THE SECRET LIFE OF HOUDINI by WILLIAM KALUSH and LARRY SLOMAN

THE SECRET LIFE OF HOUDINI

The Making of America's First Superhero
By William Kalush and Larry Sloman
C Light and Heavy Inc 2006
Atria Books, publisher

This book situates the famous escape artist and entertainer in the context of the fraudulent Spiritualist movement (he rejected it and became an adversary which may have lead to his death being murder by poison) and the times he lived in, which was the first World War, when he may have been something of a spy operating in Europe with his traveling show as cover. Would Houdini create and be the spectacle that he was then, now? He had many imitators but no one quite as daring or committed to escapology as he. I thought his tricks were merely magic but learned they were actually physical, visceral, experiences that needed ingenuity, muscle, and undeniable courage; he allowed himself to be buried six feet under in a coffin and clawed his way up through the earth, bruised and bleeding.

page 186

"On March 13 (1907), before his jump of the Seventh Street Bridge in Pittsburgh, Houdini told a reporter from The Pittsburgh Leader that the day before the leap he sent a cable to Hardeen (his brother), who was doing a similar act then in Europe, and the charges came to exactly $13. That same day Houdini's mail consisted of 13 letters. He switched rooms at his hotel and the new room was no.26, divisible by 13./ The letters contained 13 new challenges, the license plate of the auto that drove him to the bridge totaled up to 13, and the cinematographer who was filming the jump had exactly 1,300 feet of film in his camera.'

"I feel nervous today," Houdini said. "There is a goneness in my innards that isn't pleasant." He ate an apple to settle himself down, then dove. It was exactly. 1:13.

"In a minute and a half from the time I struck the water I had freed myself and was ready to rise to the surface," Houdini told the press. "Small boats were cruising about looking for me, and, as luck would have it, I came rushing up at great speed just underneath on of these crafts. So rapid was my ascent that in rising I hit my head a fearful blow...and sank back into the water again stunned and bleeding. When I struck that boat I thought of the thirteens of the day and concluded that it was up to me to battle for my life. Just when it seemed that all was over with me, I rose to the surface and willing hands dragged me to safety. It isn't any fun taking your life in your hands. Really, I'm in earnest. If a fellow wasn't married it would be a different thing, though even a single man oughtn't to be hankering for chances to risk his life."

Houdini seemed conflicted when facing these challenges. For the most part he left his destiny to Fate. "While the manacles and shackles are being adjusted so that my limbs are powerless to move, I seemed conflicted when facing these challenges. For the most part, he left his destiny in the hands of Fate. "I looked down at the water flowing so far below; then I make up my mind I am going to do it," he told a reporter. "From the time I let go till the moment I strike the water everything is blank, and my ears are filled with strange songs. If the season be winter with the temperature of the water in the vicinity of freezing, the ordeal is one to be dreaded....."

page 328 (re. World War I)

In one fell swoop, Houdini's midlife crisis had been solved. Escapologist, illusionist, collector, businessman, author, philanthropist - all his myriad identities suddenly paled in comparison with his new vision of himself: Houdini the Patriot.

QUICK BOOK REVIEW : I KNEW A WOMAN by CORTNEY DAVIS

I KNEW A WOMAN
The Experience of the Female Body
by Cortney Davis C 2001
Random House, New York

Cortney Davis is a nurse practitioner and poet, and what she wrote, "I Knew A Woman," is a beautiful book that follows her professional and private responses to some of her patients at a low-income and homeless gynecology clinic. One reviewer, Sapphire, says it better than me when she calls this book "an extraordinary blend of memoir, fiction, and clinical detail." I followed especially the story of Lila, the homeless teenager pregnant and living in a car with her legal adult boyfriend, as she grasps independence to make a life with her just born baby. It just so happens that I know someone in almost this same situation, a young woman with few choices who makes dumb choices when she can, who has just passed through my life, and I felt some synchronicity was involved in my reading this book.

I tend to walk around a library and let books fall off the shelves to my feet begging to be read... OK, not really, though that has happened...

I see how I become interested in a book because of the art of the book at times, lured by cover art, typography, and that was the case with this one. I was in for a wonderful surprise of a book, one I could not anticipate, at once titillating my interest in Womans Studies as well as the secrets of the female body, one of which I am in this life.

I don't think I will ever quite think of a visit to the doctor (or nurse practitioner) the same. I know now that they are judging me and my health from the moment I walk in, even based on what I am wearing and my attitude, and that they may cloak what they are really thinking or know about my condition from me for reasons of professionalism. I will be more sure than ever that they intuitively know if I am sick and what my prognosis will be while also being willing to give hope a greater chance than there is reason for.

Cortney Davis too reacts to her patients relating their desperation or poverty in terms of her own life experience. Page 118, hardback:

"What if there had been a fire? What if someone had broken into my apartment - not an uncommon occurrence in that neighborhood - and found my son and daughter? When I look at Lila, I remember being alone and poor and at my wit's end. When I look at Lila, her swollen belly, her thin lips, her jangle of earrings and chains, I remember something a great poet once told me. "Poems that are too perfect," he said, "like lives that are too ordered, lack the human mistakes that make them real." Because I never forget the reality of what I've experienced, I can forgive many of the mistakes I see my patients make. Because I know that I am a different person now, I trust that they, too, will change; that the girl Lila is now is not the woman Lila will become."

C 2008 Christine Trzyna   Affirmed 2025