Figuring out how to fire a dog out of a cannon was not going to be easy. Munchkin was very likely, however, going to suffer most of all. He couldn't help it, Jacques Montpelier contemplated as he unwrapped another package of gunpowder. The gauntlet had been thrown, and he had too much honor be back down from a direct challenge to his manhood, his poise and his sense of ingenuity. Jacques couldn't help it if he had moved his wife and family into a neighborhood of engineers; what he could do what shut their mouths once and for all -- just as effectively as Gigi had opened them. The tramp. But how many? The French were innovative, for the love of Peter, they could do anything when they put their mind to it ... even something as tricky as luring Benjamin Franklin into the salons of Paris to trade the United States of America to Lucifer in exchange for wine, women and a list of experiments and anecdotes that the devil carried around with him in his hip pocket. Jacques had read the secrets. He knew all about Franklin and Lucifer and their courtship. Thomas Paine, too. They were all whores. Jacques was a whore. Everyone was a whore. Everyone except Munchkin, the firing of which out of a cannon was not going to be easy.
As much as admirers of Houdini were convinced he could dematerialize. Trick gear shows otherwise
HARRY HOUDINI, whose real name was Eric Weiss, was the son of a rabbi, and arguably a messiah-like 'superman' who inspired immigrants yearning for freedom and success. Houdini was beloved by all who knew him. Toward the end of his career, with his hair beginning to show touches of gray, he devoted his time to entertaining sick children in hospital. He may have been murdered by friend turned foe Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame. Sir Arthur was a spiritualist, close friends with several mediums, and convinced that Houdini could dematerialize. And Houdini thought Sir Arthur was a nut and said so -- which is a credit to Houdini's craft, in the sense that it is, after all, just illusion. The author of the enormously popular Sherlock Holmes stories was a practitioner of the occult, and who knows, he may very well have seen ghosts in the presence of these mediums, hence his strong reaction to Houdini's debunking efforts. Doubtful, however, that any "Watchers" (in Purgatory?) could be produced at will, or that they could ring a bell or do other spectacular tricks. Sir Arthur was too smart a man to fall for spiritualism unless his occultic experiences produced tangible results; and they very likely did. Houdini's medical records from a Detroit hospital where he was treated after allegedly being punched in the stomach, rupturing his appendix, are highly suspect in light of the marked indication for the appendix on the medical chart on the "left" side. Any legitimate health care professional would have readily known the appendix is found only on the right side. No autoposy was ever performed, and, Houdini's body was placed in one of his trick caskets made of bronze, placed on a train and whisked to New York before the family knew what had happened to the famed magician's body. Houdini may have been poisoned. Was Houdini a forerunner of anything or anyone? Arguably, histoty often appears to be constructed as art.
TANATA: Things (often) Are Not As They Appear
- Randall Carter Gray
- Signal Mountain, Tennessee, United States
- student of Coptic and Judaic studies, gentleman (amateur) scholar