Norman Bigelow
#1 I have finist my latest paper called "Halloween-Night of the Deceptionist" for magicians and escape artist.
It will be sent on request.
Norm
It will be sent on request.
Norm
The Forum at Handcuffs.Org
Bigelow papers
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Anonymous
#2Halloween-Night of the Deceptionist!
Presented in association with Thomas Blacke & Escape Masters
Copyright Janet Bigelow October 2010 Info Talks Vol. 1
Dedicated to the Master of Mystery Jeff McBride and all magicians who love escapes and magicians who are thinking of performing escapes.
I don't think there could be a more perfect night in the year than Halloween for the magician or escape artist. Houdini as the story goes made a big impact on that night and as a result we have a séance that never ends.
Today escapes are popular and in these troubled times that may work in the favor of the escape artist. Escape is a mind set. Everyday some average person tries to escape some problem, finance, illness, war and myriads of other problems in our lives. It is a natural part of our complicated make up.
Some years back I did something that seemed perfectly natural to me when at a prison to try to visit someone. I was told I just couldn't visit someone. I needed to fill out a form and it could take a week before I was approved. Because I was with someone who did get in I had to wait around. It was a hot day and I needed air so I went outside. While there I decided to use my time by walking around the entire outside of the jail and check it out. They sure had a lot of cameras, walls and razor fences.
While walking I came to an area where a gate on a fence was open. I stepped on the other side of the fence to get the feel of being in there viewing the last fence to scale in an actual escape. I though I would be in an out in a second but a security car with two guards showed up fast. I was asked how I got in there. I said I walked and had to explain the gate was open. When the question why came I explained I was trying to get a feel of what an inmate would feel if they got this far. With that I got a free ride to the officer at emissions where I had to repeat my story.
It came down to the officer believing I was up to something. I asked, You don't think I am going to scale two walls, two razor fences and then try to break into your prison do you? He said, Anything is possible. I was allowed back outside but with a guard. This happened on a Sunday.
Monday I received a call that I could come visit and they wanted me inside not outside roaming around.
This is a matter of a reputation creating a pure illusion because of peoples imagination. If I really wanted inside for criminal activity I would not try to scale walls and razor wire fences. I would just get arrested for disturbing the peace and make sure I addressed the judge as your horror not your honor and my room would be guaranteed.
That is a much easier way. But I guess it is a compliment of sorts.
A reputation as a good escape artist can work for or against a person in this line of work. Our audiences like to believe we can open any lock, scale prison walls, be buried alive and escape.
It is our job to be able to carry that sense of confidence against all odds. When we finally free ourselves from some impossible situation the audience is free with us. We create a sense of wonder because of what we do.
The Spider Web.
In a Steranko article on escapes in Genii magazine there is a drawing of a large spider web with the escape artist tied in the center. It is a great looking escape prop for a show. I have often thought of this escape.
Sterankos Genii article is at the very least one of the best if not the best all round escape pieces written in my life time. I met Steranko once in the 70s when he came by to say hi at one of my stunts.
His drawings give spirit to his ideas like the spider web escape. Just the sight of that big web on a frame would be a different visual for the audience.
The spider web has been called the, Diabolical Trap. In escapes we have the advantage of taking the workings of this trap and to change them into anything we want theatrically.
A spider can lay both non sticky and sticky threads that contain a poison to their prey. http://hinduonnet.com/2001/03/25/stories/1325046j.htm
I am thinking of a huge illusion escape in a spots arena with large screens that people can see the escape on. It will be a blindfolded escape routine. The old blindfold test in a new setting.
A web is laid out around metal spikes pounded into the ground. One row is electric fence and one is razor wire. The artist is blindfolded and must make the whole escape that way. The escape artist is secured in the center in irons and a strong clear plastic bag. Then the artist is placed in a large wooden box.
A Cobra is thrown in and the box cover is placed on. It is not locked because it just keeps the Cora in. Any spectators now leave over a ramp that is moved away from the web after everyone is out. All power is now placed on to electrify the wire. Note {I am talking about illusion here.}
When the escape artist comes out of the box the Cobra is found in the plastic bag with the restraints. Then blinded folded the artist makes his or her way through the wire web and to their freedom.
Spiders might be the natural for this act but I don't think they are large enough to impress like a Cobra. The spider web concept has not even been touched upon to any degree in escapes. I love Sterankos original idea and have thought about it over the years. Concept two.
His drawing doesn't show a frame around the web but there has to be one. I suggest a large diamond shape frame or round on a post or pole that is hinged at the bottom. This way the frame can lay back low enough for the performer to lie on the rope web and get tied down. Then a second diamond shaped frame with a web is locked down over the performer. The two frames lock together trapping the performer between and then he or she is tied again to that web. Then the whole frame is brought up straight and locked in place. The performer is now up over the audience for a great visual escape unlike any others.
This would be a perfect training piece at an escape convention. Some who try it out may get stuck but it will be to their benefit to learn in a non dangerous situation. I suggest to train people use ten different ties. Each one getting harder. Start with one tie and keep adding to it until it is complicated but you're still able to escape because you worked up to it step by step. Then let students work at it step by step.
A person could attach loops to the web and form a laid out pattern of restraining to use over and over in shows. Use a hundred feet of rope that will feed through these loops and make you appear to have rope all over your body like a torture board effect.
It is a great show piece for photos and a great act and a great training piece all in one. I believe with the original ideas people can come up with for web that this is almost a never ending story of new concepts.
One great feature of the theatrical world is that we can spin any web or yarn that we want!
Comedy
I have to thank Jay Leslie for inspiring this concept. Recently I was writing and asking the question what effect instant information will have on todays escape artist. Jay had posted on line an experience with a straightjacket. After placing a spectator in the jacket his friend used some electronic system to get instructions on how to escape and was coaching the friend in the jacket.
I think an artist could claim they were going to try to escape from a jacket for the first time by reading the instructions on the computer before he or she attempts it. The instructions are read allowed. They are a carefully planned comedy routine that is funny when they are read and funnier when the instructions are used in the actual escape.
The artist can call on an assistant to read part or all of the instructions to bounce jokes off them while in the jacket and of course the artist finally escapes after doing ridiculous things trying to get out. There might be a routine in the concept. Turn the problem into the act.
The Tin Can Escape
In the book called Houdinis Escapes and Magic by Walter B Gibson There is a metal cross type escape. It is large tubes that you are locked in and you are in the position of the cross. The bottom is tied off to the floor at four even points of the bottom. What interest me is that it is the bottom that is suppose to open when you get the cross twisting. It twist the bottom and it comes off then you slide out.
Most if not all can or tube escapes have the gaff at the top or like in the milk can at the neck.
I think of having a can factory backing someone in this stunt for the publicity. They have to be in on the fix. I would build a can no higher than six inches over my head when sitting down. Instead of twisting the bottom, twist the can with suction cups. Then flip the can over crawl out and put it all back together. It can be made of light weight material.
http://www.amazon.com/Mini-2-1-Suction- ... B003HO53JO
All the attention should be given to the sealing of the top. Even boasting about how it is being sealed to build up the stunt.
This might be good on a telethon going in before an act and coming out after they are done. The audience will not be bored waiting and someone could get some good exposure for an old time style mystery.
Finally if you could get the can company to take it back after you escape and permanently seal the bottom for you then you will have a show piece and collectors item forever. Your secret will be safe after you're gone and as the can comes down you're mystery and legend grows. A perfect museum piece.
The Guillotine Escape
This following idea I have written about before but no one has built it yet. If any act can get pin point excitement this one can. This is a perfectly safe death defying escape illusion that would be a fantastic act and an opportunity to practice your close call skills and see how you would do if the escape was not an illusion. Even if you make a mistake on your timing you just play it as an illusion and you still look good. It can be a safe escape for a magic company to build.
This act can freak out an audience and have excitement like The Doors of Death. You will need a large scary standard magic guillotine and you need a table that when lying down on your back your head will fit through the stock. Your head will be facing up. You can be roped, chained and strapped down to the table. Your hands would be in gaffed cuffs with a rod welded between them. You free your self from everything except the head stock which is not locked down. The blade is set to release by a timer.
At the last second you throw the handcuff bar over the top of the stock stopping the blade before it passes through the stock. Then you free your head to take your bows. Even if you miss it just turns back into an illusion instead of a real looking escape. Escape artist Michael Lee had a great idea. If you use chains just throw them over the stock. In any case I believe this is a perfect magicians escape.
Magicians & Escape Artistry
I want to address some concerns in the escape community. There are those who post that magicians are ruining escapes and they don't give credit to people who create their ideas.
Magicians won't ruin escape artistry but escape artists will. It will come from an overload of kids who won't learn the basics, won't learn about magic and an overload of exposure will do it. Escapes go well as a spice but when it is everyday common all the life will be sucked from the art. I say this based on more than fifty years of watching the art come back.
I remember when I was quite young calling local fraternal orders and churches to book my act. I would say, My name is Norman Bigelow and I am an escape artist. I would like to send you some material and have you consider my act when you have a special event. Very often the reply would be, What is an escape artist. Many today have no idea what it was like when this was considered, The dead art. This still happens some. It happens to Alexandria the Great and it seems to be because she is a women.
Many of us in escapes have worked hard to bring about a revival and to give credit where credit is due we must give credit to magicians and the world of magic. For almost fifty years the Society of American Magicians in Boston Ma has booked my act for public shows, events and lectures. They have supported escape artistry all these years and there are others in the world of magic that do the same.
I use to tell the press, I am not a magician I am an escape artist. then I would go on stage and pull every trick in the book. Why I would I want to draw attention to deception if I don't have to?
I know of events for escape artist that refuse to have any magician to perform magic. Only escape artist can perform. When a good escape artist performs at a magic convention they compliment the magic show. When and if a good magician was allowed to perform at an escape event they would compliment the escape show. Some of these beginner escape artist ought to see a good magic act so they know what a good performer is.
Then there are the stars of magic that play to millions on television performing an escape. When they do an escape they create interest and when a group decides they want to hire an escape artist for an event because of it another door for work has opened for someone.
There is no question of the power of television covering magicians who do escapes has had an effect on interest in the art.
Magic has played an important role in this escape revival we are experiencing. It is a wave coming in and so people should ride that wave because the wave will go out again.
A new and great project for escape artist is W.A.R.E This event started in 2005 and is probably the best project going for escape artist. It gives individual escape artist a chance to demonstrate their escape and get press.
I am told the date for the next event is October 22, 2011 I will just post the information here sent to me by Paul Saunter (Dr. Wilson). E mail address for him is drwilson@memoryelixir.com
Dear Norm,
Thank you very much for writing. The Worldwide Escape Artist Relay (WEAR) was first done in 2005. There was an email discussion group for escape artists and we were trying to come up with publicity ideas. Several people kicked around some kind of record attempt with a lot of escape artists in a single location. This turned out to be very difficult because of the cost of travel and the difficulty of coordinating everyone's schedule. Lye Mitchell developed the idea of a virtual event involving a large number of escape artists. He coordinated the first one in October 2005..
WEAR 2005 was a really great event for me. It was going to be a big deal, so I finally got my own lighting, sound and backdrops that I still use all the time. We can go into an empty hall or a bare stage and be set up with the works in short order.
WEAR 2005 was largely planned on The Magic Cafe. In the discussion that followed the event, people decided that we should do it every other year.
I coordinated WEAR 2007 and WEAR 2009 through The Magic Cafe, email, and the web site for IBM Ring 362, where I have been the Secretary since the Ring formed in 2006. Here is the link for the WEAR 2007 site:
http://www.ibmring362.org/WEAR2007.html
There are many links from that page. Here is the link for WEAR 2009:
http://www.ibmring362.org/WEAR2009.html
Again, many links from that page.
I really enjoy your posts, and if there was one thing to say about WEAR, it is that every individual who participated has done something wonderful to make escapes popular again. There were kids doing escapes in their garages while their friends shot pictures. There were big-time pros with big shows. I always had a great time, and got national coverage on a radio program for WEAR 2007:
http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/p ... scape.html
I have just started a discussion on The Magic Cafe on the date for WEAR 2011. I have proposed Saturday, October 29, 2011. I have offered to coordinate the event using the IBM Ring 362 web site. I will certainly be doing an escape. Being the WEAR coordinator is actually pretty easy. I just try to stay out of the way and let people do their thing. All that we ask is that they let us know that they are in. In exchange, we post photos, link to their web site, and share a standard press release that people can use as a template for theirs.
There has been a lot of discussion over the years about the goal of getting major coverage for the event as a whole. I don't think that this is realistic, as the story is really about an individual escape artist, maybe a kid, maybe a woman, maybe an old pro coming out of retirement. There is always human interest story there.
Many of the escapes are highly original. Everyone mentions that their escape is part of a worldwide event, so the performance has more meaning than it might otherwise have, but the audience is watching one person escape.
Yours,
Paul (aka Dr. Wilson)
The Thumb Cut
On college market my front act was Mr Fingers (Irv Weiner) one of the most dedicated slight of hand artist who ever lived. He won over audiences with shear nerve and developed skills. The students all loved Irv. His show was as long as he wanted to make it. The show sold as an hour and a half. One half an hour for Irv to open and one hour of escapes. Sometimes he just kept going for an hour. We let him and the students could not get enough of him. Here is a site dedicated to Irv.http://mrfingers.org/
Irv use to do a thumb cut routine that I loved. He would actually tell an audience that when he performed this in the Bismarck Archipelago the natives embraced as if he was a god. The audience went wild. If Irv told them he climbed MT Everest in his bare feet and caught the abominable snowman the audience would have still loved him and his act.
Irv would have spectators examine his thumb to make sure it was not cut in any way. Then he would give them a white handkerchief to examine. Then Irv would reach in his pocket to get a knife. In his pocket he had a cork with a needle through it. The tip stuck out just a bit. Irv would puncture the underside of his thumb and then bring out the knife to be examined. He would then tie of his thumb with the handkerchief with his thumb nail up. This would start the thumb to bleed just a bit.
Then he would start on the side of his thumb to cut around the bottom and rock the knife back and forth to get the blood on the knife. While doing this he turned his thumb up and the blade made the blood leave a fine red line of blood across the bottom of the thumb and it looked like he cut it open.
Next Irv would wipe off the thumb and show it completely healed. It would blow people away. He would give out the handkerchief to a spectator and it was really his own blood on it. A seeming miracle had happened.
Irv taught me this trick to use and I did many times and can attest to the effectiveness of it.
I would bring a large show with four or five assistants to get a standing ovation. Irv did it with a brief case full of small everyday items.
Irv was also one of the greatest escape promoters I ever met. He could adapt and think like an escape artist as fast as he could to slight of hand. Often Irv solved potential escape problems before I even arrived. He could handle any trouble maker and defuse serious problems.
Invisibility
Given the enormous strides made so far in achieving invisibility, it clearly qualifies as a Class 1 impossibility.
Within the next few decades, or at least within this century, a form of invisibility may become common place." Physics Of The Impossible by Nichol Kaka the Henry Se mat Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Iceberg
The only stunt that I ever created that could make me want to come out of retirement it is my Iceberg Escape. I don't know if that is likely but that is how I feel about it. I am working with extreme cold water to condition for it just incase I get my shot at it because this is the one I really want to do myself.
This would be right from the Houdini era. Antique cars, antique clothes and music. Halloween would be a perfect night and if it were cool enough to give spectators a little chill thats a great effect for this escape. The audience can experience from sight sound and the feel of that era with an escape that lives up to the tradition.
The Morse code would be loud enough everyone could hear and translated on a big screen so everyone would know the communications between myself and my crew on the surface.
I would have an actual telegraph shack open in the front with a telegraph agent in dress of the time. I might need to have experts hook up modern devices with the old telegraph system so any device I have would be small. .
This is the original notarized notice sent out and published some years ago.
The Iceberg Escape
In time I plan to perform this escape. We are trying to figure some way around my injury problem as cold is the main problem. I have two plans for this. One is the raw natural state with a real iceberg and one in a show-biz situation where we manufacture the iceberg according to certain specifications.
My plan would be to be sealed in an iceberg in a hole on the top side that has been pre cut. After I'm placed in the chamber with shackles on, slabs of ice would be frozen over the hole. I would have an air tube pumping air until I'm ready to start the stunt.
When ready, explosive experts would blast off ice underneath until the weight on top of the iceberg was greater than the weight of the ice under the water. This would cause the iceberg to flip over leaving me at the bottom of the iceberg underwater. It would also rip away the air tube as it rolls over.
The only communication system would be amplified Morse code set up so the audience could hear. A bit of the old in modern times for drama. Of course we would have to type the words out on to a large electrical sign that the audience could read. The entire escape can be worked into a huge event. Of course it will be a one time stunt for me.
Presented in association with Thomas Blacke & Escape Masters
Copyright Janet Bigelow October 2010 Info Talks Vol. 1
Dedicated to the Master of Mystery Jeff McBride and all magicians who love escapes and magicians who are thinking of performing escapes.
I don't think there could be a more perfect night in the year than Halloween for the magician or escape artist. Houdini as the story goes made a big impact on that night and as a result we have a séance that never ends.
Today escapes are popular and in these troubled times that may work in the favor of the escape artist. Escape is a mind set. Everyday some average person tries to escape some problem, finance, illness, war and myriads of other problems in our lives. It is a natural part of our complicated make up.
Some years back I did something that seemed perfectly natural to me when at a prison to try to visit someone. I was told I just couldn't visit someone. I needed to fill out a form and it could take a week before I was approved. Because I was with someone who did get in I had to wait around. It was a hot day and I needed air so I went outside. While there I decided to use my time by walking around the entire outside of the jail and check it out. They sure had a lot of cameras, walls and razor fences.
While walking I came to an area where a gate on a fence was open. I stepped on the other side of the fence to get the feel of being in there viewing the last fence to scale in an actual escape. I though I would be in an out in a second but a security car with two guards showed up fast. I was asked how I got in there. I said I walked and had to explain the gate was open. When the question why came I explained I was trying to get a feel of what an inmate would feel if they got this far. With that I got a free ride to the officer at emissions where I had to repeat my story.
It came down to the officer believing I was up to something. I asked, You don't think I am going to scale two walls, two razor fences and then try to break into your prison do you? He said, Anything is possible. I was allowed back outside but with a guard. This happened on a Sunday.
Monday I received a call that I could come visit and they wanted me inside not outside roaming around.
This is a matter of a reputation creating a pure illusion because of peoples imagination. If I really wanted inside for criminal activity I would not try to scale walls and razor wire fences. I would just get arrested for disturbing the peace and make sure I addressed the judge as your horror not your honor and my room would be guaranteed.
That is a much easier way. But I guess it is a compliment of sorts.
A reputation as a good escape artist can work for or against a person in this line of work. Our audiences like to believe we can open any lock, scale prison walls, be buried alive and escape.
It is our job to be able to carry that sense of confidence against all odds. When we finally free ourselves from some impossible situation the audience is free with us. We create a sense of wonder because of what we do.
The Spider Web.
In a Steranko article on escapes in Genii magazine there is a drawing of a large spider web with the escape artist tied in the center. It is a great looking escape prop for a show. I have often thought of this escape.
Sterankos Genii article is at the very least one of the best if not the best all round escape pieces written in my life time. I met Steranko once in the 70s when he came by to say hi at one of my stunts.
His drawings give spirit to his ideas like the spider web escape. Just the sight of that big web on a frame would be a different visual for the audience.
The spider web has been called the, Diabolical Trap. In escapes we have the advantage of taking the workings of this trap and to change them into anything we want theatrically.
A spider can lay both non sticky and sticky threads that contain a poison to their prey. http://hinduonnet.com/2001/03/25/stories/1325046j.htm
I am thinking of a huge illusion escape in a spots arena with large screens that people can see the escape on. It will be a blindfolded escape routine. The old blindfold test in a new setting.
A web is laid out around metal spikes pounded into the ground. One row is electric fence and one is razor wire. The artist is blindfolded and must make the whole escape that way. The escape artist is secured in the center in irons and a strong clear plastic bag. Then the artist is placed in a large wooden box.
A Cobra is thrown in and the box cover is placed on. It is not locked because it just keeps the Cora in. Any spectators now leave over a ramp that is moved away from the web after everyone is out. All power is now placed on to electrify the wire. Note {I am talking about illusion here.}
When the escape artist comes out of the box the Cobra is found in the plastic bag with the restraints. Then blinded folded the artist makes his or her way through the wire web and to their freedom.
Spiders might be the natural for this act but I don't think they are large enough to impress like a Cobra. The spider web concept has not even been touched upon to any degree in escapes. I love Sterankos original idea and have thought about it over the years. Concept two.
His drawing doesn't show a frame around the web but there has to be one. I suggest a large diamond shape frame or round on a post or pole that is hinged at the bottom. This way the frame can lay back low enough for the performer to lie on the rope web and get tied down. Then a second diamond shaped frame with a web is locked down over the performer. The two frames lock together trapping the performer between and then he or she is tied again to that web. Then the whole frame is brought up straight and locked in place. The performer is now up over the audience for a great visual escape unlike any others.
This would be a perfect training piece at an escape convention. Some who try it out may get stuck but it will be to their benefit to learn in a non dangerous situation. I suggest to train people use ten different ties. Each one getting harder. Start with one tie and keep adding to it until it is complicated but you're still able to escape because you worked up to it step by step. Then let students work at it step by step.
A person could attach loops to the web and form a laid out pattern of restraining to use over and over in shows. Use a hundred feet of rope that will feed through these loops and make you appear to have rope all over your body like a torture board effect.
It is a great show piece for photos and a great act and a great training piece all in one. I believe with the original ideas people can come up with for web that this is almost a never ending story of new concepts.
One great feature of the theatrical world is that we can spin any web or yarn that we want!
Comedy
I have to thank Jay Leslie for inspiring this concept. Recently I was writing and asking the question what effect instant information will have on todays escape artist. Jay had posted on line an experience with a straightjacket. After placing a spectator in the jacket his friend used some electronic system to get instructions on how to escape and was coaching the friend in the jacket.
I think an artist could claim they were going to try to escape from a jacket for the first time by reading the instructions on the computer before he or she attempts it. The instructions are read allowed. They are a carefully planned comedy routine that is funny when they are read and funnier when the instructions are used in the actual escape.
The artist can call on an assistant to read part or all of the instructions to bounce jokes off them while in the jacket and of course the artist finally escapes after doing ridiculous things trying to get out. There might be a routine in the concept. Turn the problem into the act.
The Tin Can Escape
In the book called Houdinis Escapes and Magic by Walter B Gibson There is a metal cross type escape. It is large tubes that you are locked in and you are in the position of the cross. The bottom is tied off to the floor at four even points of the bottom. What interest me is that it is the bottom that is suppose to open when you get the cross twisting. It twist the bottom and it comes off then you slide out.
Most if not all can or tube escapes have the gaff at the top or like in the milk can at the neck.
I think of having a can factory backing someone in this stunt for the publicity. They have to be in on the fix. I would build a can no higher than six inches over my head when sitting down. Instead of twisting the bottom, twist the can with suction cups. Then flip the can over crawl out and put it all back together. It can be made of light weight material.
http://www.amazon.com/Mini-2-1-Suction- ... B003HO53JO
This product is no longer available. Here are some related, top-rated products you might like:
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This might be good on a telethon going in before an act and coming out after they are done. The audience will not be bored waiting and someone could get some good exposure for an old time style mystery.
Finally if you could get the can company to take it back after you escape and permanently seal the bottom for you then you will have a show piece and collectors item forever. Your secret will be safe after you're gone and as the can comes down you're mystery and legend grows. A perfect museum piece.
The Guillotine Escape
This following idea I have written about before but no one has built it yet. If any act can get pin point excitement this one can. This is a perfectly safe death defying escape illusion that would be a fantastic act and an opportunity to practice your close call skills and see how you would do if the escape was not an illusion. Even if you make a mistake on your timing you just play it as an illusion and you still look good. It can be a safe escape for a magic company to build.
This act can freak out an audience and have excitement like The Doors of Death. You will need a large scary standard magic guillotine and you need a table that when lying down on your back your head will fit through the stock. Your head will be facing up. You can be roped, chained and strapped down to the table. Your hands would be in gaffed cuffs with a rod welded between them. You free your self from everything except the head stock which is not locked down. The blade is set to release by a timer.
At the last second you throw the handcuff bar over the top of the stock stopping the blade before it passes through the stock. Then you free your head to take your bows. Even if you miss it just turns back into an illusion instead of a real looking escape. Escape artist Michael Lee had a great idea. If you use chains just throw them over the stock. In any case I believe this is a perfect magicians escape.
Magicians & Escape Artistry
I want to address some concerns in the escape community. There are those who post that magicians are ruining escapes and they don't give credit to people who create their ideas.
Magicians won't ruin escape artistry but escape artists will. It will come from an overload of kids who won't learn the basics, won't learn about magic and an overload of exposure will do it. Escapes go well as a spice but when it is everyday common all the life will be sucked from the art. I say this based on more than fifty years of watching the art come back.
I remember when I was quite young calling local fraternal orders and churches to book my act. I would say, My name is Norman Bigelow and I am an escape artist. I would like to send you some material and have you consider my act when you have a special event. Very often the reply would be, What is an escape artist. Many today have no idea what it was like when this was considered, The dead art. This still happens some. It happens to Alexandria the Great and it seems to be because she is a women.
Many of us in escapes have worked hard to bring about a revival and to give credit where credit is due we must give credit to magicians and the world of magic. For almost fifty years the Society of American Magicians in Boston Ma has booked my act for public shows, events and lectures. They have supported escape artistry all these years and there are others in the world of magic that do the same.
I use to tell the press, I am not a magician I am an escape artist. then I would go on stage and pull every trick in the book. Why I would I want to draw attention to deception if I don't have to?
I know of events for escape artist that refuse to have any magician to perform magic. Only escape artist can perform. When a good escape artist performs at a magic convention they compliment the magic show. When and if a good magician was allowed to perform at an escape event they would compliment the escape show. Some of these beginner escape artist ought to see a good magic act so they know what a good performer is.
Then there are the stars of magic that play to millions on television performing an escape. When they do an escape they create interest and when a group decides they want to hire an escape artist for an event because of it another door for work has opened for someone.
There is no question of the power of television covering magicians who do escapes has had an effect on interest in the art.
Magic has played an important role in this escape revival we are experiencing. It is a wave coming in and so people should ride that wave because the wave will go out again.
A new and great project for escape artist is W.A.R.E This event started in 2005 and is probably the best project going for escape artist. It gives individual escape artist a chance to demonstrate their escape and get press.
I am told the date for the next event is October 22, 2011 I will just post the information here sent to me by Paul Saunter (Dr. Wilson). E mail address for him is drwilson@memoryelixir.com
Dear Norm,
Thank you very much for writing. The Worldwide Escape Artist Relay (WEAR) was first done in 2005. There was an email discussion group for escape artists and we were trying to come up with publicity ideas. Several people kicked around some kind of record attempt with a lot of escape artists in a single location. This turned out to be very difficult because of the cost of travel and the difficulty of coordinating everyone's schedule. Lye Mitchell developed the idea of a virtual event involving a large number of escape artists. He coordinated the first one in October 2005..
WEAR 2005 was a really great event for me. It was going to be a big deal, so I finally got my own lighting, sound and backdrops that I still use all the time. We can go into an empty hall or a bare stage and be set up with the works in short order.
WEAR 2005 was largely planned on The Magic Cafe. In the discussion that followed the event, people decided that we should do it every other year.
I coordinated WEAR 2007 and WEAR 2009 through The Magic Cafe, email, and the web site for IBM Ring 362, where I have been the Secretary since the Ring formed in 2006. Here is the link for the WEAR 2007 site:
http://www.ibmring362.org/WEAR2007.html
There are many links from that page. Here is the link for WEAR 2009:
http://www.ibmring362.org/WEAR2009.html
Again, many links from that page.
I really enjoy your posts, and if there was one thing to say about WEAR, it is that every individual who participated has done something wonderful to make escapes popular again. There were kids doing escapes in their garages while their friends shot pictures. There were big-time pros with big shows. I always had a great time, and got national coverage on a radio program for WEAR 2007:
http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/p ... scape.html
I have just started a discussion on The Magic Cafe on the date for WEAR 2011. I have proposed Saturday, October 29, 2011. I have offered to coordinate the event using the IBM Ring 362 web site. I will certainly be doing an escape. Being the WEAR coordinator is actually pretty easy. I just try to stay out of the way and let people do their thing. All that we ask is that they let us know that they are in. In exchange, we post photos, link to their web site, and share a standard press release that people can use as a template for theirs.
There has been a lot of discussion over the years about the goal of getting major coverage for the event as a whole. I don't think that this is realistic, as the story is really about an individual escape artist, maybe a kid, maybe a woman, maybe an old pro coming out of retirement. There is always human interest story there.
Many of the escapes are highly original. Everyone mentions that their escape is part of a worldwide event, so the performance has more meaning than it might otherwise have, but the audience is watching one person escape.
Yours,
Paul (aka Dr. Wilson)
The Thumb Cut
On college market my front act was Mr Fingers (Irv Weiner) one of the most dedicated slight of hand artist who ever lived. He won over audiences with shear nerve and developed skills. The students all loved Irv. His show was as long as he wanted to make it. The show sold as an hour and a half. One half an hour for Irv to open and one hour of escapes. Sometimes he just kept going for an hour. We let him and the students could not get enough of him. Here is a site dedicated to Irv.http://mrfingers.org/
Irv use to do a thumb cut routine that I loved. He would actually tell an audience that when he performed this in the Bismarck Archipelago the natives embraced as if he was a god. The audience went wild. If Irv told them he climbed MT Everest in his bare feet and caught the abominable snowman the audience would have still loved him and his act.
Irv would have spectators examine his thumb to make sure it was not cut in any way. Then he would give them a white handkerchief to examine. Then Irv would reach in his pocket to get a knife. In his pocket he had a cork with a needle through it. The tip stuck out just a bit. Irv would puncture the underside of his thumb and then bring out the knife to be examined. He would then tie of his thumb with the handkerchief with his thumb nail up. This would start the thumb to bleed just a bit.
Then he would start on the side of his thumb to cut around the bottom and rock the knife back and forth to get the blood on the knife. While doing this he turned his thumb up and the blade made the blood leave a fine red line of blood across the bottom of the thumb and it looked like he cut it open.
Next Irv would wipe off the thumb and show it completely healed. It would blow people away. He would give out the handkerchief to a spectator and it was really his own blood on it. A seeming miracle had happened.
Irv taught me this trick to use and I did many times and can attest to the effectiveness of it.
I would bring a large show with four or five assistants to get a standing ovation. Irv did it with a brief case full of small everyday items.
Irv was also one of the greatest escape promoters I ever met. He could adapt and think like an escape artist as fast as he could to slight of hand. Often Irv solved potential escape problems before I even arrived. He could handle any trouble maker and defuse serious problems.
Invisibility
Given the enormous strides made so far in achieving invisibility, it clearly qualifies as a Class 1 impossibility.
Within the next few decades, or at least within this century, a form of invisibility may become common place." Physics Of The Impossible by Nichol Kaka the Henry Se mat Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Iceberg
The only stunt that I ever created that could make me want to come out of retirement it is my Iceberg Escape. I don't know if that is likely but that is how I feel about it. I am working with extreme cold water to condition for it just incase I get my shot at it because this is the one I really want to do myself.
This would be right from the Houdini era. Antique cars, antique clothes and music. Halloween would be a perfect night and if it were cool enough to give spectators a little chill thats a great effect for this escape. The audience can experience from sight sound and the feel of that era with an escape that lives up to the tradition.
The Morse code would be loud enough everyone could hear and translated on a big screen so everyone would know the communications between myself and my crew on the surface.
I would have an actual telegraph shack open in the front with a telegraph agent in dress of the time. I might need to have experts hook up modern devices with the old telegraph system so any device I have would be small. .
This is the original notarized notice sent out and published some years ago.
The Iceberg Escape
In time I plan to perform this escape. We are trying to figure some way around my injury problem as cold is the main problem. I have two plans for this. One is the raw natural state with a real iceberg and one in a show-biz situation where we manufacture the iceberg according to certain specifications.
My plan would be to be sealed in an iceberg in a hole on the top side that has been pre cut. After I'm placed in the chamber with shackles on, slabs of ice would be frozen over the hole. I would have an air tube pumping air until I'm ready to start the stunt.
When ready, explosive experts would blast off ice underneath until the weight on top of the iceberg was greater than the weight of the ice under the water. This would cause the iceberg to flip over leaving me at the bottom of the iceberg underwater. It would also rip away the air tube as it rolls over.
The only communication system would be amplified Morse code set up so the audience could hear. A bit of the old in modern times for drama. Of course we would have to type the words out on to a large electrical sign that the audience could read. The entire escape can be worked into a huge event. Of course it will be a one time stunt for me.
Norman Bigelow
#3I think it is very nice when Joe allows me to post a notice when one of my papers is ready on his site. That is all I post. I do not try to irritate any collectors by posting the context and I really don't think you should.I have finist my latest paper called "Halloween-Night of the Deceptionist" for magicians and escape artist.
It will be sent on request.
Norm
Someone else posted a page of a paper I did, not one of you asked me about it. Considering there is a copyright and a notary on them I assume you don't enter that into your thought process before you do these things.
I am not making this a complaint but I would appreciate if you ask. Thank you. Norm Bigelow