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.

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 61 shirts remaining

- chris tower - first published - 1401.19 - 15:38
final publication - date - time

T-shirt #303 - Space Ghost with Red Collar

T-shirt #303 - Space Ghost with Red Collar



I originally posted this blog entry the day before my birthday. I am completing it a few days later, which allows me to have photos and videos from the day I originally posted it.

Birthdays have always been special in the Tower household. My mother always put on quite an elaborate show in celebration of our birthdays growing up and then into adulthood, so that we would feel extra special and loved. Not that we had any doubt that we were extra special and loved. And by "we" here I mean my sister and me and my father.

Unfortunately, I do not have any digital copies of any of my childhood birthday celebrations, though this should come along some time in the next year or two.

Our family has always celebrated birthdays in a way that makes me feel very special. I have photos and videos from several birthdays on this page. The photos of me in the featured shirt come from my 44th birthday in 2006. Farther below, you will find a video and a picture of my cake from my 2007 birthday as well as time lapse videos from my current 2014 birthday.

Also, in addition, to being about birthdays, today is also about SPACE GHOST.

So far, I have written about SPACE GHOST twice though not in much depth. Given that I am behind schedule, I am unlikely to deliver much depth today either.

T-shirt #69 SPACE GHOST COAST-TO-COAST BLUE

T-shirt #169 SPACE GHOST COAST-TO-COAST BROWN

T-shirt #69 features a nice picture of me with my parents from May of 2013.

I also wrote the following text.


I love capes.

Space Ghost has a cape.

I love Space Ghost.

This blog (the whole project not just this entry) is a unique vehicle for self-inventory, for making categories, for reflection. More on this process as I proceed. Maybe it will inspire others for similar reflection and self-inventory. Maybe some of the entries will remind people of pop culture icons long forgotten or make others ask: "who the Hell is Space Ghost?"

SPACE GHOST COMIC. There have been a few comics featuring Space Ghost. I have at least one more Space Ghost shirt, so I will have another chance to catalogue and review. I like this one by Joe Kelly and Ariel Olivetti very much.

Would there have been a Buzz Lightyear without a Space Ghost?

For T-shirt #169 (do you like the unintended and random number connection between 69 and 169), I explored many topics, including mail call. I discussed the parlor trick CD that came in the mail (a Kickstarter I had funded), The Parlour Trick, fun with Ernest Cline author of Ready Player One--one of my favorite books of last year and maybe of all time--a call to stop the killing in Syria, and a review of the awful City of Bones book. Not much on Space Ghost.

But today... maybe a bit more on Space Ghost once I get rolling and all.

BIRTHDAYS AT MY HOUSE

Birthdays at my house were always like national holidays. Normal activity ceased and everything focused on the birthday boy or girl. My mother set impossibly high standards for how to make someone's day super special, a standard I strive to meet with my wife and kids and rarely live up to.

Since my mother's coma and meningitis, we have all carried on trying to make birthdays extra special events for everyone in the family, but none of us could match the special care and thoughtfulness of my mother, Marjorie.

SPECIAL CAKE

One element of special birthdays was our special cake. We always received a specially baked cake, our favorite, baked with care by our mother and then decorated with great artistic talent by our father.

I only have one example of the many examples currently in a digital form (see above). There's a cake of my favorite superhero of the time: NOVA. I would guess that to be from around 1976-78 as the Nova comic was published during those years. I would guess that it might be my cake from 1977.

My father works very great with frosting. I hope in time to get more of his cakes on the Internet as they were truly amazing works of art.

In the photos of more recent birthdays, we did away with the special cake decorations. In the photos of me from 2006, in the Space Ghost shirt, it looks like I am leaning over a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting: a cake known in our family as the "wacky cake." The 2007 cake is my father's favorite, pineapple-upside down cake with frosting. My father loves frosting. This year's cake (seen in pictures below) is my favorite cake, known as the lemon "poke" cake because holes are poked in the cake and a lemon juice (from real lemons) mixture is poured in. The cake is baked with lemon jello to make it more spongy.

BIG CANDLES and CANDLE TRAIN

Added 1401.28: I came across this photo above of the Daredevil cake. I had forgotten the big candles and the candle train that accompanied our birthday celebrations. There was a large white candle with our ages printed along the side. The idea was to burn just that year's worth at each birthday celebration. There was also a candle with a clown face (seen above right, just barely), which we burned to the point that there was little left of the candle. At the bottom of the photo, you can barely see the tips of a small train with cars made of wood, linked together with metal eyelets: one train car for each year. Once was passed the age of the original wooden train cars, my mother bought plastic ones, but ultimately, we had to give up the train as she could not find more cars to add. I still liked using it, even if there was not a car for each year (which by now would fill the damn table). Also, I like noting my mother's care with all these elements. I believe the candles are sitting on either circles of cardboard wrapped in foil or inverted plates wrapped in foil. The cake sits on an inverted metal pan or pan lid wrapped in foil. These preparations are further evidence of the boundless spirit of my mother's love for us and for being a mother.

NUTCUPS

As a way to make our birthday even more special, my mother would assemble "nut cups," which contained our favorite (chosen by us) nuts and candies. I am partial to cashews and fruity candies, though I do like whoppers as well (malt balls).

You can see an example of the nut cup next to the Nova cake in the picture as well as how we carried on the tradition (my sister in this case) in the photos of me in my Space Ghost short from 2006. See? There's a nut cup next to me.

Very sweet. Literally and figuratively.

I think this is a tradition to which we need to return.

DECORATIONS

Our homes was decorated extensively for birthdays, which is a bit challenging as my birthday is not long after Christmas. Crepe paper streamers, balloons, special cardboards on the walls (featuring our favorite cartoon characters) as well as matching paper tablecloth, napkins, plates, and nut cups bought especially for birthdays in the birthday celebration section of the store or at the Hallmark or Birthday specialty store. This attention to what we liked and the theme of our birthday carried on into our adult hood. The year my mother came down with the meningitis (2000), I turned 38 years old, and I am not ashamed to say I still had a birthday with all these trimmings hosted by her and my father still decorated a cake.

MY MOTHER'S WRAPPING

My mother's wrapping of presents was a work of art. She carefully chose special paper, which she hunted for in stores year around on her frequent shopping trips. She would add bows, ribbons, special cardboard cutouts of our favorite cartoon characters or of Santa Claus and others ate Christmas. Each present bore a tag, even on our birthdays when the presents were all for us. The tags also had special things written in them, but most often: "To Christopher With Love Mommy and Daddy."


UNWRAPPED GIFT PICTURES

Sometime after the event of the day, though sometime later that same day, but not always, we would pose for pictures with our gifts as seen above and to the left. As you can see, when my sister was young, she posed too even when it was not her birthday because she got presents, too! Yes, so she would not feel left out (and the same for me with her birthday), she would receive a few small presents on my birthday so she would have something to open. I was treated to the same on her birthday.

THE LIST OF GIFTS

In addition to posing for pictures with our gifts, which has morphed in our adult years to just pictures of us with the gifts after we unwrap the packages, we would write down or our mother would write down for us (when we were young) what we got as gifts. My mother wanted these lists as records. She wanted to avoid repeating gifts the following year. She wanted to use the list as a budget guide for the following year. She wanted to keep the list to consult in case she got a good idea, so she could repeat it the following year, such as our elaborate and thoughtfully appointed stationary boxes, filled with stamps, special sticky note pads, pens, folders, bookmarks, and other office supplies and school supplies, again, for which she shopped throughout the year and stashed her purchases. I think my mother also just liked having the lists as keepsakes. I still make lists of my gifts because I know she wants me to and for many of the same reasons. It's nice to be able to look back at the lists years later. They have come in handy while creating this blog. I have been meaning to type the lists from the last few years into computer files.

WRITING IN BOOKS

My mother liked to write in the books we received as gifts as another record keeping and keepsake measure. I shared one such note in T-shirt #119 that appeared in my Doctor Strange book. I re-present it here.



DESSERT TO SCHOOL

Around the time of our birthday, our mother would make a load of treats and bring them, herself, to school to share with our classes. This got me beaten up, so it was good she stopped this practice just around junior high.

PARTIES

We did have parties as kids, though neither my sister nor I were possessed with large numbers of friends. Though we both can remember a year or two with parties and large numbers of kids, our best times were with a friend or two over as guests for play dates around the time of our birthday.

However, for my 18th birthday, my parents hosted an elaborate event in which we had a quest of live action role playing for myself and nearly a dozen of my friends. Yes, I was and I am a geek.

I can never capture in text how wonderful my parents were as parents and how much they showered us with love and special treatment. I am probably spoiled rotten, but I have come to realize just how special all this treatment was and I do not expect it. I am honored and blessed by whatever I am given, and I cherish the memories of my idyllic childhood. I try to share this special treatment now, with my family, though I cannot live up to my mother's standard of excellence, but I can try. Because the true gift is giving and the true love is seeing how you make other people happy. This is what my parents taught me. I am not spoiled. I am blessed. And I much prefer giving than receiving.

PHOTO LOG OF BIRTHDAYS

Comments will precede the photos.

Blowing out candles on my 2014 cake. I no longer need to wish for what I always used to wish for. I have it. I am loved, and I am blessed.

Posing with gifts from 2014. A Battlestar Galactica patch for my geeky shirt creation.

Yes, those are shaving cakes. I still lather up in a cup and brush the lather on my face: old school. And no aerosol cans to dispose of.

You're going to get some shirt previews. In the next, WONDER GIRL! Not to be mistaken for WONDER WOMAN. No, that's Donna Troy's.

Get ready for some METAL MEN content. That's the shirt for the Iron robot.

Birthday at Pattiwood, my parents new condo with my wife, Ivan, my Mom and Dad, plus my sister Lori and her husband Noel. Getting ready to blow out those candles.

Get ready for some METAL MEN content. That's the shirt for the Gold robot.

My mother is laughing in the next photo as my sister distributes cake but not BECAUSE my sister is distributing cake. :-)

RECOGNIZE the next one? Famous comic book sorcerer. I already mentioned him in this blog. :-)

Now, we stop back to 2006 and the birthday that I received and immediately donned the Space Ghost short.  But first the Quickdraw McGraw Bobblehead and some pint glass that I cannot identify in the picture. Underdog perhaps?

More with the Bobbleheads! Baba Looey and Quickdraw McGraw! And yes, I am saving those bows for re-use.

BOOKS!! There's Boondocks if you can spot it, and several others that relate to my writing: Parallel Universes, a couple of books on magic, and one on cataclysmic and prehistoric meteor strikes that pummeled the planet.

SPACE GHOST COMICS!! These are not mine. I got this picture off the Internet, but I do own all of these.

ABOUT SPACE GHOST

Reprinted from T-shirt #101 - the Jetsons.

Space Ghost is a top my Top Ten favorite Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Also, note Quickdraw in the honorable mentions, so hence the bobbleheads.

I am also mad for the Herculoids, but I have no shirt to feature them. I am adding a Herculoids video to this HUGE blog just because. So there.

TOP TEN LIST OF FAVORITE HANNA-BARBERA PRODUCTIONS

1. Space Ghost
2. Jonny Quest
3. Atom Ant
4. The Herculoids
5. The Jetsons
6. Fantastic Four
7. Wacky Races
8. Super Friends
9. Birdman and Galaxy Trio
10. Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Yogi Bear, QuickDraw McGraw, Top Cat, Scooby Doo, Hong Kong Phooey, Harlem Globetrotters, and Josie and the Pussycats.

SPACE GHOST RESOURCES

SPACE GHOST WIKI

SPACE GHOST FAQ

SPACE GHOST COMIC VINE

SPACE GHOST REDDIT

SPACE GHOST TUMBLR

SPACE GHOST GALLERY NERD LUNCH

SPACE GHOST FAN FICTION

SPACE GHOST COMIC REVIEW - BASEMENT REJECTS

SPACE GHOST TRIBUTE - ALEX TOTH

SPACE GHOST TOONPEDIA


I am not sure I need much more to create a Space Ghost love letter. Between all the art, the links, and the videos, you should see the love. It's vibrant. Check out Space Ghost for yourself if you don't know anything about him. He's awesome.

Now where's my Space Ghost pint glass. Time for a BREW.

SPACE GHOST VIDEOS

The original Space Ghost opening

SPACE SPECTRE (1981)

"THE OVENS OF MOLTOR"





Space Ghost Episode 2 - Gargoyloids 






Space Ghost Episode 3 (Nightmare Planet)






and because I don't have a Herculoids shirt... alas alack.

The original Herculoids cartoon






































MY BIRTHDAY VIDEOS Some special videos. Not too exciting here unless you know me. But I did post them to You Tube. First the 2007 birthday. Then 2014 in time lapse and finally some gaming from earlier this month in time lapse. Whew. This is a lot of content. I am tired.

My Birthday 2007 Tower Family Space Ghost Shirt

My Birthday in Time Lapse 1401.18 

My Birthday in Time Lapse 1401.18 - pt.2

Gaming in celebration of my birthday 1401.05

COVER GALLERIES

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 62 shirts remaining - chris tower - first published - 1401.18 - 20:56
final publication - 1401.21 - 19:58