Well, There's A Surprise...

This week I watched a thriller called Key Witness (1960). It was a random choice based on discovering that Jeffrey Hunter was the lead. Apart from the original series of Star Trek and the film King of Kings, I hadn't seen him in anything else. And so curiosity called and I watched the film. 

While not a great film, it is nevertheless a thriller worth seeing once. However, while watching the movie I noticed something that I definitely had to check afterwards.  One of the villains was nicknamed Magician. Another villain was nicknamed something that sounded like Muggles. Were my ears deceiving me, I wondered. 

As it turns out, no they weren't; the character is indeed named Muggles.

I had only ever heard of the word in connection with the Harry Potter novels/films. A little research made my jaw drop. 

In the movie Key Witness, Muggles gets very upset about Magician having stolen his 'ciggiepoos' as he calls them, more upset than would be expected regarding ordinary cigarettes - are you seeing where this is going? From about the 1920s onwards, Muggles was a nicknames for pot-smokers. 

I shall leave it to you to make up your own Harry Potter jokes about Wizards and Muggles.

Meanwhile, here is the less than enthralling trailer for the film Key Witness:

   

Who Is It? [number 2]

Here is another 'Who is it?' question. I made it this morning; it's based on the Dragon illusion which can be found on YouTube but I've changed it and added to it to make it resemble a famous British magician. Just to be clear, based on the number of Harry Potter related answers I received in the last 'Who is it?', this has nothing to do with Harry Potter or any other fictional magic character. This is a real person.

Entertainment Defying Acts

This week the BBC broadcast the film Death Defying Acts starring Guy Pearce and Catherine Zeta Jones. The basic gist of the film is that a fake psychic tries to swindle Harry Houdini out of a $10,000 prize for evidence of contacting his late mother. There were two main areas of disappointment regarding this film.

The first was that the writers did not appear to know very much about Houdini. It was almost as if the story was about another magician entirely. As it turns out, the original writers had a story that did not involve Houdini at all but, as usually happens with the many handed interference - sorry, contribution - of a production team, one of the main characters became Houdini. After which there was very little obvious consultation of any authoritative biography, of which there are many. They instead used the popular urban myths about Houdini that have been bandied about since his death.

Would the film have been more palatable if a fictitious magician was used? Not really and that was the second area of disappointment. My wife Jill, who knows nothing about Houdini and therefore could not be put off by any form of representation of him in a film, was quickly made so bored by the film that even the dreaded washing of the dishes had a greater allure for her. Followed by any other activity she could think of to do. The pace and plot did not particularly grip our attention and the actors had little room in either to have the opportunity to make us feel any empathy for the characters they portrayed.

[The above image is copyright by the film-makers]

Film of J. N. Maskelyne Performing Plate Spinning

If you know anything about the history of magic in the UK then you will have heard of J. N. Maskelyne. Amongst all the wonders that he performed in magic shows, he performed plate spinning. No, not the spinning a plate on a stick sort of thing. This is something else altogether.

In the book The Modern Conjurer by C. Lang Neil (1903 edition), two of the pages have film like strips printed down the edges. The blurb explains that they pictures taken using the technology of the cinematograph. I decided to see if I could make a video from the images of Maskelyne in action. I scanned the pages, edited the individual pictures into separate files and edited a very brief film using them. I have no idea what became of the original film. The book states the pictures were taken especially for the book, so it was probably never publicly used.

Well, here is the video.

Portrait of Dai Vernon

Being Awkward About Exhibitions

The Youtube videos of my pen sketches of magicians and the few details about the exhibition to feature them has led to my receiving various communications, most frequently involving four types; therefore, I thought it best to address them here.

The first is from the people being very kind and paying me compliments about my art. I have tried to answer the emails of as many of you as I can but the point has been reached where all I can sensibly do is say thank you to everyone by using this blog and apologise for not being able to directly contact all of you.

The second is that many people have asked if they can buy some of the portraits featured in the Youtube videos. The answer is a polite no; they have been commissioned and therefore unavailable.

The third is regarding those asking to host an exhibition of my work. These inquiries have been of the kind where someone wishes to host an exhibition of my work on the premise that I only receive any form of payment if any of the artwork sells. The answer to all and any inquiries of that sort is a polite no. My artwork for others is done on a commissioned basis only. I am commissioned to do a project, I complete the project and I get paid. Whether or not someone exhibits the final project is up to them. I will not be involved by that stage. That is what is happening with the Magicians project. I will not be attending any of the venues of the exhibition. Should a client make a profit in selling any of the artwork commissioned then that is fine with me; that is what happens in the art world anyway. (Anyone wishing to commission art work is welcome to contact me but I advise them to be sitting down when they hear the price.)

My reasons for working this way are many but here is one of them which is self-explanatory. Take a look at this picture:

It is a study in pencil of a bronze by Rodin. This was one of thirty such studies of sculptures by Rodin. Note the word ‘was’. I have three left; the other twenty-seven were stolen in an exhibition. Or so I was told by the person hosting the exhibition. It was the only time I said yes to a gallery that exhibits art with a view to selling it on behalf of the artist. After much effort, I made no profit and lost twenty-seven items of financial value. It will remain the only time that I have said yes to a gallery that exhibits art with a view to selling it on behalf of the artist.

Now we move on to the crackpots, the conspiracy theorists, etc. It has reached the stage that I delete all emails and messages of this type without reading them. For those of you wondering what sort of lunacy these emails contain, I can say that the small number that I read when I first started to receive them were of a very imbecilic nature. The subsequent ones that followed were no different. It is very sad that some people have gone to the trouble to learn to read and write and yet have not bothered to learn to think, making the whole process a waste of time.

I hope that covers most people’s inquiries. Sane and sensible people are still welcome to contact me. I cannot guarantee a reply but will try my best in most cases.

Sketch of John Archer

Sketch of Roy Walton

Sketch of Teller

Sketch of Penn Jillette

I might not film many more of these portraits being drawn. Setting up the camera and the fact that the camera is in the way as I draw are slowly me down somewhat. Therefore, I might simply get on with drawing and painting the remaining portraits without the nuisance of filming them. I am about half way through the agreed list and I want to get ahead of schedule so I can get on with editing projects that are in danger of being neglected. I have not fully decided yet.

I have received an email regarding the client's original idea that the videos would be played at an exhibition when the portraits were on display. Although the client is keen, the management of the venues are not. If no venues are interested then I will not bother with any more of these type of videos and just get on with completing the project.

Chris Cross

Amongst all the digital hither and thither of social network sites on the internet, magician Chris Cross and I have exchanged the occasional message. This week I experienced the 'instant messaging' of Facebook when Chris contacted me about my portraits of magicians. He was interested in one of himself as a bonus feature for a DVD. A gentlemen's agreement was arrived at and here is the result. It is not in the same style as the other videos because it is not part of the same project.

For those techies who want to know the how of it, I simply used a scanner to produce digital images as I progressed through the drawing. These were then edited together to create the video. The process is an annoying one because I have to continually interrupt the drawing process; my level of concentration involves starting and not stopping until the picture is finished. Another setback is alignment of images. I was lucky in this video in that it was not too bad. One setback, despite the high resolution of the scanner, was the fading of colour. I marked out Chris' hair as brown and his tie as yellow. His hair appears red in the video and the tie is barely visible until redone near the end of the video.

I do not know the details of when the video will be available on Chris' DVD so keep an eye on his website http://www.chris-cross.co.uk/ for its availability. Also, Chris is on tour in the UK this summer so check his site for details.

Stewart Lee and Jerry Sadowitz

The series Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, BB2 on Mondays, came to an end this week. I have enjoyed the series and hope that there will be another in the future. Lee’s style is one which deserves admiration. He discusses a subject in a nonchalant way, seemingly following a ‘stream of consciousness’ process and yet making use of well thought out repetitions of phrases and concepts. He comments on the absurdities of life and occasionally also on the situation of being a stand up comedian performing to a live audience. The latter goes so far as to him admitting that a particular tale he is telling, of something that happened to him the week before, is a fiction; even so, he keeps telling the tale whilst explaining which parts are not true and the fictional characters in the tale begin to ask him what does he think he is he doing. It is comedy which could be theatre of the absurd at its most accessible. After watching this series, I regard Stewart Lee as being the Samuel Beckett of stand up comedy.

An extra treat in the last episode was Jerry Sadowitz imitating Jimmy Savile in a sketch. A unique comedian, and a unique magician, Sadowitz has been missing from our television screens for far too long and I hope that he will appear on television more in the near future. A misunderstood performer, sometimes deliberately misunderstood by some, it may be the case that television producers cannot see beyond Sadowitz’s stage persona to the experienced professional behind it, cannot tell fact from fiction in the fuss about the image that accompanies his comedy persona. During his live shows he presents the audience with a persona of an aggressive, loud, opinionated, foul mouthed Glaswegian who airs shocking points of view that can invoke an occasional negative response from a few audience members; Sadowitz then gets called racist, sexist, etc., despite the fact that those people bought a ticket to the show in order to laugh at a racial stereotype: an aggressive, loud, opinionated, foul mouthed Glaswegian who airs shocking points of view.

An audience watching comedian Omid Djalili (whose brilliant new series began this week on BBC1) when he imitates a Middle Eastern accent and declares “and that is why the West must be destroyed” tend to laugh because they are laughing at a racial stereotype. They do not believe that Djalili is a Middle Eastern terrorist or that he means what he is saying; they know it is only a comedy act. It is different with Sadowitz, an audience seems to believe that the comedy character they are being presented with is genuinely who Sadowitz is as a person and that the things said really are his own sincerely held views. It is a bit like believing that Omid Djalili really is a Middle Eastern terrorist or believing that Warren Mitchell really is Alf Garnet. At one of Sadowitz’s shows which I watched, at least three times during the show he had to point out to a small number of audience members that it was a comedy act and that he did not really mean what he was saying, that he is a comedian and it is just an act. The crux of the matter can be highlighted by a further comparison with Djalili. When Djalili has finished using his Middle Eastern persona he can revert back to using his own voice, which has an English accent. When Sadowitz has finished using his ‘extreme’ Glaswegian persona, he still has a Glaswegian accent. It is much easier for people to differentiate between Djalili and his Middle Eastern persona than it is for them to do the same with the real Glaswegian Jerry Sadowitz and his fictional foul mouthed Glaswegian used as a comedy persona. (Before anyone points it out, yes, I know that Sadowitz was born in America but he was raised in Glasgow and has a Glasgow accent.)

I sometimes wonder if there is a touch of racism against the Scottish and Glaswegians in the people who refuse to accept that Sadowitz is not the obviously exaggerated Glaswegian stereotype he uses as a stage persona. From the descriptions given by people who know Sadowitz personally and even from some journalists who have bothered to take the time to look behind the stage persona instead of exploiting it, it is to be found that Sadowitz is a quiet person who is teetotal and shares little in common with the character he presents on stage.

A tiny, tiny glimpse of the real Jerry Sadowitz is given in the book This Virtual Life: Escapism and Simulation in Our Media World by Andrew Evans and it is given by Sadowitz himself. Not only did he contribute to a modest part of Evans’ research for the section of the book which deals with the media, trickery, magic and audience reactions thereon, Sadowitz also wrote the foreword to the book. Not even the slightest hint of his stage persona is to be found in there and we meet someone else entirely.

The real Jerry Sadowitz is, perhaps, none of our business. He is entitled to his privacy and as a performer, the product 'Jerry Sadowitz, Comedian and Magician' is probably all we will be allowed to know. However, I sometimes wonder if Sadowitz wishes that people, including television producers, would realise and remember that there is a real Jerry Sadowitz that is different from the comedy persona. Something that Spike Milligan once said in a television interview, for me, highlights why people are so ready and willing to believe the outrageous about Sadowitz (or others) without looking deeper. Milligan was telling a hilariously ludicrous story that was supposed to be a true event and another guest on the show recognised the story; he stated he knew the people involved and it did not happen the way Milligan was telling it. Milligan gestured towards the audience and asked "What do you think these people want to hear? A boring truth or an interesting lie?"