises to their logical, inevitable conclusions, the above truths can put them in the way of physical harm or worse.
For a parent, the truth must bow to the safety of the child.
Thus, I must throw sand in the face of my son’s arguments, place obstacles in the way of truth to slow him down:
“But all revolutions eventually betray the people.”
“Surely, elections make some difference.”
“How can you be sure there’s no God?”
“You realize that socialism can end up as authoritarianism.”
“Ridiculous, how many pronouns can one person have?”
“Isn’t all violence equally bad?”
My hope was that such efforts would slow him down enough to get him safely through an impulsive adolescence. To his credit, he reacted to each such suggestion with external scorn. Nevertheless, his mother and I would play our parts as parents, he his as an adolescent. Now in his mid-20s, he is less impulsive, but no less committed to the above two propositions. Fortunately, he now manages to pursue his political goals while being careful of the implications for his physical being. We are very proud of him.
Thank goodness. Sigh. Guilty, your honor.
