Lawyer and magic collector Ken Trombly gave a talk last year about "Houdini and the Spiritualists." It's available now on YouTube. Watch it here! Hat/tip to John Cox of Wild About Harry.
Matt Levin reviews a collection of Harry Houdini's essays on magic history, The Right Way To Do Wrong (Melville House), here, for The Paris Review (second review in the column).
For Canada's History, Bruce McNab tells the story of Harry and Bess Houdini's abortive tour of the Maritimes in the summer of 1896. Their hopes of success with the Marco Magic Company led instead to trouble with the law and retirement from performing (although only for a short time).
Louis Kaplan, A Magician Among the Spirit Photographs: Reflections on Houdini's Doubt, in Photography and Doubt (Sabine T. Kriebel and Andres Mario Zervigon, eds., Taylor and Francis/Routledge, 2017).
From the Guardian: news that a long-lost H. P. Lovecraft manuscript has surfaced. This one is of particular interest to magicians. It's a piece Harry Houdini asked Lovecraft to ghostwrite (a particularly appropriate term) for him; the subject is "The Cancer of Superstition." After Houdini died in 1926, Lovecraft abandoned the project because Houdini's widow Bess was no longer interested in pursuing it.
Ken Trombly recommends this video of Orson Welles discussing Houdini. Excellent, although I'm not sure I agree with his gendered theory of magic. "Magic is not for the ladies. They don't like to be fooled." Most women don't like to be fooled by men. A lot of them like magic just fine.
Phil Lord and Chris Miller ("21 Jump Street") are trying to bring "Carter Beats the Devil" to the big screen. Tom Cruise was interested in this project some time ago, but his option apparently lapsed and so did the film. Now, still snoozing at Warner Brothers, the movie project has caught the attention of Mr. Lord and Mr. Miller, whose film "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" was a huge success in 2009. More here from the Hollywood Reporter.
Gary Ross ("The Hunger Games") may direct an adaptation of William Kalush and Larry Sloman's The Secret Life of Houdini for Summit. Meanwhile, it seems that Columbia Pictures might be planning its own Houdini flick, to be directed by Francis Lawrence, who will also direct "Catching Fire," the sequel to Mr. Ross's successful "Hunger Games." Watch closely: how many Houdinis do you see?
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