John Calvert Lecture - Part 2

John & Tammy Calvert and Tim

Read John Calvert Lecture - Part 1 here



John opened the evening's magic with a Cigarette version of the Miser's dream. John used some clever devices to produce a stream of cigarettes to which he flung into the air for his assistant, Tammy, to catch in a stainless steel bowl. It would have been fun to see this routine back when you could do it with lit cigarettes but then I guess that is one of those magic items like thimbles that will eventually be relegated to the history books.

Mr. Calvert did two watch steals at different times during the performance and provided insights on how to divert the victim's attention through physical and shocking verbal cues. He did borrow a watch for a comedy routine that included him smashing the spectators watch with a hammer. The watch ended up inside of about eight nested boxes.

Tammy does a wonderful job of misdirecting the action throughout the watch routine. You can see that Tammy is as skilled at her job as John is at his. Not to mention that Tammy looks absolutely great! John did pass along his secrets to longitivity including good clean living and thinking like a young man.

One of Calvert's signiture acts is his comedy Spirit Cabinet. You may remember that the Davenport brothers popularized the Spirit Cabinet during the 1800's Spiritualism movement. The two brothers where bound and seated in a large wooden cabinet with a small window in the middle. Musical instruments strange noises could be heard and seen playing through the small window. Once the cabinet doors were thrown open, the Davenport boys were still tightly bound to their seats.

John turned the Spirit Cabinet into a hilarious routine. He invited Ricky Rowray, an accomplished deaf magician in our Ring, to assist him inside of the cabinet. Calvert was bound with ropes in a straight jacket like configuration. A square curtain formed the spirit cabinet and was lifted by assistants to completely surround the two inside. Immediately, pie tins and tamborines flew out from the cabinet. Next came Ricky's shirt, shoes and an oversized bra! The curtain was lowered to find Calvert with his criss-crossed arms tightly bound and Ricky sitting calmly; half undressed!

John's lecture wove together illusions, escapes, stories, methodologies and wisdom. He talked about the French Drop not looking realistic. Nobody takes a coin in that fashion. John simply used realistic movements and misdirection to pull off perfect coin vanishes. When he brought volunteers up to teach his technique he corrected the student by saying "no, now you're starting to do magic!" Implying, that we magicians too often look we are doing magic instead of doing normal things where magic just happens along the way. Sage advice indeed.