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Ode to Howard Thurston -- Originaly post by me on the SpookClub forums -
September 17th, 2007, 11:26 PM
Today, when asked to name a magician, your average person will probably say Chris Angel or David Blaine. If asked to name a dead magician, or one from the 20th century, they will almost invariably say Harry Houdini. However, when Houdini was acctualy preforming, the "best" magician in North America, according to "Hiding the Elephant" by Jim Steinmyer (he designed walking through the Great Wall, making the Statue of Liberty dissapper, and others), was Howard Thurston.
Thurston was everything Houdini was not. While Houdini was short, bad-tempered, abrubt, crude, and relied heavily on gimmicks when he preformed magic (Although he was a great showman and escape artist), Thurston was tall, elegant, suave, and very good at sleight-of-hand. The apprentice and successor of Harry Kellar, noted to be the best magician of his time, he was the start of the joking, kind magician that we see today. Thurston incorperated children in his act, using such patter as (to a young boy) "Yes, now you see that nice young lady, in the third row? Take her by the arm and lead her down the aisle. Better start now. You'll have to do it eventualy."
Howard Thurston was very good at cueing, the art of whispering instructions to people on stage, to the effect of something like this: (to kids) --You are standing on a magic carpet *step backwards* Audience laughs.
He also used this skill in other ways: (exerpt from book HIDING THE ELEPHANT -- Jim Steinmeyer) A magician friend was sitting at dinner one afternoon in the 1980's, when he started a conversation with the man next to him. It turns out that the man had, many years before as a little boy, been invited onto the satge during Thurston's famous Levitation (*note: the levitation was preformed befor Thurston by his mentor and predicessor Harry Kellar, who stole it from John Neville Masklyine who invented and preformed it at the Egyptian Hall in London). "What did you see?" my friend asked him. The man replied:
I saw more damn wires than I'd ever seen in my life! As Thurston lifted me up, he whispered, 'If you touch any of those blankety-blank wires...' Well, I'd never heard language like that in my life. At that moment, I opened my eyes and mouth wide open…[the audience thought that I was amazed (I returned the book to the library, so I can’t quote anymore), and they clapped and cheered...]
A good friend of David Devant, his English counterpart, Howard Thurston was a great magician. I ask simply that he is not forgotten, as so many other past great illusionists have been. So take a moment in your day and find out what you can about the great Howard Thurston, my favorite magician, and way better than any of you loosers (LOL just kidding), or me too.
B) Joe the Magician B)
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November 8th, 2007, 05:17 PM
Joe the Magician 
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