P.T. Selbit
Posted: May 15th, 2018, 4:32 pm
Well - I tracked down the Eric Lewis/Peter Warlock book on P.T. Selbit.
I am currently working my way through it. As such - I thought I would start a thread on him. I should wait until I finish reading the book before posting on him. But I just want to get the ball rolling now. No doubt that means I will end up correcting myself and answering my own questions once I have finished the book.
I already knew about P.T. Selbit from his trick The Mighty Cheese which has one of the oddest secrets in magic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTrgdhq0vTw
I then read an article by Jim Steinmeyer in Genii magazine about Selbit's Broadcasting A Woman illusion.
It is a transposition trick that makes use of identical twins. Seems simple enough. But in this trick, the girl who appears at the end has a hand that was signed by the spectator at the start of the trick. It is a small touch, but it intrigued me. I have a soft spot for those creators who put in the work to add an extra winkle to a trick that would otherwise be quite flat without it. As such - I added Selbit to my list of illusionists that I was curious to learn more about. Speaking of identical twins, recently I read some tricks by David Berglas that makes clever use of identical twins.
P.T. Selbit is famous for inventing the Sawing A Woman in half trick. I also found out that he invented a lovely routine called The Spirit Paintings. You can see Geoffrey Durham perform that trick here. It is lovely:
https://youtu.be/z4CbskjdE7c?t=1h59m18s
I understand that David P. Abbott also has a version of this trick in print as well. But I have not gotten round to studying his version yet. I am assuming Durham's trick is based on the Selbit version since he also performs the Selbit blocks. So I am guessing he is a fan of Selbit's work as a whole.
Often you find out a magician has a couple of brilliant ideas, and then you find that nothing else about their work really grabs you. I was worried that might be the case with Selbit. Then I came across the delightful bluff he uses in his Selbit's Mystery illusion that is described in the Lewis/Warlock book. It is wonderful. It was invented 20 years before The Million Dollar Mystery. Yet - it duplicates the same effect. What is fun is that the mirror tunnel (which had yet to be discovered) is replaced by a cheeky bluff instead. At that point I wanted to post some more about Selbit since he is clearly the real deal. An amazing thinker.
Last night I was going through The Learned Pig database over at Lybrary.com. It is a collection of old ebooks that Chris Wasshuber offers for free to those who register with the site. I had a casual read through of a book called The Magician's Handbook by Selbit. For some reason - I assumed the book was written by another magician called Selbit. Since I am now a fan of how Selbit thinks - I thought it unlikely I would stumble across a free ebook of his work. I wasn't thinking clearly. I do that sometimes.
My worst example involves the pianist, Bill Evans. I remember Michael Close raving about his music in an old 'It's Not Magic ,But...' section of his review column in MAGIC magazine. So next time I was in a record shop - I asked to buy some Bill Evans music.
They didn't have any.
But they did have some music by Gil Evans. Well - that is close enough I guess, and I walked out with a CD of Gil Evans instead.
Man I am dumb.
So - in light of writing this post, I thought I would double check and see who wrote The Magician's Handbook. Well - it turns out it is by P.T. Selbit. So I will have to go away and study it properly when I get a chance. You can see a list of the contents to that book here:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:avOrZ6R02T8J:magicref.tripod.com/bookssz/selbitmagicianshandbook.htm+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
You can also find the book for free here:
http://themagicwiki.com/magos/www.thelearnedpig.com.pa/magos/books/selbit1/001.html
Okay - I expect I will post some more once I finish the book. And thanks once again to Richard Kaufman for giving me a push in this direction. He called Selbit a genius in a different thread, and that definitely got me even more interested in this creator. Thanks, Richard!
I am currently working my way through it. As such - I thought I would start a thread on him. I should wait until I finish reading the book before posting on him. But I just want to get the ball rolling now. No doubt that means I will end up correcting myself and answering my own questions once I have finished the book.
I already knew about P.T. Selbit from his trick The Mighty Cheese which has one of the oddest secrets in magic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTrgdhq0vTw
I then read an article by Jim Steinmeyer in Genii magazine about Selbit's Broadcasting A Woman illusion.
It is a transposition trick that makes use of identical twins. Seems simple enough. But in this trick, the girl who appears at the end has a hand that was signed by the spectator at the start of the trick. It is a small touch, but it intrigued me. I have a soft spot for those creators who put in the work to add an extra winkle to a trick that would otherwise be quite flat without it. As such - I added Selbit to my list of illusionists that I was curious to learn more about. Speaking of identical twins, recently I read some tricks by David Berglas that makes clever use of identical twins.
P.T. Selbit is famous for inventing the Sawing A Woman in half trick. I also found out that he invented a lovely routine called The Spirit Paintings. You can see Geoffrey Durham perform that trick here. It is lovely:
https://youtu.be/z4CbskjdE7c?t=1h59m18s
I understand that David P. Abbott also has a version of this trick in print as well. But I have not gotten round to studying his version yet. I am assuming Durham's trick is based on the Selbit version since he also performs the Selbit blocks. So I am guessing he is a fan of Selbit's work as a whole.
Often you find out a magician has a couple of brilliant ideas, and then you find that nothing else about their work really grabs you. I was worried that might be the case with Selbit. Then I came across the delightful bluff he uses in his Selbit's Mystery illusion that is described in the Lewis/Warlock book. It is wonderful. It was invented 20 years before The Million Dollar Mystery. Yet - it duplicates the same effect. What is fun is that the mirror tunnel (which had yet to be discovered) is replaced by a cheeky bluff instead. At that point I wanted to post some more about Selbit since he is clearly the real deal. An amazing thinker.
Last night I was going through The Learned Pig database over at Lybrary.com. It is a collection of old ebooks that Chris Wasshuber offers for free to those who register with the site. I had a casual read through of a book called The Magician's Handbook by Selbit. For some reason - I assumed the book was written by another magician called Selbit. Since I am now a fan of how Selbit thinks - I thought it unlikely I would stumble across a free ebook of his work. I wasn't thinking clearly. I do that sometimes.
My worst example involves the pianist, Bill Evans. I remember Michael Close raving about his music in an old 'It's Not Magic ,But...' section of his review column in MAGIC magazine. So next time I was in a record shop - I asked to buy some Bill Evans music.
They didn't have any.
But they did have some music by Gil Evans. Well - that is close enough I guess, and I walked out with a CD of Gil Evans instead.
Man I am dumb.
So - in light of writing this post, I thought I would double check and see who wrote The Magician's Handbook. Well - it turns out it is by P.T. Selbit. So I will have to go away and study it properly when I get a chance. You can see a list of the contents to that book here:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:avOrZ6R02T8J:magicref.tripod.com/bookssz/selbitmagicianshandbook.htm+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
You can also find the book for free here:
http://themagicwiki.com/magos/www.thelearnedpig.com.pa/magos/books/selbit1/001.html
Okay - I expect I will post some more once I finish the book. And thanks once again to Richard Kaufman for giving me a push in this direction. He called Selbit a genius in a different thread, and that definitely got me even more interested in this creator. Thanks, Richard!