Latest / The Magic Guys / Real Magic Murder Mysteries #245

Transcript

Real Magic Murder Mysteries #245 · The Magic Guys

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They're guys they do magic they are the magic guys.
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Magic book what was that about 40 pounds of magic book jesus christ do the intro
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do the thing are you using it for self-defense what's the deal,
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Come on, I already messed the intro up.
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Are we not going to give us an official intro? Let's roll with that.
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Hi guys, welcome to The Magic Guys Live. Welcome to episode 245.
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I'm your host, Nick Kaye, and joining us this week is Daddy Doug.
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Say hi, Daddy. What's up, y'all? Good to be back.
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Good job. Now, Justin Abito is not joining us this week. He is...
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What? Let's mix up something funny. What's he doing?
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He's in parts unknown crunching the
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numbers for the big game yeah i'll
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roll with that you got something better i don't know i think
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he's actually doing his standard kind of checkup type
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medical base thing you know so he does
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send his love he does say hello and he will be listening in and
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we'll let him know that you guys send your love and of course
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you can send your love via the comment section for
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everyone in the comments thank you for being here we have Thomas Conger good
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to see you buddy Josh is there already saying hello so show him some love We
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have someone making waves That's a new one The Magic of Seth good to see you
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bud And the Mystery Book Studio what up And of course always good to see you
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Tim Askin Friends it's been a week Thank you for being here Doug how's your week been,
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Oh, good. You know, I've been in the retail end of the magic universe doing,
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you know, what I do here at Trick Supply. I'm here today, coming in hot.
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We've been celebrating the Thanksgiving and all the Black Friday sales.
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Because the folks were asking about you last week, how is it now with the bricks
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and mortar being all set up?
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Like what news can you give us? Well, you know, I got Eric Stevens here now,
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and I absolutely love having that man in my universe. As he says, we are the same person.
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So he has a great love for magic. He's a great demonstrator for a retail environment,
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just a wonderful performer and magician in general.
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Uh today he's out at the magician's room
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which is on the link promenade and he's
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working for them doing street magic today so we'll
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have him on soon to talk more but that's been nice
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yeah it's always so wholesome when you have someone in your cohort that kind
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of like you can soul bond with and just have that you know connection yeah because
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i was flying solo here for a couple of six months so you know to have a new
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body come in always a little like you never know how it's going to go,
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working with someone else.
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Honestly, it couldn't have gone better, and I hope it continues as long as Eric
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is comfortable being here.
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It's one thing that we're sort of proud of here at the Magic Guys.
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It's the spirit of community in Magic.
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In fact, if anyone goes to the Discord, but you guys can join and meet other,
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awesome magicians like yourselves and and actually start a community
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like if you actually read people who have been joining it recently it's like
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i'm in sydney it's like well we should meet up it's like this is
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exactly what magic community should be about like i'm
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all about it so guys thanks for being here we will save those for a another
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episode when josh is here because he runs that sort of entity what's happening
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now is doug and i gonna try and run the show without drowning us all and running
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us into the ocean this week is going to be interesting episode you see,
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we like doing well i like doing history lessons here i do
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a little bit of research and find stuff out now whilst doing
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a little bit of reading on some classic
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magic effects i thought we talk about people what about actual magic effects
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i was looking into the soaring in half illusion right and we'll talk about that
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briefly with this history and so forth when we start the report but but one
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thing i realized is that there's a kind of a dark history that surrounds sounds
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the actual soaring in half illusion.
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And through the 19th and 20th century, there was basically a series of copycat
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killers that were using that device as their means of committing murders.
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And I was like, this is so out of control. So I wrote this a little while ago.
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So it's kind of basically as fresh to me as it is to you guys.
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And I thought, you know what, as far as popularity already goes.
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We love magic, but there are so many true crime podcasts that are killing it,
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so I say let's put them together. Let's go,
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true mystery magic mystery let me
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guys tell you the story you guys in i loved
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this i'm in it's wild okay so today
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we're diving into the one of the darkest intersections between stage magic and
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real world violence it's a series of events from the late 19th century through
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to the mid 20th century where the illusion known as the soaring in half or more
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appropriately it's actually soaring through a woman, is what it was called,
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inspired real ghastly copycat crimes.
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This is about the history surrounding the illusion, the culture impact it had,
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which I know that, Doug, you've got an amazing knowledge of this,
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so I'm really glad you're here this week for us to talk about.
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So as we go through the episode, we'll talk about the magicians such as P.T.
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Selbit, Horace Golden, and Oswald Williams, which was a new name to me.
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Doug, I'm not sure if you're familiar with that name, but I'll hit you up about
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that in a bit. Now, these guys were pioneers with regards to the soaring in half illusion.
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And the investigations are followed with people who try to actually attempt
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and recreate that illusion with these fatal results.
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So I'm ready to begin. Doug, you ready?
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Wait, I got this reference book I can check you on.
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And I figured the boss would be happy if I swing a product at the screen as
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I am taking time out today from a supply.
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Look at this volume from this is Mike Cavaney's company, Magic Words, I guess.
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This is a history of the sawing and half illusion.
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Maybe I can find some appropriate pictures as we get this story and history underway.
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That's amazing. And who wrote that?
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This is Mike Cavaney, 100 years of sawing, an astonishing history of magic's most iconic illusion.
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And I didn't know how deep of a rabbit hole you were going to dig today,
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but when you started talking about the sawing in half, I was like,
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let me go grab this thing and see if there's some related, you know,
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photographs or something we can share as we talk about it.
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Yeah, that's amazing. And so like there's things that I found,
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we can go on so many tangents.
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I try to keep it relatively, you know, not going off the rails,
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but. But let's begin with a little bit of history, because the Soaring Through
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a Woman Illusion was credited to P.T.
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Salvat, who introduced this to public performances.
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It's dated back to January 17th in 1921 in London.
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His version differs significantly from the more modern styles that it's done.
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So Salvat's assistant was bound and locked in a wooden crate,
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and then a saw was passed through.
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And basically it was the whole routine was based around like this whole thing
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of like confinement and fear and, and danger.
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And that's basically the original presentation.
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It was said by the people watching it, that it was just like deliberately disturbing.
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And it was designed to genuinely shock audiences. And it did.
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And I know that some people in the future, and I'm not sure if it was Pete DeCelbert
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himself, but there was a lot of people during this time that were taking buckets
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of blood and like pouring it down the theater.
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Like, do you remember that story, Doug? i have not that
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sounds made up you're just making stuff up aren't
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you now they were pouring pig's blood into the gutters of
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where these these illusions are being done at the theater right so people would
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arrive people would arrive and go oh there's bloodstains here at the theater
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that's because of the soaring half illusion like it was used as a means of like
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publicity marketing exactly now the newspapers in london and new york reviewed
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the illusion not as entertainment,
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but as like a ghastly spectacle.
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Okay. And religious groups were actually protesting it.
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Some papers even printed that it was saying that should it even be legal because
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it was simulating murder to a woman on stage.
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So that's what the tabloids were saying back in the day. Now this context is
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important because with this context, the illusion's popularity and its controversy
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actually led to a lot of tragedies that I'm about to tell you about.
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So most people associate the more classic version of it with Horace Golden.
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So Horace Golden's version is the one where you have the two wooden boxes and
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then a buzz saw is put in between them, which debuted in 1921 as well,
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but it had more of a theatrical impact because Golden was the first sort of
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flashy, aggressive type of way of doing it and separating the actual illusion.
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He really leaned into the violence involved with this particular type of illusion.
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He once advertised it as you're just
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saying the woman is really sawn in half like that was
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the the promo he was putting out there which alarmed
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local governments theater boards and even police departments
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some cities temporarily banned the illusion wow
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isn't that nuts what a time to be
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alive right and journalists yeah what
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a time to be alive when you can die by getting a splinter yeah
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journalists wrote certain like sensational pieces describing
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like the brutality of each performance and that's where the real life problems
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began because newspapers particularly in america sensationalized the effect
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in a way that convinced some of the audiences that it was just this kind of
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like mechanically simple effect and,
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which it wasn't, which leads us to our very first case.
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This case was coined the Nebraska Amateur Magician Incident.
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One of the earliest documented copycat tragedies occurred in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1924.
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A young amateur magician, the newspapers gave him the name William Cunningham.
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He attempted to recreate the newly popular Soaring in Half illusion at a small private gathering.
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This assistant was a friend of his from school, and that was a teenage girl.
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Cunningham had no access to the proper apparatus, blueprints,
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or anything. He had no training, no understanding of misdirection,
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or anything to do with mechanical design, but he still attempted the illusion. Without a method.
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Nah. He literally just placed the assistant in a wooden crate,
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nailed it shut, started using a handsaw. Oh, no.
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Tragically, the young lady died within minutes of the illusion being performed.
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Awful. That's the worst trick I've ever heard. It is awful.
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Right. And this is, this is, yes, this is where tragedy.
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Yes. So the case led to national news coverage and a widespread debate.
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Again, the religious groups were really using it as like saying that like magic
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is corrupting our youth, which is funny because we promote youth do it now.
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Right. Which is serendipitous.
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Right. They were asking, what year was that? It says the year was 1924.
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Now, magicians argued that the sensationalists of the journalism was the result
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of it happening, not the art of magic.
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Magic wasn't to blame. It was them sensationalizing it. Well, also this, dumb people.
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Dumb people are the problem.
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You can't do tricks without a method. Exactly. That's dumb.
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Now, there was another case. This case was titled the Iowa Carnival Murder in 1933.
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In 1933, a traveling carnival in, I'm not sure how to pronounce this, it's Atemois,
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Yeah, it's Artomoire, obviously. I'm just saying, I wasn't sure.
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We don't know the spelling, Nick. It's Artomoire. Yeah, that's what it is.
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Yeah, A-double-T-U-M-W-A. Artomoire in Ottawa. Iowa.
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In Iowa? Yeah, Artomoire in Iowa. Am I saying it correct?
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Iowa. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. So this traveling carnival in Iowa,
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a carnival worker named Robert Liston murdered.
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He's a strange partner. and attempted to
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disguise her death as a magic trick gone
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wrong staging the body in the like
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in the actual soaring apparatus now investigators
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quickly determined there was it was not an accident like there was all the evidence
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to sort of suggest that the murder had happened prior but Liston had actually
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built the device himself with no intention of actually performing it but he
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built it popped her in there and was like oh no just it went wrong I didn't,
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yeah all right and so he's actually not a bad idea kind of you know it's very
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it's semi-plausible like who would make that up only a dumb person.
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But no it's like dude i was practicing and now she's dead i don't know this
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reminds me of the one where the guy used invisible ink on his face and like
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rubbed a bank and then they were like how did they see my face yeah like it's
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that level of like idiocy that's that's sort of happening right now which is staggering yeah,
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So that being said, the event was cemented in the American press that the idea
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of the soaring in half illusion was inherently dangerous or linked to violence,
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despite it being an actual theatrical performance when done correctly.
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So another really dumb one, but leads us on to another situation that happened in London.
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Now, this is one of the most disturbing cases of this particular thing happening.
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So in this case, it occurred in London in 1947, shortly after World War II.
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A man named Kenneth Redshaw, obsessed with stage illusions, constructed a homemade
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soaring box and tried to attempt it after watching a performance by Oswald Williams,
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who was a respected British magician of the time.
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Williams' show popularized and updated the soaring prop with more mechanical
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sophistication and audiences were like deeply captivated by the way it was done.
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Renshaw, however, became convinced that he could improve it.
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So he lured a woman that he knew personally, not a performer,
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into his apartment claiming, I want to practice the illusion for a theater audition.
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His construction was described as being very crude, dangerous,
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it lacked zero engineering safety mechanisms in place and it wasn't a legit stage prop by any means.
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And as a result of him attempting this rehearsal, she died.
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So he was arrested and sent to prison and the newspapers referred to him as the soaring box killer.
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And Williams was devastated and he said, this is what I think is a very important talking point.
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Illusion is an art, murder is not. One should never mistake one for the other.
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Yeah, well, I mean, you know, sounds like he had a just genuine kind of accident
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there versus, you know, true manslaughter.
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But if you kill someone, it's certainly not art, I guess. You'd.
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I mean, people without question can die doing these types of effects,
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you know, like, yeah, I mean, Tim Askin makes a good point, you know,
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he's talking about the bullet catch, which has claimed so many lives.
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And I think that I'll dive into the history of that one at some point.
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I just want to read the book first before I talk about it.
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But, you know, it's, it just goes to show how people think that it's like,
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what type of person is doing this? You think it's just like the know-it-alls?
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Look it's like this magic attracts some
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of the brightest best humans in
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the world literally top tier super humans
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and also the dumbest we have we have them all yeah so you're going to get things
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like david copperfield doing the best sawing in half in the history of man and
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then and you're going to get people manslaughtering their assistants. Yeah.
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By the way, if you make it to David Copperfield's museum, you can see that saw.
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You can also see P.T. Selbit's original sawing in half and six other versions.
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It's quite a nice portion of this tour that David gives where he talks about
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the lineage of this effect and how it was stolen from one magician to the next
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and how important it was in our history. It was a big deal.
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So your knowledge of the Soaring in Heart, before we go any further,
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I feel like at this point where not everyone sort of has the biggest knowledge
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or probably hasn't even had an opportunity to actually see it perform before.
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Now, the first time I saw it performed was actually by Caelan and Ginger during the Illusionist tour.
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Oh, yeah. They're doing like Jarrett's or no, Alan Wakeling's Soaring.
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Well, yeah. When I was going to say that I wouldn't know what version that is,
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but if I was to describe it, like, so let's take a moment and explore the soaring
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in half illusion so that anyone who's unfamiliar with that, we can talk about
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the versions of it and its improvements. Now, how's your knowledge on that one, Doug?
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You know, stage illusion is not my forte, but I do know that they were performing,
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you know, the Alan Wakeling sawing in half.
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He was a magic builder for Mark Wilson and some other magic luminaries.
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I'm looking to see if we have his book.
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Jim Steinmeier wrote a book on the magic of Alan Wakeling.
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We don't have it here. yeah so so with
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the many versions like i assume the first version was just a box passing
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through and then box open and they and then they're good yeah so
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the boxes didn't separate you know in the early versions
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right that came later in the thin model sawing
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in half while i'm flashing back the first
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one i saw was doug henning he did it with two
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women in two different costumes and then
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he put the haves together the wrong way so when
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they came out they were like miss miss made women
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pretty cool take on that plot but yeah
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that was a big evolution i'm sure once the box is separated
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completely but that's my gray area
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when we get into big box tricks you know i know
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my card trick is pretty good but some of those
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some of those big illusions i like to watch them that's
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about that's about it yeah i would say that the most common way
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of it being performed nowadays would be the version where there is
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two separate boxes that are bound together and then
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there's two blades to cause the separation which go
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through the torso of your assistant and you know there's really nice subtleties
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with that where you know it'll go through easily one side but then one of my
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favorite ways of presenting it is that they'll put it and it'll get halfway
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and it won't go further and it's like oh it's stuck in the spine and then you'll
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have and then the and with this version as well.
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I think I should mention that as far as the spectator's visibility.
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Normally their head is sticking out of the box, but the top portion of the box
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is from their shoulders to their torso. And then.
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It's either their entire feet or sometimes to their ankles and their feet pop
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out the other side. Yeah.
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Yeah. You can see that version performed in the all-star magic review just two
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weeks ago. This was a good dynamic.
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Emily England was doing that with her female assistant.
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So two ladies doing the sawing and lady and half illusion is a little less macho
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and pretty damn cool. Actually. That is cool.
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But yeah. And with the presentation of it, So you can see their head,
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you can see their feet. So there's these really nice convincing moments.
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And then when it goes two blades to the torso, the second blade always gets stuck.
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And then the magician will walk around to the assistant's head,
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grab their neck and just give it a little tug as if to like shift them up a little bit in the box.
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And then it just drops down as if like it was stuck on the bone and then fell through.
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And then the separation can happen.
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So it's a wonderful means of actually being able to do that.
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And then you have the side doors as well. You can open up, you can see their
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hands and their legs and stuff as well.
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So as far as methods go for that, I don't know, but it's pretty cool. Doug?
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Yeah, I was looking through this book to see if I could get a,
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like, when does a thin model evolve? There's so much in here.
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This, this caught my eye. Di Vernon.
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There's a Di Vernon credit, of course.
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Yeah. I invented the sawing in half before Selbit had it, you know?
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Why is there a Di Vernon credit in the sawing in half book?
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I wonder if you have a bell go ahead i just thought like how do your classic
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parts are soaring in half,
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You know, as you were talking about, you know, some of the versions,
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I was thinking about some of the cool one-person versions that the modern magician can do now.
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Like there's another Jim Steinmeier version.
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It's like a zigzag for one person. So just the top of the body gets dissected
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by a sword. You know, you can do that solo.
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And are they in a box, this one? Yeah, the magician gets in a box and then the
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top half of his, you know, they put a sword over here and the top half moves to the right.
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You know so if you're in the chat and you can name this illusion
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you'll get a bonus point in my universe i think
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it's uh modern art isn't but maybe
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not that one i wonder do you think zigzag fits would we have zigzag one of the
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greatest tricks of all time without sawing in half we had a conversation about
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that some while ago where we're talking about routines to be retired and we
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believe that zigzag needs to be retired and put in an old folks home wow i disagree I agree.
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Did I say that? Did I agree to that? Or was that you and Norbido conspiring
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behind the old guy's back?
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Yeah, we would have been talking smack behind your back, sure.
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See, I would suggest this. What people need to do is look at what Robert Harbin
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did with the original performance of this and present it like a professional
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instead of like a dance routine.
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You know, you get an audience member up and look at the box. It's a talking piece.
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It takes six or eight minutes. You know, it's not a two minute razzmatazz number.
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It's let me present to you this thing, you know, and it's got conviction.
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The guy's poking her stomach and, you know, there's more than one way to skin a cat.
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And this, just because we magicians have seen it a hundred times doesn't mean
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a layman has seen it once.
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And most probably haven't, you know, we get magicians brain thinking like tricks
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are old and hacknade because we see them a lot and we know a lot about it.
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But I assure you the public does not.
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So, yeah, I would disagree with that one.
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Like ZigZag still has legs.
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You don't think they're just doing this with their body? Like you don't think
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this sort of method gives it away a whole bunch?
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Like it's... Well, that completely depends on who's presenting the magic trick, you know?
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Agreed. If I present it with conviction and get you to suspend your belief,
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you won't be thinking about the method and everyone will be happy.
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Yeah. Okay. That's a good point.
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Yeah. So let's circle back. So where we're at now is that we're a few decades
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in and there's been a whole series of folks who have been either one attempted
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to perform it that they shouldn't have because they just assume it would be
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something super easy and they could just get a friend to help them do it and
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they'd impress all their friends.
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Yeah, not going well. And then some were actually used maliciously.
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So the thing at this point that we sort of to foreshadow is that we as magicians
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protect the art form, but we believe it's the journal.
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But at this point in time, there's journalists who are really sensationalizing that.
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And some of the things that they were printing at the time were actually helping
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folks make the matter worse.
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And that leads me to this next part of the story, because Horace Golden actually
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sued the newspapers who frequently were claiming that they knew how the soaring worked.
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Now, he sued them not because he wanted to hide the method alone,
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but because it was the newspapers who kept printing false ways to do it,
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and the explanations were genuinely dangerous.
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With that information that they were putting out there in the newspapers his
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fear was that it could lead amateurs into attempting the affected home and thus
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resulting in more cases like this now in one famous lawsuit in 1921 a paper
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described the illusion as involved,
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no deception it was just the assistant who contorts herself and that the magician
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actually uses a real saw so.
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Little truth, great big lie in that sense, but erroneous of method,
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like the point is maybe don't, and don't tell people here is how it works so
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that they can create even more copycats.
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Yeah. We don't need the murderous pandemic that the sawing in half is,
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you know, holy mackerel.
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I guess, I guess at the time, maybe when information was not as easily spread,
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when there's a good trick to be had.
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You glommed onto it, even if people died.
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Now, Golden went on to argue in court that these kinds of articles were harmful
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because they suggested to readers that the effect was just mechanically simple,
25:44
when in fact, it required specifically built boxes,
25:48
trained assistants, and precise choreography.
25:50
So he won several of these lawsuits, but by then, damage was done.
25:55
And the illusion had already become part of our pop culture,
25:58
and it was sensationalized through all the printed media and attracted the nature
26:04
of very unstable individuals.
26:07
Yeah. Is there a more iconic illusion than sawing a woman in half?
26:12
Is that the best known trick?
26:14
Outside of producing a rabbit from a hat, I would say that's about it.
26:20
Minding the card, picking the card. But yeah.
26:25
Hey, I read up on this Di Vernon thing real quick. Fun story here.
26:28
He was performing at Coney Island in the 1940s. Is that right?
26:34
And he needed an assistant for this act. So Di Vernon was doing a stage show
26:39
at Coney Island. No kidding. Yeah.
26:42
Hired this woman that was four foot nine. Make a long story short.
26:46
That's how he met his wife. so die vernon's
26:50
wife was hired to be the sawing and half
26:53
lady and ended up marrying him that
26:57
poor woman man oh time
27:04
timing is everything i'd love to be
27:07
in i'd love to be a magician's assistant you would
27:10
anyway that's the die
27:13
vernon that's the die vernon story yeah i'm always
27:16
a fan of what carol roy says about being an assistant at
27:18
her lectures used to say the reason why magicians marry
27:22
their assistants is so they don't have to pay them and i was like that is
27:25
that's that sounds like a vernon move for sure yeah exactly oh we got friends
27:30
from saudi arabia welcome friend welcome to the show so to be clear i am here
27:34
to hold vernon accountable now that he can't back talk me anymore yeah you got
27:38
some beef hey should we should we do a deep dive another what did.
27:44
No, like I got enough, you know, bad mojo out there with the Vernon contingent.
27:50
It's not like I'm waving the Marlowe flag. I'm just saying, you know,
27:54
Vernon wasn't the best husband. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
27:58
That's heavily documented. He was a womanizer of sorts, correct?
28:04
Well, I mean, he only cared about magic. I don't know. Was he a womanizer?
28:08
Could he even? It's probably too much of a nerd to be a womanizer,
28:11
but. I was told he was a bit of a stud.
28:13
Yeah maybe so maybe i'm just thinking like in his
28:16
in his younger days i bet he was a mega stud he probably did get
28:19
around but in his older years i'm
28:22
just thinking he's a cantankerous magic nerd that only magic
28:25
nerds want to be around you know he looked very much
28:27
like my grandfather which is funny because i have a photo of him up here in
28:30
my apartment and when my folks came to visit they thought that was i
28:33
thought that was like my dad thought that he was his dad and
28:36
i was like no that's stye vernon nice yeah
28:40
but a fun moment so with regards
28:43
to this motivation like we're at this point in the story we're sort of identifying
28:49
that it's attracting certain types of like really unstable individuals who are
28:53
trying to perform this effect and either using it for their malicious intent
28:55
or just blind knowledge you know what i mean thinking that it's all entirely simple so,
29:02
did a little deep dive it's like why is it
29:05
why has it become the template for the copycats and historians believe
29:09
that there's several reasons one is that the illusion invokes
29:12
a visceral fear so unlike card vanishes and card tricks are soaring in soaring
29:17
a person in half it taps into a kind of type of primal dread so motivation one
29:24
thoughts i wonder now if that's why we have so many illusions that are on the theme of, you know,
29:31
maiming the body, you know, so many of them, you know, sword through neck, candle through arm.
29:39
The zigzag example, you know, there's like...
29:43
There's plenty, so many head chopper. Well, the stakes, I guess the stakes get higher, you know?
29:49
So depends, depends on your budget. You know, if you're DC, you can get a buzzsaw,
29:55
you know, and then, then the stakes are really high.
29:58
Yeah. But it's, it's such a weird thing because life is like the most expensive
30:04
thing when you think about it, like of all the things you can have,
30:06
lose, whatever else, like of all the things, you know, Are we going to talk about Ricciardi today?
30:12
He wasn't on my report, no. So, you know, he presented the buzzsaw,
30:18
and here's how he presented it.
30:20
Here's my lovely assistant. It's my daughter. I'm going to saw her in half now with this buzzsaw.
30:27
And as he did so, blood and guts, and it's a mess, and she's lifeless, and that's it.
30:36
That's it. That's it. He did not revive her. How about that? Show's over.
30:45
You know, Chris Angel did a soaring very much the same in his show in Vegas,
30:50
where he separates her and then just leaves it.
30:54
But then afterwards, there's a cart that gets pushed down. It's just the legs
30:59
walking the cart, that traditional illusion that you saw.
31:03
Kevin James, Rudy Kobe. be yeah and
31:06
you know our good friend mr flom was kind
31:09
enough to reveal it so yeah it's
31:12
it's interesting like i'm thinking
31:16
now about kevin james version of the sawing that's so good where the guy is
31:20
literally in half yeah running around the stage on his hands that's a killer
31:25
that is killer but okay so next point newspapers amplified the violence so in
31:32
early 20th century journalism.
31:34
It was aggressively sensationalized because of the illusion's realism of having someone cut in half.
31:40
So another version there. The other part of it was also the lack of public understanding
31:45
because people often believe the illusion involved literal danger and that they
31:51
could replicate it themselves.
31:53
So that's an interesting... That's probably true on some level.
31:58
The thing is, if it's seemingly dangerous, why aren't we running away from it?
32:03
Uh, I think, you know, it puts butts in seats, right?
32:08
The viewing public obviously loves the drama, you know, card tricks aren't good
32:13
enough, I guess, for a long time.
32:16
One thing better than seeing like your hero rise above is seeing your hero fall.
32:20
So that could be a motivation as well.
32:23
Yeah. Okay. So some of the perpetrators also sort of like the,
32:28
the, the, the theatrically, it was kind of cool because there's
32:31
several murders that's recited fascinated like
32:34
the magicians and and sort of influencing their crimes so i
32:37
think that is pretty unhealthy and then
32:40
lastly the illusion symbolically actually
32:43
mirrors violence against women what's another
32:46
thing so oh that's a very open version that's richie
32:50
already saw on his daughter in half
32:53
i guess the public could come up and view the lifeless body
32:56
what yeah yeah when
32:59
you when you see the way that um chris angel
33:02
does it it's basically like a giant piece of steel and it's almost
33:05
like a swing and the person and the
33:08
person lays on it and then he just cuts them separates
33:12
them and that's it like it is just i dig
33:15
it i mean it's a cool vibe kind of you know you
33:18
know tim haskin probably likened it to he
33:21
says here why did people slow down and look at car accidents yeah
33:25
it's probably likened to that sort of behavior yep yeah now as a result of all
33:33
the incidents magicians changed how they present the illusion so they removed
33:38
the blood gimmicks that sort of toned down its horror elements theitism posed
33:43
more safety regulations um.
33:46
Some insisted that audiences be shown the assistant live afterwards just to
33:51
avoid the panic of anything possibly going wrong.
33:54
So it's interesting that the theaters propagated that notion rather than magicians
34:00
going, okay, there is something unsettling here. How do I combat that?
34:05
Yeah, I was looking through here like Mark Wilson had it in a choo-choo train.
34:10
It's like, I'm going to put my assistant in this train and separate the train cars.
34:14
That's about as un-horror as
34:17
it gets you know non-threatening you know okay so
34:22
i thought too really a train a choo-choo train yeah interesting now also during
34:28
this while i was doing my research i saw that magic historians began documenting
34:32
the misuse of the illusion and there's books like the illustrated history of
34:37
magic and the magic of horace golden they mention these cases in those notes.
34:42
So yeah, the modern builders of the prop have implemented a lot more safety standards.
34:50
I'm just looking at the photographs that Doug is putting up.
34:52
I don't know. What are we looking at there, Doug?
34:54
It's a choo-choo train slowing in half, obviously, because that needs to exist.
35:01
How random, man.
35:03
All right. Sorry to interrupt. Not at all. Not at all. Yeah. And
35:06
so the modern builders were trying to put more intense safety
35:09
standards in place because the magic community became more vocal about
35:12
discouraging amateurs in attempting this very
35:15
dangerous illusion without any training so let's take
35:19
this let's oh tim askin is asking what did doug henning do in his version can
35:25
you tell us doug well he did the swapperoo that's what i was saying one of the
35:29
first versions i saw was doug he did it with two girls in different costumes
35:34
they switched halves when he put them back together hmm yeah,
35:38
a nice a modern version would be to do it with a man
35:41
and a woman and then you got an lgbt thing going you
35:44
know and and you can share that with your audience there's at
35:49
the end of never mind gonna go dark all of a sudden let
35:52
me not go there there is a version that front ferrari did where it's kind of
35:56
like spinning wheel number and it's like five bodies and they all change as
36:02
it spins around like they all come with different colored dresses in the end
36:05
you know a badass version now that I recall. I saw this one live. David Copperfield.
36:10
The blade.
36:12
He saw that woman in half vertically and then separated the boxes vertically.
36:19
Hanging from the stage. I've heard of this illusion. Never seen it. It's legit.
36:27
Oh, look at this.
36:29
So, this is the... Oh, shit.
36:34
Oh, is that it? Is that photographs of it? Yeah, that's
36:37
the blade so you can see like half a girl there right yeah
36:41
vertically this is listening yeah for
36:44
those listening it's literally as if she was standing up and it was just
36:46
straight in the center of her being she's gone
36:50
like that is staggering i would encourage
36:53
interested parties to find the special this aired on it's a great version of
36:57
sawing in half you know words can't do it justice but now i'm looking at the
37:02
all-time greatest version the steve fearson method yep And specifically the
37:08
Copperfield presentation with the laser.
37:11
Yeah. So for those listening or if you're unaware, there is a version of this
37:15
where David Copperfield was standing in front of a laser and then as...
37:23
Laser hits his waist basically you
37:26
see kind of sparks flying through his waist and it simulates the
37:29
laser cutting through the entire center of his
37:32
body like just above his belt line and then he's fully
37:35
separated and then from that point copperfield literally
37:38
just detaches himself and holds onto his own
37:42
legs it's mind boggling yeah it's
37:45
like insanely good i feel like this illusion has
37:48
been exposed a little over the last 10 years with
37:51
some home brewed versions on the internet and such but
37:55
let me tell you if you were at a david copperfield
37:58
show in the early 2000s and you saw
38:01
this happen unbelievable to see
38:04
this slide it's a perfect illusion yeah it
38:08
would have looked unreal and he put himself together he's got
38:11
all the great versions and david's buzzsaw is the best
38:14
the vertical blade is amazing that the
38:17
laser is literally the all-time best
38:20
sawing in half it's hard to argue that yeah yeah
38:25
and that's a steve fearsome method and it's interesting because i think i don't
38:28
know when steve fearsome joined team dc but i do believe that it was steve fearsome
38:33
who ultimately held the method for vanishing the moon as well that's correct yeah like he.
38:41
The thing is, if you were to tell anyone like Steve Pearson,
38:44
like responsible for the ultimate, probably the most commonly used thread technique
38:50
to float a cigarette to one's mouth, that's the Pearson hookup.
38:54
Yeah, no one's doing that without Steve.
38:56
Yeah. A bit of a genius.
38:59
Yeah. Yeah. We produce his line now.
39:03
We have the Steve Pearson line after he decided he didn't want to do it anymore.
39:08
So I would encourage, let me talk up Trick Supply a little bit.
39:11
The Vectra thread that comes with Steve's tutorial.
39:15
There's some really offbeat thread magic in this tutorial.
39:19
And that Vectra thread don't break. So if you haven't put that in your universe,
39:23
we continue making a few bucks for this space we're in today and shop at Trick
39:27
Supply for Vectra thread.
39:30
Or the Sugar Bunny. That's Steve Pearson's also. We offer that. That's a killer.
39:37
Yeah. What else is in these buddy of where that we might know?
39:40
Well, the things we have here are the thread and the sugar bunny.
39:44
There's some other things that we're producing. We have the pod thread dispenser,
39:48
which is an interesting way to keep a thread reel in your pocket.
39:51
That's coming back out soon. You know, Steve.
39:55
He had a nice, nice mix of stuff when he was running download magic.com,
40:01
you know, good mix of close up card magic and, you know, some esoteric things.
40:06
Yeah. It's, you know, what he also had is that self levitation where you strap
40:11
yourself into a box and float up off the ground.
40:14
He had the standalone is a milk crate.
40:16
You stand in the milk crate, you put some, some harnesses on and then you float
40:20
off the ground. That was him. Yeah.
40:23
Yeah. I had no idea. Yeah. The level of genius is just staggering. So let's round this out.
40:29
So in summary, the soaring through a woman illusion remains one of the most
40:34
iconic magic tricks of all time.
40:37
But its history includes the darker chapter, one where a misunderstanding,
40:42
sensationalism, and obsession led to real deaths.
40:47
These tragedies were not caused by magic. They were caused by individuals who
40:51
misunderstood the art, ignored this discipline, and believed that the spectacle
40:55
can be achieved without any skill, safety, or mentorship.
40:59
So today, Illusion Survives is a masterpiece of stagecraft, precisely because
41:04
magicians treat it with respect. And we should all do the same.
41:10
Yeah well so after running this report i was thinking to
41:13
myself that there are so many other things out there that people have probably had some
41:16
issues there was a some footage of
41:19
a soaring half that my dad said me was like someone did it with a chainsaw and
41:22
she was like freaking out trying to you know notify them and it and it you know
41:26
resulted in a tragedy but it's there is true danger involved with doing things
41:32
of this nature i feel like i've seen modern clips on television even in the last 20,
41:38
30 years of magicians killing their assistants,
41:40
doing it with like a chainsaw,
41:43
or, you know, other bad methods.
41:46
Did you find any like modern stories about magicians killing their assistants
41:50
like in the last 30, 40 years?
41:53
Yeah, I was keeping it specific to the story in half, but yeah,
41:57
there's got to be several scenarios of that kind of happening.
42:00
Well, I mean, like, I don't want to show this, but if I go over to you,
42:02
I just, I was on the YouTube.
42:03
I'm not going to play this clip, But if we look at this clip that's available
42:08
to watch, put this up here.
42:10
You'll have to add it. It's down there. I can't add it. Is that like this?
42:15
Yeah. But what's the name of that clip? I can't see. I've got my screen.
42:19
It says, Magician Kills Assistant During Sawing in Half Illusion.
42:24
You know, and that's like a thin model sawing in half.
42:27
So this is a recent clip.
42:30
Recent event, just an example of like, even modern magicians are continuing
42:34
to kill their assistants.
42:38
Yeah, there needs to be a safe word. Everyone should have a safe word.
42:42
Yeah, I think maybe magicians don't always think through some of the dangerous
42:46
things that could happen when you're doing, you know, things like that, you know, even.
42:51
You know, I'm reminded of our interview with Jonathan Goodwin, who,
42:55
you know, was known as a daredevil as you
42:58
know and if you haven't seen it before you go back and see and you
43:01
know bless him he's one of the most wonderful people i've had the pleasure of
43:06
interviewing on this show and as well as that like he's you know also been a
43:10
victim of of when things can go wrong and when safety precautions are you know
43:15
the crippling entity and so you know you see some of the stuff he does,
43:21
and after reading his book he talks like
43:24
the method's so clever but there's still there's
43:27
still an element man for me there's still an element where you're
43:30
like even like david copperfield with
43:33
that big buzz saw you know what happens if it shifts six inches one night and
43:37
that thing hits his back yeah you know i guess there's a hundred safety measures
43:42
you take to make sure that doesn't happen but man you know like it could happen
43:46
probably yeah for me the most terrifying is the table of death.
43:51
Oh, I consider that one of the greatest illusions of all time.
43:56
Yes, I can't imagine performing it. Yeah, so in the Table of Death,
44:01
the version that I've worked with is, it's all very heavy steel.
44:07
There's a bed, meaning like a flat surface, like a table.
44:11
Magician is chained in and tied down considerably, and then they have to escape
44:16
from it before the platform above,
44:20
which compasses the entire length of them and has
44:23
basically one-foot spikes and dangling
44:27
above them when that thing drops they will
44:29
without question destroy you and penetrate every portion of your being even
44:35
the method to do that properly right is inches away from serious injury serious
44:44
injury yeah yeah i don't want to be like laying under those things,
44:50
can't be safe enough for my world yeah give me a choo-choo train baby,
44:58
but even in the simplest form even in its simplest form let's look at something
45:02
like the rest of the roulette yeah,
45:06
so the roulette there is countless videos out there of folks who had attempted
45:11
to I'm going to crush a bag there's a knife under there and see that go wrong right yep.
45:21
Dumb that's just a bad idea i mean i could see if
45:24
you're a magician do it to yourself i've seen magicians harm their
45:27
spectators that weren't even willing to
45:30
be a spectator yeah put a spike through their damn
45:33
hand yeah dumb there's a
45:37
question here from mystery box studio that says didn't the
45:41
mass magician expose that even if it goes wrong the
45:44
spikes are retractable not in the version i've seen
45:47
which was like oh i hope
45:50
that's true that would make sense yeah yeah
45:54
david david did it with one big spike i don't know like when copperfield did
46:00
the table of death it was one big ass spike i don't know how that thing would
46:04
retract huh yeah look it's it's a terrifying illusion for sure and you know
46:10
as far as the soaring and a half goes like i really thought that,
46:14
couldn't result in things of this nature, but then you just,
46:17
when I'm reading a part, I'm like, I didn't think it was real.
46:19
I didn't, like, for this to be happening at this caliber.
46:22
You know, people suffocating in water tanks and so forth.
46:28
Like, so Doug, what's your knowledge on sort of water escapes?
46:32
Well, when I was 14, it was my forte.
46:36
Turns out that I wasn't meant to be an escape artist. I'm just into bondage.
46:40
But, you know, I used to get tied up and jump in a pool for a good time.
46:44
That's about the knowledge I have of escaping water. Okay.
46:50
I mean, another bad idea.
46:56
I mean, that's a good way to die, right? You get in water and then you can't breathe and die.
47:03
Houdini nearly died a time or two, you know, doing like the water torture.
47:07
That might be Hollywood, but.
47:11
You know, I was watching Andrew Basso do his escape in the water cell and he
47:20
holds his breath for like a full three minutes and there's nothing fake about it.
47:25
Like it is just a legitimate, there is a level of fitness and strength that
47:29
that guy has a map and it's full credit to him, but I mean,
47:34
that was Houdini's MO he'd get tied up, thrown in a river and he'd stay down
47:37
there for as long as he could to build the drama, you know? Yeah.
47:41
I have spoken to folks who have attempted stuff like this where when they rehearsed
47:44
it, it's like, you've got like two or three minutes before you're fully submerged
47:47
in water, but then they're like practicing it in swimming pools where they can
47:52
see, but then it's like, all right, let's throw them in the LA river.
47:55
Well, not the LA river. That's like a, that's like something you could pee more
47:57
in, but let's throw them into a natural body of water.
48:01
And you got like brown water, just like seeping through and you can't see anything.
48:06
And it's apparent or like Koudinghi when he went in, the ice and he came up
48:12
and couldn't find the hole that he escaped from that he went in.
48:16
This is how he invented one of the water torture cell because he realized there
48:22
was a layer of air between the ice and the water so he could come up and get
48:26
breaths in between the ice and that led to being an MO for staying underwater
48:31
longer on stage. I did not know that.
48:34
Imagine the terror of jumping in an ice hole and then not being able to find it on the way up.
48:39
As well as the shock that the body has, you know?
48:43
Maybe Houdini was dumb, but lucky, you know? Yeah.
48:49
Tim asked, didn't the milk can go wrong a couple of times? Yeah. Yeah.
48:57
Think the times that went wrong was when he submerged himself in liquids that weren't water.
49:02
So like he said, I, you know, I'll do it in beer to promote this beer company
49:06
and then it gets in there and realize the dynamic is different. Yeah.
49:11
Yeah. As soon as you said, beer was like bad idea, just, yeah.
49:16
Yeah. So.
49:20
Yeah. I don't know. I also think, uh, the, the stories of Houdini stuff going
49:25
wrong is likely Houdini just, you know, playing in it that way.
49:30
You know, Herbert was talking about, actually, if I've seen this,
49:33
Herbert's talking about in carpentry, there was a circular sword that cuts through
49:36
any wood, but at the moment I touch his skin, it stops immediately. Yeah.
49:42
Magicians should have a similar type of thing. You're right.
49:45
I have an illusion builder friend of mine that helps me build whatever I need
49:49
to build, props, etc., as well as renovating property as well.
49:54
When it comes to cutting, I'm like, you. Yeah.
49:59
And my hands just stay in my pockets. And I'm just like, I'm not going near
50:03
that thing. He's like, no, it's safe. I'm just like, no.
50:06
And he's also a magician, but he's got his safety measures in place.
50:10
So i'm gonna be wrong but it's we're talking like a giant like the type of thing
50:13
that would mr bond would be going down on to have you like if he was going to
50:16
be cut down the middle it's like that type of big blade and he just has that
50:20
in his workshop and i'm just like i can't man i can't touch it yeah no yeah
50:25
and circular swords especially like yeah like i was removing some,
50:30
floorboards in a property of mine and i yeah just
50:34
gloves everything like i'm so tentative about
50:37
my hands we're putting up new
50:40
shelves yesterday in the shop he's got an exacto blade
50:43
open in the box and we got gloves and protection and then he's like ah and he
50:47
you know he hit himself with this you know a box cutter and i'm like oh no you
50:52
know fucking close-up card man wax himself thankfully he just poked the very
50:57
tip of it with the thing but man ain't no joke go hurt yourself.
51:02
You know tools what am
51:05
i talking about here yeah look there's a level of injury and
51:09
anything that should that sort of could happen and you
51:13
know obviously in these cases we're talking about actual
51:16
murder cases that people were using you know that as an alibi which is twisted
51:22
and not recommended by any means but what's that photograph that's modern art
51:26
that's the one person steinmeyer vertical sawing modern art he's using an assistant
51:34
there but it can be done solo.
51:36
Have you seen that version that looks pretty much standalone but you kind of
51:40
just dump your body on its side there's like you just sort of like hop oh yeah
51:43
that is badass yeah i wonder what the angles are like on that they look pretty
51:48
good look at this one it's a vertical,
51:51
so you like you split yourself upward and the bottom half stays down below Oh,
51:57
that must be angly as anything.
51:59
That looks like a big stage illusion.
52:02
So in that illusion for the listeners, it's basically like you're in an apparatus,
52:06
and you're being separated not by laying down, but going upward.
52:11
So, yeah. The Ehrlich brothers, you know, Rudy Kobe had a beef with the Ehrlich
52:16
brothers doing his leg thing, but they use that with sawing in half.
52:20
So Ehrlich brothers, German illusion team, the Copperfield style sawing,
52:25
but not really because they're laying upward.
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Anyway, they cut the legs off and then the brother wheels the legs off stage
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and he says, I'll keep these.
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And then when the brother comes back, he's got four legs. So that's an interesting take on the plot.
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It's like, let me get your legs and put them on me. Right? Yeah. That's kind of cool.
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Yeah. There's a question here that actually from Thomas Conger,
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which is an interesting one.
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And the question is, are there any magicians that that have made body modifications for their act.
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Most assuredly i'm trying to think of
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if there's any instances like there's been examples of tattoos
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which he's mentioned like you've probably seen stuff on
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tv where it's like her eyes are closed and then i rubbed them and now
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the eyes are open on the photograph but but as far as like magnets up to the
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skin or yeah i'm thinking about i just was watching the recent david blaine
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special for he's traveling the world you know looking at some magic acts i knew
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some of the acts in India probably had some body modifications to accommodate their weirdness.
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You know, it doesn't have to be Las Vegas show lights to be a magic trick modification, you know?
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I wonder if there's just something that kind of happened inherently where like
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they had something happened to them, a metal plate was put in and now it's the
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method for their effect.
53:46
Yeah. It's like Mary Yedid's new finger act is very believable.
53:51
Tell us more. So, Mayor Yiddid is the, do you know Mayor Yiddid?
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He's a magic, okay, so you can find Mayor Yiddid magic. He's an American magic retail guy.
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But in the early 80s, he created an award-winning act called Finger Fantasies.
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He published a book on this subject.
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Without Mayor Yiddid, there's no Sam Huang today, okay? So when you see Crazy
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Sam's finger illusion, you're seeing Mare Yedid's stuff. Right. That's Mare's work.
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So he developed this award-winning act where he removes his fingers.
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And at the peak of its success, he got in a car accident and lost several of his fingers.
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Damn. He continues to perform this act using that deformity to his advantage.
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And if you watch Mare perform, it won't be readily apparent that he's missing
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fingers. You just don't notice it.
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Yeah, actually, our booth was right across from Marietta. It was such a joy.
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In fact, one of the highlights for me, day one, Sam Huang comes up to the Marietta
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table and starts doing his finger work for Marietta.
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Earlier that day, Marietta posted a picture of himself in the Finger Fantasies
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t-shirt from the early 80s.
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I'd just seen it earlier today, and I'm like, how great is this convention going
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to be? I'm already seeing, you know, the originator of really the act and then
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the modern rendition of it.
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I guess all that's left for Sam to do is lose a few fingers to get it right.
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But yeah, if you're ever around Marietta again, ask to see his finger work.
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Wow that's staggering yeah yeah there's
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only one other thing i can think of where it was mario lopez
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who did a thing where he just the
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way his muscle uh comes up and he's like just
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short of his bicep whatever this area is called so he
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would like there'd be like a lump as he flexed then he
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would take it and then move it to here and then
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it would like and then his bone was just sticking out there like it
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was just naturally but it was just
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something that he did like he did it in his lecture and he was just like and he
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just said like look at things yeah explore
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your body look at what you do he does that really funny thing where
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like the nipple comes off and it goes back on you know
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like it's yeah yeah you can't do
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it if you're crazy hairy like me but the idea is still there it's not too late
56:15
to shave nick well maybe it's time i do so where's my media assets here we go
56:23
okay i think that i think that's everything we need to talk about so guys thank
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you for listening and being part of the show doug thanks for being here we'll be back to your regular.
56:31
Scheduling next week i think we have a guest which will be
56:34
a surprise so by all means if you're not there join the discord also
56:37
scope out our merch we have the trust the slight
56:40
t-shirts on our website which you can see at themagicguyshow.com anything
56:44
before we sign up there doug yeah 100 bucks get the sawing book at trick supply
56:49
you got it thanks for listening it's time for us to disappear now disappear
56:56
now but we'll see you again on the next episode of the magic guys.