The Golden Age?

All:

Opening the newspaper this morning, I noticed another glowing review of the just released motion picture, The Prestige. It is so good to finally see the coolness of magicians and escape artists exploited in these mainstream movies for the general public (The Illusionist being the other film I am referencing). Magic seems to be entering its second Golden Age. There seem to be magicians and magic references everywhere and this can only be good for the state of the art.
I am in talks with the Laugh Factory in Hollywood, California to sign an exclusive contract for them. This would be a production of my escape show including my Challenge Handcuff Act. As of yet, the details are still being worked out.

I am taking a break from a rehearsal to write this. In my home, I have a rehearsal studio in my attic and the few people who have actually seen it--think it is one of the coolest spaces they have ever seen. Since my creativity is enhanced when I am surrounded by the tools and props of my art--my attic is awash in those objects; my magic awards, magic objects, tools, lockpicks, padlocks, chains, my four straitjackets that I have won in challenges, not to mention handcuffs of every possible description. My computer through which I write and hone my scripts sits against the only window which looks out over the neighborhood.

Speaking of this window--here is something you might find bizarre--outside, a power line runs horozontally in front of this window and on numerous occasions I have looked up from my writing or rehearsing to see a number of black crows--sometimes two or three--other times as many as six perched on the wire staring into the window! Sometimes we stare at one another, wondering what each is thinking. It reminds me of the Carlos Castaneda (The Teachings of Don Juan) observation he made while watching a beetle walk across the sand--he said: Though he and the beetle both inhabited the same world--their experiences of it were vastly different.

And so it is with the crows--we both exist in the world yet experience it in different ways.

Back to my attic. My actual performance space is in back and here is where I try out my new material. Sometimes I am up here all day--entering in the morning and not returning downstairs to the evening--except to use the bathroom and find out what my two dogs are barking about.

The creative process is a torturous thing and I have a myraid of escapes and magic ideas in various stages of development up here. Some never leave the development stage--some are half completed and end up being merged into another routine--some I can never make work. But, every now and then, a great and wonderful idea that is workable springs forth from this place and in the end I can say--but for that one moment-----which I am in constant search of--
it is all worth it!