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Aug. 16th, 2010 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI read Jim Steinmeyer's Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear like three weeks ago and have been repressing the urge to go rent The Prestige and The Illusionist and do a creepy-magician marathon ever since. Which I do not really have time to do, so oh well.
Aside from engendering the aforementioned movie-watching cravings, Hiding the Elephant is also one of those nonfiction books that you read and then go around for the next few weeks furiously resisting the temptation to buttonhole people and tell them all about it every time a subject even approximately approaching the topic in question comes up. So I apologize if any of you fall foul of that; I am trying, you guys! I mean, it does help that, while I found it all fascinating while reading it, by this point I don't actually remember most of the detailed reveals of the tricks anymore except a vague "it involves mirrors?" (NEWSFLASH: Magic tricks are often done with mirrors. I KNOW, I TOO WAS SHOCKED.)
The book is a combination history of the luminaries a certain period of stage illusions and explanation of the invention and production of several of the illusions, starting with the invention of "Pepper's ghost" in 1862 and wrapping up with the end of the "golden age" of illusions during the first world war. Steinmeyer's emphasis is always on the presentation - he opens up the book by telling how the audience really did not find Houdini's disappearance of the elephant super impressive and why, and spends a lot of time drawing out the various methods that the magicians used to build up pretty simple tricks into grand illusions to create that feel of real magic. I think it's a pretty good testament to how Steinmeyer himself manages to convey this that now, after reading the book and having the tricks explained, I am actually way more excited about going to see magic shows than I ever have been before.
As a sidenote, if nobody has yet written their gender studies thesis on stage magic, with a focus on the subgenre of tricks titled things like "Sawing Through a Woman," "Crushing a Lady," "Destroying a Girl," and "Stretching a Lady," that's . . . excellent ground for someone. I'm just saying. But I'm sure someone has. (Here's a creepy thing: one of the magicians specifically asked early militant feminists Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst to be 'sawing blocks' as a publicity stunt. Sawing Through a Feminist! WHEE.)
Aside from engendering the aforementioned movie-watching cravings, Hiding the Elephant is also one of those nonfiction books that you read and then go around for the next few weeks furiously resisting the temptation to buttonhole people and tell them all about it every time a subject even approximately approaching the topic in question comes up. So I apologize if any of you fall foul of that; I am trying, you guys! I mean, it does help that, while I found it all fascinating while reading it, by this point I don't actually remember most of the detailed reveals of the tricks anymore except a vague "it involves mirrors?" (NEWSFLASH: Magic tricks are often done with mirrors. I KNOW, I TOO WAS SHOCKED.)
The book is a combination history of the luminaries a certain period of stage illusions and explanation of the invention and production of several of the illusions, starting with the invention of "Pepper's ghost" in 1862 and wrapping up with the end of the "golden age" of illusions during the first world war. Steinmeyer's emphasis is always on the presentation - he opens up the book by telling how the audience really did not find Houdini's disappearance of the elephant super impressive and why, and spends a lot of time drawing out the various methods that the magicians used to build up pretty simple tricks into grand illusions to create that feel of real magic. I think it's a pretty good testament to how Steinmeyer himself manages to convey this that now, after reading the book and having the tricks explained, I am actually way more excited about going to see magic shows than I ever have been before.
As a sidenote, if nobody has yet written their gender studies thesis on stage magic, with a focus on the subgenre of tricks titled things like "Sawing Through a Woman," "Crushing a Lady," "Destroying a Girl," and "Stretching a Lady," that's . . . excellent ground for someone. I'm just saying. But I'm sure someone has. (Here's a creepy thing: one of the magicians specifically asked early militant feminists Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst to be 'sawing blocks' as a publicity stunt. Sawing Through a Feminist! WHEE.)
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Date: 2010-08-16 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 03:43 pm (UTC)QUICK, TO WIKIPEDIA FOR THE DEMYSTIFICATION AND REASSURANCE THAT THE GHOSTS AREN'T REAL
(probably)
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Date: 2010-08-16 03:44 pm (UTC)...omg. *shinyeyes* Hello, plot bunny.
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Date: 2010-08-16 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 03:51 pm (UTC)My icon expresses my attentiveness!
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Date: 2010-08-16 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 04:00 pm (UTC)Plus, I got his autograph and a photo after the show. Copperfield's. Not my friend's.
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Date: 2010-08-16 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-17 12:34 am (UTC)Another friend had been a minor stage magician before he married his wife (my co-worker and friend), so he used to show me some sleight of hand.
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Date: 2010-08-17 12:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-17 12:54 am (UTC)Good luck with the cheap seats and time!
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Date: 2010-08-16 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 05:06 pm (UTC)Edit to say and the Michigan library has it!
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Date: 2010-08-16 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-17 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-17 12:35 am (UTC)