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Chop-Chop Cups. The conjurers had forgotten that their heroes were also afflicted with nostalgia, that Houdini himself had borrowed his name from an earlier performer, Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, a 19th century French prestidigitator. Moreover, as the magicians should have known, scientists are the easiest to fool. They seek rational explanations for contrived phenomena, connections where none exist. Magicians were in fact doing what they had always persuaded their audiences to do: they were looking the wrong way. "We magicians are notorious for staring in the rear-view mirror," says Semipro Charles Reynolds, picture editor of Popular Photography. "As I figure it, all the evidence indicates that one day people will look back at this period and call it a magicians' renaissance." Reynolds is putting his money where his math is. This fall he will open a theater-restaurant à la Magic Castle in New York's Greenwich Village.
If the boom continues, he may have to drive off customers with a wand. The professionals are once again besieged by autograph freaks, inundated with requests for magic lessons and invited to appear on TV. In some respects, it is a return to the good old days and a few of the bad ones. Successful show magicians still live out of hotel rooms making tense one-night stands. A broken prop remains a major disaster, and one rude kid who announces that the coin is up the left sleeve can ruin an evening.
Still, the number of TV and stage performers remains a fraction of the conjuring work force. Most well-paid magicians work at trade shows, parties and conventions where the fees can reach $2,500 per diem. Dick Gustafson, a former chemist, derives a nearly six-figure income from trade shows. "It's no trick," he insists. "For example, I link steel rings together at a show to demonstrate how a chemist will link molecules together to make fibers for, say, Du Pont. Sometimes I float my wife in the air to emphasize the lightness of a fabric." Conjurer Milbourne Christopher, historian of the art, has floated a cake of soap in mid-air for Procter & Gamble, and produced a sales manager out of an empty box for American Motors.
There is no one better at the drummer's art than Karrell Fox, a master magician who once wangled an appointment with Henry Ford Jr. He arrived at Ford's office, gave a predictable spiel about the wonderful world of Ford magic, then asked his victim to pick a card, any card. Fox then shuffled, threw the deck on the floor, spread the pack with his foot and smugly selected—the wrong card. Crestfallen, he asked Ford if he could at least see the famous garden on the balcony behind his desk. Henry drew the curtains. There, in skywriting, was the number and suit of Ford's choice. Fox has been pitching at the company's trade shows ever since.
Scarcely less Foxy than Karrell are the salesmen at Lou Tannen's magic shop. All are masters at the special effect of separating an onlooker from his money. "We have kids come in here who never quit buying," says Tony Spina. "Twelve-, 14-year-olds think nothing of spending $50, $100 on magic. Anything new becomes an instant sellout."