Richard Kaufman, the Chief Genii at Genii Magazine, is good for any number of outstanding quotes going back decades. Here’s one that’s mere hours old: It doesn’t matter how much you think about magic, or practice, in isolation: nothing makes you a performer but working for real people on a regular basis. —Richard Kaufman The […]

UPDATE: Welcome friends of Sam Bacchiocchi. I see many of you Googled Sam’s passing and found your way here. Before you read my brief note about Sam, please take a moment to read this entire note to honor the life of a friend who passed away this morning battling the same type of disease. This […]

Escamoteurettes came into the world on October 1, 2004. Weblogging was fairly young and magic blogging was downright embryonic. I began writing this thing because it was easier than than finding an old priest and a young priest. “The power of Max compells you. The power of Max compells you…” (Sorry. That was borderline inappropriate. […]

My chest hurts. At my age, that’s not the best way to start polite conversation, but Casa Escamoteurettes isn’t exactly known for its politeness, now is it. Just to settle the nerves of the three of you I may have concerned, the pain isn’t due to cardiac what-not. I finished listening to Michael Close’s audio […]

I’ve noticed Casa Escamoteurettes is visited quite a bit by people sporting web-enabled mobile devices. This is good, so long as you higher-tech visitors are not trying to drive while reading this blog; you run the risk of crashing into that idiot turning in front of you who doesn’t see you because she’s busy tapping […]

First, a quote: “… well what I did was that I was the first one to just go out and just play steel guitar concerts and when I did it I didn’t just do it in the United States, I did it in England, and everybody kept on saying ” What are you going to […]

As I put the finishing touches on another Opus Escamoteurettes (which is to say, a blog post too long to read in one sitting in the head, but too short to bother killing a real tree in order to publish it properly) I want to share a reference with you in hopes you will consider […]

This post has been a long time coming. But first, some lyrics: Wheel about, an’ turn about, an’ do jis so; Eb’ry time I wheel about, I jump Jim Crow. — Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice, Jump Jim Crow While Lewis Hallam is believed by some to be the first white comedian to perform in blackface […]

I thought about attempting to break my own record at how long I can go without peeping, but what’s the fun in that? So, instead, I thought I’d try an experiment that may interest some of you. Suppose you could learn what are, for lack of any better way to describe them, the “secrets” (and […]

Happy 72nd birthday, Herb.