Pete
Have you known Laurie Ireland? can you tell us something about the man apart from his liquor problem. The guy brought so much to magic and because of the strong personality and brilliance of Jay Marshall who took over Magic Inc, very little credit is given to this brilliant mind for his dedication to magic.

Mr. O == I wish I did, but he was in Chicago and I was in California in his time and never saw or met him.

Have you met then with Samuel Leo Horowitz / Mohammed Bay: he seems like another real genius who is not properly credited by our community. A very large part of Kaplan's Fine Art of Magic were tricks of his released by George Kaplan with permission but without much credits. His early Okito box work is known but not credited, his work with the Jardine Ellis ring... I know that he was close to the professor but not much more than this

I agree with Lawrence O re : Sam Horowitz. He had a nice C&B routine too (it was written up in the Sphinx a long time ago). Incidentally, his Chink-a-Chink routine (published in the original "Stars of Magic") is still regarded by many as the best of this particular genre.

Speaking of under-rated magicians/thinkers, the most under-rated of the whole lot, if you ask me, is the late E (for Edward) G. Brown of England. His C&B routine (using three cups and three balls only) is, IMHO, as ingeniously conceived as Vernon's. Known as a man of exceptional modesty, Brown was the Hon. Treasurer of the Magic Circle for many years. He was an amateur magician and a banker by profession. Vernon himself wrote that his inquiries in London all suggested that Brown was regarded as the best magician of his day and that even the great man himself, John Ramsay, was quite emphatically of that opinion. Charlie Miller also expressed the same opinion : "Edward G. Brown, .....was certainly England's finest sleight-of-hand performer" (Genii, vol.33). Peter Warlock was also of the same view. Trevor Hall later wrote a book about Brown's card magic. More recently, an perfectly appalling book about Brown's life was written by Paul Gordon (it was quite properly assailed by Richard Kaufman as a complete ripoff-of-a-book).

For those who've never read it and are especially interested in the art of magical presentation, Brown's lecture to the Magic Circle in 1947 (shortly before his death), entitled "Sleights and Subtleties" is must reading.


Fortasse

I believe Alex Elmsley's START in magic was buying E.G. Brown's book and learning every trick in it.

If anyone knows of a source for E.G. Brown's cups and balls routine, please let me know. I purchased a book that I thought might have it, but it was entirely card magic -- a great book, but not worth a dern when you are looking for cups and balls!

Bill : Brown's C&B routine appears in Abra v. 24, pg.419-424. It also appears in Pallbearers Review, April, 1966 at 249. I'd like to know what you think about. I think it's brilliant. I much prefer it to Vernon's.

Sean

Posted: May 20, 2010 1:30pm
To me what's really most amazing about Brown's routine is what he was able to do without the extra **** that Vernon's routine requires.

Fortasse

Dean Dill has a great routine with only 3 balls.

It was initially published in book form by Rae Hammond in Willane Methods for Miracles

I will find that book. I think I know a dealer who has it. Thanks very much!

I AM OUT OF TOWN BE HOME MONDAY NITE LATE. I HAVE WILLANE'S BOOKS WILL LOOK SEE.

Lawrence O., you asked previously about Laurie Ireland. Here is an About the Author as printed in the booklet, "Ireland's Original Cup and Ball Routines", that came with my current purchase of the Ireland Cups and Balls, on sale currently for the great price of $25.00.
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"Laurie Lowell Ireland was born on March 31, 1899, in Minnesota to a family who had no connection with magic. His father was a schoolteacher, and in those days, teachers in country schools moved about a great deal, so the young Laurie lived in many small towns. He discovered magic at an early age; was giving shows in a barn for pins at less than ten years old. By his teens, he was corresponding with magic mail order houses all over and studying avidly everything magical that came his way.

Before he was twenty, he took a job as a magician with a circus, and from that day forward, for his entire life, magic was his profession and his entire interest. He stayed with outdoor show business until 1926, when he settled down in Chicago and began to sell a few tricks of his own invention and manufacture. One of these was the Ideal Handkerchief Manipulation, still a standard item; another was the Body Load Clip, still an excellent device.

The Ireland Magic Company was never officially founded, but rather grew out of these beginnings. The few tricks grew to many, the kitchen table grew to a workshop, the company became a fact when an actual office address was taken and a store set up.

Laurie Ireland developed, invented, and improved a great many tricks. The Card Duck was originally his, and became a war casualty when materials grew impossible to get. The Jumbo Sucker Sliding Card Frame, the Nelson Candle Trick, the Ink, Handkerchief and Turnip are but three of many apparatus tricks which he made into good magic.

However, it was in the field of sleight of hand that he really excelled. He was a very fine card man, accomplished both in the doing of the tricks and the teaching of them. Many card men today count themselves lucky to have been started off by Laurie Ireland. He enjoyed work with coins, particularly the dollar size ones, and his Miser’s Dream was a joy to behold.

For many years he added to his notes on the Cups and Balls, having in mind a routine that would be his own, and sufficiently different from others. In 1937 he published it, after having been requested to perform it at every magical gathering he attended for several years previous. Like his Linking Rings and his Second Dealing, his Cups and Balls were his trademark.

Magic lost a great magician when Laurie Ireland passed away in 1954,but the fine magic and magic writing he left as a heritage to the magic world will live as long as there are magicians."
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Very interesting story, which there was more to read about him. Frances was such a good writer, I wonder why she never wrote about her husband. Maybe she was to close to the man to see him in another light.

Very interesting, I should read the introductions of books more often. Thank You Wmhegbli. Especially when one knows that most of the early Marlo books were published by Ireland Magic Co and initially not, as often misprinted in bibliographies, by Magic Inc.

The reason Frances possibly didn't write about Laurie could be found in her husband having a very serious drinking problem with the consequences usually resulting from such an addiction. Then she met with Jay Marshall... Not a bad sequence for an interesting life on her own: she possibly had a sharper eye than her warm welcoming smile would suggest.

At any rate, this might be the reason why she didn't write much about Laurie Ireland.

Posted: Jun 1, 2010 4:41am
To complement my previous post, geniuses like heroes rarely have flat lives and commonly place the best next to the worst. We, as magicians, got the best of Laurie L Ireland and this was not a meager best.

Well said.