Choosing the color red for the large capsules used in the Draft Lottery of 1972 was poetically apropos, I think, with blood still being shed in that mad adventure called Vietnam. The 366 capsules, each containing a different day of the year, plus Leap Year, were drawn one at a time from a clear glass or plastic cylinder in February of 1972. It would be the men whose birthdays were drawn one through six or seven who would actually be drafted. In 1973 there were 646 men inducted into the Armed Services as a result of the lottery. I was one of them. My birthdate had been chosen fifth.
I wasn't going to Vietnam -- so I joined the Navy for a four-year hitch, choosing radio and television as my specialty, believing I could use these skills as a civilian journalist after being discharged. I didn't like it, but I didn't fight it. I welcomed the guaranteed income, which would be more than sufficient to marry and support my high school sweetheart. But I got orders to East Africa, Ethiopia ... and I didn't see her for three years.
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