Here's a brainsnap. The objects in the beautiful illustration above, from the 1920s, still exist. Many of them in showroom condition. See the picture below.
Amazing isn't it? How do these things survive so well going from hand-to-hand, house-to-apartment and from family-to-family throughout decades of wars and pestilence? Talk about miracles.
Such is the perfection of these hand made wonders that to hold them and even perform with them is the thrill of your magical life.
Just so you know. The bag in the photograph below, with the deep velvet and obsidian spun wood, makes things vanish, change or dervish up wonders so complex that any mind is put at a loss. The one in this photograph was made by Thayer in Los Angeles. It is to, my mind, the finest make of them all. Though Petrie Lewis made many superb versions that made hearts sing everywhere. Audiences love the beauty of these as much as the performer likes handling them.
Here is the masterful Nelson Hahne illustration that began my love affair with this exquisite object. I was eight and it put stars in my eyes.
Here is the masterful Nelson Hahne illustration that began my love affair with this exquisite object. I was eight and it put stars in my eyes.
Here I've made things real. Both cheek and chic.
The Ching Soo Firecracker in the picture below is both beautiful and terrific fun. This is the real Petrie Lewis make that you see depicted in the illustration above.
The Ching Soo Firecracker in the picture below is both beautiful and terrific fun. This is the real Petrie Lewis make that you see depicted in the illustration above.
This is what happens when it is performed. You put a large fizzing cracker into a cool nickelled tube and then hand it to someone. You put your fingers in your ears and scrunch your eyes waiting for the bang. But nothing. A fizzer? Not really, the helper opens the tube and the whole, bloody lit cracker has vanished. They can search the tube like a mad person and they will find nothing.
It's so groovy [with gravy].
It's so groovy [with gravy].
IB.
Now here's something for the triv and driv fans. That's trivia and drivel if you must know.
This is so excellent it simply demands its own headline —
Get me the Bat Bag Batman!
So then, one of the coolest TV 'outings' of the 1960s was a kooky Caped Crusader show called Batman. Always worth checking on YouTube, Vimeo or whatever. The show finally spawned loads of movies when the avid watchers of the television show grew up and went bats.
One of the most important people in the show was the very elderly Commissioner Gordon. He is in every episode made. The commissioner was played by Neil Hamilton. Good gig. But now I reveal Neil's own secret guise as a young cooler than cool coolster in the wild, early days of 1930s Hollywood. Suck in your Spandex ... he was a famed holder of one of the magical bags I am talking about here.
Yes, yes ... a picture is worth a thousand words. Here he is holding one.
"Holy trickery, Batman".
And doesn't he cut a dashing figure with a velvet bag?
Quite the accessory.
Quite the accessory.
Those were the days when gigantic shadows were the thing in photographs. Eclipsing yourself, more or less. Here he appears to be fingering some very unpleasant evidence. Not the old finger-tongs trick?
"Oh, I'm afraid it is Batman".
Neil Hamilton as Commissioner Gordon and
Adam West as Batman.
Adam West as Batman.
Please ignore this additional information.
