Our dear friend the brilliant magician Luis Piedrahita recently told us about La biblioteca digital de ilusionismo (Digital Library of Illusion) – a fascinating digital resource for magicians and scholars. At the moment, this library offers access to 62 fully scanned volumes divided into categories: Card Magic, Mentalism, Prestidigitation, White Magic, Magic History, and Scientific Magic.

This database is a part of the Fundación Juan March that was founded in 1955 by Spanish Financier Juan March Ordinas. Based in Madrid, the institution is dedicated to science and the humanities, with a special emphasis on the arts. The Library of Illusion is a special collection meant to compliment the Spanish Library of Contemporary Music and Theater (as well as a massive collection from the library of Argentinean writer Julio Cortázar).

Of particular note, this database provides access to Spain’s first true magic book: Engaños a ojos vistos by Pablo Minguet Madrid, 1733; as well as many other titles, including J. Mieg’s comprehensive El brujo en sociedad Madrid, 1839. Readers will find texts in other languages, such as: Henri Decremps’s La magie blanche dévoilée Paris, 1789, and, a more recent title, Harlan Tarbell’s Crazy Stunts Minneapolis, 1929. There are a number of Spanish translations, in particular: Robert-Houdin’s French L’art de gagner a tous les jeux Paris, 1890 and Carlo Willman’s German Die Moderne Salon-Magie Valencia, 1897.

These digital books have been scanned at a high resolution so that each page looks as it would in real life. Unlike the physical volumes in a rare book room, these books require no special handling or reading stands, and can be flipped through rapidly and noisily. (A Flash animation provides this effect). They are also fully searchable.

The impetus for this project came with a donation from the library of Spanish magic historian José Puchol de Montís in 1988. With nearly 2,000 titles to draw from, we hope that this digital resource will continue to grow.

Question:

Find the worth of a photograph to Dai Vernon. Use the title of the object of the photograph to find an article about a book. The psuedonym of one of the men mentioned in the article will lead you to an article where he is discussed at length. Which book was he trying to acquire as part of a trade?

Send your answers to: geniianswer@conjuringarts.org (Contest has ended, see the answer below!)

Answer:

This contest was won by Chris Ragaisis quite quickly! We were very surprised and impressed with his researching skills, and then even more surprised when, almost just as quickly, we received several other correct answers! Congratulations to Chris and those of you who are interested can view the answer we were looking for here:

Answer to the contest!

Thank you for trying and Good Luck! Happy Erdnaseum to everyone!

Greetings from Conjuring Arts!

As you may have read, our last contest was answered correctly by Frank Yuen (Congratulations sir!) and, in order to give everyone more incentive to use Ask Alexander and find glorious information, another contest is in order! The prize remains the same (ten decks of our playing cards postage paid), although we will be offering an alternate prize, having to do with the contest, should the winner be so inclined…it’s kind of a big deal.

See our previous contest for more information and check out the question and answer to see what we are looking for.

The challenge will be to use Ask Alexander to answer the question posted below as quickly as possible. The first person submitting the correct answer(s) will win the ten decks of our playing cards (postage paid) or the alternate mystery prize! We hope that you have a good time using your complimentary Ask Alexander access and find many more things along the way!

Question:

He had an Indetectable handling of the Erdnase Diagonal Shift-Palm in an Annemann magazine. If you look for Nelms, Fitzkee, and Tommy Wonder, you will find an incomplete trilogy of books. Find the missing book, and where he annotated it, to find out some objects that might be good to produce from an incandescent bulb.

E-mail your answers to: EMCanswer2@conjuringarts.org Contest has already concluded. Congratulations to Bill Mullins on his quick and accurate answer!

Answer:

We figure since the answer came so quickly, we should give some more time for people to try the question if they so desire without the answer being right here, so here is a link:

EMC Contest #2 Answer

Thank you to those that took the time to try out  the contest, and we hope that you found some good things during your search!

As a special treat for EMC 2011 attendees, we are offering a contest! Everyone that registered for the convention before July 4th has received special EMC 2011 level access to Ask Alexander. The challenge will be to use Ask Alexander to answer the question posted below as quickly as possible. The first person submitting the correct answer(s) will win ten decks of our playing cards, postage paid anywhere in the world! We hope that you have a good time using your complimentary Ask Alexander access and find many more things along the way!

Question:

A magician uses a double lift that can be described as “impeccable” in a legendary magazine for a feat that was “double”-y legendary. Search this magician’s name along with Peter Pit to find, if you look back, something out of place. What is it?

E-mail your answers to: EMCanswer1@conjuringarts.org Contest is closed…see the answer and the winner below!

Answer:

Congratulations to Frank Yuen for his correct answer of our contest question! The correct answer was “a card”. The answer can be arrived at by looking for Impeccable Double, a Howie Schwarzman technique from Professional Card Magic by Cliff Green, in Jon Racherbaumer’s The Legendary Hierophant. You will find a story of Persi Diaconis performing the technique with two doubles! Searching for Persi Diaconis and Peter Pit leads one to several pages, one of which is a trick in Genii magazine called the “The Card on the Back”, so, if you look back for something out of place, it is a card!

Hopefully everyone that attempted the contest enjoyed their search and is considering becoming a member of Conjuring Arts!

Thanks!

Gibecière

Our latest issue has arrived and is on its way to our subscribers! This issue completes the first dozen issues and marks the end of our 6th volume. Happy anniversary Gibecière!

As usual, we have a rich variety of contributions from a number of authors to make for some fascinating reading. In addition to some historical works, we even delve into a historical feud!

The first article is an intriguing look into the fascinating character Ishii Black by Mitsunobu Matsuyama in a continuation of his superb series of articles investigating magic in Japan. In addition to the look into Black’s life, we also have reproduced a series of articles that he contributed on Japanese magic, complete with commentary by Mr. Matsuyama.

The next series of articles are a present day look at what amounts to an historical feud! In our Summer 2009 issue, you will note that we offered a translation of Spain’s first magic book, Engaños a ojos vistas (Deceptions in Plain Sight) by Pablo Minguet è Yrol. Well, the book was not without controversy and one of Minguet’s contemporaries, Diego Joseph Zamorano, took him to task in Thesoro atractivo de curiosos… or Attractive treasury of curiosities…. Dr. Lori Pieper provides us with a translation of this interesting magical work and we are also treated to an introduction by Enrique Jimènez-Martinez and some present day commentary by Stephen Minch!

These are already being sent out to our members, so, if you want to get one, make sure that your membership is up to date. Also, if you are not a member, please join by going here. In addition to the journal we offer numerous other benefits, not the least of which is our searchable magic database Ask Alexander.

Join Now

This issue features another great translation by Lori Pieper of an important work, Attractive treasury of curiosities by Diego Joseph Zamorano.

Recently we published an English translation of Pablo Minguet è Yrol’s Engaños a ojos vistas (Deceptions in Plain Sight), it turns out that Zamorano was a contemporary of Minguet and published Attractive treasury of curiosities as a critical review of Minguet’s book!

This is a fascinating opportunity to read what a professional, and one-armed, magician thought of one of the more popular conjuring books of his time.

Additionally we have commentary on Zamorano’s work as well as a further installment of the wonderful “An Investigation into Magic in Japan” by Mitsunobu Matsuyama.

We would also like to mention that we intend to adjust our publishing schedule so that the Summer issue comes out around July 15 and the Winter issue on January 15!

This edition features three books in a slip case and everything is a marvel to behold. There is a facsimile of the original manuscript in old Italian, an analysis in modern Italian, and a summary and commentary in English. The books are beautiful, and there was definitely no expense spared in this sumptuous reprint. (Notice: this is not an English translation!)

Although everything is not translated into English, it is a remarkable work in both authorship and the physical presence of this new edition. Highly recommended to collectors, those interested in history, or anyone that can read Italian! It is very hard to get in the US, and we are lucky to be able to offer the few copies that we do have available.

Here is an article about the book and information concerning a possible English translation in the future: The Guardian

Order yours here!

If you are not a member, or your subscription has lapsed, and you would like the issue please go here to join and help support the library! Thanks!

Regina and Charles (Levent Cimkentli Photo)

It is with great sadness that we write of Charles Reynolds’ recent passing. Brilliantly knowledgeable in magic perfomance and history, always friendly and charming, with his hat and cane (when he remembered them), Charles was persistently full of life all the moments he shared with us. While many have written wonderful thoughts about his life’s work and legacy of knowledge, I’d like to honor Charles by sharing a few of the things I learned spending time with him. So imagine Charles, at a meeting of magicians, jovially spoiling himself with a soda, or a scotch, telling stories full of famous magicians we all admire, remembering times and antics we are awed and humored by, all the while retaining his gentle nature and wise soul.

One story which Charles liked to tell was of a bit of conversation between Houdini and Al Flosso, which Charles had learned through Al’s son, Jackie. Al told Houdini, “Never, under any circumstances, tell the truth.” In fact, Charles’s memories of talking with these great characters always revealed small moments of personal experiences that don’t always come out in print. At one of our magic meetings, Charles related a bit of information about Houdini he had heard from Dunninger: That Houdini had a wonderful smile. Charles wistfully recalled Dunninger’s memory that, “Anything could go wrong at a Houdini performance and he could win them over with his smile.”

Charles in Study (Levent Cimkentli Photo)

I always thought small memories like these were great to hear from Charles, especially this one, since you don’t often hear about Houdini making any mistakes, and I had not heard any stories about his smile.

Here is a bit of advice from Ali Bongo related to us through Charles: “If you can’t hide it, paint it red.” Another bit of Charles wisdom culled from his wide historical knowledge, “Everytime you pick up a prop your price goes down.”

Apparently the Professor, Dai Vernon, had picked up a little bit of French and would say in a melancholy, albeit tongue in cheek, manner, “Partir c’est mourir un peu” whenever a pretty waitress left his dinner table. It meant “to leave is to die a little” or more loosely “it hurts to say goodbye”, and reflected the great loss he felt by this beautiful lady leaving his presence. I was quite pleased that Charles  decided to recount this little characteristic of the Professor’s.

Charles was not particularly technically savvy and was not interested in getting caught up in the latest technology, like e-mail. However, during one of the meetings, one of the attendees was using their iPad to show some video clips, and we ended up watching video of Borra and Richiardi on YouTube. Charles got rather interested and asked what else was available on “The YouTube.” We explained that practically everything was available and searched for some of Charles’ favorite performers. Even though we knew we had found a weakness in his technological disinterest, Charles still surprised all of us at the next meeting when we were informed that he had acquired an iPad!

After viewing any magic act, Charles’ go-to method of discovering how it might be improved, what was wrong with it, where it went right, etc. was to utilize 3 key questions that relate to the 3 aspects of any magic performance. He brought these questions up frequently during our discussions, and they never failed to bring about some insight. He also never failed to credit the source for these questions: his wife, Regina! For those that are interested, he wrote them down, along with a variety of other thoughts and some effects in his lecture notes, Observations & Effects.

Hopefully you found these jottings entertaining. Charles was quite a wonderful man, and I will miss him very much.

If you would like to learn more about Charles please check the resources below:

http://mnw.squarespace.com/magicnewsfeed/2010/11/4/broken-wand-charles-reynolds-by-levent.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/arts/08reynolds.html?ref=douglas_martin

http://askalexander.org/displaypdf.cgi?pid=1597798

http://www.magicmagazine.com/december10/ihw_charles-reynolds_08.html

The January 2011 Genii Magazine contains “In Memoriam: Charles Reynolds” by Jamy Ian Swiss

“A Conversation with Charles Reynolds” is in the December 2010 issue of MAGIC Magazine

Gibecière

The 11th issue of Gibecière is finished, and we are very excited. This particular issue contains a real treat as we have finally persuaded the delightful Jim Steinmeyer to contribute an article, an addition to our list of contributors that we have been hoping for since the journal began. Additionally we have articles by Mitsunobu Matsuyama, William Kalush and Stephen Minch, and a translation from Lori Pieper!

Jim Steinmeyer’s article, “The Spider in the Flies”, neatly transitions from Joshua Jay’s “Tragic Magic” in the last issue, as it has to do with murder, although it is not the magician this time who is the victim. There is quite a bit more to this novel mystery which we leave you to work out by reading Mr. Steinmeyer’s enlightening article.

Mitsunobu Matsuyama provides a seventh(!) installment in his fascinating series, “An Investigation into Magic in Japan”. This time the history intertwines with several of magic’s biggest names: Maskelyne, Devant, and Chung Ling Soo. M. Gintaro may have performed at the Maskelyne and Devant theaters more than any other magician, possibly more than 6,000 performances! Frank Kametaro was Chung Ling Soo’s right-hand man who also, tragically, gave the order to fire during the performance of the bullet catch which cost the life of Soo. These and several other individuals are documented in this installment.

We round out this issue with a new translation of the magic section of Ozanam by the ever diligent Lori Pieper. The translation is introduced by Mr. William Kalush and Mr. Stephen Minch in their article, “The Influence of Ozanam”, which looks at where the text may have come from and the later texts that may have benefited from its popularity.

In all, we are very happy with this issue and are sure that you will find much of interest.

These will be sent out to members as soon as we receive them, so, if you want to get one, make sure that your membership is up to date. Also, if you are not a member, please join by going here. In addition to the journal we offer numerous other benefits, not the least of which is our searchable magic database Ask Alexander.

Join Now