Posted by Ian on 2009-01-31
in Anecdote
I had mentioned in my book, Stand-Up, A Professional Guide to Comedy Magic, that many magicians perform book tests. A ‘book test’ is the generic name given by magicians when they divulge a word or a sentence or indeed a general topic that appears on a given page in a book. It’s a very old trick that certainly goes back to the 19th century; and was probably performed by magicians when the first book dropped off the printing presses or the writing desks of the medieval monks.
Without giving too much away, in this age of online publishing it’s relatively easy to ‘gimmick’ a book to the advantage of the magician. The latest one to receive such treatment is the Complete Works of Shakespeare – although personally any magician who just happened to be carrying such a hefty tome around with him, and then insisted in doing a trick with it, would automatically arouse my suspicion!
But that is by the by. An American magician dropped me an email to say that he was having problems coming up with amusing patter for his version of the book test – and asked me whether I could give him any assistance. Being a sucker for flattery, I said I would do my best. And he sent me his script.
There were a couple of jokes which I really didn’t get. The book he was using was Dracula and at one point he said: “Hey, I could have brought a much scarier book ‘My Life’ by Bill-Clinton”. I couldn’t understand why anybody thinks Bill Clinton’s life is scary. My alternative suggestion was: “I could have bought a book written by George Bush – now that WOULD be scary!”
His response was interesting and perhaps demonstrates the difference between US and UK in their respect for our leaders. He said: “In the US we find Bill Clinton funny, just because of who he is and what he did. I could use George Bush but he has never written a book and he is dyslexic; so I did not want to offend in that regard.”
The idea that somehow it would be possible to offend a British politician in anything you say would, in itself, be completely laughable. But maybe it shows that we are prepared to go for the jugular in a way that Americans aren’t. Or perhaps they just have a greater esteem for their Presidents than we do for our Prime Ministers.
Indeed the sensitivity of the American magician was further brought home when, as a follow-up to his Bill Clinton ‘scary book’ line, he added: “That’s more of a romance novel.” I did confirm from him that it was, as I suspected, a Monica Lewinsky reference. You could imagine quite a few choice words for the genre of a Bill Clinton book before ‘romance’ would spring to mind.
The other joke went by me entirely. He was trying to suggest he was getting an image of a place and said: “I see France, I see underpants.” What is it about France and underpants I queried. Apparently there’s an expression in the US which goes: “I see London, I see France, I see someone’s underpants!”
No, really, there is.
Without giving too much away, in this age of online publishing it’s relatively easy to ‘gimmick’ a book to the advantage of the magician. The latest one to receive such treatment is the Complete Works of Shakespeare – although personally any magician who just happened to be carrying such a hefty tome around with him, and then insisted in doing a trick with it, would automatically arouse my suspicion!
But that is by the by. An American magician dropped me an email to say that he was having problems coming up with amusing patter for his version of the book test – and asked me whether I could give him any assistance. Being a sucker for flattery, I said I would do my best. And he sent me his script.
There were a couple of jokes which I really didn’t get. The book he was using was Dracula and at one point he said: “Hey, I could have brought a much scarier book ‘My Life’ by Bill-Clinton”. I couldn’t understand why anybody thinks Bill Clinton’s life is scary. My alternative suggestion was: “I could have bought a book written by George Bush – now that WOULD be scary!”
His response was interesting and perhaps demonstrates the difference between US and UK in their respect for our leaders. He said: “In the US we find Bill Clinton funny, just because of who he is and what he did. I could use George Bush but he has never written a book and he is dyslexic; so I did not want to offend in that regard.”
The idea that somehow it would be possible to offend a British politician in anything you say would, in itself, be completely laughable. But maybe it shows that we are prepared to go for the jugular in a way that Americans aren’t. Or perhaps they just have a greater esteem for their Presidents than we do for our Prime Ministers.
Indeed the sensitivity of the American magician was further brought home when, as a follow-up to his Bill Clinton ‘scary book’ line, he added: “That’s more of a romance novel.” I did confirm from him that it was, as I suspected, a Monica Lewinsky reference. You could imagine quite a few choice words for the genre of a Bill Clinton book before ‘romance’ would spring to mind.
The other joke went by me entirely. He was trying to suggest he was getting an image of a place and said: “I see France, I see underpants.” What is it about France and underpants I queried. Apparently there’s an expression in the US which goes: “I see London, I see France, I see someone’s underpants!”
No, really, there is.
