Madison Kitchens, fresh from a viewing of The Prestige, suggests a post on William Ellsworth Robinson, an American stage magician, who took on the guise of a Chinese conjurer to make his act more “exotic.” He is also famous for the bullet-catch trick, in which he appeared to be catching bullets with his teeth or hands as an assistant fired a gun at him. Eventually, this trick backfired (pun unintentional, but left anyway) and he died from a bullet to the chest. The moral of the story, if there is one, is: keep your firearms clean.
Thanks for the suggestion, Madison, it may serve me well on Jeopardy someday. If anyone else would like to suggest a topic, contact me at: pintpundit-at-gmail-dot-com.
Update: The ever-observant Jacob Grier, himself an excellent close-up magician, correctly notes that Robinson was a “stage magician” rather than a “stage musician.”
I think you meant magician, not musician.
This mistake happens all the time in real life. As someone once said, when he tells people he’s a magician, they often ask what instrument he plays. But you never hear musicians get asked to do a card trick. Magic gets no respect
That said, a stage musician dressing up like a Chinese conjurer would be pretty cool.
Have I suggested a post on semiotics yet? Oops. Looks like I just did.