Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Spooky Magic
If you're planning on having a happenin' Halloween shin-dig spooktacular this month and need some tips on how to scare the pants off your victims... er, I mean the guests, let Larry Kettelkamp's awesome collection "Spooky Magic" (Scholastic Book Services, 1955) be your guide! Loaded with nearly a dozen great and easy to pull-off tricks, (my fave 4 are presented here for you in today's post), and accompanied by some super fun illustrations by William Meyerriecks-- you are sure to make this year's fright festivities legendary!
This is great! I so totally loved the cheap gimmick magic shops that used be here and there in the seventies and early eighties. they were my favorite thing about the annual summer beach vacation. They had tons of junky risque gags on spinners. They had vastly expensive (and eternally desired) magician sets with real collapsible silk hats under glass. And there were shelves and shelves of fifty-dollar Don Post masks. This right here is the essence of spooky kid stuff, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteMan, so much about magic relies on sleeves, doesn't it?
Fun post. I may have to print these off for my kids, or to dazzle them with these illusions first.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure I learned the "severed finger in a box" gag from a book similar in vintage to this one. I remember the illustrations. They are so great!
ReplyDelete>so much about magic relies on sleeves, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteI just imagined you saying that in Bullwinkle's voice, Mr C...
>I may have to print these off for my kids, or to dazzle them with these illusions first.
Print AND dazzle, Roz! That's what they're here for :)
>I learned the "severed finger in a box" gag from a book similar
I know that trick very well too, Amber, and I'm surprised it's not in this book as it definitely qualifies as more "spooky" than some of the other tricks in this one, like The Invisible Flea, or The Clinging Glasses.
Thanks for the comments!
This is great!! where the hell do you find this stuff??
ReplyDelete>where the hell do you find this stuff??
ReplyDeleteRight here in my book collection, Frank... more spooky tricks coming up next too!
I enjoyed this book for years. It was offered by a company called Scholastic Book Services. They sold cheap books directly to school children through catalogs. Another company was The Arrow Book Club. A great collection of campfire reads is the Arrow Book of Ghost Stories. Look it up.
ReplyDelete>Arrow Book of Ghost Stories. Look it up.
ReplyDeleteNo need Dan, I posted about this back in March, thanks...
http://andeverythingelsetoo.blogspot.com/2011/03/george-wildes-ghost-stories.html
I have this one somewhere! I love it.
ReplyDelete