Neil Tobin says he got into magic the way most kids do: “I got a magic set for Christmas–well, Hanukkah. A lot of people I know went through the ‘magic phase.’ It seems to be a clearly defined developmental stage.”
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As he got older, Tobin says he began to gravitate toward what he calls “adult magic.” “When you’re a kid,” he says, “all you want to do is make your friends go ‘Wow!’ And you want the biggest, most colorful, expensive prop you can get. But that’s completely different from what now is truly magical. If somebody looks you in the eye and tells you what you’re thinking, you’re a lot more apt to feel something there. And that emotional connection is much more rewarding to me as a magician than twisting balloons for kids.”
Houdini, of course, is not Aunt Agnes, and Tobin says that this seance will be more of a “theatrical situation than your usual living room seance.” In spiritualist circles Harry Houdini–master sleight-of-hand and escape artist and virulent crusader against fraudulent mediumism–is the biggest catch of all, and every year since his death on Halloween in 1926 attempts have been made to contact him, to no avail. Houdini’s wife Bess tried for ten years before giving up, saying, “Ten years is long enough to wait for any man.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jonathon Cohon.
