September 2019 Newsletter

 
 
 
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29 March 2024

 
 
   
 
 

Hello Visitor

Welcome to my early September Newsletter, wholly devoted to the European Magic History Conference which I have just attended. So if you are not into magic history or collecting, you can probably switch off now. On the up-side this is a Magic Circle Presidential election free issue; although there is a subtle subliminal message hidden within it. Let me know if you spot it.

Vienna

Last week I attended the 8th European Magic History Conference held in the magnificent city of Vienna and organised by the Austrian magician Magic Christian.  I arrived a day early so that I could fully recover from getting up at 3-45 in the morning to catch my flight; so had one day to explore the city.  My companions on this brief tour of the city were the great Eddie Dawes (now 93) and Jon Marshall, a performer of, and specialist in, side shows. 

GravityOf course, being magicians, rather than head first for one of the many historic museums, we went straight to the Museum of Illusions.  This was full of kids and we did feel rather self-conscious battling youngsters out of the way in order to participate in some of the fun optical illusions of standing on a giant chair, hanging vertically in mid air and appearing as either a giant or dwarf in comparison to your companion.

However afterwards we got our share of 'proper' culture by going to the Kunst Historisches Museum.  There we saw some amazing 16th century automata, as good, when it came to mechanical movement, as any I have seen of the 19th century.  DianaThis included a ship that travelled along a table and fired guns and Diana and a Centaur which shot out an arrow from his bow.  We also looked at some Brueghels, father and son, and a Vermeer, which even as an art Philistine, I could appreciate. 

Moving more on to my supposed area of expertise, I was quite excited to discover there were some 1540 cartoons.  However these turned out to be a series of huge painting by Jan Vermeyen, that were the template for tapestries.  The original meaning of cartoon was a 'preliminary sketch' as a prelude to the main work - hence their name here.  Still worth a look though!

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"50 years ago", one collector told us, "when  I attended my first collectors conference I was the youngest there.  Recently, I attended another conference - and I was still the youngest there."

Opening Dinner

StefanieThe Conference itself was held in the Hotel Stefanie, where I was also staying.  We had a night before 'welcome dinner' at a rather over the top, in terms of kitsch, Austrian restaurant with entertainment provided by a local folk singer, a jazz singer's rendition of an Elvis Presley hit and a couple of tricks from young local magicians.  One of them did a particularly impressive version of Any Drink Called For with a small silver teapot.  As in the previous night's fare at the hotel restaurant (a meal with the UK contingency organised by John Davenport) I had wiener schnitzel.  It became my staple diet on every night of my remaining stay in Austria.

Food costs over the course of the Conference were minimal.  The hotel was Bed & Breakfast and there was a great buffet spread every morning.  During the coffee breaks at the talks, they provided not only plenty of variety in refreshments; but also plateaus of mini-snacks and cakes.  That essentially took care of lunch.  In the evening, two out of three meals were included in the price of the conference fee.  You did feel, therefore, despite the high charge relative to a 'normal' magic convention, that you got good value for money.

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"So", asked one collector, "are they still selling the Paul Daniels lapel pin?" (The proceeds of which went to support the fight against brain tumours).  "No", was the response.   "Excellent", he said, "it’s now a collector’s item." 

The Brits

VeneerThe next two days comprised 16 lectures, most around 25 minutes in length.  The opening lecturer was Bernhard Schmitz who spoke on Magic Bookplates.  He has a collection of some 1,200 - at least they have the advantage of not taking up much space.  He showed us plenty of samples and also conjectured that the very first bookplate owned by a magican was Charles Dickens.  Which was a good introduction to my own talk, the first by a Brit, on Four Magicians and Charles Dickens.  It is for others to comment on its success, or otherwise.   But I can confirm that I was the only lecturer who performed a trick during his or her talk; and that I got one of the biggest laughs of the conference with a joke about Brexit.

There were two more British speakers on the first day.  Anne Goulden spoke about Lewis Davenport's Travels in Europe.  She contrasted the performers who were on the same bill as him in England in the 1920s compared to those in Germany and Belgium. Intriguingly the English music hall shows were dominated by comedians, as opposed to the European equivalent, who had far more speciality acts.  So in that respect, nothing much has changed.  British audiences, it appears, have always preferred comedians to other types of variety performers.

Marco Pusterla was born in Italy but has lived in England for most of his adult life, so we can count him as a Brit!  He is the Editor of Ye Olde Magic Mag which, if you are into the history of magic or collecting in anyway, is a must read.  He talked about a magician called Bert Powell who performed in the early part of the twentieth century, changing his stage name on a frequent basis; and marrying his assistant who was nearly fifty years younger than him. 

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One speaker thought that the arm chopper illusion was ridiculous when compared to the head guillotine.  "Why", he said, "one is merely a mutilation; the other is a decapitation. "

European Lecturers

WarOther personal highlights of the first day was a talk on Magicians at War by Jan Isenbart, who summarised both the books written on magicians who were caught up in the war; but also those who survived because of their magic. The most famous example was Paul Potassy, who would have been killed if he hadn't managed to manipulate some cards in front of his intended Russian executors. Jan postulated why many of the same phrases that are used in warfare, are often used by magicians. For instance 'a killer trick'; 'I slayed them' and 'I died on stage'.

The most chaotic lecture of the Conference was by Flip, with Off with his Head - the Decapitation Illusion from Antiquity to the Present. Divided into 10 parts, he went through a series of pictures at breakneck speed - the sheer number was breathtaking.  It was at times unsettling how gory were some of the illustrations and posters that magicians used in order to promote their own particular brand of mutilating either a spectator or an assistant.  I would hope it is a trick that has had its day; although I suspect there might be some audience members who would be keen to see some magicians perform one of Flip's categories, that of the Self-Decapitation.

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A musical duo of an accordion player and a fiddler performed at our table at the Friday night restaurant, playing appropriate tunes depending on which country we came from (Yesterday by Paul McCartney, represented England). At the end one of the musicians asked, "Did we make you happy?"  We answered "yes, very happy" to the rhetorical question.   He replied: "Now make us happy then."  Money duly exchanged hands. 

Near Perfect Talks

The second day began with the most generous lecture of the conference.  James and Sage Hagy not only spoke about the many magicians who appeared at the Chicago World Fair of 1893 but also produced a free 120 page book about the subject - wonderfully researched and illustrated. It was especially munificent as, if they had decided to sell them, undoubtedly, given the quality of the lecture, most attendees would have bought a copy.  One of the performers at the World Fair was alleged to have been a young Harry Houdini.  For many years, James had been trying to authenticate this, only to discover that the answer lay in his own collection.  Fellow magician, Nelson T Downs, confirmed in a letter in later life that he had met Houdini at this event.

JugglerFrom the most magnanimous to the most illuminating; and probably my individual lecture highlight of the entire conference.  Most magicians know The Juggler, or The Conjurer, by Hieronymus Bosch which depicts the performer doing the Cup and Ball trick, watched carefully by a gullible spectator.  Unbeknownst to him he is having his purse stolen by another onlooker.  Steffen Taut began by assessing whether the work was actually by Bosch.  Not so long ago the wood on which it was painted was carbon dated.  It was indeed painted at the end of the 15th century - when Bosch was very much working.  However from further analysis carried out by Taut, and others, the conclusion was that it was not by Bosch himself.  It should therefore be now attributed to the school, or coming from the workshop, of Bosch.

Taut then went through some of the iconography of the painting and who some of the figures were.  Was the coned 'hat' on the table a magician's hat, or part of the Cup and Ball trick or for another trick altogether?  Was the Juggler holding in his hand a knife or was it part of a device to make a small owl rise from his bag?  What was the significance of the frog sitting on the table?  And was the pickpocketer actually a respectable cleric?  Other magicians at the Conference questioned some of his findings.  But given the amount of research Steffan had done, I was happy to accept his conclusions which were: a magician's hat; a knife; a frog has negative connotations, linked to the devil; and yes he was.  This was quality research worthy of an academic art conference.

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At the previous conference it was felt rather morbid to talk about what should happen to the possessions of dead magicians.  So this time the discussion was rebranded as The Future of Magic Collections

Oddity Personified

After Steffen was a talk on Ioni, a doll automated gymnast doing acrobatics on a pole.  Hard though it is to believe, this was a headline act all over the world for its inventor Alain Cabooter. During the act he was off-stage operating the doll and just came back to catch the doll as it fell into his arms as he took his applause cue.  You can see the doll in action here.  Alain also made one for his brother, so there were two Ionis touring together at one time.  Alain stopped performing in the 1980s due to the onset of Parkinson's; but his brother kept going until 2007.

Both Ionis are now owned by a Swiss resident called Carla (surname seemingly deliberately not revealed).  She brought one to the conference for us all to see.  They are both for sale, although they need repairing.  It would seem that to operate them is extremely complex, one particular move took three days for the present owner to learn. Alain was always extremely secretive about the mechanics of the illusion. Mike Caveney worked with him for a couple of weeks some years ago. He said that as Alain took the doll offstage, before he was called back for another stage bow, he would place Ioni back in her box and lock it.  

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A Magic dealer was asked to go and look at the lifetime collection of a recently deceased magician. Having assessed it, he said $125 for the lot. The widow sat down and wrote him a cheque for that amount.  Handing it to him she asked when could he take it all away. 

Erudite Witchcraft

WitchThe final lecture of the conference was by the urbane Peter Rawert, a German lawyer who has a vast book collection.  He was talking about provenance and whether scribbled writings on books made them more, or less, valuable.  He concluded by relating how he had bought a 3rd Edition of Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft and discovered that its previous owner was an eccentric artist called Robert Lenkiewicz.  Also in Lenkiewicz's collection were the supposed bones of Ursula Kemp, a famous witch who, in 1582, was tried for witchcraft and hanged.  It is thought that she might have inspired Scot to write his Discoverie which was published two years later.  Peter jokingly said that he had thought of buying the bones - after Lenkiewicz's death in 2002 they were on sale for £5,000 - so he could keep them with his copy of the book as a perfect juxtaposition. 

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"To end the evening" announced the compere at the final magic show of the conference, "we would like to show you the future of magic".  This turned out to be the excrutiating Banana/Bandana trick using an iPhone. 

Last Night

Horse BuskersSaturday night there was a reception at the City Hall of Vienna for all the delegates.  There was a talk on the City Hall by Gerhard Murauer, a historian in the Vienna Library.  Unfortunately neither the subject matter nor the presentation were especially appealing.  It was followed by a City Hall politician who made a welcoming introductory talk that was pithy, relevant and flattering to us attendees.  In a conference dominated by middle-aged and elderly men (and I include myself in this) one of the best speeches comes from a young woman.  Go figure!

The evening entertainment concluded with a magic show from members of the Viennese magic club; before an excellent and substantial buffet and the gift of a book entitled Rare Arts, which I think accompanied an exhibition that had been held at the hall a few years ago. Some of the German-speaking participants mentioned that they had had to pay over 50 Euros for the book at the time.

On the final morning there was a flea market with a disicussion about whether an unknown photo of David Devant had been found.  A concluding podium discussion group was billed as "with surprise guests".  As in, "you will be surprised by the guests in that we haven't told you who they are in advance", rather than "new guests" - it turned out the "guests" were conference delegates.  But the points of view expressed by John Gaughan, Mike Caveney, Hanno Rhomberg and Peter Rawert on what to do with your magic collection were certainly worth hearing.

We then voted on the venue of the next European Magic History Conference, even though apparently it had been determined two years ago.  The good news for most of my readers is that it will be held in London in 2021, the dates are September 9th to 12th.  In 2023 it looks like it will be in Ghent, in Belgium.  I hope to make both. 

For whatever issues I might have had about some minor aspects of this particular Conference, which hopefully will be addressed in London, what I can't fault is the enthusiasm, knowledge, generosity and camaraderie of all the attendees. And that you can't put a figure on.

Quote of the month

Eddie Dawes"Collect, collate and communicate."  Eddie Dawes' mantra for magic historians and collectors.

 
 
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