Podcast appearances and mentions of william kalush

Chris spoke with two first-time podcast guests, Carey Wallace and Charlie Peacock, about their careers and varied experiences of pursuing creative work. They consider the role of community in creativity, what it means to be "inspired," and how they recount these observations in their recent books. They reflect on the connections between the act of surrender, spiritual disciplines, and hearing from God in the midst of various creative acts.Books Mentioned in this EpisodeIf you'd like to order any of the following books, we encourage you to do so from Hearts and Minds Books(An independent bookstore in Dallastown, PA, run by Byron and Beth Borger) The Discipline of Inspiration: The Mysterious Encounter with God at the Heart of Creativity by Carey WallaceRoots and Rhythm: A Life in Music by Charlie PeacockThe Wide, Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact, and the Fateful Final Voyage of James Cook by Hampton SidesThe New Testament in Color: A Multiethnic Bible CommentaryEternal Flame: The Authorized Biography of the Bangles by Jennifer BickerdikeThe Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero by William Kalush and Larry Sloman

Harry Houdini is known as an escape artist. Few knew he challenged the Spirtualist community of occultists and Elite Theosophists who had operations in the White House and in Britain. He also exposed a Child Trafficking ring. This led to the time of his death when a mysterious student took five sucker punshes to his abdomen rupturing it.Miracle Mongers and their Methods - by Harry HoudiniA Magician Among Spirits - Harry HoudiniThe Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero - by William Kalush, Larry Sloman (Author)

One of the preeminent entertainers of the 20th century, Harry Houdini was a master of his craft, thrilling audiences with captivating physical stunts. An inventor, illusionist, and escapologist, he spent the final years of his career fighting to define the blurring line between entertainment and exploitative false spiritualism. In observance of the 96th anniversary of his death, join us as we explore the extraordinary life of the most famous magician of all time. https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/david-copperfields-secret-museum-of-magic-open-to-all-in-his-book-2467823/ (David Copperfield's secret magic museum revealed in new book – PHOTOS | Las Vegas Review-Journal) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/harry-houdini-ingenious-innovator-didnt-want-anybody-know-180961078/ (Escape Artist Harry Houdini Was an Ingenious Inventor, He Just Didn't Want Anybody to Know More than just a magician, Houdini was also an actor, aviator, amateur historian and businessman By Jackson Landers January 9, 2017) https://muzeo.org/current-exhibitions/ (Houdini Unchained: The Legacy of Harry Houdini – Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/30/harry-houdini-and-the-art-of-escape (Harry Houdini and the Art of Escape Why do the magician's tricks and triumphs still fascinate us? By David Denby March 23, 2020) https://newrepublic.com/article/123057/harry-houdini-love (Excerpted from The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World Copyright © 2015 by David Jaher. Published by Crown Publishers, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.) https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-harry-houdini#:~:text=Houdini%20assisted%20with%20the%20American%20war%20effort%20during%20WWI.&text=In%20a%20series%20of%20classes,of%20capture%20by%20the%20Germans. (10 Things You May Not Know About Harry Houdini - HISTORY.COM) https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/houdini-on-his-water-torture-cell-1914 (Audio of Houdini on his Water Torture Cell (1914)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZX6NzOehKY (Houdini Archival Footage) https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/houdini-the-career-of-ehrich-weiss_kenneth-silverman/475982/item/5902641/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwwfiaBhC7ARIsAGvcPe6k5rxBjoLfEtAKFZ_Pmj81RI1LOCR_UrJZ3lCkL7QY2zWK5QRJIW4aAuR-EALw_wcB#idiq=5902641&edition=4403216 (Houdini!!! The Career of Ehrich Weiss by Kenneth Silverman) https://www.wildabouthoudini.com/ (WILD ABOUT HARRY - Where Houdini Lives By John Cox) https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-secret-life-of-houdini-the-making-of-americas-first-superhero_larry-sloman_william-kalush/297021/item/1434186/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwwfiaBhC7ARIsAGvcPe6weQmM8KVtFYAMlXiI4nY2sT_zuO7XknicVDIdajjQpXjkbO6BBEoaAr6VEALw_wcB#idiq=1434186&edition=4213113 (The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero by Larry Sloman and William Kalush) https://americanmuseumofmagic.com/ (American Museum of Magic | The wonder of it all!) https://www.visitnepa.org/things-to-do/attractions/houdini-museum/ (Houdini Museum: Tour & Magic Show | Scranton | Lackawanna County, PA) https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/houdini-margery-pamphlet/ (Margery Pamphlet | American Experience | Official Site | PBS) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientific-american-vs-the-supernatural/ (Scientific American vs. the Supernatural - Scientific American By Katherine Harmon Courage on September 1, 2020) https://www.history.com/news/flu-pandemic-wwi-ouija-boards-spiritualism (How the 1918 Pandemic Spurred a Spiritualism Craze of Talking to the Dead - HISTORY) https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/10/silencing-the-dead-the-decline-of-spiritualism/264005/ (Silencing the Dead: The Decline of Spiritualism - The Atlantic by Erin McCarthy OCTOBER 23, 2012) Follow us on IG: @themorbidmuseum Email us at themorbidmuseum@gmail.com Artwork: Brittany Schall

We are joined by William Kalush, who is the director of the Conjuring Arts Research Center in New York. The Center is dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of performance magic, including the history of playing cards, ventriloquism, juggling, deception, and sleight of hand tricks. The Center offers an extensive library of books and periodicals. and aims to provide the world’s most expansive collection of material relating to conjuring. We discuss Ricky Jay, Tommy Cooper, Houdini, the history of conjuring books, and how the Center was created.

If you hear the name Houdini and just think of the David Copperfield, David Blaine, Criss Angel school of magicians, that is to say campy and old fashioned, I'm here to blow your mind with espionage, Sherlock Holmes, the Romanovs, and more psychics than you can count! Buckle up dear listeners and imagine yourself in a dark room, hands clasped around the séance table as a series of unearthly raps starts tapping out a message from beyond the grave as we dive into the life of Harry Houdini, Master Mystifier.New episodes on Mondays. You can listen on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or Stitcher. Follow on Instagram or Facebook @storicalpodcastFictionThe Confabulist by Stephen Galloway - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18339598-the-confabulistMrs. Houdini by Victoria Kelly - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25814489-mrs-houdiniNon-fictionThe Secret Life of Houdini by William Kalush & Larry Sloman -https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13944.The_Secret_Life_of_HoudiniThe Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World by David Jaher - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24724228-the-witch-of-lime-streetThe Magician and the Spirits by Deborah Noyes - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33246089-the-magician-and-the-spiritsEscape! The Story of the Great Houdini by Sid Fleishmann - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/107414.Escape_Movies and TVHoudini (1953) starring Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045886/Houdini (1998) starring Johnathon Schaech - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159276/Houdini (2014) starring Adrien Brody - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3132738/The Prestige starring Hugh Jackman & Christian Bale - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/PodcastsHarry Houdini and the Golden Age of Magic: Spectacle, sorcery and spiritualism in New York by The Bowery Boys - http://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2018/08/harry-houdini-and-the-golden-age-of-magic-spectacle-sorcery-and-spiritualism-in-new-york.htmlFurther Reading and Bonus LinksWild About Harry - https://www.wildabouthoudini.com/Harry Houdini's Voice Recording from 1914 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harry_Houdini%27s_voice.oggFootage of Harry Houdini escaping a straight jacket - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r8qr-p9z5gHoudini Séance at The Magic Castle in Los Angeles - http://www.magiccastle.com/seance/

If you hear the name Houdini and just think of the David Copperfield, David Blaine, Criss Angel school of magicians, that is to say campy and old fashioned, I’m here to blow your mind with espionage, Sherlock Holmes, the Romanovs, and more psychics than you can count! Buckle up dear listeners and imagine yourself in a dark room, hands clasped around the séance table as a series of unearthly raps starts tapping out a message from beyond the grave as we dive into the life of Harry Houdini, Master Mystifier.New episodes on Mondays. You can listen on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or Stitcher. Follow on Instagram or Facebook @storicalpodcastFictionThe Confabulist by Stephen Galloway - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18339598-the-confabulistMrs. Houdini by Victoria Kelly - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25814489-mrs-houdiniNon-fictionThe Secret Life of Houdini by William Kalush & Larry Sloman -https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13944.The_Secret_Life_of_HoudiniThe Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World by David Jaher - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24724228-the-witch-of-lime-streetThe Magician and the Spirits by Deborah Noyes - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33246089-the-magician-and-the-spiritsEscape! The Story of the Great Houdini by Sid Fleishmann - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/107414.Escape_Movies and TVHoudini (1953) starring Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045886/Houdini (1998) starring Johnathon Schaech - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159276/Houdini (2014) starring Adrien Brody - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3132738/The Prestige starring Hugh Jackman & Christian Bale - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/PodcastsHarry Houdini and the Golden Age of Magic: Spectacle, sorcery and spiritualism in New York by The Bowery Boys - http://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2018/08/harry-houdini-and-the-golden-age-of-magic-spectacle-sorcery-and-spiritualism-in-new-york.htmlFurther Reading and Bonus LinksWild About Harry - https://www.wildabouthoudini.com/Harry Houdini’s Voice Recording from 1914 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harry_Houdini%27s_voice.oggFootage of Harry Houdini escaping a straight jacket - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r8qr-p9z5gHoudini Séance at The Magic Castle in Los Angeles - http://www.magiccastle.com/seance/

Today's Guest: Larry Ratso Sloman, author or co-author of celebrity memoirs from Howard Stern, Abbie Hoffman, Anthony Kiedis, Phil Esposito, Mike Tyson, and a biography of Harry Houdini   Order by clicking the DVD cover above! Larry 'Ratso' Sloman, co-author of Howard Stern's 'Private Parts' Writing the biography of a well-known person in pop culture is an assignment fraught with trap doors, two-way mirrors, and shackles. Some writers even disdain their subjects. Others hopelessly suck up to the person, if living, in hopes of winning their favor. Journalists working the genre, however, are usually after something more. They took on the life of an individual because they believe -- through professional research and interviews -- that they can add more color or depth to what’s known about the figure’s public and private lives. Today’s Mr. Media guest, Larry “Ratso” Sloman, has trod the path of biography and ghostwritten autobiographies a number of times in his career. He wrote Steal This Dream about the life of 1960s dissident Abbie Hoffman. He helped Howard Stern pen his life story in two memorable books, Private Parts and Miss America. When Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers needed someone to help tell his story, Kiedis turned to Sloman. The book many people remember Sloman best for, however, may well be his chronicle of Bob Dylan’s remarkable 1975 Rolling Thunder Review concert tour, On the Road with Bob Dylan. That is also where he earned his unusual nickname, which I’m told he wears with pride like a badge of courage. Sloman’s latest book, written with William Kalush is The Secret Life of Houdini, the Making of America’s First Superhero. Larry "Ratso" Sloman Website • Twitter • Wikipedia • IMDB • Order Horward Stern's Private Parts from Amazon.com BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: Houdini is a fast read, thanks to the focus on storytelling and the wealth of incredible detail that you and your partner uncovered about the magician and the man. Can you tell us a little bit about how the book came about and the style in which it’s written? LARRY "RATSO" SLOMAN: I first got interested in magic when I co-authored or ghostwrote -- David Blaine’s memoir, Mysterious Stranger. It was a hybrid book. That book was part reminiscence about his various stunts and being encased in ice and being buried underground. It was also part teaching you how to do some magical effects, and it was also a kind of history of magic. For the history part, David said, “You have to go work with Kalush, because he produced all my shows, and he’s got the most amazing magic library in the world.” So we spent a lot of time at Kalush’s library, the Conjuring Arts Research Center. We did all this research, and we did a chapter on Houdini in the David Blaine book. That was my first exposure to reading about Houdini. I read all the extant biographies of Houdini at the time, and I remember sitting around with Kalush and saying, “You know, it’s really strange. I mean, there are all these gaps in Houdini’s story, and he makes strange career choices. I think there’s more to this than meets the eye.” And Kalush says, “I agree.” And the more we looked into it, the more we said, “It’s time to take a fresh look at Houdini,” and that’s the genesis of The Secret Life of Houdini. ANDELMAN: What about the storytelling? What I really like about the book is that every page is almost a separate anecdote in some ways in that you’re always storytelling. It’s not so much analysis, which some people expect in biography, but it’s storytelling, which is what I expect, and I really like that. Order 'Undisputed Truth' by Mike Tyson with Larry Ratso Sloman, available from Amazon.com in print or as an ebook by clicking on the book cover above! SLOMAN: It’s funny the way we wrote this book. In a way, we almost wanted to do a celebrity biography of Houdini akin to the ones I had written with Howard Stern and people like that. We wanted it to be accessible; we wanted it to be anecdote driven. There was a professor at NYU, Silverman, who had done an exhaustive biography, which kind of laid out a lot of the facts, and yet it really didn’t. The story wasn’t driven by these anecdotes, and to us, that seemed the best way to capture Houdini. He’s such an incredibly complex guy. ANDELMAN: You did a tremendous amount of research in terms of organizing stuff that was arcane and seemingly unconnected. SLOMAN: Thanks to what we lovingly called, “Ask Alexander.” It was based on Alexander the Mentalist, and what we did was create a huge, huge database. We scanned in every known Houdini book, all the magic magazines that Kalush had in his collection, all the letters, and all the scrapbooks, and made them text searchable. The book could have taken 25 years to write if we weren’t able to really have that instant access. This research project was over two years. So at the beginning of research, you may come across a name. A year and a half later, you may come across that name again and say, “Wow, I think this guy has something to do with…” Well, we just put the name into the database, and boom, in five seconds, we had every hit on that name. It was a tremendous expedient. I think it’s really the first Houdini biography of the digital age, and we were able to collate all this incredibly diverse material. ANDELMAN: Now, a lot of writers -- and Doris Kerns Goodwin comes to mind -- have been in trouble the last couple years with issues of plagiarism. I’m not saying that you did this, but my question is, when you scan in material like that, how do you avoid that? I mean, Doris’ comment was, “It was inadvertent that I used material from another source,” but when you go to this digital type of system and you scan in all this stuff, it would seem like the situation is ripe for that kind of abuse SLOMAN: Our book is full of citations. We very liberally use Houdini’s own writings. We use letters that he had written. I don’t think the problem so much is plagiarizing anything, because the analysis that we did was almost separate from the writing process. We overlaid the analysis onto the writing, and the analysis was basically between me and Kalush, who was the magic expert. So if there was a question of how Houdini did something and we wanted to reveal that, and a lot of times we didn’t reveal that, obviously. But there were times where we did reveal some of his methods, and that was overlaid after the main narrative had been written already. ANDELMAN: Will the way that you used technology to research this biography affect the way you do it in the future? SLOMAN: Absolutely. I mean, I think there’s no other way to do it. It’s so overwhelming to have that amount of material, but when you have it in a way that’s manageable and that literally you can do searches in microseconds … All the major newspapers now have their entire archives in databases. We were able to find out a lot about John Wilkie, who was the head of the Secret Service and whom nobody really knew anything about. We were able to find out his connections to the world of magic through an article in the Washington Post in 1908, because of this new technology. It is certainly an incredible boon. I’m sure we would never have been able to find those articles if not for that. ANDELMAN: I think one of the most controversial revelations in the book is Houdini as a spy. SLOMAN: It’s funny. It was controversial at first. The magic world is very insular, so a lot of these guys were saying, “We don’t know about this, so therefore it can’t be true.” But when you get a guy like the former head of the CIA, John McLaughlin, who reads the book and says, “Yeah, I’ll write an introduction to your book,” and says in the introduction, “This is absolutely plausible to me.” So I don’t think you could have anybody better vouching for your theory than the former head of the CIA. ANDELMAN: Absolutely. Well, it’s a great read, and I hope it’s doing well, and I hope more people will read it. Order by clicking the book cover above! SLOMAN: Well, it’s doing well, and in fact, the latest wave of unbelievable press and attention has been the whole exhumation thing, and that was based on our research. It was one of these serendipitous things. Two years ago, I attended the annual Houdini séance that Sid Radner, a Houdini scholar and collector, puts on every year. That year, it was in Las Vegas, because he was also auctioning off a lot of Houdini material. At the séance, there was the great-granddaughter of Margery, the world’s most famous medium at the time, who was Houdini’s adversary in the last years of his life. I approached her. It turns out she lives in Long Island not too far from where I have a weekend place, so I said, “Could I come and interview you?” figuring that there may be some great family anecdotes about Margery and Houdini, and she said, “Sure.” And I go to visit her and her husband, and they make me a nice dinner, and we have a great interview, and at the end of the interview, I said, “You wouldn’t happen to have like some letters or any kind of documents laying around?” She said, “Oh yeah, come on.” And she takes me into a spare bedroom, and she opens up the closet door, and the entire closet is filled with boxes and boxes of correspondence, including correspondence with Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Oliver Lodge, all the leading luminaries of the spiritualism movement. It’s got over thirty scrapbooks of Margery that were amassed by her husband, and nobody had seen this material for 80 years except for her and her mother. My jaw dropped. I wound up spending the next two weeks over there every day. She was such a doll, she even helped me carry the material to the local store to Xerox it. Those thousands of pages were then put into the Alexander, made text searchable. From that material, we developed the most compelling part of the book to me, which was the last few years of his life and how the battle with the spiritualists may have ended with Houdini’s dea

Peter Kreten is joined on the phone with William Kalush, the executive director of the Conjuring Arts Research Center in New York City, and author of The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero. In this interview Kreten and Kalush discuss Houdini's impact on magic, how Kalush first got into magic, and what the Conjuring Arts Research Center is. For more information on the Conjuring Arts Research Center, please visit www.conjuringarts.org.

Pete and Dom discuss Lazy Marketing again, the idea that more and more people are starting businesses - because of the apparently easy path that the Internet provides - without following the tried and trusted lessons of basic marketing and business. Action Step: Review our Business and Marketing Book List episode and start filling in any holes in your knowledge -= Links =- - Books: The Secret Life of Houdini - William Kalush - PreneurCast Episodes: These previous episodes were talked about in today's show. If you missed them, go back and listen over at http://preneurmedia.tv PreneurCast Episode 06 - The Reading List - Special PreneurCast Listener Offers from our Sponsors: http://audibletrial.com/preneurcast - Audible has a huge library of audio books of all types. Visit our link for a free trial and PreneurCast listener coupon for a free audio book. -=- For more information about Pete and Dom, visit us online at http://www.preneurmedia.tv or drop us a line at: preneurcast@preneurgroup.com If you like what we're doing, please leave us a review on iTunes or a comment on the Preneurmedia.tv Web Site.