BOOK REVIEW BY DAVID SUTHERLAND THE CHARLATAN’S HANDBOOK BY SID FLEISCHMAN

A consistent lesson gleaned from almost every lecture I attend is: READ YOUR BOOKS.

I’ll return from these lectures, immediately begin searching through my library and invariably discover much of this great material was already in my possession!

We all know there’s good stuff hidden throughout the works of Hilliard, Stanyon and Tarbell. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some titles that aren’t always top of mind and have been sitting on my shelves for years without even a glance - to my disadvantage. Hopefully, we can all learn from my mistakes…

THE CHARLATAN’S HANDBOOK BY SID FLEISCHMAN

BOOK DETAILS: 228 pages (Hardcover), Publisher: L&L Publishing, Published in 1993. Illustrated by Tom Jorgenson. Out of print, but available as an e-book from Browser’s Den: www.browsersden.com

The introduction is by David Avadon who was a columnist in Genii magazine and a performer at the Magic Castle when the book was released.

Sid Fleischman was a performer during Vaudeville’s final days. Following that, he was a comedy novelist, screenwriter and major prize-winning author of children’s books including a story about travelling magicians, Mr. Mysterious & Company. The Charlatan’s Handbook was his fiftieth book.  

He had items published in early issues of The Jinx (sometimes as Al Sidney), The Bat, Genii, Hugard’s Magic Monthly and Magick.

When Sid became a screenwriter in the 1950s, he made films such as Blood Alley, with John Wayne and Lauren Bacall and Goodbye, My Lady with Walter Brennan. Check Turner Classic Movies. Sid died in 2010 at the age of ninety.

The Charlatan’s Handbook has five sections. The first is “Coins & Stuff” which begins with The World Famous Coin Swallowing Act. I’ve never seen this performed, but I bet many of you have the required gimmick in a drawer. Give it a try.

Sid has a clean-up for the classic Torn & Restored Cigarette Paper that, while I’ve never used it, did spark my interest in learning the trick.

Ringbound is an impromptu trick using a pencil and three borrowed finger rings which, in the right hands, could be a miracle. Think of it as a quick and dirty version of Ring on the Wand.

The 31-Day Coin Trick is one of the items Sid includes for the Magic Club crowd. The trick starts at one meeting and the denouement occurs at the next (hence the title).

If you can do (or have ever wanted to learn) the continuous billiard ball production where you take one ball from the top of your fist, pocket it and immediately another reappears on your fist, then you may want to consider Sid’s comical, scripted presentation called Lady McBathtub. 

Coin Fade is something I’ve used since I first got the book. It’s a coin vanish that is done for one or two people at close proximity. You will be familiar with the method.

Michael Close provided his own presentation and method for the Prayer Vase in Workers 5. Sid offers a couple of clever takes on this classic with tinted and clear (yes, clear) bottles alike. This is something I overlooked back in the day and really wish I hadn’t. 

The second section is “Card Trumpery” which begins with tips for making your own marked cards or readers (in a style similar to Ted Lesley’s). This enables you to then apparently memorize a shuffled deck, read the pips of cards with your fingertips while blindfolded and a few other impressive feats.

The Right-Handed Card Trick and Avadon’s Absquatulated Card would both make solid bits for an emcee, in my opinion.

If you’ve seen Mac King’s show (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?), you’ll recall that he gets a ton of mileage and humour out of The Card in the Fly. Sid invented this and published it in the December 1940 issue of Genii. (Other notables who’ve performed this trick include Tom Mullica and Pete Biro.)

Sid offers An Aside on the Thumb Count and then gives three effects which incorporate the move: weighing the cards, a colour change and a location.

The Poor Man’s Orient Express is a portable version of the trick where a signed, selected card appears on the other side of a window. This appeared in The Jinx in 1935 (courtesy of Bob Hummer) and on CBS in 1991 (courtesy of David Copperfield*). In Sid’s variation, a frame is used which is held by the spectator. You spring the cards at the frame and their selected, signed card appears under glass! The card is then removed for them to keep.

There’s a lot crammed into the third section, “For The Move Maven”. 

For those who have difficulty mastering either a Push-Through or Zarrow shuffle, Sid suggests a similar tactic for both that some may consider, some may adopt and purists may simply turn the page. Please bear in mind that if you do decide to shuffle cards the way Sid suggests in order to accomplish these moves, you have to shuffle like this all the time, or at least for the duration of your performance. Consistency, consistency… 

There is a false shuffle called the Carl March shuffle. Who is Carl March? Read on... This shuffle reminds me a lot of what Johnny Thompson used to call The Optical Shuffle**.  I have to admit that I first heard of this false shuffle at a Eugene Burger lecture at least a decade after The Charlatan’s Handbook had become a resident on my shelf. This false shuffle was first written about in Magic Made Easy (1953), a book in which Sid wrote under the pseudonym Carl March. I also had a copy of this, so I missed this shuffle twice. (Note to self: read your books!)

There is a variation of Topping the Deck and a brief tangent about the search for its origins, which I enjoyed. This is followed by three additional methods for palming the top card and finishes with a method for palming the bottom card. What about the middle? Sid’s got a move for that as well, a few pages later.

Next come Sid’s finesses for preparing for and achieving a smooth Double Lift; a couple of glimpses (one taught to him by Floyd Thayer); and the section concludes with three methods for shooting cards out of the deck.

“Lagniappe” which means something given as a bonus or gift, is the title of the fourth section. In it, there a few items described which are Sid’s personal favourites; beginning with several ideas for performing the Three Shell Game.

You too, Can Saw a Lady in Two, is a trick that Sid had performed hundreds of times over the course of twenty-five years and, as he described it, had built this routine into a “perfectly-constructed comedy drama.”  He even guaranteed the laughs. After reading this, you may want to procure the required nine-foot length of red ribbon and start working on it to include in your next show.

Rounding out this portion are a few moves and ideas for the Linking Rings.

The last section is “- and a Bonus”. It contains one item, The Fleischman-Avadon No-Switch Needle Swallowing Trick. (You should not swallow needles, nor put them near your mouth, so I’m telling you to ignore this part of the book unless you just want to find out the diabolically clever secret.)

Needless to say, this book is very well written. You will notice that Sid eschewed the standard Effect/Method approach. Instead, he provided fully fleshed out presentations and scripts which provide motivation, humour and the necessary internal logic behind why a trick is being demonstrated. If the scripts provided aren’t exactly what you’re looking for, make some tweaks and you may have something new to add to your act.

Even if you don’t use anything in this book, take out your scripts (you do write those don’t you?), compare them to Sid’s, and see what you can see…if you know what I mean. Keep in mind that Sid was a professional screenwriter. 

The illustrations are clearly and artfully done by Tom Jorgensen and I felt shades of Nelson Hahne as I looked at some of Tom’s drawings.

There are also images of playbills and photos of past magicians scattered throughout, as well as many of the author as a young magician. There is even a picture of Sid replicating Houdini’s upside-down straightjacket escape and one of him with Bess.

As a twenty-year old, I misjudged this book, dismissed a lot of it, but luckily held onto it for a few more decades. I rediscovered it last year and realized that my misjudging and dismissing had been a mistake. It’s full of great stuff!

Until next time… read your books.

*Go watch it on YouTube now, I’ll wait. Search “Copperfield XIII”.

**In Magic Made Easy, these words introduce the shuffle: “This is nothing more than an optical illusion…”

Order The Charlatan’s Handbook from Browser’s Den: www.browsersden.com