I. A son quietly rebellious
In 1874, the year of annexation by New York's Bronx, the credit ation of Danse Macabre of Saint Saens , the first lamp Inca ndescence, year of birth of Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Arnold Schoenberg, Gertrude Stein and Chaim Weizmann, March 24 Specifically, Mr. and Mrs. Weisz (nee Steiner) are pleased to announce to their friends and neighbors in Budapest (Hungary) where they reside, the birth of the little Erik their fourth child. The B'rit mila will take place on 1 st April ...
Austria-Hungary the Habsburg lived his last years of recklessness: the Jews are seen to civil rights in 1867, which will bring them flocking to the east of the Empire, but since liberalism back in Austria and Georg von Schönerer (1842-1921), which began organizing the radical nationalists, already began the march that will lead, not without emulated throughout the Empire, anti-Semitism [1] very popular, especially among artisans and workers. The family is poor Weisz - Mayer Samuel Rabbi Weisz is, which is not really "a good job for a Jew", has since decided lo ngtemps Yiddish wisdom ... - Already pledged to that Atre son and when he lives s fifth son, Theodore, she decides go try his luck to America s.
A small town Wisconsin needs a rabbi. Rabbi Weisz dir ond the announcement was approved by the Zion Reform Jewish Congregation , No. germanophone congregation renew them ... and thus the family had Ablitas Appleton ( north of Milwaukee ) early the 1880 and that Erik Weisz Ehrich Weiss became an employee immigration service with considered appropriate "anglicized" a foreign name.
Quick, it appears that this son of a rabbi is a kind of mystical anarchist kindly: he has an eye on the beautiful rather than listen to the Commandments, and he wants to enter as many art-makers of illusions and mysteries of the body act as the Torah (specifically what precedes it, Bereshit Maassé ["the work of the Beginning "]), Is attracted by Egypt and its wise men, Greece and its gymnasts, few approach the sobr e of the Law of Moses, the Talmud, which requires listening rather than seeing ...
early champion cross country, and passionate, from an early age, the circus and magic, Ehrich happening, in fact, almost all his spare time to try to reproduce the stunts and tricks he has be seen in the shows of circuses that visited Appleton Area or reproduced and he saw described in the many specialized books which he studied carefully. It has a trapeze in his court and a set of locks, latches and locks - in which it is enthralled : the trapeze, he learned early to fold in the most unlikely positions, locks, latches and locks, it works to open very soon with makeshift tools (nails, safety pins or hair, pipe cleaners, etc.).. It soon became a phenomenal flexibility, extreme skill and, after distributing newspapers, eight years, po ur contribute to the resources of the family, began performing at the age of e nine years in traveling circuses as a contortionist and trapeze.
Rabbi Weisz is an authoritarian, rigid and difficult character, very "European" and quite lost in the new world: it do not agree on s not really good with his son - especially with its fourth, which bears the contrary, a great love for his mother Rebbetzin - rather badly with his "parishioners" who want him to accept innovations (judged by his "heretical") from Germany, where Judaism " reformed "radicalized under the leadership successors Rabbi Abraham Geiger (1810-1874) - including striking pressure of separation between men and women in the synagogue and the introduction of the organ during services [2] ...
In 1887, the family separates: Rabbi Weisz, lost his position at the Zion Reform Jewish Congregation and poorer than its arrival, leaves for Chic ago and then for New York with some of his son, where he teaches courses in Hebrew, the rest of the family will follow later. Ehrich left home and ventured on the circuit circuses and traveling shows. After a year he returns to the m eason. It will turn cutter in a tie manufacturer, carrier folds, borer holes, photographer and a locksmith apprentice [3]. In 1892, Rabbi Weisz died. Time of metamorphosis. Erich Weiss, who at fifteen, had devoured the autobiography of the magician Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin [4] (the French master of illusion and mystery), suddenly feels free (?) Of the annex: the which was originally Ehrich-prince-of-tunes and Eric-the-large will die Sorma Harry Houdini [5]. Resulting in its wake his brother Theodore, he goes for uxième of time to get into the vaudeville circuit.
II. Prometheus Unbound
For several years, the Brothers Houdini will occur in the fairgrounds, agricultural shows and cabarets itinerant ac panied fairs and cattle markets, first presenting between the trunk and the woman fortune teller, card tricks and then, a number of escape s pectaculaire: Harry, undress and hampered by Theodore, locked in a trunk or a cramped full tank of water or milk (!), always managing to free himself in record time to the applause of an audience that grows with each new appearance that . - Both freeing Prometheus from his chains and Moses fleeing himself.
In Lovecraft's book [6] Richard Lupoff staged Theodore Weiss, a friend of Sonia Lovecraft (HP Lovecraft's wife), resuming after the death of her brother, numbers that made him famous, and reconstituted (so melodramatic asse z) one of the most audacious
" Theodore Weiss began to leave the nightingale, flexible and long metal rod hidden in the sole of his sneaker, invisible room when moving on the scene ...
Ten seconds had passed. His reflexes trained had taken control of his breathing and stopped the movement of its diaphragm ... His assistants had made, one after another, buckets of milk on it, re mplissant the vast reservoir in which it took place. They were replaced the lid of the tank, and had closed several padlocks.
Hardeen had been chained 'together', knees to the chest e t ankles hampered by rings connected by large links of iron. His arms cinched her legs and hands were taken in handcuffs American type 'Guiteau' [cf. below] ...
Thirty seconds had passed.
The lock of 'Guiteau' left side was the back of his hand. Hardeen [stage name of Theodore Weiss] managed to turn inwards his wrist. The nightingale fit perfectly in the hole s Erruas re. He tried it, made the tool to enter the first gorge of the mechanism, turned fifteen degrees and pushed its point beyond the second groove.
Once through the last gorge, Hardeen carefully twirled the nightingale not to twist ...
From both sides tank, the assistants amounted guard, ready to intervene ....
The orchestra of the Academy of Music, who had accompanied the preparations for a medley of tunes 'water', now playing Anchor Aweigh [7] the Violins and trumpets the melody, percussionist marking of rotation every fifteen seconds.
Sixty seconds had passed ...
Hardeen was released handcuffs ... He slid his hands down his legs to lower seams of his bathing suit to recover the metal hook that it was sewn. In turn iron rings ...
All over the tank was a huge clock face u public, counting the seconds. One hundred and twenty now, and the needle was running about three minutes ... Four minutes ... Five minutes ...
Inside the tank, Hardeen had released her ankles and attacked the padlock. He knew he could open one with both hands faster than one, but it could in each hand, simultaneously open the two locks faster than it would have done one after another.
The orchestra was playing fortissimo She waits by the Deep Blue Sea ...
Three one hundred and fifty seconds had passed ...
The lid rose sharply, fell on the stage with a thud, crushed a few feet and stopped in a white puddle.
hair and pants dripping with milk, the Myst Hardeen rieux stood up, went out of the tank, advanced to the stage and bowed ...
- I was so worried, Dash! exclaimed Sonia Lovecraft ... I was sure you had drowned ...
- If you knew how many times I escaped, Guiteau, and Egyptian rings under the same conditions. Ehrich and I had the habit ude lead us to be able to do the blindfolded ...
- But you stayed so long ... Is there something ...
- No, it's a matter of practice ... Ehrich was used to training in a pool. He could hold his breath, no, stop it completely, for half an hour. Matter of conditioning and technical that.
The Orientals have studied the subject for centuries ... I never managed to have the endurance Ehrich, but ... " [8].
*
In 1893, Coney Island, Harry met Beatrice (Bess) Rahner, who will become his wife, and separates from Theodore, who only continue his career in the same field under the name of the Mysterious Hardeen [9].
In 1999, Houdini met at Woodstock (!) One of the biggest agents of vaudeville, Martin Beck, who advised him to refine his "escapades" and hired by the tour Orpheum, which allows it to occur in large-halls of the United States. The Houdini, who bought from a retired showman faked a trunk, have a number, Metamorphoses, in which husband and wife, alternatively, disappear and appear, obstructed or free, depending on the state in which they disappeared under the spectators.
The success is great, especially the son of Harry Houdin, who quickly understood the power of advertising, is careful to precede the appearance of "magic duo" ad, rather elaborate, in the local press, publicly defying the authorities in each city visited and promised a large sum of money to anyone could put it under lock and keep him captive!
He knows at the end of a century that has not yet invented the word "marketing", choosing "interventions" in terms of their likely impact.
Thus, to achieve a blow to national prominence, he decides to be locked up in the state prison in Washington, where a cell is notorious: this is Charles Guiteau, assassin of Abraham James Garfield (1831-1881), President of the United States, spent his last hours. Charles Guiteau left its name to the special handcuffs he carried to the end and his name still evokes, in the year 1898, with terrible memories.
Harry Houdini leaves confined to quadruple in the cell tower, in my underwear, handcuffs, a ball at the ankles, chained to a chair firmly fixed to the ground.
Less than an hour after it occurs, quietly, in the office of the prison where waiting officers, senators, journalists, police officers and distinguished guests: he not only escaped but also took the trouble to change all detainees the floor of cells [10] ...
continued ...
Notes:
[1] The "doctrine" policy is an aggregate Schönerer von anti-Slavism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism and Pan-Germanism. He is the inclusion in the political language of German nationalism, two archaic meanings, or alleged, that would be a great fortune, "Heil" and "Hitler" ...
[2] As is known (?) The sages of the Talmud argue that one reason for the defeat of the Jews to the Romans is lust, men and women were not separated in the Temple of Jerusalem in the first century of the Common Era, another reason, not unrelated to the previous one, is, according to the Treaty Yoma 9b , the existence of an immense enmity between Jews "The first temple was destroyed because of idolatry, adultery and murder. But at the time of the Second Temple, Israel kept the commandments of the Torah and acted with kindness. In that case, why the temple was destroyed? Because they hated without reason . Consequently, the sages of the Talmud have outlawed the use of any musical instrument in the synagogue service (except the harp and, later, the violin, the occasion of a marriage), a sign of mourning in remembrance of the destruction of the Temple in 70.
[3] Ben King Tribute to Houdini , http://www.houdinitribute.com/biography.html
[4] The first to have presented his show in evening dress, famous for mechanical engineering and automata, inventor of the number of "trunk Indian" (always on the agenda of contemporary magicians), born in 1805 and died in 1871, is to say, three years before the birth of Ehrich Weisz ...
Much later reconciled with her childhood (her memories embellished by some distance), Harry Houdini confided to a reporter: " Shortly after I left home, my parents left Appleton to Chicago, where my father became a professor of Hebrew . And I'll tell you something that few know: I taught myself Hebrew, helping my father to teach beginners Aleph-Bess. few years after they moved to New York, where for a time, their condition was so difficult that my father had to sell some of his most valuable books [Hebrew] ... It was in New York, too, that I became a bar mitzvah . .. "Franklin Gordon Close-Up of Houdini, Master Magician, The American Hebrew, Nov. 12, 1926, New York City by Nathan Ausubel, Houdini the Magician , in A Treasury of Jewish Folklore , Crown Publishers, New York, 1948, p. 257.
[5] i-Houdin Why? Legend has it that a friend of Erich Weisz, Jack Hayman told him that in French adding an "i" to Houdin would mean "like Houdin" (according to Wikipedia, http:// en.wikipedia.org / wiki / Harry_Houdini ). It is possible that the multi-lingual and Weisz (we spoke German, Hebrew and Yiddish at home) has influenced this incongruous addition, the "i" ( yod) in Hebrew to mark the masculine pronoun ( adon = master , Adoni = my master). The fact is that, overnight, the young Hungarian Jew (he later claimed to have been born in the U.S.) ended up with Italian-sounding name, if not frankly Sephardic ...
[6] Lovecraft's book (Grafton books 1987), describes passing a curious episode in the life of Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937, author, inter alia, The Call of Cthulhu , The color of the sky fell of The Whisperer in darkness and the shadow came time), during which we see this great writer of science fiction, full of social and racial prejudices of New England (though married to a Ukrainian Jewish older than him ) very close to being led by George Sylvester Viereck (1884-1962), poet, author of science fiction and Nazi sympathizer, author of Confessions of a barbarian , to write a sort of American Mein Kampf. His wife, Sonia Greene, Theodore Weiss and others will work successfully to show the dark imaginary worlds explorer how he almost got sidetracked in his own time ... - George Sylvester Viereck was imprisoned from 1942 to 1947 in the United States for not formally registered as Nazi agent.
[7] Song Combat Naval Academy United States, composed in 1906 by Charles A. Zimmerman, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchors_Aweigh
[8] Richard Lupoff, Lovecraft's book , op. cit., p. 93 sq .
[9] " Theodore Weiss - Theo for his family, Dash [" Sapper "] to close friends, the Mysterious Hardeen for his public " Richard Lupoff, op. cit. P. 50.
According Lupoff by talking Lovecraft ( ibid. p. 33) Theo was always dressed to the nines, Harry, " always seemed to have slept in his clothes on a bench and wiped a thunderstorm, thirty seconds after past." - It undress Harry was a good impression: the "simple apparatus" as a sign of innocence ...
[10] According to Michel Seldow, illusionists and their secrets , Paris, Fayard, 1959, pp. 137-138.
Illustration:
S pectres? copyright © Patrick Jelin .
Fernand Leger Retail © copyright RZ.
Connections © copyright Alain Zimeray.
If your t'imagines ... © copyright Alain Zimeray.
Well sleeve? Well bu? © copyright Alain Bellaiche.
Rue Meyerbeer (Nice) © copyright RZ.
Harry Houdini: stiff neck and a flexible spine © copyright 2010 Richard Zrehen
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