I don’t believe I have yet to acknowledge the influence my
brother Tom has had on my book, The Amazing Morse. While I had been carrying
the plot ideas in my mind for a while I had yet to figure out who the main
character was supposed to be. It was not until I realized that my protagonist
should be a magician that all of the other elements really came together. Let’s
face it, there is something a little spooky about magic and magicians: they’re
always cutting people in half, sticking swords through them, decapitating
heads, etc. And look at the posters I have on the Magic Posters page: they’re
chock full of ghosts, demons, and the macabre. The themes of magic and escape
have so fired my imagination that I have made a series out of what began as a
single story.
Delving into magic started me delving into my childhood,
when I worked as an assistant for my brother as he began his magic career
(nearly forty years later, my brother is still earning a living doing magic).
Even before I started writing The Amazing Morse, I wrote
this little blog entry for a now dormant website forum. If you are familiar
with my book, then you will see how much it was influenced by my real-life
experiences. Here is a little reminiscence I did that ended up being a little
altered and put into Chapter 4 of The Amazing Morse. The picture I’ve added,
since it is referenced:
How to Handle a
Heckler
Say what you will about Robespierre, he
knew how to deal with troublemakers. Abuse of monarchical power? Off with his
head. Crimes against the state? Off with his head. Complicity with foreign
powers? Off with their heads. A crude but effective way of handling
interpersonal relationships. But of course nowadays you can’t use a guillotine
to solve your problems. Can you?
As mentioned previously, I was an
assistant for my brother, the magician. We performed for a variety of different
audiences, young and old. Adults were generally polite and receptive, but it
was the kids that really got into it. They were loud and very interactive, but
that was part of the show. My brother Tom would anticipate their outbursts and
play off of them. But there was generally one kid in every audience who needed
to be the center of attention. Like a drunk at a stand-up comedy club, he could
really ruin it for those that just wanted to sit and watch the show. He knew
the secret behind every trick, he had seen it done before, and better. Every
crowd of children has its Eustace Scrubb.
My brother was adept at steering the show
away from such children should the need arise, but he would always give these
Dudley Dursleys ample amount of time to voices their complaints. And then the
moment would arrive when a volunteer was needed from the audience. It was at
this point that the skeptic would
suddenly buy into the act. It was always he that would jump the furthest from
his chair with his arm straight out, screaming loudly. And he would always be
chosen. You could see the look of disappointment on the other children’s faces
as this kid, like Augustus Gloop with a winning
Wonka bar, walked proudly to the stage. It is quite a sad thing to see a group
of children’s faces as it dawns upon them that life isn’t always fair. When the
volunteer came to the stage, my brother and I would prepare for the next trick.
Hidden at the back of the stage behind other props stood something tall and
imposing covered by a black cloth. It
would take the two of us to carry it to the front. When it was in place, my
brother removed the cloth, revealing a guillotine, its blade glistening in the
stage lights. At the same time that the confidence ebbed from our volunteer’s
face, the disappointment would lift from the those of the children in the audience who had wanted
to help. My brother would then have our volunteer recite after him:
Tom: I, Eustace
Scrubb…
Eustace: I,
Eustace Scrubb…
Tom: Do hearby
give Rozoff the Magician…
Eustace:
(Nervously) Do hearby give Rozoff the Magician…
Tom: Permission
to sever my cranium…
Eustace:
Permission to, uh…
Tom: Sever my
cranium…
Eustace: Sever
my cranium…
Tom: From the
rest of my anatomy.
Eustace: From
the rest of my anatomy.
Tom: Now do you
know what you just said?
Eustace: Uh, no.
Tom: You have
just given me permission to cut off your head.
(Laughter from
the audience. The children would be able to maintain their illusions of justice
for a while to come, at least.)
Then Tom unclasped the head stock and
invited the volunteer to place his head in the space provided. The look upon
the victim’s face was not unlike that of Louis XVI’s some two centuries ago
when faced with the same situation. His face would turn pale as though the body
was unwilling to supply blood to something that it would not be attached to for
much longer. But Eustace would summon up
the courage to kneel before the instrument of death. Each step was another
recognition of his own mortality. Placing his head into the jaws of this beast,
hearing the clasps being closed, realizing his head is now locked in securely
with no chance for escape. But after all, this is just a trick, something for
the amusement of the crowd. Something the magician has done many times before.
And yet…
This was, unfortunately, just the
beginning of the torture for our poor volunteer. The key for any magical act is
to draw out the anticipation of the audience. With Eustace’s head now firmly
locked in place, Tom began his banter with the audience, warnings to the
audience members up front that they may get splattered. He would instruct
Eustace to reach around with both his hands to grab his ears, “just in case”.
Then he would move to the guillotine and grab the chain which held the blade.
He began the count: “One, Two, 3 days ago…”, he interrupted the count, “…I tried this trick and it left the stage a
bit of a mess. So I’m going to put some newspaper down to keep the floor
clean.” He held up the newspaper with a headline that proclaimed: “Magician has
accident, head rolls into crowd”. He then placed it under our volunteer’s gaze.
Then to the volunteer he would say: “You may get the impression that the ground
is suddenly rushing up to your head. It is just an illusion. On the count of
three…one, two, three.” With that, the blade came down, little Eustace said his
final prayers, and the trick was over. Still alive, Eustace was freed from the
guillotine and given a document that stated he was now an official magician’s
helper. He would walk slowly and unsteadily back to his seat, and remain
unusually quiet for the remainder of the show.
In writing this,
I realize that the whole thing sounds a little cruel, but it really didn’t play
out as bad as I portray it. After all, I myself was the initial guinea pig for
the trick and I came through it just fine (note: please do not look at pictures
from the previous blog).
