Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear

Rating:
Summary: Great Stories, Well Told
Review: Jim Steinmeyer loves magic. Better yet, he knows more about the history of magic than just about anybody. Best of all, Steinmeyer is a superb writer, telling these great stories with a delightful, self-effacing wit. It pretends to be about magic, but it's really a fascinating rogue's gallery of flim-flam artists, geniuses, charlatans and showmen -- the great (and, in the case of Houdini, not-so-great) magical artistes of the19th and 20th centuries. Reading this book is pure pleasure. Good job.

Rating:
Summary: Not Just Giving Away the Tricks
Review: The magic duo Penn and Teller have a trick called "The Honor System." Instead of putting a curtain around the box from which Teller is to escape, they simply invite onlookers to keep their eyes closed, and open them once he is out. Those who take them up on the deal see Teller locked into a secure wooden box, and after a spell of eyes closed, they see him magically, inexplicably free. Those who peek see just how easily the trick is worked. Penn and Teller know that they can give away the secret of this or other tricks and there is still a show. The gadgets used in the illusions aren't the story, the performance is. Jim Steinmeyer knows this, too. He has designed illusions for magicians and Broadway shows, so he knows all the hardware. In his book _Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear_ (Carroll and Graf), he has given away lots of secrets. But he is not the stupid Masked Magician, revealing tricks for notoriety and fortune. What he has given us is an appreciation of magic history and the refinements in fooling people by clever stagecraft, but he has never forgotten to remind us of the dazzle of the performance.

The elephant of the title is one named Jennie, who, at the New York Hippodrome in 1918, vanished from her box on stage, under the direction of none other than Harry Houdini. The hardware he used to make Jenny disappear was surprisingly simple (as are most of the gadgets that make magical effects). It was a product of a boom in the art of conjuring that had started around sixty years before. "It's all done with mirrors" is a dismissive phrase, and yet the history given here of mirror illusions shows that they have been refined in countless ways, from putting ghosts on the stage to producing a talking disembodied head on a table. The ghost craze also manifested in spiritualism, and magicians were keen to cash in on the craze. Among them were the Davenport brothers of Buffalo, who allowed themselves to be bound with ropes inside a cabinet, whereupon in the dark, ghostly hands appeared, instruments were played, and so on. The brothers were tied up before the manifestations, and after, so it seemed as if they could not have been working the tricks. Other magicians could easily see this was a rope escape trick, dressed up in the fancy of the day. But spiritualists only saw the Davenports as demonstrating the truth of communication with the afterlife. The controversy didn't hurt business at all.

The stories of these tricks often involve intense competition between magicians. One who invented a trick was likely to see it performed by someone else shortly thereafter. Oddly, patenting a trick is little help; a patent has to have public details of how the mechanism works, and so if he does go to the trouble of patenting an effect, an inventor describes it in unhelpful ways, thwarting the patent process itself. The theft of secrets kept the illusions lively, as other means were found of doing similar effects and tricks were repackaged. "Sawing through a Woman" was invented by P. T. Selbit in 1921, a reaction to women's liberation and an outgrowth from the Grand Guignol theater. Before long it was "Sawing a Man in Two," "Sawing a Woman in Half," or "Matter through Matter." There were other illusions stretching a woman, or crushing her, and there were furious arguments about giving credit (and fees) to the correct inventors. Steinmeyer's story thus leaps repeatedly from one time to another, and from America to Europe. We in the audience ask how a magician has made an effect, and Steinmeyer has answered this thoroughly for some of the tricks discussed here. But there is a lot more than a "how", but also why, when, and who. On display here are the personalities behind the deceptions, and the evolution of the psychology of stage deception. Steinmeyer has given a great performance; we can know the trick and we are still left in wonder.

Rating:
Summary: Not Just Giving Away the Tricks
Review: The magic duo Penn and Teller have a trick called "The Honor System." Instead of putting a curtain around the box from which Teller is to escape, they simply invite onlookers to keep their eyes closed, and open them once he is out. Those who take them up on the deal see Teller locked into a secure wooden box, and after a spell of eyes closed, they see him magically, inexplicably free. Those who peek see just how easily the trick is worked. Penn and Teller know that they can give away the secret of this or other tricks and there is still a show. The gadgets used in the illusions aren't the story, the performance is. Jim Steinmeyer knows this, too. He has designed illusions for magicians and Broadway shows, so he knows all the hardware. In his book _Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear_ (Carroll and Graf), he has given away lots of secrets. But he is not the stupid Masked Magician, revealing tricks for notoriety and fortune. What he has given us is an appreciation of magic history and the refinements in fooling people by clever stagecraft, but he has never forgotten to remind us of the dazzle of the performance.

The elephant of the title is one named Jennie, who, at the New York Hippodrome in 1918, vanished from her box on stage, under the direction of none other than Harry Houdini. The hardware he used to make Jenny disappear was surprisingly simple (as are most of the gadgets that make magical effects). It was a product of a boom in the art of conjuring that had started around sixty years before. "It's all done with mirrors" is a dismissive phrase, and yet the history given here of mirror illusions shows that they have been refined in countless ways, from putting ghosts on the stage to producing a talking disembodied head on a table. The ghost craze also manifested in spiritualism, and magicians were keen to cash in on the craze. Among them were the Davenport brothers of Buffalo, who allowed themselves to be bound with ropes inside a cabinet, whereupon in the dark, ghostly hands appeared, instruments were played, and so on. The brothers were tied up before the manifestations, and after, so it seemed as if they could not have been working the tricks. Other magicians could easily see this was a rope escape trick, dressed up in the fancy of the day. But spiritualists only saw the Davenports as demonstrating the truth of communication with the afterlife. The controversy didn't hurt business at all.

The stories of these tricks often involve intense competition between magicians. One who invented a trick was likely to see it performed by someone else shortly thereafter. Oddly, patenting a trick is little help; a patent has to have public details of how the mechanism works, and so if he does go to the trouble of patenting an effect, an inventor describes it in unhelpful ways, thwarting the patent process itself. The theft of secrets kept the illusions lively, as other means were found of doing similar effects and tricks were repackaged. "Sawing through a Woman" was invented by P. T. Selbit in 1921, a reaction to women's liberation and an outgrowth from the Grand Guignol theater. Before long it was "Sawing a Man in Two," "Sawing a Woman in Half," or "Matter through Matter." There were other illusions stretching a woman, or crushing her, and there were furious arguments about giving credit (and fees) to the correct inventors. Steinmeyer's story thus leaps repeatedly from one time to another, and from America to Europe. We in the audience ask how a magician has made an effect, and Steinmeyer has answered this thoroughly for some of the tricks discussed here. But there is a lot more than a "how", but also why, when, and who. On display here are the personalities behind the deceptions, and the evolution of the psychology of stage deception. Steinmeyer has given a great performance; we can know the trick and we are still left in wonder.

Rating:
Summary: Not Just Giving Away the Tricks
Review: The magic duo Penn and Teller have a trick called "The Honor System." Instead of putting a curtain around the box from which Teller is to escape, they simply invite onlookers to keep their eyes closed, and open them once he is out. Those who take them up on the deal see Teller locked into a secure wooden box, and after a spell of eyes closed, they see him magically, inexplicably free. Those who peek see just how easily the trick is worked. Penn and Teller know that they can give away the secret of this or other tricks and there is still a show. The gadgets used in the illusions aren't the story, the performance is. Jim Steinmeyer knows this, too. He has designed illusions for magicians and Broadway shows, so he knows all the hardware. In his book _Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear_ (Carroll and Graf), he has given away lots of secrets. But he is not the stupid Masked Magician, revealing tricks for notoriety and fortune. What he has given us is an appreciation of magic history and the refinements in fooling people by clever stagecraft, but he has never forgotten to remind us of the dazzle of the performance.

The elephant of the title is one named Jennie, who, at the New York Hippodrome in 1918, vanished from her box on stage, under the direction of none other than Harry Houdini. The hardware he used to make Jenny disappear was surprisingly simple (as are most of the gadgets that make magical effects). It was a product of a boom in the art of conjuring that had started around sixty years before. "It's all done with mirrors" is a dismissive phrase, and yet the history given here of mirror illusions shows that they have been refined in countless ways, from putting ghosts on the stage to producing a talking disembodied head on a table. The ghost craze also manifested in spiritualism, and magicians were keen to cash in on the craze. Among them were the Davenport brothers of Buffalo, who allowed themselves to be bound with ropes inside a cabinet, whereupon in the dark, ghostly hands appeared, instruments were played, and so on. The brothers were tied up before the manifestations, and after, so it seemed as if they could not have been working the tricks. Other magicians could easily see this was a rope escape trick, dressed up in the fancy of the day. But spiritualists only saw the Davenports as demonstrating the truth of communication with the afterlife. The controversy didn't hurt business at all.

The stories of these tricks often involve intense competition between magicians. One who invented a trick was likely to see it performed by someone else shortly thereafter. Oddly, patenting a trick is little help; a patent has to have public details of how the mechanism works, and so if he does go to the trouble of patenting an effect, an inventor describes it in unhelpful ways, thwarting the patent process itself. The theft of secrets kept the illusions lively, as other means were found of doing similar effects and tricks were repackaged. "Sawing through a Woman" was invented by P. T. Selbit in 1921, a reaction to women's liberation and an outgrowth from the Grand Guignol theater. Before long it was "Sawing a Man in Two," "Sawing a Woman in Half," or "Matter through Matter." There were other illusions stretching a woman, or crushing her, and there were furious arguments about giving credit (and fees) to the correct inventors. Steinmeyer's story thus leaps repeatedly from one time to another, and from America to Europe. We in the audience ask how a magician has made an effect, and Steinmeyer has answered this thoroughly for some of the tricks discussed here. But there is a lot more than a "how", but also why, when, and who. On display here are the personalities behind the deceptions, and the evolution of the psychology of stage deception. Steinmeyer has given a great performance; we can know the trick and we are still left in wonder.