My HOUDINI Artwork

Below are several paintings I did of Houdini. There are numerous styles here, all but one was painted with acrylic paint. The oddball is the black and white image which is water colors. This is not the complete group of Houdini art, but it's all I can find photos of.

 This is a water color painting. I believe I painted this in the late 80s or very early 90s.

This upside down straight jacket escape caricature was done around 1999 or 2000. At least I think it was. It's certainly an older painting though not as old as the water color.

The above caricature of Houdini is actually the second of this type. The first had different colors and I was never quite happy with it so I duplicated the drawing and painted it again with a different color scheme.

This was supposed to be just an experiment in painting eyeballs and I liked it so much I kept it. Because of the green tint, some people think it's the HULK but it's actually the eyes of Houdini.

Speaking of experiments, the above painting was not supposed to turn out. It was another experiment or exercise if you will. I just threw down a quick sketch and then wanted to see how fast I could paint the face. When I finished the face I liked it so much I decided to keep it. In fact, it was the first in a series of paintings that I call "The Magic Hats". This was a group of paintings of magicians all wearing different hats.

A totally different style of caricature and one that I thought turned out really well. It's one of my favorite paintings.

This was taken from an early photo of Houdini. I wanted to see how the whole thing would look in color rather than black and white. The sketch and thus the painting is slightly different from the original photo, but essentially it's the same layout.

The latest of the Houdini's. This was was actually changed slightly, but I don't have a photo of the updated image. It's still basically the same I just made one minor change. I personally was quite happy with "Stained Glass Houdini", though it's actually on canvas!

There are others but as I said, I had photos of these and I don't have photos of the others.

My Le Grand David Artwork

The original painting I did for Cesareo & Company

Cesareo Pelaez was very encouraging in many parts of my life, writing and painting were two big ones. These blogs are a continued reminder of his words to 'keep writing'. And with over 100 paintings devoted to magic, I think that speaks for itself. Among the 100 paintings though are several I did of Cesareo and David Bull. Three of my paintings hang in the Gallery at the Larcom Theatre in Beverly. Below are a few of the ones I painted and there will be more to come.

LeGrand David & My Folks

Mom, Cesareo, Dad

I just finished writing a little about my visits to see Cesareo and the cast of the LeGrand David Show in Beverly Mass, over at my other blog. Well, I thought I'd share with you some photos of a trip that I didn't take but was taken on my behalf. My folks went up to see Cesareo and LGD family. I'm sure part of the reason was to say thank you to Cesareo for the positive affect he had on my life.

Always Evolving

That title refers to my show, or shows. They are always getting tweaked, altered, changed and improved. It seems that the driving force for change is when a performance is good, above average, almost great, or the reverse, when you've had a bad show. I don't ever seem to learn much when a show goes GREAT! But when it's good, or above average or God forbid, bad, then I learn a lot.

I was driving home last night from a series of performances all of which went well. I received some incredible feedback from the shows. One gentleman came up to me at the end of the last show to shake my hand. His grip was firm, and his words were very heartfelt. I chose his grand daughter to help out in the show and it brought so much joy to him and his family that he went out of his way to let me know. It was beyond the regular thank you, but instead he wanted me to know for sure  how important it was to his family.

So while I was driving home, I was reflecting on this and a number of other things that happened. The choice of one volunteer in the show was wrong. It didn't seem to be at the time, but looking back, I made an error. No one would have guessed that. But I realized later if I had picked a certain person, or certain segment of the audience it would have been even stronger.

Also, there was a routine in my show that I've been toying with the script trying to get it worked out right. I feel as if it's close, but not quite there. Imagine my surprise as I'm driving home and I stumble upon the perfect delivery of the material. I had just done 5 performances and suddenly NOW I've got the perfect patter. Better late than never. The good thing is I have two shows tomorrow and I'll be able to use the newer version.

This is the way it goes. Very rarely is a routine a hit right out of the gate. There are so many elements that go into making a strong magic routine. This is why magicians get so angry when 'secrets' are revealed. The secret is only one element of a magic routine. There is the script, the blocking and movement, the audience interaction, the comedy if it calls for that, and many other things that go into the routine but when some idiot reveals a secret it often kills all the work that went into creating an entertaining routine.

For entertainers, what we do can always be improved, it can always be made better. The smart performer is always evolving.

UPDATE: The revised patter that I mentioned above was fantastic. I used it twice today and it played incredibly well!

Relearning a Show

I can't begin to tell you how many different shows I've developed over the years. I'm always amazed at how I remember every detail of the show even if I haven't done it for a while. That is, unless it's a new show that I've only done a few times. Such is the case this week. A new show I developed in the fall that I've presented a dozen times or so but not since December. So now I have to relearn everything. It's not the effects as much as the script. It's a very specific kind of show where the script is VERY important to the overall program.

As I looked over the notes I easily remembered about 80% of it but that 20% can make or break me so I need to work really hard to make sure it's all ready to go for seven performances this week. These seven shows may very well be what I need to lock it into my subconscious for good!!!

My Interesting Ancestors

This past week has been crazy. I've had several shows, booked a bunch of shows, watched as my Carnegie: Magic Detective Blog hit it's highest one day number ever thanks to Harry Houdini's birthday, and I've been working on my family tree.

I've mentioned the Ancestry thing before but it's really taking off. I found the mysterious missing relatives that were part of my Mom's side of the family, though to them, WE were the missing relatives. A cousin from my Dad's tree got in touch with me and we've been writing daily. Actually, several members of my Dad's side of the family are now in touch with me. The interesting thing is, he had no idea that some of them existed, and others he hadn't heard from in 50 years. But again, to some of them, WE were the mysterious missing relatives.

Here is a happy couple, my Great Great Grandparents. Never expected to ever see a photo of them and now I have seen five different pictures of them in a week! I also found a church cemetery in South Dakota where probably half the people buried there are related to me in some fashion.

As of now there are several people along with me working on various parts of the tree. It's rather exciting when you find a new gem of information. The crazy thing is how many people have little parts that when you put them together make up the entire story. It's wild and I've got no idea where it will end up.

Just so you know, there are almost 250 in my family tree at the moment. Some branches go back to the 1600 and 1700s.

The toughest story of the week was finding out the tragic fate of my Great Great Grandfather on my Mom's side who was killed by a train. Though I must admit the ongoing saga to find out the story of my Uncle Charley has been filled with ups and downs. But I think we've got it mapped out pretty well, thanks to my two new cousins.

The Cure for Movie Theatres

I just read an interesting piece in Entertainment Weekly about a Fix for the Movie Biz. (March 18th, 2011, RX For the Movie Biz in the Feedback Section)

They propose: 1. making the seats wider. 2. Stop giving away all of the movie in the Trailers (duh) 3. Start showing Classic Movies in digital 4. And from a Movie Theatre Employee- Don't blame the concession stand. Skip the butter and have some self control and don't get the large popcorn.