T-shirt #304 - Abbott's Magic Company

UPDATE 1401.28: So far this entry holds the record for longest incomplete. I posted it originally on the 19th of January and now it's the 28th of January. Despite declaring a hiatus from really long blog entries, I have not saved enough time to finish it yet. I am working on it now. I will update this note once I am complete. One problem is that there is so much I can put in this one. But I have to remember that you, dear reader, probably don't know what's missing. And I do not need to pack in ALL OF MY magic-related content in this one blog entry.

OFFICIAL INCOMPLETE BOILERPLATE TEXT: Thank you for coming to my blog. If you have been here before, you know why I post unfinished blog entries. If you are new to the blog, and came here by an Internet search or some other nefarious means, you may be wondering why someone would post something incomplete to the Internet. The shirt (ha ha.... leaving in that typo: I meant "short") answer is that I must post something every day because of the goal I set for myself when I began 365 T-shirts in March of 2013. And though there is a way to post backwards in time thanks to Blogger's scheduler utility, I would rather post an incomplete entry when the daily chaos of work, family, and the universe prohibits me from completing the blog entry for that day. Sometimes, I need a few days to complete the entry, and readers who check may see a work in progress slowly bloom.

In other words, more tomorrow. Thanks for checking.



T-shirt #304 - Abbott's Magic Company

The picture above comes from Christmas 1975. I can be seen in the photo (in my Captain America PJs) experimenting with a magic trick that I had received as a gift. I do not remember the gift very well, and I am not sure where the trick has got to. It did not become one of my regulars as seen in the pictures below.

Today is my birthday.

I was planning to catch up today as the last blog entry I completed was Thursday January 16th, which I finalized last night (Saturday the 18th). But since it's my birthday, I am giving myself permission to only work on the blog for a while and leave it incomplete once it's time for me to officially celebrate my birthday, which I will do by lounging on the couch with my puppy while reading comic books and watching football.

Today's shirt features The Abbott's Magic Company of Colon, Michigan, which I wrote about here:

T-shirt #134 - Secrets of Balloon Anatomy

T-shirt #135 - KUDL 2007 Yellow

T-shirt #136 - KUDL 2013 Pink

I used to perform magic as a semi-part-time professional. I re-connected with the magic world this past summer as I fulfilled a "bucket list" item shortly before my prostate surgery, in which I attended a day of a magic convention (with my step-son Ivan) and took a ride up the Kal- Haven trail (with my pal Chris Dilley) as explained in those three T-shirt posts linked above (134-136).

I have many plans for topics I want to explore in regards to magic, but I cannot get them all in one blog entry.

The next picture, directly left, shows me with my magic table, which serves as both a storage cabinet and a performance space. More on that in the text below.

In this first picture, I can be seen holding a top hat, which you would think I could have found easily and purchased at some magic shoppe. But in the mid-to-late 1970s when I did the majority of my performing, there were none to be found. Eventually I located a hat in a theatre costume shop and begged the costumer to let me buy it.

Many of my favorite magical "illusions" (dogs do tricks; magicians do illusions) sit on the table. From left to right, there's a standard Abbott's die box, a lotus jar, the Blarney Die, Dissecto is the big one with the yellow blade in the handle, a crystal box in front of that with a chick pan on top, a Genii Tube in red and yellow, and the Cube in a Tube, which I am about to describe. Though I will describe the genesis of the magic table in forthcoming text, I do want to point out the table cover with the gold fringe, classic magician fare that my aunt made for me, a special order organized and supervised by my mother. My parents were extremely supportive of my magic endeavors.
This illusion is known as the Cube in a Tube.

CUBE IN A TUBE.

Though Abbott's still sells it (see link), it is about five times more expensive than when I bought it. I remember mine selling for $45 in the late 1970s.

I like the Cube in a Tube illusion because of it's visual impact and how it ends with something that can be held and examined by an audience member.

The magician begins by showing the square die cube, a wooden piece painted black with white dots. This die is placed in a red square box. A metal tube is pounded into the box with a wooden hammer. The magician lifts away the box to reveal just the tube. When the tube is lifted (as in the picture), the cube has been "tubed," the die is now a wooden cylinder that an audience member can examine.

Awesome, right?

It's quick and can be performed silently because the visual impact is so clear and dramatic. This is one of my favorites.


I became interested in magic around 1973 or 1974. I am not sure what started it. There were magic sets advertised on television. There were ads for magic shops in my comic books. But probably the thing that closed the deal was the annual Christmas catalogues. My sister and I always started our Christmas lists by scouring the annual catalogues from Sears, JC Penney, and Montgomery Ward. I know I started my magical interests with a magic set sold by one of these companies. The magic advertisements and TV commercials probably only stoked the fires of my passion for magic.

There was also a magician (as there often is), but I am not sure if I had the magic set before or after I met the magician. I think I already had the magic set when we were staying at the Grand Hotel in Mackinac Island for a convention my father needed to attend, and I met Robert Downey (no relation to the actor), who was performing magic at the hotel.

After these two influences inspired me, I discovered that the "Magic Capitol of the World" was about an hour's drive (not even) from my house. The great Abbott's Magic Company called Colon, Michigan its home and annually hosted the Abbott's Magic Get-Together as magicians from all over the world flocked to the little town of Colon for many events, the best of which were the nightly performances in the Colon high school.

Abbott's published a HUGE book sized catalogue that became my new shopping spree and holiday list making enterprise.



I do not perform magic so much anymore. It's very stressful. If an actor flubs his or her lines in a live show, it's often no big deal. Sometimes the audience does not even notice. The actor can cover or someone else covers for the actor if needed.

With magic, if a magician makes an error, flubs the prestidigitation part of the magical illusion, the mistake ruins the effect, the "magic" is lost, and the performer may as well quit because the willing suspension of disbelief that kept the audience engaged has left the building.

Audiences of senior citizens tend to be very forgiving, especially those in nursing homes, anything to break up the monotony, and some of them are not fully "home" anyway. But children and drunk people are especially vicious. Blow an illusion around them, and you're goose is cooked.



Other stuff

Dissecto

Blarney Die

My magic table

........... still under construction.

to be finished SOON.

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T-shirt #269 - DAVID BOWIE - HEATHEN - Teaching featured musical artists of the day

T-shirt #269 - DAVID BOWIE - HEATHEN - Teaching featured musical artists of the day

The same people who wondered why it was 266 days before I featured Firefly, especially those who know me, will wonder why it took equally 269 days to feature the one musical artist who is arguably my favorite and about whom I am most passionate: DAVID BOWIE.

This shirt is from the Heathen tour, obviously

But some subjects are so large, so important, that it does not seem like something easy to tackle, so I put it off. DAVID BOWIE is such a subject. I must own at least a dozen books devoted to David Bowie. I have all the albums on CD and LP. I have listened to everything for many years and obsessively. I have favorites, lists of favorites, and facts to share. I have Bowie stories to tell. I came to love Bowie so much, when I first discovered him in college, that I would randomly shout "BOWIE!" to emphasize my love for the Thin White Duke, Ziggy Stardust, Halloween Jack.

And it did not escape me that Bowie's 25th studio album, promised in 2006, finally came out in early 2013: The Next Day.

Luckily, at least for my ability to generate content, I have more than one DAVID BOWIE shirt, and so I can spread out my David Bowie love over several entries before my BLOG YEAR expires. Though it is a tough choice, I will present my favorite David Bowie song before I depart for the day. But the main content will consist of my my DAVID BOWIE POWER POINT PRESENTATION that I created for my Women's Studies Media and the Sexes Class at Western Michigan University.

I taught the media course for ten years. During the course, since our focus was media, I developed the FEATURED MUSICAL ARTIST of the day. Since the class met once weekly, this meant one a week. I would share some basic information about each artist (occasionally I would do two in one class) and then extract facts about the artist for bonus questions on my weekly quizzes. There was some controversy stirred up about my creation of such questions, but they were considered BONUS questions and hence extra credit and thus I did not feel badly if students did not know the answers. After all, they could guess. They had a 50-50 chance on the standard True-False bonus question and at worst a 20% chance on the standard multiple choice question.

These pictures come from my last full, regular length semester in the Winter of 2008 in the Women's Studies Media and the Sexes Class at Western Michigan University.

The purpose of the featured artist was simply to allow me to play music, show pictures, and talk about my favorite musical artists once a week. I did not spend much time on these features, on average about five minutes. The choices were motivated not just by my favorites, but in selecting artists that the students may not know or may not know well. My goal was to inspire and possibly turn on the students to some new music.

During these sessions I featured the following artists: Ani DiFranco, Brian Eno, Cocteau Twins, Stereolab, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, Joy Division, Kate Bush, Kraftwerk, Laurie Anderson, MIA, Erykah Badu, Patti Smith, the Pixies, Public Enemy, Robert Fripp, Suzanne Vega, the Clash, The Jam, and Velvet Underground.

I saved DAVID BOWIE for the final week of the semester, and eventually, I prepared a power point presentation to share what I wanted to share about David Bowie in my Women's Studies Media and the Sexes Class at Western Michigan University.

Today, I would like to share the slides from that power point. Because there are forty-four slides, I added a page break, so you will need to click on it to see the entire show. I made a few notes. But first, arguably my favorite Bowie song and video, and some pictures of my dear friends and teaching associates: Abigail "Crabby" Nappier and Erin Bauchan (now Erin Bauchan-Caprara).

David Bowie - Ashes To Ashes

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HERE'S THE POWER POINT (note the page break)

this picture is from the Black Tie White Noise album

picture from Heathen

Madame Tussaud's wax depiction of Bowie left

Other wax dummies?
Bowie's various characters

Vanity Fair feature

Note in the classroom pictures
I have this on the document camera
while running the power point on the other screens;
the classroom contained four screens which could be set in pairs

Various shots of Bowie being androgynous

I tell a story about the demise
of the far too ambitious
Diamond Dogs stage show
which he junked to do Young Americans

The Thin White Duke

I talk a bit about Eno, but I am saving that for
another t-shirt

Arguably, my favorite album

When I was supposed to be writing
a paper on Moby Dick for American Literature
in my Sophomore year of college
I wrote an essay on David Bowie
My teacher said I started with a Bowie bang
but ended with a Pip (character in Moby Dick)
whimper.

I saw both Detroit shows
on this tour

Under appreciated great album
hours

Heathen was the best thing
since Outside or maybe even
since Let's Dance.

Bowie with wife Iman.

Bowie's 50th birthday party
in 1997 at MSG

from Bowie's boxed set
SOUND AND VISION