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trickbooks New user 48 Posts |
While messing around with some wand designs, I came across this remarkable thread. What moved me most, however, were the many tributes to David Price. On the Thayer forum, I recently posted the following about David under the heading “Decency in the World of Magic”:
Yes, our art form is one predicated on deceit, albeit for the purposes of entertainment. And we all certainly hear stories about the "characters" in magic -- chock full of arrogance, true dishonesty, intellectual property trangressions and so forth. In fact, among the score of discussion boards on this forum, we find "Ill-Gotten Gains", dedicated to purloined collectibles. So I thought we could all take a moment to honor the decent among us. During the decades I've knocked around the corridors of conjuring, I've encountered many kind, helpful and generous individuals, many of whom I'm privileged to number among my friends. Choosing one to recognize is not easy. But we've got to start somewhere. For no particular reason, I would begin with someone I never met, but had the distinct pleasure of corresponding with over a number of years: David Price, a magic historian, collector, magician and, based on my contact with him, a fine and generous gentleman. On a personal level, I can attest that by simply dropping him a note, David would unfailingly and quickly respond not only with his personal recollections, but with lists of references and cites to help me on whatever research project I had undertaken. This continued up until the time of his death -- I still have several letters he wrote me while he was quite ill, telling me, in sum and substance, that the doctors had just put him back together. And yet, he continued to research and write. He truly loved the art of magic. Though he assembled an amazing collection of magic memorabilia, and had something of a performing career himself, David is probably best and most deservedly remembered for his book: Magic: A Pictorial History of Conjurers in the Theater. In that tome, David undertook the yeoman's task of documenting a broad swath of conjuring history that would otherwise have been lost or largely inaccessible to magic historians. Perhaps the greatest criticism of that work is that, at times, the text reports facts about magicians which had been exaggerated for the purposes of publicity. But to me, that credulity reflects the broad scope of the project David undertook, the difficulty of the subject matter (as Charles Reynolds once told me "you can't write about magicians because they're always reinventing themselves"), and his passion for the subject. Those without a copy of David's book in their libraries should seek one out. Gary Brown |
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