Magical Apparatus

I dealt with my difficulties in school by practicing magic tricks.  Many times I worked them first for my mother.  “See, I made it disappear!”  I declared.

“No you didn’t,” my mother said.  “Do you think I’m a fool?”

I made this photo in my bedroom in Dillon, Montana.

I made all of this, except for the linking rings trick, which I bought in Seattle, and the silk scarves, which I borrowed from mother.

How many of these popular illusions can you identify?  I didn’t think so.

The tall table, or servante, at the left, has a hole on its black velvet surface.  For some reason I couldn’t find anyone willing for me to astonish my friends.

The nesting boxes in the foreground can hold a vanished coin or ring from a spectator, to be discovered later, although I don’t remember ever actually using it.  You may remember the disappearing die trick on the table.  I baffled my few friends before they got sick of watching.

I made the silk-production tube out of a couple tin cans.  Eventually I made friends with a real vaudeville magician named Kenny, who let me use his.  When I knew him, Kenny made money doing shows in nightclubs in SW Montana.  I remember that he had a scarred hand from punching a heckler in the teeth.  He had a bad “ticker,” and he admonished me to develop a “row-teen.”

“You gotta have a row-teen,” he repeated.

The box with the open front would produce a live chicken.  I only used it for that purpose once.