2010-08 Dennis' Deliberations

You have to laugh at me and Cindy. This past year in Harrisonburg, Virginia has produced the coldest winter and most snow in the past 40 years. This summer has been the hottest and driest in 40 years.  Most of Virginia is drought stricken but we were saved here in the Shenandoah Valley by the higher water table due to the heavy snowfall last winter. Our family here in town believes that we jinxed this place.  I don’t believe in jinxes. I would rather believe we are all dealt a hand and we must make the best of it. I never moved here believing the weather would be perfect or even average. Remember the story about the statistics professor that drowned in the lake with an average depth of 2 feet.

I never enjoyed being disillusioned by extraordinary examples such as people that won the Lottery got very lucky by being in the right place at the right time. My mind often recalls the disillusioned magic wanna-bees that I have known or the hobbyists that always dreamed of making it big but never did.

I was thinking about the tens of thousands of starry-eyed kids around the world to believe that "making it" in magic -- even with exclusively close-up magic, isn't very difficult. This impression is further buttressed by the "con artists" who hustle get rich quick schemes for magicians; and the magic magazines that month-after-month feature a seemingly endless parade of young illusionists successfully playing their trade in "Vegas-like" venues and such. The rags-to-riches stories, the flashy colored photos of the artist working expensive-looking illusions, and surrounded by gorgeous, scantily-clad babes and all....   What incredibly naive teenager, deeply in love with conjuring, could resist this kind of hype?

And no one in magic seems to see any advantage, either for themselves, their profession, or for all the future potential "victims" -- in blowing the lid off this scam. There are no whistle-blowers in magic!! And there never will be.  In fact, they all hate like heck to even admit when magic falls into the doldrums, saying instead, "Just wait -- this is all very temporary, very cyclical, in a few years, in a few decades, whatever -- MAGIC is gonna come roaring back!"    ...When in fact, it may be all over for this generation... but the whining.

In the end, 99 percent of us turn out to be losers ... statistically speaking.  But that makes lousy copy. The truth is not what most people want to hear or know.

The last Monday of the month is when Ring #320 here in the Valley holds their monthly meetings at the Woodrow Wilson rehabilitation center in Fishersville.  President Eddy Toby suggested that the ring members do a stage show for the center patients as a “thank you” for letting us use a room each month for our meetings and lectures.
The last Monday of July we did the show.
Here is the “thank you” note I wrote to Eddy and it has a recap of my act which closed the show:

Eddy,
Thank you for being the spark plug on the WWRC show. In the final analysis you did a great job, both as Emcee and as performer. It was successful and enjoyed by the audience and that is what counts.   I mean when a guy even gives his wife to the cause… that’s commitment!   Seriously, Yvonne did a great job.  She had big shoes to fill and she did!

I need to explain this to everyone else in the ring!  It is a private joke between Eddie, Yvonne and me.

A week or so ago Eddie volunteered me to close the show with “a couple of illusions”. I explained that I had the props and costumes but I needed a female assistant and a couple of male assistants.   We had the guys covered with Eddie and Dave , but we needed a “tah-dah” girl.   Eddie picked up a cute nurse who worked at the center during the Sunday rehearsal and got her to agree to help us on Monday Night.  

On Sunday afternoon, Eddie and Dave and the nurse and I went over the routine, the moves, how to walk, how to stand and I took measurements for her wardrobe to pull from my costumes to bring on Monday.  She was 5 feet 7 inches and a dress size 8 and size 7 shoes.

Followed the rehearsal, Eddie and Yvonne came by my house in Harrisonburg to help me figure out why my computer  was  not cooperating with my I-Tunes program so I could burn the music track we needed. It took Yvonne’s son on the cell phone to figure out why we were having so much trouble with my computer.

Monday, I did my last newscast of the day at WSVA Radio at 6PM and went by my house for my rabbit and doves and headed to Fishersville.  Lucky! No wrecks to block I-81.   I get to the auditorium and guess what?   No nurse. They got short-handed at the center and forced her to work in another area of the place!
    
In steps Yvonne!  What a good sport!  Of course, she now had to fit her dress size 4 into a size 8 dress and her size 4 shoes into size 7.  Lots of stuffing in the toes with toilet paper!    We had just enough time to walk her through the sequences and it was curtain time.

Music! I came out with the dancing cane and then did my signature trick, "cane to botania"

I place my rabbit into my Indian Basket illusion and 5 Swords are thrust through and removed. The rabbit comes out unharmed!  Not much of a mystery until out of the same basket comes Yvonne dressed as Dorothy from the Land of Oz.    A choral version of “Somewhere over the Rainbow” played as Yvonne was placed on a board and levitated (Super X Suspension)

Finally, I used a Crystal Silk Cylinder and transformed red, white and blue silks into an American flag as I told the story of how Betsy Ross made the American Flag.  We concluded with the music of Lee Greenwood singing his classic hit, “God Bless the USA” as Eddie and Dave were showing and rotating a Bryce’s Screen. It was shown  empty and then from it  produced Yvonne dressed as the Statue of Liberty.

It all worked!

Thanks for making me look good…
I hope everyone now realizes just how complicated it is to even do a short illusion act with any production values, but we did it!
Anyone in their right mind will stick with close-up!

You guys (and girl) were great…Pat yourself on the back!

Keep the magic in your heart!

Dennis Phillips