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The Jerx blog recently published an
interesting idea, The Magic Bucket List. A spectator chooses one of a hundred
tricks from a list of tricks ‘I want to do before I die.’ You can read about it
on Andy’s blog here.
The idea of a magic list put me in mind of
Jean Poisson. I’d read about Jean Poisson, also known as John Fish, in
Abracadabra magazine. He was a friend of the editor, Goodliffe Neale, who
described him as one of his ‘favourite close-up exponents.’ Of his first
meeting with Jean in 1948 he said, ‘I enjoyed meeting Jean Poisson, French
magician – and very expert too – with a typical Parisian appearance and a
delightful accent which made his quite fluent English as incomprehensible as
his French.’ His heavily accented English was much commented up and Jean used
it to comedy effect, for instance, when performing a rope trick he’d refer to
using four hands to perform it with.
‘These two hands and these two ends,’ holding up the ends of the rope.
You’ll find much written about Jean Poisson
in the magic journals of the 50s, 60s and 70s. He was born in Angers, France,
in 1915, though later made Brussels his home. Gave shows as a semi-professional magician. Served in the army during
WWII where he continued his interest in magic by doing shows for the troops.
After the war he became a director of Cointreau, the liqueur firm. His work
gave him many opportunities to travel across Europe, the UK, and to America
where he lived for eighteen months in Trenton, New Jersey. He attended
conventions and magic meetings wherever he went. And sometimes, to the delight
of conventioneers, samples of the Cointreau liqueur went with him.
At magic conventions Jean was famous for
his cut and restored tie. Magicians knew the trick used a stooge but Jean’s
presentation was very funny and the trick became something of a running gag. Goodliffe
Neale once stooged for him and apparently was incredibly convincing. Alan
Kennaugh, writing in The Magigram,
described an occasion when Jean asked for a volunteer and twelve men all
wearing identical ties rushed onto the stage. But mostly Jean was noted for his
‘pocket tricks’ especially his unusual method of presenting them. As a result
he was known by various names, ‘The Man of a 100 Gags,’ ‘The Gentleman with a
100 Tricks in his Pockets,’ or even ‘The Man of a 1000 Tricks.’
And here is where the story of Jean Poisson
intersects with The Jerx. David Berglas told me that Jean actually had an actual list
of the hundred tricks he could perform. It was a kind of menu of magic which could be handed to the spectator so that he can choose his entertainment. It would be fascinating if someone out there
had a copy of the list.
That the magic in Jean’s pockets consisted
of more than a deck of cards and a few coins is perhaps shown by what he once
told Goodliffe Neale, ‘I only give an impromptu show – it takes me half-an-hour
to prepare.’ To discover what those tricks might be I scoured the archives
(courtesy of Ask Alexander). Here’s what I’ve found.
Chief among them is certainly The Devil
Cigarette. This was the continuous production of smoke from an unlit cigarette.
An interesting idea that seems to predate the usual smoking thumb trick. It was
said that he vanished a birdcage every minute. ‘It is his idea of a pocket
trick.’ He performed Premonition, rope routines and had a ‘a delightful trick
with two coins and a pretty girl.’
Billy McComb built a Close-up Card Sword
routine for him and described it in Abracadabra. Jean Poisson marketed a device called Cigimmick through Harry
Stanley. I think this was like a double-barrelled cigarette pull. You could
push a cigarette into one barrel of the gimmick as it was held in the fist and
pull out a feather flower from the other barrel to affect a transformation, the
gimmick flying away up the sleeve. It had many different uses. Another marketed
effect was Timothy the Trained Tortoise in which a toy tortoise found a
selected card. Earlier he had what was considered a ‘very unusual effect where
a mechanical bird located a chosen card which indicates that it might have been an early version of an effect that became more common post Don Alan.
At the 1949 British Ring convention he
performed a trick with a robot swan. A toy swan dived to the bottom of a tank
of water and came back up with a selected card. The trick was credited to Minar
the Magician of Algeria and you can find it described in The Magic Wand (March
1950) and very interesting it is too. The basic method would work just as well
today.
Flying Ring and Do As I Do Imp Bottles (See
Ganson’s Close-Up Magic Volume 1) were also favourites. He told Francis Haxton
he did not like card tricks but he did publish a couple including a nice
self-worker called I Love Suzy in Abracadabra (January 4th 1975).
I wonder what ‘the amazing close-up trick
with a miniature pagoda’ was that he performed at the IBM convention in
Brighton in 1954.
Another intriguing item was his version of the
inexhaustible bottle trick. Jean used a tiny kettle ‘about two inches high’ to
pour an unlimited amount of drinks. It was used as a gag at a convention,
rather than a major mystery, and was said to be a version of the Miraculous
Wine Bottle described in William Robinson’s Spirit Slate Writing and Kindred
Phenomena and the method was presumably the same. I do like the idea of a
tiny kettle producing a huge amount a liquid. Possibly shots of Cointreau. It
feels very magical.
In the 1970s Jean’s interest turned to mentalism and he worked under the
name of Jean Sonus. The 100 tricks list was dispensed with but an insight into
Jean’s repertoire can still be found in the Triad he published in Abracadabra (June 26th,
1976). These included a gaffed ace assembly, a handling of the Martin Sunshine Color
Vision and a paddle routine with paper matches.
In that article Jean talked about magicians
‘not having anything on them’ when asked to do a trick and listed the items he
carried with him so that he would be ready at all times. They included, among
other things:
- Out to Lunch
- T & R Cigarette Paper
- Kaps Paper to Dollar Bills
- Sheet of rubber for Coin Through Rubber into Glass
- T & R Tissue Paper
- Nail Writer
- Milbourne Christopher’s Paper Money
- Find the Lady
- Gypsy Thread
In the right sleeve of every suit he had
the elastic and nylon gimmick to perform the magnetic pencil or knife trick.
The left sleeve was fitted with a pull for the Vanishing Key. He said he followed
the Boy Scout motto of ‘Be prepared!’
It would be fascinating to find the list
that Jean Poisson used. The Devil Cigarette, the name of his smoke from nowhere routine, gives us an idea of how he titled
the tricks so that the surprise was not revealed but I’d be very interested in
hearing from anyone who has more details to share.
NOTES: I asked if anyone had anything to share and Chris Woodward sent along a photograph of Jean Poisson's Cigimmick which I mentioned earlier in the article. If you're curious as to what this double-chambered gimmick looked like. Here it is. Thanks Chris:
NOTES: I asked if anyone had anything to share and Chris Woodward sent along a photograph of Jean Poisson's Cigimmick which I mentioned earlier in the article. If you're curious as to what this double-chambered gimmick looked like. Here it is. Thanks Chris:
From the Nadine and Chris Woodward Collection