For those of you who may have missed the news: the extraordinary Bob Brown, of Davenport, IA, died this past week, following a lengthy illness. He was 73. Bob was the subject of the cover story of The Linking Ring, in November 1965. He had won the originality contest at that year's IBM convention in Des Moines.

A generalist, Bob created and finessed a multitude of tricks and routines over his lifetime, and was an accomplished performer within a wide range of entertainment forms: comedy magic, mentalism, hypnosis, and escapism. He could entertain people at any place and any time.

Many people remember him as a fun-loving and talented demonstrator at Magic, Inc. (You can see him perform a quick and entertaining chop cup routine in this television clip shot with Jay Marshall, at Magic, Inc., in 1995. This clip is provided courtesy of Chicago performer Mai-Ling.) http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseactio......=8776211

Bob opened and ran his own magic shop in Davenport for several years before his deteriorating health slowed him down.

He possessed a massive mental storehouse of magic history, jokes, anecdotes and carny lore. His sense of comic timing was one of the best in the business. Forever observant, intellectually curious and acutely perceptive, he also did not suffer fools or pretentious and shallow personalities lightly. I doubt he ever uttered a dull or irrelevant sentence in his life.

He exposed and explained various methods of scamming, chicanery, and fortune telling for a lucky organization of police officer magicians.

Throughout his eclectic and professional life, Bob spent endless hours teaching students of any age the fine art of magic. (At age eleven, I was one of his early students, beginning in 1964.) He rarely, if ever, turned anyone away who sought him out for his knowledge.

He wrote and published several innovative routines in the areas of comedy magic, kids magic, and Tarot reading, among other specialties.

Remaining funny, courageous, and mentally acute to the very final hours of his life, Bob was an extremely talented, caring, funny and generous man both inside and outside the world of magic.

Already, he is being sorely missed by the many of us whose lives he graced.

We've lost a good one.

Mark Nemmers
Sacramento, CA