Ehrich Weisz may not have had much formal education, but he grew up to be Harry Houdini, self-educated stunt performer, escape artist, and owner of "one of the largest libraries in the world on psychic phenomena, Spiritualism, magic, witchcraft, demonology, evil spirits, etc., some of the material going back as far as 1489."
Houdini bequeathed much of his collection to the Library of Congress, which received 3,988 volumes from his collection in 1927, including a number of magic books inscribed or annotated by well-known magicians.
Archive.org has more of the Harry Houdini Collection online. He also put a great deal of research into his tricks, as seen in
his letter to Dr. W. J. McConnell, a physiologist at the U.S. Bureau of Mines, written up after Houdini's
watery grave stunt in 1926.
posted by filthy light thief
on Dec 3, 2012 -
5 comments
Ricky Jay had a TV special in 1989 -
Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women - based on the
book of the same name, which featured magic, juggling, amazing feats, stunts, and performances, including a musical performance on wine glasses, a human calculator who could determine cube-routes of numbers in her head, and an antique acrobatic clockwork doll. (
Part 1,
Part 2,
Part 3).
(Previously and previously and previouslier)
posted by twoleftfeet
on Jul 29, 2010 -
18 comments
"In a
test of the American Dream, Adam Shepard started life from scratch with the clothes on his back and twenty-five dollars. Ten months later, he had an apartment, a car, and a small savings."
Introduction to the book which arose from his "journey", which was inspired by
Barbara Ehrenreich.
[more inside]
posted by Rumple
on Feb 15, 2008 -
243 comments
Kiteboarding is an argument for the existence of God. And even if, like me, you don’t buy that particular argument, it’s still insanely cool. Armed with a kite, a harness and a board, you can
show up your local skate rats (soundtrack includes language that is
Not, strictly speaking,
Safe For Work), fly over
snow, ride
waves and even indulge yourself over
plain-vanilla dry land. Be careful, though. If angered, the wind could easily
take you into orbit.
posted by jason's_planet
on Jul 13, 2006 -
27 comments
Ads (*.wmv) for the Isuzu Gemini. Shot without special effects.
posted by driveler
on Dec 30, 2005 -
59 comments
