Samuel Effin Jackson stars in a movie currently in production and titled “Black Snake Moan.” In it, Jackson plays the part of Lazarus, an older black bluesman who claims he can cure a white nymphomaniac of her condition by…well, use your imagination.

Knowing Jackson — and the details of this production — as I do, I think I can state for the record that rumors that “Black Snake Moan” is based loosely on the story of a now cranky, crotchety old bastard in the world of mentalism who once got off (if you will forgive the expression) in court from charges that he convinced a woman to have sex with him to cure a “curse” — which charge was reported to be accurate and the getting off part was aided and abetted by one of the shining lights in mentalism — are purely speculative.

Amusing, but speculative.

Carry on.

Granted we’re only twenty minutes into it, so this is a mid-stream observation. The only thing that comes to mind is this quote:

“Here’s a quarter, it’s gone, you’re an idiot, it’s back, you’re a jerk, show’s over.”
— Jerry Seinfeld

This has got to be the irony of ironies.

Let’s see how the next hour and a half goes.

UPDATE: Okay, it’s over. I’ll stand by what I wrote above.

It really is ironic to me that P&T appear to have become a living example of what Penn has for years consistently excoriated: the epitome of the type of magic as described above in Seinfeld’s quote.

Between Showtime’s Bullshit, the interview on stage at MAGIC Live! last summer, and the television special this evening, it seems to me Penn is becoming the George Carlin of magic.

Back to the special this evening.

To my mind, this was the network version of “The Aristocrats” — a well produced inside joke told at the expense of the paying audience.

Except in this case, I’ll go a little further and suggest this was the 21st century version of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Emperor’s New Suit“ — with we magicians and the audience members playing the part of the emperor, to Penn and Teller’s swindling weavers.

On the other hand, maybe I’m just not inside enough to “get” P&T these days.

In 1980, Blue Oyster Cult released a great album — probably the last one of theirs I loved start to finish. Titled, “Cultosaurus Erectus,” it contained a song named “Divine Wind.” It was actually a political song aimed at the Ayatollah Khomeini, who considered the USA to be the “Great Satan.” The lyrics included the line:

If he really thinks we’re the devil,
then let’s send him to hell.

It could be that, after all these years of being called exposers of magic they’ve adopted the same point of view.

The one thing we can count on when it comes to our understanding is that it’s rarely a cup filled sufficiently. To wit:

Alexander Nikolayevich Lodygin (1847-1923) was quite the engineer and inventer. The Tambov Cadet School graduate went on to serve a short stent for his Russian military, then retired from military service and entered…further military life, this time at the Tula weapons factory.

It was while working on an important project that Lodygin invented an interesting little thing for which he was granted Russian patent number 1619 (applied for in 1872, granted in 1874.) The patent described a glass container with a thin carbon filament that, when electricity was applied, glowed. It created light. It was a light bulb.

Shortly after that, Lodygin went on to start the rather obvious follow up to the light bulb: a lighting company.

In the 1890s, the years after immigrating to the United States, Lodygin worked on all sorts of metallic filaments to replace the short-lived carbon filament. One metal he settled upon was tungsten. In fact, a patent he was granted that dealt with light bulbs utilizing tungsten filaments was sold, in 1906, to General Electric. Yes, that GE — the ones who bring good things to light.

Coincidentally, in 1874 some bright work was going on in Toronto, Ontario Canada. In that year Henry Woodward ( a medical student) and Mathew Evans (a Woodward friend and hotel keeper) patented an interesting little thing: an evacuated glass globe containing a carbon element that, when electricity was applied, created light. An electric light bulb.

Woodward and Evans didn’t have the monetary means to pursue the success such an invention should bring, so they sold their patent to a fellow by the name of Thomas Alva Edison.

Ask most people and they’ll tell you Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. In fact, Edison did not invent the incandescent light bulb; he used worked previously done (including that patent from Woodward and Evans) as the basis of his group’s designs to make a bulb last longer and, thereby commercially viable. Edison’s patent followed almost five years after Lodygin’s and Woodward & Mathews’ patents.

But what about Heinrich Göbel, you may ask. (Or, you may be asking, “Who’s Heinrich Göbel?”)

Glad you asked.

Old Henry was born in Germany in 1818 and died seventy-five years later. A man after my own heart, Göbel was, early in his life, a watchmaker. And an inventer.

He spent some time at the polytechnic institute in Hanover. He enjoyed making galvanic batteries to power his tinkering with all things electrical. One day around 1847 or so, he got the bright idea of using electricity to create a source of light from a compressed space inside a glass container. It worked.

In 1948, he set off for the one place where his invention could be turned into a living: the United States of America. In three months time, he and his wife landed in New York, where he lived and worked until he died in 1893.

But it wasn’t until 1854 that his invention — a carbon element inside a glass container fed with electricity — became a real, working reality. (Actually, the glass containers were Eau de Cologne bottles, and the elements were carbonized pieces of bamboo.) He got his invention to produce light for nearly 400 hours.

The electric lightbulb went public, a full twenty years before the patents on which the Edison group’s work was based came into being. (There was reported to be a court battle with Edison many years later which Edison lost. Still looking for more information on that.)

So, what makes “Edison” and “lightbulb” synonymous in the minds of so many people?

Edison’s group took existing work and improved upon it. It was a long road between the average lifespan of a bulb (100 hours) to the 1,500+ hours Edison’s bulb eventually produced.

In 1880, Edison filed a patent application on a lightbulb. But the US Patent Office ruled in 1883 that the patent was actually based on the work of a fellow named William Sawyer.

And then there was Joseph Swan, a British inventor who also obtained a patent on a lightbuld. Swan’s was dated a full year before Edison’s. Also, Swan is reported to have demonstrated his working lighbulb ten years prior to his patent being issued. As it turns out, Edison’s lightbulb was — literally and figuratively — a carbon copy of Swan’s lightbulb.

Confused yet? But, undoubtedly, there’s more to the lightbulb story. Our understanding is rarely complete. (I’m not even mentioning that Swan’s work was described in an article in Scientific American, a journal certainly within reach of Edison.)

Now, considering the history of the lightbulb, arguably one of the greatest inventions to impact the life of human beings, what do you suppose are the chances that such invention, reinvention, co-invention, etc. go into the relatively insignificant world of magic and magicians?

Just asking.

If you’ve been on the fence about whether or not to purchase your copy of Max Maven’s new book, The Protocols of the Elders of Magic, you’ve about waited too long. There are currently less copies available than I have fingers on my hands (and I still have all of them God gave me lo, these many moons ago.)

There were only 500 to start with. So, either you (quickly) jump off the cliff with the rest of us, or forever hold your piece.

What’s in the book? Hermetic Press tells:

Announcing an unpleasant little book that no discerning library should be without. Over a century in the making. No tricks. Only one secret, but it’s a killer!

It’s an unpleasant little book. No tricks. Kind of obvious, isn’t it? (No, I don’t know either, I just like making illiterations.)

UPDATE 11/9/2005 10:15 a.m.: The book has sold out.

From the moment news of Max Maven’s new Hermetic Press release — The Protocols of the Elders of Magic — hit the digital streets, the response was fairly predictable, but for one exception.

From Stephen Minch’s web site’s description:

Announcing an unpleasant little book that no discerning library should be without. Over a century in the making. No tricks. Only one secret, but it’s a killer!

A long-standing goal at Hermetic Press has been to produce books of quality that stand out from the crowd; books that are interesting and unusual. We’ve never published a book more unusual than The Protocols of the Elders of Magic. It is so unusual, we aren’t going to tell you exactly what it is. All we will say is that there has never been a magic book like it. If you enjoy the erudite humor of MAX MAVEN, if you love books beautifully produced, and if you enjoy having something in your library few others do, The Protocols of the Elders of Magic is for you. If, on the other hand, you are looking for another collection of tricks, pass this one up and check out our other titles.

The thread on The Magic Cafe was filled with everything from blind acceptance to objection due to perceived offense. (To understand the perceived objection, make yourself familiar with the quasi-paronymic title.)

Years and years ago, I asked Max about the value of a particular book being published by Stephen Minch. His response was, essentially, that if it was published by Hermetic, it was worth having. In the years since, that’s never once been proven wrong; neither Stephen nor Max has led me wrong.

So, put me in the “blind acceptance” column.

Dennis Loomis posted to the Genii Discussion Board:

I got a phone call from Chuck Mignosa a few minutes ago. Ormond passed away this morning.

Ormond McGill was a living legend, no doubt about that.

In keeping with the long-standing tradition here at Casa Escamoteurettes, I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that:

1. Loads of Richard Osterlind’s new DVD set, Mind Mysteries Too, is currently winging it’s way to Osterind Mysteries Central (Jim Sisti’s office), and

2. You can pre-order your set at a very favorable price to have them ship as soon as they become available.

Also, if you check out the web site, you’ll find another excellent reason to order now. (I won’t give the details here; please visit the site.)

Head out to the Osterlind Mysteries web site and order a set now.

I pulled a few duplicate books from the Casa Escamoteurettes library (including a Houdini book, a 1st edition Harry Anderson ‘Games You Can’t Lose’, ‘I’ll Read Your Mind’ by Aage Darling, and ‘The Swami Gimmick’ by Sam Dalal printed with that special Indian ink on that special Indian paper) and put them on eBay. All start at 99 cents, no reserve, auctions end Sunday night. I’ll likely add a few more titles Saturday night to also end Sunday night.

Ever been to TAOM? Maybe 2006 is the year you should make the trip. It’ll be in Dallas, Texas. More details than you can shake a stick at is here.

Having recently done my part to bolster eBay stock prices (which is to say, I sold stuff on eBay) I’ve had eBay on the mind this week. So, please allow me to make a few people angry.

My first experience with eBay was in 1996. A friend was selling computer hardware and told me to check out his auction.

Auction?

Online?

So, I fired up Netscape (like anyone really had a choice back then) and viewed his auction. And then I viewed a few other auctions. Before I knew it, two days had passed and I hadn’t eaten. (I liken — or, if you’ve been living under a rock, lichen — this to being introduced to crack; the effect is as addicting as it is expensive. And heaven knows where all the time goes.)

It didn’t take long to wonder who may be interested in magic books and such, and I guess I wasn’t the only guy wondering. Granted, there were a few magic books on eBay in the early days. But then again, in 1996, there were few magicians on the Internet to begin with, let alone the Worldwide Web. The Internet was old, but the Web was new. (And Charlie was already selling magic over the Internet for two whole years by then.)

Over the years, in nearly every conceivable category, eBay has become a magnet for sellers selling anything and everything to buyers who seem perfectly happy to fork over more money than would normally be reasonable for items you can often buy locally.

But hey, it’s buying stuff on the Internet, and that’s worth something, isn’t it?

eBay is the Internet equivalent of the law of the jungle or Darwin In Action: those out of their element either get eaten alive, or evolve into savvy buyers who call the “Search” button their very best friend.

If you have the money and the patience, you can eventually buy just about any magic book via eBay. Then again, that works with H&R magic Book Shop, too. (I’m just saying.) The difference is you never have to worry if Richard overcharged you because he didn’t. On eBay, though, you can thank the “collector” with more money than good sense for bidding up that LePaul book — the one you almost had in your itchy little hands for $10 — that ended up going for $925. Ot something equally insane.

John’s No Fail eBay Buyer Rule #1: Repeat after me — Google is my friend.

Google something you’re about to bid on to decide what you may find it for elsewhere. Guess what? H&R Magic or Bradbury Books may have a copy in stock they’d be happy to sell you. And probably for less than eBay will end up costing you. Are you on Tom Ladshaw’s email list? Do you get Paul Diamond’s email? (I’ll bet you do…)

Ferinstance: Phil Maven…Max Goldstein…oh hell, the guy who looks like (Hoosier) Deddy Corbuzier. He wrote a fine pamphlet about thirty years ago called “Verbal Control” — still one of the best things you can study on equivoque. You will occaisonally…hic…occasionally see it sell on eBay for upwards of $NFW.

But you can buy it any day of the week (and twice on Sunday) for just $5 from — drumroll — H&R Magic Book Shop. Bradbury probably has copies for five bucks, too.

So, if you are taking my advice and Googling “Verbal Control” by Phil Goldstein and ended up here, don’t be a putz and buy on eBay for a penny more than $5. Unless it’s being sold by Max himself and he blesses it. Or dances on it. Or something.

John’s No Fail eBay Buyer Rule #2: Repeat after me — You can’t be outbid on eBay.

I don’t care what anyone says or believes or states to their priest in the confines of that dark confessional on Saturday afternoon. You cannot be outbid on eBay.

That’s because of something called proxy bidding — that magical, mystical state of being in which eBay bids on your behalf up to the dollar amount you decide in the most you’re willing to pay, that’s it, no-sir-not-a-penny-more — your maximum bid. It’s like having a slave do your bidding. Haha. Okay, I’ll stop.

eBay works on a proxy bid system. That means, you can enter one dollar amount — the most you are willing to pay — and eBay will bid on your behalf to make sure you remain the high bidder up to your highest bid amount. It allows you to place a bid on that LePaul book you’ve been jonesing for (not to be confused with Tom Jonesing, in which case, its not unusual) and spend the rest of your weekend arranging the lampshades, or mowing the lawn, or chasing chicks wherever it is chicks get chased these days.

In other words, while you’re off having more fun that God Hisownself would allow on a sunny day like today, eBay is busy making sure that LePaul book is yours, my friend. Up until that point where your $10 bid runs out of gas and someone’s $10.50 bid picks up.

If you have determined the most you are willing to pay for that LePaul book is $10…well, frankly, you don’t deserve to win it anyway. But if $10 is your ceiling, what do you care if some is willing to pay $10.50? Or when he’s willing to pay it?

Which beings me to my favorite part of eBay:

John’s No Fail eBay Buyer Rule #3: Repeat after me — Sniping is good, clean fun.

Nothing — and I mean nothing — goes with a good piece of cheese like a big glass of whine. And nothing gets the whine flowing like being on the butt end of a good round of sniping.

Sniping, for the uninitiated, is the art of successfully placing the very last bid at the very last microsecond humanly possible in an eBay auction. In other words, it’s when you say your highest bid is $10 doggonit and not one penny more and some yahoo places a bid — with 2 seconds left in the auction — for $10.50 and wins the auction, because there’s no way on God’s good green earth you could change your mind and bid higher. It’s TOO LATE.

On the surface, this seems like an awfully mean thing for someone to do. I mean, that rat bastard highly competitive spirited human being just won your book for fifty cents more that you bid. He jus won your LePaul book for just $10.50. (Well, he doesn’t deserve it either, but that’s another post for another day.)

For some unknown reason, the realization of what just happened is, more often than not, followed by a long and wildly creative string of profanity that wakes the neighbors, wilts the roses, and makes the cat hide for a week.

And it’s all for naught.

Remember that proxy bidding system I mentioned above? The one you took advantage of and bid the highest dollar amount you were willing to pay for that book? If someone comes along and bids more than you were willing to pay, what do you care when he does it? That he managed to squeak by with nary a second to spare instead of telegraphing his intentions hours before the end of the auction shouldn’t make a difference. But it does, doesn’t it?

And it does because you thought you could get a $150 book for just $10 and you’re now aggitated that someone got it for $10.50.

Welcome to eBay. Please review John’s No Fail eBay Buyer Rules #1 and #2.

Want to win auctions and feel good about yourself afterwards? Bid high, take lots of Prozac and…Wait, scratch that.

Follow rules 1 and 2 above, and bid in the last minute or so of the auction. The adrenaline rush of pressing that button to enter your bid is a lot cheaper and a lot more healthy than doing drugs. And, you might even end up with a LePaul book out of the deal.

(By the way, I stole away all of that fun I just described by having fixed price auctions this past week. What a spoil sport I was. But I promise to make up for it starting Thursday night. Check back here then.)